Evolution, Book II

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Evolution

Book Two

by Dana Austin Marsh

Illustrated by Lorraine Brevig

A Venice Place Press Production

Editor and Publisher Keri T.

A Starsky and Hutch Slash Zine

©- October, 2004. Evolution, Book Two, is an amateur publication of Venice Place Press and does not intend to infringe on any copyrights held by those associated with the television show or movie entitled Starsky and Hutch.

This zine will not be knowingly sold to anyone under the age of eighteen.

VPP

Gilroy, California

Email Keri: Rosiered2000@aol.com

 

And now, a few thank yous from Dana and Keri:

The last time I gained twenty-five pounds in nine months, I was pregnant. I guess that’s what happens when you spend all your time sitting on your butt scribbling furiously, or in front of a PC trying to decipher those scribbles. At least Evolution is never going to grow up to be a teenager.

I am still somewhat in awe of the fact that I actually completed Evolution. I’m a great starter, but not so great at making it to the finish line. It’s been an incredible experience. Incredibly exciting when the guys were talking in my ear so fast I could barely keep up, and just as incredibly frustrating when they would suddenly shut up.

My thank yous for their contributions to Evolution’s birth are numerous.

First, to Starsky and Hutch. For coming back into my life at a time when I needed them most, and for the incredible love they shared that leapt off the screen, captured my imagination, and refuses to let go.

To Janie, who read eight pages in September, 2003, and assured me that she would pay good money to know what was going on in Starsky’s head. You said it would be an interesting writing exercise, and I fell for it. So how does it feel to be responsible for an obsession?

To Karen-Leigh, who asked: “What happens next?” and refused to take “Nothing.” for an answer. Instead, you came to my house and badgered me until I finally agreed to explore the possibilities. You have done a pretty good job of hand holding or butt kicking ever since. You seem to have a talent for inspiring obsession in writers, so you’re probably used to it by now.

To my family, who put up with my single-minded obsession. Sorry about the gift certificates, guys. I’ll make it up to you all next Christmas.

To Lorraine. I am awed by your talent. I’m still not entirely convinced that, not only are you an amazing artist, but I think you might also have the ability to read minds—long distance no less. You saw what I saw when I wrote the scenes you illustrated, and then you brought them to life for me.

And last, but certainly not least, to Keri. You and Paula published my first Starsky and Hutch story, and when I began to realize just where Evolution might be headed, I knew immediately that I wanted you to edit it. I handed you seventy-five pages at ZCon, you plugged into my vision, and have been an absolute rock through every page since. You listened to me moan and groan and babble, and reassured me every time that there was a tape to break and that I would break it. If not for you, I’d still be wondering if I really could write Evolution into the aired series. I never expect to repeat this unique experience again in my life—unless, of course, you decide you like the first fifty pages of Haven.<g> Buddy, it ain’t been a slice, it’s been the whole pie!

Dana

 

Like Dana, my own thank yous are numerous and heartfelt. First to my family and friends outside of fandom, who don’t quite get what I do, but know I love to do it, and show infinite patience when I disappear for a few months at a time. This period has been a year, and they still seem to be talking to me.

When Dana handed me those first pages at ZCon, I had a head cold and was fighting off the blues with a whip and a chair. I remember starting to read it at my table, and the tingly feeling I got—I knew immediately I was holding something very unique and special in my hands. That feeling has only grown by leaps and bounds over this incredible year. I was stunned and honored that Dana picked me to work with her on this piece, and I think we formed not only an amazing working relationship, but an amazing friendship, too. So you can see I have a whole lot to thank Dana for. Not the least of which is the commitment and talent and vision she gave to every paragraph she wrote, and the way she put up with me asking for just “a touch more” here and there.

I have to say again to both Dana and Lorraine, that your talent leaves me breathless and humbled, and speaking of Lorraine… you went above and beyond the call of everything I asked you for, and as Dana said, so plugged into her vision, and made her words part of your art. Thank you so much for the time and commitment you gave to this project. Thank you for creating something so beautiful, and then being willing to tweak it even more—like for a forehead touch—because you captured the mood better than I could have dreamed.

And now it’s time to let go and give Evolution into the readers’ hands. I think I’m having a little separation anxiety, but it’s time, and I hear Dana might have a few more pages for me to read at SHareCon…and so begins another year.

Comments to this work are gratefully received and can be sent to the following addresses:

Dana can be reached at sdmartin@rogers.com

Lorraine can be reached at hisstah@aol.com

I can be reached at rosiered2000@aol.com

The three of us thank you, the reader, for purchasing this zine, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.

Keri

 

This is the sequel to Evolution, Volume I.

---

Don’t Look Back, It Might Be Gaining On You

After they left the Stardust adult bookstore, Starsky wanted to cruise down to the mission to check on Eddie. Eddie was just a harmless old bum, with few connections to the rest of humanity, but Starsky had grown rather fond of him over the years. The loss of Lonely, especially in so violent and senseless a manner, was bound to be hard on Eddie, and Starsky wanted to see with his own eyes that someone was taking an interest in his grief.

Hutch had his own soft spots among the human flotsam they dealt with day to day, but neither Eddie nor Lonely had been one of them, so he waited in the car while Starsky went inside the mission. Starsky didn’t venture far into the dimly lit, austere main room, just stood at the door and scanned the mostly hopeless faces until he spotted Eddie. The old man was seated beside one of the sisters, alternately wiping his eyes, blowing his nose, and spooning up the creamed tuna from the plate in front of him. Starsky caught the nun’s kind eyes, asked his question with the expression on his face, and received a reassuring nod.

Back behind the wheel of the Torino and cruising toward the station for change of shift, he brooded for a while before airing what was on his mind.

“It’s a damned sad comment on the world we live in when a man comes right out and says ‘we’re nothin’,” he slipped the thought into the silence that had prevailed since they left the Stardust.

When he received no response, Starsky took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Hutch and found, judging by the expression on the handsome face, that Hutch was once again off in dreamland. Starsky smiled indulgently. He had thought Hutch’s romance with Miss Abigail Crabtree, the beautiful blonde who Hutch had whisked away right from beneath Starsky’s nose several months ago, had been cooling off. From Hutch’s behavior this past week, however, Starsky could only assume that the situation must have changed dramatically.

“Ain’t that right, Hutch?” he said somewhat louder.

Still, Hutch remained on cloud nine, so Starsky reached over and snapped his fingers in front of the unfocused blue eyes.

Hutch jumped. “Huh?”

“USS Enterprise calling Detective Hutchinson. Come in, please,” Starsky teased.

Hutch tried to pretend he had just been ignoring his partner, and Starsky laughed.

“What did you say?” Hutch finally asked, admitting his inattention.

Now that he had Hutch’s attention, Starsky decided he didn’t really want to dwell on the subject anyway. “Nothing important,” he said. He gripped the wheel tighter for leverage as he shifted to a more comfortable position. “Hey. I’m gonna try and teach Nancy how to bowl tonight. You and Abby wanna join us?”

“Nancy?” Hutch echoed. “You’re still going out with the Rhodes scholar, are you?”

Starsky’s mouth tightened. “Damn, Hutch, sometimes you can be a real prick, you know that?” Hutch, Starsky knew, didn’t think much of his choice of girlfriends, but then Starsky didn’t think much of Hutch’s either, with Abby being the exception. “I know Nancy isn’t the brightest bulb on the string, but she’s sweet and nice and a lotta fun to be with.”

“And good in bed,” Hutch concluded.

Starsky was regretting opening the subject. Hutch could take on such a superior attitude sometimes that it made Starsky want to belt him one. He always refrained, usually finding some other way to knock Hutch off his high horse.

“Not really,” he replied now. “She’s fun. I’ve been missing that in bed lately,” he said pointedly and watched the barb strike home.

He and Hutch had fun in bed. Aside from the sheer raw sensuality they had shared from the very first night, it was the fun and humor their friendship lent to their sexual relationship that was so appealing to Starsky. Hutch, however, had cut him off months ago when he had become seriously involved with Abby. Starsky accepted that. It was one of the rules they lived by. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t missing their end-of-the-month romps.

Hutch chose not to reply to Starsky’s veiled challenge, however, letting the silence settle between them until they parked in the station garage.

“So, what do you think?” Starsky asked. “You and Abby wanna come along and see if you can help me teach Nancy the difference between a strike and a spare?”

For a moment, watching his friend’s face as they walked toward the stairs, Starsky expected a refusal.

“Okay,” Hutch agreed surprisingly. “But I won’t be bringing Abby.” He pulled open the stairwell door and waved Starsky in ahead of him.

“She workin’ tonight?” Starsky asked as he began climbing the stairs. As far as he was concerned, Hutch was never a fifth wheel, and, as derogatory as he might be with Starsky, he knew he could count on Hutch to be nice to Nancy when they were together.

“Ah, no. I just…” Hutch trailed off.

Starsky slowed his climb to look back over his shoulder. Hutch looked like he was heading off to dreamland again. Not a good situation on the stairs for someone who could, on occasion, be as clumsy as his partner could be. Hutch could move like poetry in motion on the street, but make him nervous or fracture his focus and he had been known to trip over his own feet. Starsky stopped climbing altogether and turned around to face his partner. “You just…?” he prompted.

“I’ll be bringing a lady I met a little while ago,” Hutch said defiantly.

The admission and the defiance tied Starsky’s tongue for a minute, although he understood immediately that the latter grew out of the former. Hutch was supposed to be in a serious relationship with Abby and had invoked the applicable rule that cut off their Friday nights because of it. So, what was he doing with some other woman? Starsky had been missing their encounters enough that it would be easy for him to take offense at Hutch’s announcement. However, when it came right down to it, all Starsky really wanted for Hutch was for him to be happy.

“Does she bowl?” he asked, flashing a smile to which Hutch replied with a relieved smile of his own.

“I haven’t got a clue. We’ve had more important things to discuss,” Hutch revealed with that self-satisfied smirk any other male could read from a mile away.

“Then maybe we’ll both be givin’ lessons,” Starsky said, and resumed the climb to the third floor. “What’s her name, by the way?”

“Gillian.”

~*~*~

“Dave, is there something wrong?”

Starsky, who had been driving with only half his mind and even less of his attention on the road, wasn’t startled by Nancy’s question. It was more like her gentle voice eased him out of his preoccupation and back onto the front seat of the Torino. He took one hand off the wheel and gathered her close against his side.

“No, honey. Nothin’s wrong,” he reassured her, no longer surprised by her accurate perception of his mood. Hutch was right; Nancy wasn’t particularly smart. But Starsky had discovered over the course of their months’ long dating relationship that she was very emotionally sensitive to the people around her. What she lacked in intellect was made up for in intuition, leaving her, like a young child, incredibly vulnerable and yet, at the same time, almost invincible to the wounds many more intellectual people suffered.

“You’re awful quiet,” Nancy observed as she cuddled against his side. “You’re never quiet.”

Starsky slipped his fingers into her warm brown hair and gave a playful tug before cradling her head against his shoulder. “You sayin’ I’m a motor mouth?”

“Yes,” Nancy answered simply.

Starsky laughed. Out of the mouths of babes, he thought. That was another thing he liked about Nancy; she was honest to a fault. It never occurred to her to lie. In fact, the concept of the polite social lie seemed to be a mystery to her.

“So what did you think of Gillian?” he asked. He wasn’t all that confident of his own assessment of Hutch’s new lady love and hoped that Nancy, with no emotional baggage to color her perceptions, might help him bring what troubled him into perspective.

“I liked Abby better,” Nancy admitted in a very small voice.

Starsky hugged her closer to reassure her that it was okay. “Me, too,” he agreed. “But maybe we’re just used to Abby.”

“Maybe,” Nancy agreed doubtfully.

Starsky palmed the wheel around in a right hand turn, letting it spin back beneath his lax fingers before gripping the leather again.

Gillian was certainly beautiful, and Starsky couldn’t deny what a striking couple she and a doting Hutch made. A nasty little voice in his brain tried to remind him again that it hardly seemed fair that the rule that cut him off from the encounters with Hutch he enjoyed so much didn’t seem to apply to Gillian. Starsky still refused to listen to that mean-spirited little bastard that he suspected was clamoring from inside the Friday night box. When a guy fell in love, Starsky knew, sometimes it just grabbed you by the ears and made you forget all the rules. And Hutch was clearly head over heels in love with Gillian.

Despite the mental gymnastics, Starsky still felt pretty unsettled when he parked in front of Nancy’s building and walked her to the door. He made sure his good night kiss sent the message that he didn’t plan on staying.

“You aren’t mad at me ’cause I didn’t do so good at bowling, are you, Dave?” Nancy asked, her brown eyes reflecting her innocent self-doubt.

Starsky cupped her sweet face in both hands and kissed her on the tip of her nose. “Of course not, honey. I’m just tired.”

And just that easily, Nancy dismissed her worries. “You work too hard.”

Starsky grinned, his hands slipping to her shoulders and pointing her toward the elevator. He gave her fanny a gentle pat to send her on her way. “Gotta keep the streets safe for sweet little girls like you. I’ll call you tomorrow, honey,” he promised.

~*~*~

“Well, partner, you really blew that one,” Hutch complained as he climbed in behind the wheel of his car.

“Me?!” Starsky exclaimed while sliding onto the passenger seat. “How come it’s my fault?”

“Think about it, mushbrain,” Hutch encouraged. He started the car and edged out of the cramped parking lot behind the bar/disco Huggy was minding for his frog-farming cousin. “The girls were plenty glad to see us until you pulled that stunt with the teeth.”

“Hey, it’s Halloween,” Starsky protested.

“With everything that’s been in the papers about Nadasy, it was sick. You have a really sick sense of humor, you know that?”

Which wasn’t normally a bad thing in their line of work. For many cops, sometimes him and Starsky included, Hutch admitted, a black sense of humor was the only thing that kept you doing the job year in and year out, despite bearing close up and personal witness to man’s inhumanity to man. The trick was, of course, you had to know when to turn it off. That was the mistake Starsky had made with the twins tonight.

“It was only a joke,” Starsky mumbled.

“Yeah. A joke that’s left us without company on a Friday night.” Hutch looked at his watch as they passed beneath the glow of a streetlight and saw it was nearly midnight. “It’s too late to go anywhere else now.”

“Wouldn’t be the first Friday night we spent with only each other for company,” Starsky reminded him. “It is Friday the thirty-first.”

Even before the last word had left Starsky’s mouth, Hutch felt himself tense up all over. He knew the goddamned date. He knew what it meant. Used to mean. No more, never more, he chanted to his cock that had come up fast and hard at Starsky’s reminder. He wasn’t going to be ruled by his gonads, he reminded himself. He remained stonily silent beneath Starsky’s probing gaze.

“Do you wanna get a pizza?” Starsky asked, every trace of the hopeful expectation that had been in his reminder now absent from his perfectly normal tone.

Hutch breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed a little. At least Starsky knew how to take a hint, if it was specific enough. His cock, however, wasn’t quite as accommodating, continuing to throb in the tight confines of his jeans. His head might understand his decision, even his heart had to go along with the reasoning, but his cock couldn’t seem to forget Starsky’s expert touch, the sweet suction of his mouth, or the even sweeter, rippling grip to be found deep in his partner’s ass. Hutch felt sweat break out all over his body.

“Or maybe tacos?”

Hutch could feel Starsky’s eyes on him now, sense the puzzlement at his lack of response.

“No, thanks. I like my stomach lining right where it is.” He finally managed to produce the expected comeback. It was damned hard to think up witty repartee when his mind was flooded with cherished memories and his body yearned to relive each and every one of them.

“Well, then, what do you want to do?” Starsky asked.

Take you to bed and fuck your brains out, Hutch thought, biting his tongue so hard to keep the words inside that he tasted blood. “Drop you off and go home and get some sleep,” were the words of self-denial he allowed to escape instead.

He heard Starsky slump back in his seat, followed by the thump of his foot as it was propped up on the dash. He let his eyes leave the road for just a second and saw it was the leg closest to him that was propped. Was Starsky hiding his own not so little problem? Probably, he admitted. After all, it had not been Starsky’s idea to stop their sexual encounters.

“Whatever you say, Hutch,” Starsky agreed, sounding tired and sad.

That was exactly what Starsky had said when Hutch told him he was becoming serious about Abby Crabtree and felt they needed to stop having sex together. If Starsky knew the real reason, so far, he hadn’t let on. He had accepted Hutch’s decision, accepted the seeming contradiction of his love for Gillian and his grief at her death, had even refrained from so much as batting an eye when Hutch had been eager to hunt the twins tonight. If Starsky had puzzled it out, he was keeping his reasoning to himself until Hutch chose to open up the discussion.

With profound relief, Hutch pulled up in front of Starsky’s apartment. His gut clenched again when Starsky didn’t immediately say goodnight and leave the car. He could feel that lapis gaze studying him, but couldn’t bring himself to meet it. Finally, what felt like an eternity later, he heard Starsky sigh and the door open. Still he kept his eyes on the windshield, not risking turning his head until the door closed again. He found Starsky bent over, looking at him through the open passenger window.

“You still comin’ to Jackson’s on Sunday to shoot some hoops?” Starsky asked. “I talked to Junior yesterday, and he’s really lookin’ forward to it.”

“Sure thing,” Hutch said, the stiffness easing out of his smile as he contemplated a lazy day with Starsky and the family who had become their friends. But before he did that, he was going to call Abby, sweet talk her into forgiving him for Gillian, and spend Saturday making love to her.

Starsky slapped the door with both hands as he straightened up and stepped back. “Pick ya up at ten. Sweet dreams, partner,” he said and walked away.

Despite his resolve, Hutch couldn’t make himself put the car in gear and drive away until Starsky disappeared. He watched that ass nearly every day of the week as Starsky ran, strutted, and climbed stairs, but had trained himself not to notice its temptation. Except on the last Friday of each month, like tonight. It was as if his goddamned cock could read a calendar.

Angrily, Hutch threw the Galaxy’s gearshift into drive and squealed away from the curb, lifting his foot off the gas when he remembered, guiltily, that it was after midnight and Starsky now lived in a fairly nice neighborhood. No more, never more, he reminded himself, because Hutch had discovered that the little box in his mind where he kept his desire for Starsky had begun to spring a few leaks.

The drive out to Venice seemed to take hours with his hard-on pulsing hopefully every time his foot moved from gas to brake and the tight material of his jeans caressed it. He was going to have to jerk off tonight, even considered stopping along a quiet stretch of beach somewhere to do it, but dismissed the idea. If he could reject Starsky’s open offer to resume their encounters, he could certainly wait until he was decently behind his front door before he gave himself a little relief.

He managed to wait, but just barely, sagging back against the closing door and reaching down to rub soothingly at the demanding monster between his legs. He closed his eyes, the memories of the many times Starsky had been so hungry for him that they had ended up dry humping each other against the front door, doing nothing to cool his ardor. He fumbled open his zipper and snap, reached into the resulting gap to gather up his already leaking cock, and pulled it free.

“Ah, God, Starsk,” he murmured, his head tossing against the hard wood behind it as he stroked his aching cock, squeezed more slick pre-come from the tip to ease the glide of his calloused right palm against the sensitive skin of his shaft. It had been so fucking long since he had felt the sweet magic of Starsky’s hands upon him. Unconsciously, his lips parted as he remembered deep, hungry kisses and a ravaging tongue that had coaxed willing surrender from him time after time.

His knees buckled as his climax finally hit him, and he half sagged against the door. His fingers stripped each aching pulse from his spewing cock as he strove to milk every last trace of his need for Starsky out through his cock. He sobbed in defeat as he opened his eyes and saw the glistening trails of his semen on the tile floor in front of him. Disgusted with himself and yet unbelievably grateful for the relief in his aching groin the climax had brought, he still longed to have his partner here within the circle of his embrace, sharing the glow and sated kisses.

Not even bothering to clean up the mess he had made, Hutch walked over it to the bed, stripped naked and crawled between the cool sheets. Arms wrapped around his extra pillow, he squeezed his eyes shut and cursed the hired gunman named Joey, and the grieving father bent on revenge who had delivered him into this sorry state.

~*~*~

Starsky made his decision the night he and Hutch made plans to go to the movies, and Hutch showed up with Abby in the front seat. He wasn’t mad. He wished Hutch all the very best and sincerely hoped that Abby would make him happy, that, if Hutch decided to marry her, Abby would be enough to keep him happy for the rest of his life.

For Starsky, however, consigning the joys of male-to-male sex into his past because his sometimes lover had found he didn’t need it anymore, wasn’t so easy. Despite the string of willing women he had taken to his bed since Nancy, he still woke often from hot dreams of strong hands and hard cocks and had to beat his own cock into submission before he could hope to sleep again. All of those dreams and waking fantasies still featured Hutch, but Starsky had convinced himself that, after all the years of experiencing those forbidden pleasures only in the safe arms of his friend, that wasn’t so surprising. It had taken him a year the last time to find someone he wanted, but after months of denial, Starsky was ready to start looking again.

The problem was, of course, that he had no idea where to start. The gay club where he had met Hutch had closed years ago, and, though he knew of a few places in Bay City, he had no desire to take the chance of exposing himself where he was known. He still didn’t want to be Bay City’s first openly gay or bi cop.

That left him with a gut full of need, a head empty of ideas and only one place to go for help. When he walked into Huggy’s newest place, his long time friend was behind the bar.

“Hey, Starsky. Where’s your blond shadow?” Huggy asked predictably when he had worked his way through the customers down to where Starsky perched on a stool at the end of the bar.

Fucking probably, Starsky thought, but offered only a shrug to Huggy’s question.

“What’ll it be?”

“Gimme a beer, will ya, Hug?” Starsky said and nodded his head toward an empty booth in a comer. “And join me when ya got a couple of minutes. Okay?”

Starsky was pleased to see that Huggy had picked up on his serious tone right away, the familiar, homely face settling into sober lines as he drew the beer and slid it to Starsky. “Be over as soon as Donna gets back from her break.”

Starsky settled in the booth and sipped his beer until Huggy arrived.

“Okay. Huggy Bear is here,” Huggy announced as he slid onto the bench across from Starsky. “So what it is that’s troublin’ my white brother this fine Thursday evening?”

Realizing he hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to say, Starsky took a long swallow of his beer, hoping inspiration might strike as the cold, bitter brew slid down his throat. It remained elusive, so he put his glass down, looked Huggy straight in the eye, and asked for what he needed.

“Wanna know if you know of a place to find some safe action. Man-to-man action,” he said bluntly.

Huggy blinked once and Starsky had to grin. It was damned hard to shock Huggy, and even harder to get him to show it. Of course, Huggy knew all about his experiences in Vietnam. Not the details; only Hutch knew those. But Huggy knew how he had become aware of his bisexuality and had been a witness to the year of internal struggle Starsky had suffered before that fateful night he met an angel.

“Been surprised you held out so long,” was Huggy’s first admitted reaction. “Must be tough, with your inclinations, spendin’ so much time with Hutch. The dude’s a walkin’ wet dream.”

“Hutch is my friend,” Starsky said, almost too softly to be heard above the chatter around them. Huggy’s comment did solve one mystery, however. Starsky had been wondering for a long time whether Huggy thought he and Hutch were lovers. It looked like they had managed to keep their secret even from Huggy. That surprised Starsky. Huggy was usually far more perceptive.

“No law says a friend can’t be a lover, too,” Huggy said. “Speakin’ of which…” The big, brown eyes found something fascinating to study on the table for a moment, then lifted to meet Starsky’s. “…I don’t see no pressin’ reason for you to go riskin’ your rep on the street when you could get what you need closer to home. With discretion.”

Starsky blessed the fact that he had already swallowed. If he hadn’t, he might have choked and spewed beer all over Huggy’s plaid jacket and lime green satin shirt. “Jesus, Hug,” he sputtered.

An ironic smile stretched Huggy’s generous lips. “Don’t get your tail in a knot, my man. It ain’t like I been spendin’ years hankerin’ after your lily-white ass.”

“So why the offer?” Starsky asked curiously. There were a hundred reasons why Starsky never had and never would consider going to bed with Huggy, not the least of which was that although he held the man in great affection, the Bear just wasn’t his type. Hutch was his type. But, when he was being brutally honest with himself, Starsky had to admit that if he and Hutch had been friends first, his own code of morality probably would have made him, at the very least, try to resist his attraction to the beautiful blond.

“Hey. A friend in need, right?”

“Is usually a pain in the neck,” Starsky said. “Hug, I appreciate the offer, and I know you’re tryin’ to tell me no strings attached. I just think you and me already got too many strings between us to take the chance of tyin’ them up into figure eights. I’m lookin’ for a walk on the wild side, Huggy, not to take advantage of a good friend’s generosity.”

Huggy nodded acceptance, and Starsky waited while his friend gave the problem some thought.

“You want a place outta your beat, goes without sayin’. How far out? I know a few in ‘Frisco,” he said with a grin.

“Not that far out,” Starsky said, laughing. “Need to be able to make it there and back in a night.”

“There’s a place out in Venice, but I guess you don’t wanna go struttin’ your stuff on Hutch’s home ground,” Huggy guessed.

“You got that right,” Starsky agreed emphatically. He could just imagine Hutch’s face… No, maybe he couldn’t. Maybe Hutch wouldn’t give a damn who he chose to sleep with now. At least, no more than he cared which women his partner became involved with. As far as Starsky’s girlfriends went, Hutch’s main concern seemed to be that they treated Starsky right.

“There’s one in Ottawa Hills–”

“You’re kidding?” Starsky interrupted.

“No jive, Starsk. ‘Course you’d hafta refinance the Torino to pay the membership fees and buy a new wardrobe before they’d let you in the door,” Huggy explained with a laugh.

“There’s a place out in Hillsbridge. Opened about a year ago. Pretty low key on the outside, lotsa action on the inside. Even got rooms for those who, shall we say, choose to keep their private business very private.”

“In Hillsbridge, did you say?” Starsky asked.

“Yeah. The Fox’s Den on Elroy.”

Starsky thought for a minute. Hillsbridge was a fairly quiet suburb of Bay City, but did have its own area almost as run down as the beat Starsky worked at Metro. And, most importantly, if memory served, Starsky’s old partner, Tom Bright, had transferred out there two years ago.

“Thanks, Hug. I owe you one,” Starsky said as he got to his feet.

“De nada,” Huggy dismissed the gratitude. “You just be damned careful, you hear? There are some damned bad dudes out there.”

“I know how to take care of myself, Hug,” Starsky reminded him.

“I know you do, but out in Hillsbridge, you ain’t gonna have Hutch watchin’ your back.”

~*~*~

On Friday evening, Starsky left his partner with the very deliberately constructed idea that he had a date with a hot lady, called his mother as usual, then showered, shaved carefully, and wriggled into his tightest, faded-in-all-the-right-places jeans. A white, threadbare t-shirt, its sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, and worn brown boots completed his ensemble. He spent thirty minutes on his hair—something he hadn’t had to bother with the last time he was planning to go cruising for other men—then snatched up his keys, wallet and gun and went out to the Torino before he could change his mind.

A call to Tom Bright, who had, indeed, transferred to Hillsbridge, and a few discreet questions, had netted him the information he needed. Though The Fox’s Den was known to the local authorities, it was quiet enough that Hillsbridge’s vice division was taking a “see no evil, hear no evil” attitude toward its presence.

Starsky took a slow cruise by the bar, casing the place, before parking his car well down the street. He locked his gun in the glove compartment, pulled on his black leather jacket, then strolled casually up the street. He saw a couple of men enter the bar, which had no windows onto the street, and heard the muted roar of disco music when they opened the door. The owners must have invested a fair chunk of change in soundproofing, Starsky thought, as he reached the door and could hear only the faintest of music. He put his hand on the door and felt the vibration caused by the bass pouring through huge speakers cranked to the max. He smiled. Rock music was going to end up costing his generation their hearing decades before their parents.

Realizing he was waffling, Starsky pushed on the door and stepped decisively inside. A kaleidoscope of sound, sight and smell flooded over him as the door closed, assaulting his senses and giving him a moment of information overload.

A touch on his leather-clad arm focused his shaken wits.

“You know where you are?” a very large man in leather—the bouncer, Starsky assumed—asked.

Starsky let his eyes wander over the gyrating bodies on the dance floor, all of them male, and smiled a feral grin. “Oh, yeah. I know where I am,” he purred.

And just that fast, all of the old feelings were flooding him as he crossed to the bar and ordered a drink. The deep thrill of knowing eyes followed his every move added a hip sway to his strut as he bellied up to the bar and leaned over it. He stuck his denim-encased ass out, feeling the hungry gazes of other men caress his rounded curves. He wasn’t even on the dance floor yet, and the intoxicating flood of power was already coursing through his veins, bringing his cock up hard and throbbing in its tight prison.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender shouted.

“Whisky on the rocks,” Starsky shouted back. He wasn’t drinking beer tonight. Besides the fact that he remembered the bathroom in a gay bar was a damned good place to be accosted, he had no intention of interrupting whatever might happen in the next few hours with frequent trips to empty his bladder. In all likelihood, even the drink he had just accepted from the bartender would sit untouched beyond the first sip he took now. He could hardly stand still as the music seemed to invade his muscles and demanded he get out onto the floor—now.

He wandered to the closest table with an empty chair and asked unspoken acceptance from the half-dozen men already seated. When he received enthusiastic nods, he put his drink on the table, shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it on the chair, then openly and casually adjusted his hard cock to a more comfortable and prominent position. His gaze fell on a big blond—bleached not natural, he guessed—on the dance floor, and he began stalking his prey. Three steps onto the floor and he had the man’s attention, two more and the man’s dark partner found himself abandoned. With a sharp shake of his head, Starsky evaded the hand that reached out to touch him, letting the arch and sway of his body charm his target’s will to his own.

Look, but don’t touch, Starsky broadcasted loud and clear to the men around him. Every movement of his slim body designed to say, “Want me, ache for me bad enough, and maybe I’ll want you, too.” His eyes scanned the meat rack, the tables and the dance floor as he sought the one man who could charge him up the way Hutch…. Starsky cut that thought off as he once again evaded his temporary partner’s reach. Very temporary, he decided, since the guy didn’t have the class to keep his hands to himself until invited to touch. Starsky spun away, came out of the dizzying whirl face to face with a man who put the remembered beat of the jungle into his blood. Big, muscular, his short-cropped hair screaming military, Starsky’s new partner moved in close enough that their bodies almost, but not quite, met.

The choking miasma of cigarette smoke became the fetid stench of the jungle, and the sparkles of light that bathed them from the disco ball became the near and distant flashes of mortar fire. The music exploded in his brain with the force of an anti-personnel mine, and the figurative shrapnel ripped away the last of his inhibitions as Starsky allowed himself to be drawn into the soldier’s arms. Of almost even height, the GI insinuated his thigh between Starsky’s, pressing hard into his erection while Starsky let the music dictate the arc and rub and slide of his body against the other man.

With a crashing crescendo, the song ended and the lights suddenly went down. Slow sensuality oozed from the giant speakers as the couples on the floor moved into each other’s arms. Starsky reversed their positions, smiling challengingly at his soldier as he let his thigh claim ownership of the hardness at the man’s crotch. He accepted the arms that slid around his waist, welcomed the big strong hands that spread to engulf the flexing cheeks of his ass, and let his hands possess powerful shoulders. And all the while, the jungle roared in his ears.

Even Starsky hadn’t realized just how desperate he had become, since Hutch had cut him off, for the feel of flesh like his own. How much he had grown to need the nights that he and Hutch let loose the polite controls so necessary when making love to a woman, and reveled in the sheer power of sharing their young, healthy bodies with someone just as strong and wild.

When the soldier’s hands slid up into his hair, Starsky didn’t resist, allowed his head to be pulled back, exposing his throat, anticipation stoking the flames inside as he remembered the feel of Hutch’s mouth, Hutch’s careful teeth on his flesh. The soldier leaned in, his parted lips finding the tender skin over the pounding pulse, his teeth sinking in.

The fire died as pain and horror ripped through Starsky, the throb and ache that only a moment before had possessed his hard cock taking up residence in the torn flesh of his throat. He pushed at the broad shoulders, felt the wicked teeth scrape free, and stumbled away. His fingers sought the stinging pain, came away flecked with blood.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he roared at his unrepentant former partner. “Jesus fucking Christ! Who do you think you are? Dracula?”

The soldier was moving in on him again “What’s the matter pretty boy? Am I more man than you can handle?”

Starsky bristled. He had taken on bigger men than this on the street. Then he remembered who he was, where he was, and how much he had to lose. He couldn’t afford to become involved in a brawl in a gay bar. He took two deliberate steps back, holding the soldier’s eyes with his own. Years on the street had taught him how to project menace, and he concentrated on communicating a silent threat of murder and mayhem now, preparing to protect himself if the madman refused to back down.

The slow song ended and another began before the soldier got the message. “Cocktease,” he snarled before turning on his heels and stalking away.

Shaking in delayed reaction and fury, Starsky made his way to his table, intending to snatch up his jacket and get the hell out of there. The man closest to his chair stood up as he approached and put a hand on his jacket, the other hand raised palm out in a conciliatory gesture.

“Sit down for a minute,” he advised. “You’re in no shape to drive.”

Wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of where he never should have come in the first place, Starsky shook his head, snagged his jacket and pulled it from beneath the man’s hand. He must have been out of his mind to come here and then throw himself into the action without so much as a minute’s hesitation. He hadn’t even taken the time to check out the layout or locate the back exit. He had been so damned determined to prove to himself that Hutch didn’t have a monopoly on his desire that he had taken stupid risks.

And, of course, Hutch did have a monopoly, Starsky admitted now. He let his gaze take in the dancers and the men who watched avidly from the sidelines. There wasn’t a man who could hold a candle to his angel in this whole place. Who could provide the thrills, the illusion of the jungle, and yet still offer him the safe harbor of his friendship and the security of having just as much to lose.

“Thanks. I’m okay. But somebody needs to throw a net over that nutcase,” he told his would-be benefactor, and hurried toward the exit, anxious to leave this place behind him.

Starsky was only a dozen paces down the block when he heard the sudden blast of music behind him and knew he had been followed. Instinctively increasing his already fast pace, he glanced over his shoulder and saw his assailant running after him. There was no way he could make it to the Torino, unlock it and get inside before the soldier caught up with him, so Starsky turned to face the threat. Dropping into a crouch, hands up, he prepared to defend himself.

The fight was brief but vicious. Starsky never had been one to let a bigger man intimidate him, and, powered by his fury at himself, Hutch, and his assailant, he gave as good as he got and then some. It didn’t take all that long before the soldier, realizing that Starsky wasn’t as easy a victim as he expected, retreated. Panting, nursing a nearly blinding explosion of pain in his right cheek, and feeling the warning throb of possibly broken ribs, Starsky backed away until he came level with the Torino. Only when he was locked inside the car, his Beretta on the seat beside him, did he allow himself to relax.

“You stupid fucking idiot,” he cursed himself, started the car and squealed away from the curb, laying rubber halfway down the block.

Once he was clear of the immediate area, Starsky eased up on the gas, not wanting to be stopped by a diligent traffic cop in his present condition. He could feel his right cheek and eye swelling and knew he was going to be sporting one hell of a shiner by the morning. And he was going to have to explain it to Hutch.

“You see, it’s like this, partner,” he growled at the battered reflection in the rearview mirror. “You don’t want me anymore, but I still want you, so I thought I’d go find myself a substitute.” His voice dropped into a choked whisper as the events of the short evening began to catch up with him. “Only there ain’t no substitute for you, babe. So now what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

There was only one possible answer. He had to go home, patch up his hurts as best he could, then think up a good lie and practice it until he had a hope of making Hutch believe it was the truth. And then he had to learn to live with wanting what he could no longer have.

~*~*~

“Christ on a crutch, what happened to your face?” Hutch exclaimed when Starsky picked him up for work on Monday morning. He hadn’t seen Starsky since Friday afternoon because he and Abby had gone to Catalina Island for the weekend. “Can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”

Hutch watched as Starsky reached up to gently probe the swelling around his almost-closed right eye, as if checking to make sure the prize-winning shiner was still in place.

“You should see the other guy,” Starsky quipped.

“What other guy? Who did that to you? Were you called in while I was out of town?” Hutch bombarded his partner with questions, feeling guilty that he hadn’t been there to watch Starsky’s back for him.

“Nah. Just a couple of clowns came into Huggy’s Friday night, started bustin’ up the place. I helped his bouncer toss ’em back out in the gutter where they belonged,” Starsky explained.

Right away, Hutch knew something wasn’t right. Starsky’s tone was casual enough and, though his eyes remained on the road, that could be explained by morning traffic. Still, Hutch knew he was either being deliberately lied to or Starsky wasn’t telling him the whole story. Although Starsky didn’t make a regular practice of lying to him, you didn’t practically live in a man’s pocket for years without learning how to read him. Or handle him.

“Thought you had a hot date Friday night,” Hutch reminded him, keeping his tone casual and his observation unobtrusive. “Don’t tell me you took the lady to Huggy’s? If you did, I’m surprised it wasn’t her that gave you the black eye.”

“No, I didn’t take her to Huggy’s,” Starsky protested, as if the thought would never have occurred to him. “Took her out to dinner, went dancing for a while, then she tells me she’s ‘indisposed,'” he went on with just the right amount of outrage for a male who had been expecting to get some and been disappointed. “Swung by Huggy’s for a beer after I dropped her off and ran into a couple of Mr. Congeniality contestants.”

It all sounded perfectly plausible, but Hutch’s bullshit radar was tapping out an S.O.S. on the back of his neck. Starsky was a good actor undercover, but as hard as he was trying to sell this whopper, Hutch wasn’t buying it. Even if both Starsky and Huggy swore on a stack of Bibles that that was the way it went down, Hutch still wouldn’t believe it. Of course, knowing that neither of his friends was exactly married to any particularly deep religious belief would make such a test worthless in any case. Hutch chose, however, to let it slide. For the moment, at least.

“Did you see a doctor for that?” he asked, instead of airing his doubts. He reached out and just barely grazed the edges of the bruising that extended a little below Starsky’s cheekbone. “You could have damage to your eyesight.”

“Don’t need a doc,” Starsky said. “Can see fine.”

Hutch knew that because of his experiences in the hospital in the not-so-distant past, Starsky was developing a definite phobia for people in white coats. Although medical people, while on duty, had never been his favorite company, after being first shot and then poisoned, Starsky had even begun avoiding dating a nurse, or even a ward clerk. Not that Hutch blamed him. It was sometimes hard to separate the individual from the pain and indignities the profession as a whole inflicted upon you.

“If you say so, buddy,” Hutch finally conceded, and saw relief skate over the damaged profile. “But I’m glad I’m not gonna be you when Dobey gets a load of your ugly mug.”

~*~*~

Starsky stuck his head inside the door of the hospital room and smiled when he saw that the patient was sleeping, blue eyes hidden beneath nearly translucent lids, and blonde hair scattered over the pillow. He would come back later, he decided, and started to back out of the room.

“Dave, don’t go,” Abby said from the bed.

Starsky came into the private room, letting the door close behind him. “Sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s okay. It’s just the pills.” She held out her unplastered arm toward Starsky and he crossed the room to enfold her hand in both of his.

“How ya doin’?” he asked.

“Okay,” Abby said with a wan little smile.

But she didn’t look okay to Starsky. Already fair complexioned, as a result of her ordeal at the hands of the crazed Tommy Marlowe, Abby now looked like a fragile porcelain doll that someone had abused and then discarded. He didn’t know what to say.

“Dave, I need to talk to you,” Abby said. “That’s why I told the nurse to ask you to come visit me without Hutch.”

Starsky released her hand and pulled up the visitor’s chair. He sank into it, fearing that he already knew what Abby was going to say. “Okay, Abby. I’m here now, and Hutch is down getting the bandages on his hand changed. He won’t be showing up unexpectedly. You need to talk to me, let’s talk,” he invited.

The china blue eyes filled with tears, and Abby turned her pretty face away.

“Hey,” Starsky said softly, gathering up her hand again. “Don’t cry, honey.”

“Oh, Dave. I’m so scared,” Abby whimpered.

Starsky moved to the side of the bed then, drawing her up off the pillows and into his arms, careful not to jostle her broken arm. Idly, he wondered what Hutch would think if he walked in now. Nothing, probably. The three of them had spent so much time together, and Hutch was fully aware of the genuine affection that had grown between his partner and his girlfriend. If Starsky had ever been inclined to be jealous, which he still insisted he wasn’t, that Abby made Hutch happy was all he really needed to know. Abby, however, Starsky sensed, was planning on making Hutch very unhappy, and it was going to be Starsky left behind to pick up the pieces.

When the tears passed, Starsky eased Abby back onto the pillows, handed her a tissue, and smiled encouragingly.

“I can’t stay here anymore, Dave,” Abby admitted. “I’m going home. I’ve called my brother, and he’s going to come and get me soon. I…I don’t know how to tell Hutch.”

“He loves you, you know, Abby,” Starsky reminded her softly, already certain it would make no difference to her decision.

“Maybe. In his own way, I guess. He likes me, and we’re comfortable together, but…it isn’t the happily ever after kind of love he feels for me.”

Starsky wasn’t shocked. He had already come to the same conclusion long ago. He wasn’t even particularly surprised that Abby knew just where she stood. She wasn’t a dumb girl.

“If he did, maybe I’d be willing to stay,” Abby continued. “Even be afraid all the time. But he doesn’t.”

“Do you love him, Abby?” Starsky asked curiously, asking not only for himself but for Hutch’s sake as well.

Abby met his eyes, gave him that soft, sad little smile again. “Yes, Dave, I do. In my own way. But that isn’t enough to make me stay either.”

“Are you asking me to tell him you’re leaving?” Starsky asked. He sincerely hoped not. He would do it if he had to, but felt Hutch deserved better than that. If wasn’t his fault his job had run over into his personal life. A cop’s wife or girlfriend had to understand that. Maybe Abby hadn’t known that before, and now that she did, she was really doing the kindest thing by leaving.

“I’m not that big a coward,” Abby protested. “I’ll tell him myself, but…please, Dave, be there for him.”

Starsky squeezed her hand and stood up. “You don’t have to worry about that, Abby. I’m always gonna be there for Hutch.” Even if it breaks my heart, he added silently.

~*~*~

And it damn near did break his heart to stand by while Hutch watched Abby walk out of his life. He wanted to wrap the shell-shocked blond up in his arms and somehow protect him from the hurt inside, the way he tried to protect him from harm on the streets. He couldn’t always succeed there, and, Starsky knew, all he could do here was try to cushion the blow.

He left Hutch standing stunned on the grass and went to help Tina gather up the forgotten picnic. Tina already knew the score. They had come to the park in her car and she knew that Starsky would be leaving with Hutch.

“Call me?” Tina asked as she handed over the folded up items.

Starsky enfolded her in a grateful, one-armed hug. “Sure thing. Gimme a couple of days to make sure he’s okay.”

Starsky watched her walk away, grateful that she wasn’t the possessive type, and went over to where Hutch still stood, looking at the spot where Abby had driven out of his life. Starsky wrapped firm fingers around Hutch’s uninjured arm and tugged the unresisting man along to the car.

“Come on, Hutch. Time to go home,” he murmured, tucking his partner into the passenger seat of the Galaxy after claiming the keys.

“We didn’t even have time for the wine,” Hutch said inanely. “I bought it to celebrate Abby getting out of the hospital.”

“We’ll have some when we get to your place,” Starsky reassured him.

This was the second time in just a couple of short months that Starsky had found himself in the position of having to console Hutch over the loss of his lady. The hardest part was that, in no way, was Hutch to blame for the loss of either love. It made it harder to take, Starsky thought, just because it was so damned unfair.

“One more strike and I’m out,” Hutch observed softly. “Or maybe I’m already out. Van was strike one. Gillian, strike two. Abby, strike three. Hey, Hutchinson, yerrrr out.”

“Come on, Hutch. We aren’t talkin’ about baseball here,” Starsky said.

“You were,” Hutch reminded him. “Those damned baseball cards of yours. Wonder what my stats would look like. No hits. No runs batted in. Just a whole fucking bunch of errors. I’d be better off warming the bench.”

Hutch’s voice was beginning to choke up, and Starsky put out a hand, found the back of his neck and squeezed before ruffling the blond silk at the back of his head. “Easy, babe,” he crooned. “Lemme get you home.”

Obediently, Hutch kept his thoughts to himself until they arrived at his apartment.

“You don’t have to hang around here, Starsk. I don’t think I’m going to be very good company today,” Hutch tried to dismiss him.

Starsky wondered if his friend was really in such a state that he truly believed Starsky would leave. “What makes you think you’re ever good company?” he quipped. “So, what’s it gonna be? Monopoly? Scrabble? Maybe a game show or a rerun or two?”

Hutch slumped onto the couch and put his head back. “If you’re going to be that nauseatingly cheerful, you can just fuck off. Okay, Starsk,” he said wearily.

Starsky held his hands up in surrender. “Okay. I’ll be miserable, too. So you want some tea and sympathy?”

“No. I want to get drunk.” Hutch opened one eye and fixed Starsky with its pale blue glare. “And you aren’t going to talk me out of it this time.”

Starsky grinned at the warning. He did have a talent for coming between Hutch and his booze whenever Hutch thought he needed it most. It had become almost a tradition that began the first time Hutch killed a man on duty and had extended down through the years right up to the night after Gillian died. Sometimes, however, it was necessary to break with tradition, and Starsky thought this just might be one of those times.

“You wanna start on the wine, or should I check out the beer supply before you get started?” he asked.

“There’s a bottle of whiskey under the sink,” Hutch revealed. “That’s what I want, and don’t bother with a glass. I’m not planning on sharing.”

Starsky shook his head as he went into the kitchen to retrieve the bottle. Normally, he would do everything in his power to save Hutch the hangover he would suffer tomorrow. This time, he felt Hutch needed the release the booze would give him. Abby’s leaving, even Gillian’s death, weren’t the only things on Hutch’s mind. Starsky had known there were other demons living beneath the golden hair lately that tormented his friend, but Hutch’s inhibitions wouldn’t let them out. Maybe it was time he did, and if it took a little eighty-proof lubricant to loosen his tongue, then so be it.

While he was in the kitchen, Starsky grabbed a beer for himself and carried it and the whiskey back to the couch. He handed the bottle to Hutch, claimed his corner of the couch, kicked off his shoes, and propped his feet on the table. He took a short pull from the bottle. He intended to make this brew last right up to dinner time if he could. One drunk in the partnership at a time was enough.

Hutch opened the bottle, put it to his lips and took one healthy swallow before he started choking. Starsky let him recover himself, making no effort to hide his smile when Hutch finally emerged from the fit, red-faced and with his eyes full of tears.

“They don’t call it sippin’ whiskey for nothin’,” he reminded his friend.

“Fuck off, Starsky,” Hutch grumbled, but did take smaller sips.

Smaller, but more often, Starsky observed as the level in the bottle began to drop. He figured it would take at least half the bottle to loosen Hutch up enough to the point where he would begin talking. Until then, Starsky filled the silence with baseball chatter and watched the booze seep into his partner’s bloodstream.

“There’s food in the basket,” Hutch offered after a while.

“No, thanks. If you packed that thing for a picnic with Abby, there probably isn’t anything I’d wanna eat in there anyway,” Starsky declined. The invitation itself was an improvement, however, over the half-dozen times Hutch had already told him to fuck off. He judged it was now time to start poking and prodding, resigning himself to being cruel to be kind, however much it might hurt both of them.

“Guess you’ll be goin’ back to pizza and burgers with me, now that Abby won’t be around to keep you on the health food straight and narrow,” he said, wincing in sympathy as he watched his callous statement touch Hutch on a vulnerable spot.

Hutch’s throat must have become anesthetized because he was now chugging down a couple of healthy swallows every time he lifted the bottle. Starsky figured he must be starting to get numb when he didn’t come back at him for being so insensitive.

“Can do it for myself, you know,” Hutch mumbled. “Done it before.”

“Yeah, you have,” Starsky agreed. “Your hand hurtin’?”

Hutch held his bandaged hand in front of his face, looking at it as if he had never seen it before. Uh, huh, Starsky concluded, Hutch was definitely well on his way to numb.

“Solkin made my skin crawl,” Hutch pulled out of the clear blue sky.

Or, maybe this was one of those demons that needed to be spewed, Starsky thought. Hutch had certainly lacked professional detachment when dealing with Artie Solkin, even before he had turned The Spook loose on Abby.

“‘Course he did, Hutch. You’re a decent man, and Solkin would give any decent man the creeps,” Starsky reassured him.

“Am I, Starsk?” Hutch asked, and Starsky felt another change of topic coming. “If I’m such a decent guy, why can’t I find anybody to love me?”

Starsky shook his head, wanting to pull his bewildered, drunken partner into his arms, wishing he had better answers. Answers that would take all the pain away. “Abby loves you, Hutch. Just not enough to live with bein’ scared all the time.” Again, he had to speak the truth as he saw it. “And Gillian loved you. How long do you think she was happy doin’ what she was doin’, and then you come along and all she wants is to change so she can make you happy.”

“Then maybe it isn’t them. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s me that can’t love.” Hutch opened his eyes, the unfocused orbs trying to follow the play of light on the ceiling.

Starsky moved forward then, shuffling along the cushion until he could slip his hand behind Hutch’s head and knead the tight muscles at his nape. “Wrongo, buddy. Anybody who’s ever been lucky enough to be loved by you can tell ya that. Yours truly included.”

To Starsky’s surprise, Hutch looked horrified and pressed back into the cushions, trying to evade Starsky’s touch. Starsky took his hand back and retreated.

Hutch also retreated into silence and back into the nearly depleted bottle of whiskey. Starsky had never seen him put it away quite this fast.

“Don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” Hutch finally said.

“We can talk about anything you want, buddy,” Starsky assured him.

“Don’ wanna talk ’bout baseball either,” Hutch insisted.

Starsky grinned. The booze was hitting Hutch’s tongue now. He figured half an hour more and then he would be able to pour him into bed and spend the rest of the day watching TV and standing guard over his drunken friend’s rest. There were better ways to spend a day off, but then there were worse ways, too.

“Wanna tell ya somethin’, Starsk.” Hutch leaned forward earnestly, started to topple and half caught himself on the arm of the couch. “Whoops.”

“Easy, big boy,” Starsky said, daring a second rejection by reaching out to steady the big, swaying body. His touch was accepted this time, in fact, Hutch leaned into his hand and blinked owlishly into his eyes.

“Ya gotta stop doin’ it to me, Starsk. Can’t take it, babe. Just can’t take it.”

“Doin’ what?” Starsky asked, wondering where the hell Hutch’s mind had wandered to now.

“Scarin’ me,” Hutch mumbled. “Gettin’ shot, an’ gettin’ poisoned and…and lettin’ some bastard hurt your eye.” He leaned forward again, his balance still precarious, but his aim better as he laid his lips on Starsky’s cheekbone where a short time ago spectacular green, blue and black bruising had lived. After a moment, his lips slid away and his head came to rest on Starsky’s shoulder.

Starsky fished the bottle out from between them and saw that it was empty. He laid the dead soldier on the carpet and petted Hutch’s hair for a few minutes, as much for himself as for his partner’s sake. It had been so damned long since he had been able to hold Hutch like this. Oh, he had held him after Gillian died, and Hutch was as physically affectionate as ever, but this was different. It nurtured a part of Starsky’s soul that had been hungering for close to a year.

“Please, Starsk. Ya gotta stop gettin’ hurt. Okay? Can’t take it, buddy. Can’t watch you bleed and die.” Hutch struggled up and out of Starsky’s embrace. “Can fuck me again if ya wanna, Starsk. Won’ say no anymore. Can be Friday nights again. I promise. Won’ try to fall in love no more. Promise. Jus’ don’, please don’ die on me, baby.”

Hutch was weeping openly now, and Starsky pulled him back into his arms, hugging as hard as he could while trying to sort out when this had stopped being about Abby leaving, and started being about him dying. Was this what had been tormenting Hutch’s soul? Was this, and not the two lovely women he had fallen for, been the reason Hutch stopped wanting him? Had Hutch, in fact, started wanting him too much?

The crying had eased to an occasional hiccup now, and Starsky felt Hutch growing heavier in his arms. He stopped trying to figure out what was going on and turned his attention to practical matters. If Hutch fell into a drunken stupor here, Starsky would have no hope of getting him into bed. It was now or add an aching back to the rest of the woes Hutch would be suffering in the morning.

“Come on, Hutch. It’s time we tucked your big, beautiful bod into bed and let you sleep it off,” Starsky said and heaved.

More through good luck than good management, Starsky half-led and half-carried Hutch’s heavy, dead weight into the bedroom alcove where he propped him against the dresser. He eased away and started trying to wrestle the clothes off him, but it wasn’t easy. Every time Starsky let go long enough to start on the shirt or pants, Hutch started sagging at the knees.

By the time Starsky worked the shirt off and pushed the pants down around Hutch’s knees, Hutch had sort of collapsed all over him. The blond head rested on his shoulder and both arms were draped down his back, and he could feel the uncoordinated hands making feeble attempts to grope his ass. Starsky couldn’t even straighten up under the weight.

“Come on, buddy,” Starsky pleaded as he shuffled them around until Hutch’s back was to the bed. “Help me a little here.”

Hutch responded by trying to kiss the back of his neck, then giggled when Starsky grabbed the bare skin at his waist to try to control his fall onto the bed. Hutch bounced when he hit the mattress, then lay there looking unbelievably edible.

“Down boy,” Starsky told his hopeful cock, throbbing in the crotch of his shorts. “It’s only the booze talking.”

“No. S’not,” Hutch insisted with drunken earnestness. His uncoordinated hands tried to drag Starsky with him, as Starsky struggled to right him on the bed and remove the pale blue pants from where they were tangled around Hutch’s ankles.

Finally, Starsky pulled the sheet up over his partner and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding both hands in his in an attempt to calm Hutch’s agitation.

“Hey, a minute ago, you were goin’ to sleep,” Starsky reminded him.

“Need ta…needa…wanna…” Hutch mumbled while his eyes pleaded. “Kiss me. Please, babe. Kiss me.”

Starsky leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Hutch’s forehead, resisting the urge to take what his drunken friend was offering. “Sleep, baby blue.”

The blue eyes were filling with tears again. “Don’ wan’ me anymore, babe?”

The question, the forlorn expression nearly broke Starsky’s heart. “Of course I want you, sweetheart,” he whispered. “But not drunk and hurting.” He tried a smile and gave a reassuring pat to Hutch’s chest. “Besides, this is only Tuesday.”

“Friday, then?” Hutch begged.

“Sure thing. Friday for sure,” Starsky agreed. He was ready to agree to anything that would let him retreat out of Hutch’s reach, even if he planned to remain only a few feet away.

The booze finally got the better of him and Hutch’s eyes closed. In a minute he was snoring softly. Starsky brushed the tangled bangs back off the tall forehead. “Ah, sweetheart, you’re gonna be so sorry for this in the morning.”

And before he could do something he, too, would be sorry for, Starsky took himself off to the kitchen to try to rustle up something to fill his empty belly. His expectations weren’t high for daytime TV programming, but he thought there might be something on to distract him. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up until Hutch told him, face to face and stone cold sober, that he still wanted him.

~*~*~

When Hutch woke up the next morning, even his eyelashes hurt, and he remembered mournfully why it was he didn’t normally drink to excess. He rolled over, buried his head under the pillow, and prayed he would just die, or, at the very least, go back to sleep. No such luck. He lifted his head, saw it was 6:00 a.m., and remembered he had to be at work by seven. Was Starsky picking him up, or was he picking up Starsky? Come to think of it, where was Starsky? He made the effort to sit up, his hand landing on a piece of paper, the resulting crackling thundering between his ears.

Cautiously, making as little noise as possible, he unfolded the note and squinted to read Starsky’s left-handed scrawl through blurry eyes.

There’s coffee and aspirin in the kitchen. I’ll tell Dobey your hand is hurting. See you tonight. S.

Hutch slumped back onto the pillow, the note pressed to his heart. Thank God for Starsky, he thought. After a while, he stumbled out to the kitchen, grateful that at least his stomach didn’t seem inclined to join in the rebellion with his head. He fumbled the aspirins into his mouth and swallowed them with several mouthfuls of strong, black coffee, then took his aching head and the cup back to bed.

When the aspirin had had a chance to start working, Hutch let himself think about the day before. Abby had left him. There was an echo of an ache there that Hutch was ashamed was so small. It was like the barely lingering flicker of pain that thoughts of Gillian still gave him. But Abby deserved better. Abby had deserved more than he had given her all along. He had tried, especially after Gillian died, but some part of him, the deepest part he suspected, had stood back and simply refused to become involved. He didn’t think he was capable of loving anyone anymore. Not that all-consuming type of love that it took to commit the rest of your life to a person.

He wondered why Starsky let him drink yesterday. His partner usually talked him out of it, and Hutch was always grateful. This time, despite the miserable hangover, he was almost as obliged to Starsky for handing him the liquid anesthesia. In his case, it hadn’t numbed the pain; it had short-circuited the analytical side of him and allowed his inhibitions to drop. If in vino veritas was true, how much more so had whisky brought the long-buried truth slurring from his lips.

Starsky knew now. Knew why Hutch had been so desperate to fall in love. Knew why he had bounced back into Abby’s arms after Gillian, even though he had known he had no hope of really loving her. Starsky had, for years, reveled in his lust, cherished his friendship, and accepted his rejection. What the hell would he think of his obsession?

Each and every memory of the night before wasn’t clear, but Hutch remembered enough to know that Starsky had been kind and gentle and tolerant, and, though Hutch wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure, he also thought Starsky’s cock had been hard as he had wrestled Hutch into bed.

Friday was the thirtieth, Hutch remembered. It could be their Friday. Their first Friday in nearly a year. Hutch had never stopped wanting those nights and now, freed of his self-delusion, he wanted them even more. Whether he ever had them again, however, would be up to Starsky.

~*~*~

Starsky breezed into Hutch’s apartment at 4:00, bearing a gift of health food for Hutch, disgustingly greasy tacos for himself, and crackling with enough energy for three men.

“Dobey kept you chained to the desk all day, didn’t he?” Hutch observed as he watched Starsky bounce all over the apartment. Nothing wound his partner up like doing nothing all day. “Light some place, will you? You’re giving me back my headache.”

Starsky sprawled in his corner of the couch. “I think Dobey thinks it’s not safe to let me out without you,” he complained. “Made me clear up all that backlog of work on our desk.”

“He’s right. You need a keeper,” Hutch said. It wasn’t true, of course. It was one of their standing jokes. “You want some of my tuna and brown rice salad?”

“You want some of my taco with extra chili peppers?” Starsky countered.

“Touché,” Hutch conceded defeat.

“How’s the hand?” Starsky asked.

“Okay. I’m going to go in to work tomorrow. Can’t leave you doing paperwork for too long, you’ll blow one of the few remaining brain cells you’ve got left.”

They had now re-established their banter and covered the subjects of work, food and the state of his health. Hutch wondered what other inane topics they would bandy about before one of them had the courage to bring up the subject on both their minds. The weather, perhaps? The state of the union? He should have known Starsky couldn’t beat around the bush for long.

“Do you remember what you said to me last night?” Starsky asked bluntly.

“Yes,” Hutch replied, opting to be equally straightforward.

“All of it?” Starsky asked, sounding far less self-assured.

“Most of it,” Hutch reassured him. “The parts about wanting you.”

Starsky looked uncomfortable, but Hutch tried not to jump to conclusions, reminding himself of the familiar hardness that had pressed into him while Starsky undressed him the day before.

“What about Abby?”

“Abby left me.”

“Uh, huh. She did. And you were serious enough about her to cut me off. Now you say you want to start fucking me again day after tomorrow.” Starsky’s voice was calm and serene, as if they really were discussing the weather. “Don’t get me wrong, Hutch. I’ve no objections to bein’ used. We agreed a long time ago that when it comes to sex, we use each other. But you said a lotta stuff last night that makes me wonder where I stand. I needta know what it is ya want from me now, Hutch.”

Hutch put aside his salad, his already uncertain appetite disappearing completely. “I…I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.

“How about with why you wanted to stop having sex with me in the first place,” Starsky suggested. He too seemed to have lost interest in his food, dropping a half-eaten taco back into the grease-stained bag and tossing it onto the coffee table. “I didn’t think you were all that serious about Abby after Christmas when ya told me no more. Did I do something?”

Hutch pressed his lips together, closed his eyes and remembered the night he had made the decision of no more, nevermore. He had been sitting beside Starsky’s hospital bed, watching a transfusion drip, drip, drip its way into his partner’s arm when he had made the unilateral decision he had no right to make on his own. Abby, however, had given him a convenient excuse, and he had even managed to fool himself for a while.

“Yeah, you did something. You got shot,” he admitted quietly.

“You mean before Christmas?” Starsky asked.

Hutch opened his eyes so that Starsky could see him roll them in exasperation. “No, dummy, one of the other times you got shot.”

“I hadta spend Christmas in the hospital, and I missed our Friday night before New Year,” Starsky remembered.

“And I didn’t know if I could keep it in the box anymore,” Hutch continued his confession. “Remember after Forest, how it was confusing for you for a while, too?”

“But I didn’t stop wanting you,” Starsky protested, but quietly, as if he weren’t sure whether the rules gave him the right to object at all.

“Oh, Starsk, I never stopped wanting you. I started wanting you all the time. All day, all night. Every day, every night. Almost losing my friend, my partner, got all mixed up with the sex. I couldn’t look at you, hear your voice, nothing, without getting hard. I used my relationship with Abby to give myself some space. But just when I began to feel normal again, to look at you or touch you and not feel that jolt, along came Vic Bellamy with his hypo full of misery. You were barely back to normal, and then you were dying.”

Hutch couldn’t sit still any longer. He jumped to his feet and paced, the lingering traces of his hangover still beating a soft tattoo at his temples.

“I love you, Starsk. You know that, don’t you? If you were my brother, I couldn’t love you more. But, for a while after the shooting and then again after Bellamy, I think I was in love with you. That isn’t a place either one of us can afford to go.”

“I love you, too, Hutch. More’n Nicky. A lot more than Nicky,” Starsky admitted.

“I know. And that means more to me than anything. But you’re not in love with me, and you’re not looking for that from me.” Hutch dropped his head, studied the dust that had accumulated on the top of his TV. “After Gillian,” he began again. “I seemed to get it back under control. I mean, I could tuck wanting you away where it was supposed to be most of the time. In fact, it only came creeping out when it was supposed to, the last Friday of the month. Halloween was…tough.”

“I offered,” Starsky reminded him softly.

“I know,” Hutch’s head dropped a little lower, no longer seeing the poor state of his house or thinking it might be an idea to hire a housekeeper again. Before his unseeing eyes ran the memory of that night. The need he had felt and the fear that had made him reject his partner yet again. “I just couldn’t….”

The silence settled in between them until Hutch found himself trying to stretch out his senses, yearning for any sound, a child’s voice, a honking horn, anything but the almost imperceptible rhythm of Starsky’s breathing.

“I guess it’s truth time, babe,” Starsky finally said, and the tone of his voice made Hutch turn around to face him. There was shame in the deep voice, along with defiance.

“Truth time?” Hutch echoed, for the first time truly fearing rejection when Starsky wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“You remember the black eye?” Starsky asked, although Hutch would have had to be some sort of moron to have forgotten bruises that had only just faded. “I got it at a place called The Fox’s Den. It’s a gay bar in Hillsbridge.”

“You went cruising?” Hutch whispered, horrified by the risk, more horrified at the thought of some other man touching his dancer.

“Yeah, Hutch, I did. You didn’t want me anymore, and I still wanted sex with another guy. Halloween, when you would have fucked either one of the twins but turned me down, I got the message. Then, when you were back with Abby, I got it again. But I still needed gay sex, Hutch. So, I went looking for it, and you know what I found?”

Hutch shook his head, too afraid to ask, not wanting to know.

“I found out I want it with you,” Starsky confessed. “I figured that out back at the Academy, and I don’t know what made me forget it. I need it, Hutch, but I need it safe. You’re the only one I can trust.”

“Because I’ve got as much to lose as you do,” Hutch said bitterly.

“Because we have the same things to lose. Our careers, our partnership, our friendship. It’s another part of me and thee.” Starsky paused, again giving Hutch the impression that he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to say what he wanted to say. Finally, he continued, “And because I don’t want any other guy but you.”

“So you want to…?” Hutch asked, realizing only as he said it just how much the answer meant to him.

“Yeah, I want to,” Starsky agreed. Then he stood up and picked up his jacket.

“Starsk? Where?”

“It’s only Wednesday, Hutch, and if I don’t get outta here, I’m gonna do somethin’ just as stupid as cruisin’ The Fox’s Den. The rules haven’t changed, partner, and, though I’ve never been a by-the-book kinda guy, you know they’re good rules. We don’t break the good rules.”

Hutch sighed, closed his eyes and nodded. “You still want me then?” he asked softly.

Starsky did come to him then, stood close and slid his hand into Hutch’s hair. For a moment, Hutch thought he might kiss him.

“Always gonna want you, Angel. ‘Til the day I die,” Starsky vowed, and then he left him.

~*~*~

Hutch sighed softly when, at long last, Starsky released his lips. He wasn’t free long, as his lover leaned into him again and again, bringing their lips together and parting them, each time tilting his head just enough that each new touch of sensitive flesh to sensitive flesh was a new sensory delight.

“What do you want?” Hutch murmured during one of the oh-so-brief retreats.

“Tell me, babe,” he added the next time Starsky’s kiss-swollen lips left his.

“Anything you want,” was the next husky offer.

“Anything. Everything.” An invitation that harkened back years into the past.

“Tell me what you want.” A plea.

When Starsky eased away this time, he didn’t return for more kisses, his surprisingly lucid eyes studying Hutch, breaking the spell his kisses had cast.

“Penance, Hutch?” he asked.

Hutch dropped his eyes, felt the flush that was no longer sexual excitement flooding his face. Fingers under his chin gently forced his head up.

“You know I love to see you blush, Angel, but I thought you and me were long past that now. Thought we were long past games, too.”

They had never played games with each other, Hutch wanted to protest. At least not the kind that were meant to either shield or wound. Games meant to inflame, however, were another matter.

“Been so long, Starsk,” Hutch tried to explain. “I want it all. All of it. Everything. Right now.”

Starsky’s hands flowed down his back, the firm caress easing the near panicked urgency out of him. “Like a kid in a candy store after hours, ya just don’t know where to start, huh?”

Hutch laughed. “Nobody is ever going to accuse you of undue modesty, sweetheart.”

Starsky eased back out of the embrace, his hand sweeping down his own body in an invitation for Hutch to find reason for modesty. A visual inspection of the muscular body was hardly designed to ease Hutch’s dilemma.

“What do you want?” he asked again.

One finger came to trace the contours of his lips, pressed gently for entrance, then withdrew, and Hutch felt a fine trembling take up residence in his belly. Even after nearly a year, it was as if Starsky could pluck the needs right out of the box where Hutch tried to keep them hidden.

“Oh, yeah,” he murmured, rolling to his back. He offered a small, enigmatic smile to invite Starsky’s cooperation, while the hot need in his eyes demanded it.

“Penance, Hutch?” Starsky repeated, propping himself on his elbow. “Gonna give me anything I want, any way I want it, to make up for cutting me off?”

Sometimes, Hutch thought, it was damned hard to hide your motivations from yourself when the man in your bed knew you better than you knew yourself.

“Me sayin’ jump and you sayin’ how high has never been part of what this is about, Hutch,” Starsky reminded him. “It’s about you and me enjoying each other. It’s about you takin’ when I need to give and you givin’ when I need to take. It ain’t about me fuckin’ your mouth, then maybe your ass, and then doin’ who knows what else to you while you lie there sayin’ yes, sir, no, sir, doesn’t matter what I want, sir.”

Hutch closed his eyes, feeling the hot flood of shame returning to his face yet again. He was supposed to be flushed with passion by now, not shame, as Starsky dug into his psyche and hauled out things he didn’t want to look at.

“It’s about this, sweetheart,” Starsky murmured.

Hutch allowed himself to be drawn over onto his side and accepted the sweet kiss Starsky placed on his lips.

“And it’s about this,” Starsky said when he had parted their lips.

Again, Hutch offered no resistance as Starsky took his hand, kissed the tips of each finger and then laid them against the soft hair on his chest. Hutch carded through the silky strands, zeroed in on a flushed pap and pinched it gently. He was rewarded with Starsky’s smile.

“And this,” Starsky added as his hand slid down Hutch’s belly, gathered up his cock and stroked it back to full erection.

Hutch moaned softly as fantasy, memory and reality merged in his brain as he reveled in the familiar touch that knew him so well. Marveled at the knowledge in the skillful fingers that knew every tiny nerve ending in his length, even though he knew his own to be every bit as talented.

“Can’t forget this,” Starsky crooned, taking his hand away only long enough to coax Hutch’s fingers to leave his chest and leading them to the rounded curve of his ass.

Hutch moved closer of his own accord, his fingers tracing the velvet skin over flexing muscle, his big hand spreading wide to encompass one full, pliant cheek. His movement trapped Starsky’s hand between them, and after a moment it was withdrawn and Starsky wriggled closer still, bringing their cocks together where they slid and stroked and struck sparks from each other that painted scorching trails along Hutch’s nerves.

“Give and take,” Starsky continued his verbal seduction. “Me and thee. Always partners. Always friends.”

But Hutch didn’t need the words anymore. He was flying high, guilt seduced into exquisite passion, fear into joyous acceptance of the moment. He sought Starsky’s mouth, found it open and eager for his kisses as their bodies moved in a dance that, no matter how many times they had shared it, never paled, never failed to inflame him. So long, too long, exploded in his brain as his climax exploded through his body. A few delicious, wriggling moments later, he felt Starsky join him and they toppled over the edge together.

When the last sweet sparkles had skittered through his body, Hutch opened his eyes and drank in the lazy satisfaction on Starsky’s face. “You silver tongued devil, you,” he teased his seducer.

Starsky stuck out his tongue as if to prove it was as much flesh and blood as the rest of him, and Hutch dipped in to catch the tip between his teeth before it could retreat. He nipped, then licked, then released it back to its owner.

“Not my fault your biggest erogenous zone is between your ears,” Starsky said. “Always wanted to try sometime gettin’ you off just talkin’ dirty to you. Not touch you, or kiss you. Maybe not even strip off first.”

“If that’s a challenge…” Hutch replied, reading in Starsky’s eyes that if it hadn’t been before it definitely was now. “…then I accept.” He held back Starsky’s attempt to claim his mouth with a finger across his partner’s kiss-reddened lips. “But next month, okay. Or maybe the month after that.”

“Or the month after that? Or maybe….”

Hutch stopped the repetitions with a fierce, demanding kiss that he knew, in a very few minutes, he would be more than willing to follow up with more eager sharing.

“Always gonna want you,” he vowed, repeating Starsky’s promise to him, knowing it was true, and knowing that, no matter who or what came into their lives, it always would be.

 

My Best Friend’s Best Friend

With enough “ifs” attached to the confession, Starsky might be willing to admit he didn’t really mind paperwork. Like if they weren’t so far behind he couldn’t remember the details of the case. Or if Hutch was spending the day in court anyway. And—the biggest if of all—if there was nothing better to do. During the week between Christmas and New Year, when what little brotherly love that bloomed on their beat withered like an unwatered poinsettia, Starsky wasn’t all that displeased to find himself stuck behind his desk.

Pulling a completed report from his typewriter, Starsky signed it, and slid it into the out-box, while reaching for the next bit of nonsense from the in-tray. He laughed aloud when he saw that, rather than a memo from the powers that be or some other missive he was likely to ignore anyway, what he held in his hand was the envelope containing his Christmas present from Hutch.

“How’d you get in there?” he asked, tucking the envelope away in his desk drawer.

He reached for the next item in the tray. When it turned out to be a copy of Perkowitz’s report on Molly Edwards, Starsky sat back in his chair to read it.

His campaign this year to coerce Hutch into participating in the Christmas season—he had decided on sheer aggravation—had been a little more successful than previous years, but only because of Molly and her wretched circumstances. Starsky was so proud of the way his partner had jumped right in on Molly’s behalf and had opened both his heart and his home to the young girl. It didn’t matter one damn bit that Hutch had continued to spout his Christmas vitriol. If it made him feel better, then Starsky was willing to go along with it. Hutch might have been saying “no, ho, ho, ho” but his actions spoke louder than his words. Starsky wasn’t even all that displeased with his own present. After all, he liked trees as much as the next guy. In fact, he planned on finding out exactly which tree was his and maybe taking Hutch out there to have a picnic under it.

Starsky’s thoughts were interrupted briefly when Randy Briggs brought a young man into the squadroom. Starsky didn’t get a good look at the prisoner as Briggs roughly led him to the desk he shared with his partner, but he could hear that the young man was sniffling. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence when dealing with someone involved in their first brush with the law, so Starsky ignored the disturbance and went back to his reading.

“What have you got there, Briggs?” asked another officer who had also been intent on clearing his in-tray.

“Hell, I don’t know. Answered a call that this guy tried to force his way into the Galway porno house without paying, but every time I ask him anything, all he does is howl and snot all over the place,” Briggs complained. “I don’t know why a black and white couldn’t have taken the call.”

Starsky finished scanning Perkowitz’s report and leaned forward in his chair to slip it into the out-box. His position gave him a clear view of Briggs’ prisoner for the first time, and Starsky was out of his chair like a shot. He stalked over to where Briggs towered over the young man, brushed the other detective aside, and went down on one knee. Looking into the unhappy, tear ravaged face, he struggled to control his anger at Briggs and present only the friendliest of faces to the prisoner.

“Shoulda thought of that before,” Briggs snapped, obviously aggravated out of his usual good nature. He circled the desk to throw himself into his chair. “It would take a moron to talk to a moron, wouldn’t it?”

Starsky ignored him. “Hi,” he said softly to the unhappy man who had been weeping wordlessly. “My name’s Dave. What’s yours?”

Puffy, almond shaped eyes studied Starsky closely before the backs of two grubby hands were dragged across leaking eyes and nose. “Raymond,” the man said with a hiccup.

“Are you lost, Raymond?” Starsky asked gently.

Fresh tears welled in brown eyes and a full bottom lip trembled. “I thought I knew the bus, but I was wrong. And…and now I…” Raymond glanced fearfully at Briggs. “…I’m in bad trouble.”

“It’s okay, Raymond. Everybody gets lost sometimes. Would you like me to help you find your way back home?” Starsky said, laying a gentle hand on the man’s arm.

Raymond shook his head. “Have to go to the center. But I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. My teacher said so.”

Starsky hesitated, wishing he dared give Briggs a piece of his mind then and there. But he knew he had to keep his temper in check or risk having the young man who, experience told him, was mentally handicapped, frightened of him as well. There was a very good chance that whoever cared for Raymond had tried to teach him the same safety rules that were taught to most children. If so, then Raymond should be calmed and comforted by his present location. It was pretty obvious, however, that Briggs’ treatment had had the opposite effect. Starsky could only hope that his very different demeanor would give him an advantage.

“But didn’t your teacher tell you that if you’re ever lost or in trouble you can find a policeman and he’ll help you?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” Raymond admitted hesitantly.

Starsky fished his badge out of his back pocket and handed it over to Raymond. “I’m a policeman. So it’s okay to let me help you.”

At that moment, Dobey came out of his office, bellowing for Briggs before the door was fully open. Seeing Raymond cringe, Starsky stood up quickly, and moved to wrap a protective arm around the young man’s shoulders. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Captain Dobey barks a lot, but he never bites.”

Starsky was relieved to see Dobey pause in the doorway, his dark gaze taking in the tableau of the obviously frightened young man, the disgusted Briggs, and the protective Starsky. “The Marshall Center just called,” he said in a quieter tone.

When he saw Raymond brighten at the name, Starsky gave the shoulder under his hand a squeeze and then moved over to Dobey. He held out his hand for the memo slip the captain held. “I’ll take him back, Captain. With Hutch in court, I don’t have anything to do anyway.”

Dobey withheld the yellow slip for a moment. “What about your paperwork?”

“Please, Captain,” Starsky asked, keeping his voice low enough that only Dobey could hear. “The poor kid is scared half to death. Let me run him back.”

Dobey handed over the memo, frowning toward Raymond who was watching them closely. “He’s not a kid, Starsky.”

“I know, Cap. But he really is, you know. He’s okay with me. I’ll just run him over to the Center, then come straight back and finish all our paperwork before Hutch gets back from court,” Starsky promised earnestly.

“All right,” Dobey agreed, then began to turn toward his office, but turned back in the doorway. “Starsky?”

Starsky could see the curiosity in Dobey’s face and decided to satisfy it. “John got me a job at a camp for special kids one summer.”

“Oh,” Dobey said. “Well, go on then.”

Starsky returned to Raymond’s side and showed him the yellow message slip. “See, Raymond, your friends have been looking for you, too. They knew it was best to call the police. If you want, we can get my car, and I’ll take you back to the center right now. Would you like that?”

Starsky heard Briggs’ snort of derision and turned a particularly promising glare on him. If Briggs knew what was good for him, he would be back out on patrol when Starsky returned.

When Raymond hesitantly agreed, Starsky led him out of the squadroom and into the corridor to wait for the elevator. They entered the car when it arrived and Starsky punched the button for the garage.

“Do I have to go in a police car again like a bad man?” Raymond asked.

“Well, we have to take my car,” Starsky explained patiently. “It’s got a siren and a radio and even a red light that I use when I have to chase the bad guys, but it doesn’t look like a regular police car. And you can sit up front with me. Okay?”

The elevator doors parted and Starsky led the way to where the Torino was parked. He was relieved when he saw Raymond’s trepidation give way beneath a wave of excitement at the realization he would be riding in the flashy car.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he said as he opened the passenger door.

“Cool, cool, coolest,” Raymond agreed happily.

The drive to the Marshall Center was, at the outside, ten minutes, but Starsky stretched it to twenty, smiling indulgently at Raymond’s obvious pleasure and doing his best to answer his questions about the car in terms the young man could understand.

When they pulled up in front of the center, Starsky shut down the engine, but didn’t hurry to exit the car. Unless he missed his guess, Raymond was waiting for the group of kids and young adults playing in the paved court to notice him sitting in the Torino. When he judged enough fingers were pointing their way to satisfy his charge, Starsky cracked the door. Raymond at first followed him, and then pushed by his escort, to be first through the gate.

Starsky leaned back against the fence as Raymond was surrounded by a group of chattering friends. After a few minutes, mindful of the passing time and the promise he had made to Dobey, Starsky looked around for someone who might be in charge here. When he could spot no one of obvious authority, he went to collect Raymond from his friends.

“Gotta check in, buddy. Can you take me to your teacher?” he asked.

Raymond led him into the building, and Starsky continued to follow until the young man disappeared into a classroom. He hung back at the doorway as Raymond charged forward to engulf a pretty woman, who had been busy applying a bandage to another child’s knee, in an enthusiastic hug.

“Miss Roberts. Miss Roberts. I got to ride in the cool, cool, coolest car!” Raymond gushed.

Miss Roberts extracted herself from Raymond’s arms, holding him away from her by the shoulders. “Raymond, we’ve been so worried about you.”

The enthusiasm faded beneath a wash of remembered fear on Raymond’s round face. “I missed the bus and I couldn’t find the library and I got so lost.”

Miss Roberts patted Raymond reassuringly. “It’s okay, Raymond. Everybody gets lost once in a while.”

The beatific smile returned. “That’s what Dave said.”

“Dave?” the teacher echoed.

Raymond grabbed her hand and dragged her over to where Starsky waited by the door.

“This is my teacher, Dave. She’s the best teacher in the whole wide world,” Raymond enthused. “Miss Roberts, can I go back outside?”

“Of course you can. Would you take Kimmy with you, please? I’ll be along in a minute.” The teacher then turned and offered her hand to Starsky. “I’m Terry Roberts, Officer. Thank you so much for bringing Raymond home.”

Starsky took her hand and introduced himself, enjoying looking into her kind and pretty aqua eyes so much that he almost forgot to let go of her hand. “It was my pleasure. Made a nice change from hauling some juvenile delinquent back to his folks while he spits attitude, or worse, at me the whole way.” He hesitated, then reminded himself that if Miss Roberts had been old or ugly he wouldn’t let the incident pass without comment, so he forged on, but perhaps in milder terms than he might have used. “Raymond’s a nice kid. You need to take better care of him.”

The teacher’s mouth tightened in reaction to the reprimand, but all she said was, “Do you mind if we go outside? I have to keep an eye on the kids.”

Starsky followed her and they stood where Miss Roberts could oversee her charges. He could tell the woman had been stung in her professional pride, and waited for her delayed reaction. It wasn’t long in coming.

“Raymond is part of our life-skills program. The task he was trying to master today—going from here to a specific destination and back on the bus—is one of the many skills we try to teach our special children to help them function in the outside world that isn’t usually very tolerant of their differences. He’s practiced many times with one of our teachers or volunteers.” Some of the defensiveness left the pretty face. “Perhaps he just wasn’t ready to try it on his own yet,” she conceded.

“He ended up down on porno row,” Starsky told her. “A lot of the kids I deal with would probably have done it on purpose, but Raymond was pretty scared.”

“You must have been very kind to him, Officer Starsky, because he certainly doesn’t seem terribly traumatized by his experience.” Miss Roberts waved toward where Raymond and most of the other boys were gathered by the gate admiring the Torino.

Starsky shrugged self-deprecatingly, feeling a slight warmth flush his cheeks at the woman’s gratitude. “It’s just the car,” he tried to dismiss his kindness.

The teacher tilted her head to the side, studying him with knowing eyes. She didn’t try to refute his claim, but she didn’t have to. The fact that she wasn’t buying his smokescreen was written all over her pretty face.

And Starsky, who had never been shy about inviting opportunity in no matter the circumstances under which it might knock on his romantic door, decided he might as well take his chances.

“If you really wanted to thank me, maybe you’d call me Dave and have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he invited. It certainly wasn’t one of his most inspired approaches, but, to his delight, the teacher agreed.

“I think I’d like that very much…Dave.”

~*~*~

Hutch ran his hand down over the well-known hills and valleys of Starsky’s back, from his shoulders all the way to the backs of his knees, enjoying the smooth glide of velvet flesh and the crisp catch and scrape of the wiry body hair.

“What’s wrong, babe?” he asked, nuzzling in to the nape of Starsky’s neck.

It wasn’t even as if he sensed that something was really wrong exactly, just that all night there had been moments when Starsky hadn’t seemed to be with him. It was nearly 4:00 a.m., on the last Friday of the year, and they had been enjoying each other’s bodies for hours now. Hutch had no complaints about the passion they had shared. In fact, since this was only the second time they had been together since Abby’s departure, they were so damned hot for each other that it had taken little more than a look or a touch to inflame them both. No, it wasn’t the way Starsky’s body had responded to each and every caress offered, it was the quiet times in between when Hutch felt his partner slipping away from him.

“Age catching up with you? Or are you getting bored with me?” he teased, trying to coax Starsky into opening up to him.

With a sigh, Starsky turned over and Hutch tried to force a smile despite the ultra serious expression on his lover’s face. He leaned into the hand that came to cup his cheek, kissed the thumb that rubbed gently over his lips.

“I met someone a couple of days ago,” Starsky admitted, as usual, once he was ready to talk, coming straight to the point.

Hutch refused to give in to the surge of panic that tried to sink wicked claws into him at the quiet confession. They had only just resumed their Friday encounters again after Hutch had declared a hiatus that had lasted for nearly a year, during which he had struggled with his need for his dancer. Was Starsky about to invoke the rule again, and throw him back into emotional turmoil?

“Somebody special?” he asked nevertheless, despite the little demon in his brain that told him to leave well enough alone.

Starsky sighed, rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m…not sure yet. Only met her a couple of days ago. Only went out to dinner last night. But….”

“You think about her all the time,” Hutch tried to put his own emotions aside and offer understanding. He knew what it felt like to fall in love, even if he wasn’t particularly good at it. He always seemed to be looking for love in all the wrong places, or maybe he just expected too much.

One of Starsky’s grins creased the profile that Hutch had come to know so well. In fact, they spent so much time in the car together, Hutch sometimes thought he knew Starsky’s profile far better than he knew the entire handsome face.

“No, Hutch. Definitely not all the time. I wasn’t ready to tell you not to come over tonight, was I?” Starsky pointed out. “But I think I could fall in love with her. She’s different. I just don’t know if I….”

“You’ve been nursing those burned fingers a long time, buddy,” Hutch said very softly, wondering what the hell he was doing. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, it looked like. If Starsky fell in love, then there would be no more nights when the angel and the dancer would come together for hot sex and good times. Now that the initial wave of selfish panic had passed, however, Hutch knew that the bottom line for him was that if Starsky fell in love, then Starsky might be happy. What frightened him more than the possibility of losing his part-time lover, was the memory of the only time since Hutch had known him, that Starsky had fallen for a woman who had done her best to sever all the ties that bound the two men together. Since then, few women had been successful in drawing Starsky away from his strictly casual relationship type of preference. Detective Helen Davidson had come close, but their relationship had been such a stormy one that Hutch had known it couldn’t possibly last. Up to now, only with Hutch was Starsky willing to truly invest his heart and soul. It was frightening to think of losing that privileged position. It was more frightening to think he might let jealousy and selfishness stand in his partner’s way.

Starsky had lifted his arms up, his hands poised above his face, his thumbs lightly brushing the tips of each one of his fingers in turn as if he expected to find them, if not blistered and raw, at the very least still hypersensitive.

“Maybe,” he allowed.

“It would make your mom happy,” Hutch teased. He had arrived early tonight, been present for Starsky’s weekly call to his mother, and had been entertained by his friend’s exasperation with his marriage-obsessed mother.

“She doesn’t want a daughter-in-law, she just wants grandkids,” Starsky summed up his mother’s agenda in a single sentence.

Hutch rolled onto his stomach, pressed his face into the Starsky-scented pillow for a moment, and then turned his head to once again study the familiar profile.

“What about you, Starsk? You ever think about having kids?” he wondered. There were few topics that he and Starsky hadn’t discussed so thoroughly that they could quote each other chapter and verse, but how they felt about children of their own was one of them. He wasn’t even sure himself where he stood on the subject of fatherhood. The relationship he enjoyed with his little brother, Kiko, and now with Molly, seemed to fill any paternal needs he presently had.

Starsky’s hands dropped to rest on his chest and his head also turned so their eyes could meet. “Kids, wife, house, and maybe a dog? I know I used to think about ’em once, but it was a long time ago.” His hand found Hutch’s and squeezed hard. “Take somebody pretty special to make me think about givin’ up my angel.”

Hutch returned the pressure, wishing the conversation wasn’t happening, but trying to prepare himself for the worst. “You said this lady is different. Is she special, too?”

“She might be, Hutch,” Starsky admitted with the honesty Hutch always expected of him. “I’m beginning to think Terry just might be.”

Hutch swallowed his heart down out of his throat and forced himself to smile. “So, when do I get to meet her?”

“Soon, babe. Soon.”

~*~*~

“Where are you going?” Hutch asked with alarm all out of proportion for the time and the place. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Starsky patted him on the shoulder as he walked by. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m just going to the john.”

“That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Hutch muttered. He knew damned well he was overreacting, hovering far more than was necessary, but little more than a week ago he had been scared nearly out of his wits for his partner’s life, and he was having just a little trouble settling back into their usual level of protectiveness.

Starsky leaned over to whisper into his ear. “Come on then. You can stand guard at the door. Make sure some nutcase doesn’t try to catch me with my pants down again.”

Hutch laughed and shrugged him away. “Go on,” he ordered his teasing friend.

In actual fact, Hutch thought, Starsky was being amazingly tolerant of his hovering, but he didn’t expect that to last much longer. Part of the problem, he knew, was that he hadn’t seen as much of Starsky since he had rescued him from Simon Marcus’ followers as he normally would after such a traumatic event. Not that Starsky had been intentionally neglectful, but he had been spending most of his free time establishing, from what Hutch had been able to gather from their conversations, his new relationship with Terry. Normally, Hutch might have been just the tiniest bit peeved—there was an understatement if he had ever heard one—but, at the moment, he was inclined to indulge his partner in damned near anything simply out of relief at having him back safe and sound.

Starsky tapped him on the shoulder again as he returned from the bathroom. “Mission accomplished,” he joked, and settled back on the opposite side of the desk. He nodded toward the handful of papers in Hutch’s hand. “Anything interesting?”

Hutch stuffed the memos and reports and copies of articles back into the in box. “Not a thing. Except…” He fished one particular carbon copy out of the stack, “…confirmation from Perky that Molly is officially placed with Mrs. Ramos.”

Starsky grinned. “I do like to start my day with good news.”

Hutch bit his tongue over the question that popped into his mind, reminding himself that he was not Starsky’s keeper. Just because he hadn’t been able to reach his partner on the phone last night or again this morning, didn’t mean Starsky owed him any explanations. Besides, it didn’t exactly take a genius IQ to figure out where Starsky most likely had spent the night or where he had started his day this morning.

“Terry talked me into going to see ‘The Goodbye Girl’ last night,” Starsky admitted, almost as if he had read Hutch’s mind.

“Yeah,” Hutch said, hiding his surprise. He had thought a team of wild horses couldn’t drag Starsky to see that movie. Not when ‘Airport ’77’ was also playing. It just went to show you what a guy would do in the name of love, or lust, or like, or whatever Starsky had going with his new girlfriend. “Was it any good?”

Starsky gave him the same look he would have received if Hutch had suggested they might enjoy a permanent transfer to traffic control. “You gotta ask?”

Hutch laughed. “Uh, huh,” he agreed. “So, when am I going to meet this mystery lady? You said ‘soon’. Remember? When is soon?” He tried to make himself sound simply interested, prurient curiosity, even, but to his own ears, he sounded nervously anxious. The ghost of Diane Parente had been haunting him ever since Starsky had mentioned the possibility of becoming serious about the new woman he had met. Diane, unfortunately, was the last time Hutch had even heard Starsky mention serious in connection with any of the many women he dated.

“Terry’s been asking me the same thing,” Starsky admitted. “She really wants to meet you.” A smile that couldn’t seem to decide whether to be embarrassed or proud, lit Starsky’s face. “Says I talk about you so much, she figures she better get the official Hutchinson stamp of approval.”

Now Hutch’s curiosity really was engaged. There was, of course, always the possibility that Starsky might be exaggerating, but if his new lady really was interested in meeting Hutch, then….

Hutch didn’t even get to finish the thought, let alone voice it because Dobey came out of his office and saw them lounging at their desks.

“If you two have nothing better to do….”

Hutch grinned at his partner as they both scrambled up out of their chairs and grabbed their jackets, beating a hasty retreat out of the squadroom before Dobey could saddle them with something particularly boring.

“Hey, let’s go get some breakfast,” Hutch suggested on the way to the elevator.

“Ah, Hutch,” Starsky whined. “I hate it when you eat in my car. You slop stuff all over the seats, and….”

Smiling indulgently, Hutch slung his arm around his partner’s shoulders.

~*~*~

“Well, Huggy, as a psychic, I’d say you have a few more lessons to go,” Starsky said, poking at his hamburger.

“What do you mean?” Huggy asked, looking utterly ridiculous in his fancy chef’s ensemble that was so out of place in Joe Collandra’s simple diner.

“I’m pickles, he’s onions,” Starsky complained and exchanged his plate for Hutch’s.

Nevertheless, he attacked his food with gusto as Huggy and a bemused Collandra retreated to the open kitchen.

“Ah, Starsk. I think you’re supposed to chew before you swallow. Makes digestion easier that way,” Hutch commented.

Starsky grabbed up Hutch’s glass of beer and gulped some to help wash down the half-chewed bite of hamburger stuck in his throat. “Yeah, I know. But I gotta get moving. Promised Terry I’d pick her up at the Center.” He gestured to the hamburger that Hutch had, so far, taken only one bite of. “Come on, Hutch. We really gotta get going.”

Hutch nodded toward the open kitchen and Starsky looked to where Joe seemed to be giving the Great Huggarino lessons in greasy grill care.

“This is the worst hamburger I’ve ever eaten,” Hutch said in a tone low enough that only Starsky would hear him. “I don’t know how you could eat it.”

“What makes you think I even tasted it,” Starsky said around the last bite he had popped in his mouth. He slid off the stool and dug into his pocket, coming up with a handful of bills and leaving a few on the counter. “Come on. I gotta drop you at the station first. If the burger’s so awful, you won’t mind leaving it.” He raised his voice. “See you around, Joe. Later, Hug.”

Once inside the Torino, and on the road, Starsky voiced his appreciation. “Thanks, Hutch.”

“No problem,” Hutch assured him. “You know, Starsky, I’m going to start getting a complex here. You said soon and I’m still waiting to meet this mysterious Terry.”

“Oh, shit!” Starsky exclaimed. He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Damnit.”

“Oh, shit, what? Damnit, why?” Hutch prompted.

“Ah, Hutch. I forgot. I was supposed to tell you that Terry wants you to join us for dinner,” Starsky admitted. He was supposed to deliver the message last night after Joanna Haymes had been rescued and restored to her family and things had calmed down, but had completely forgotten.

“When, Starsk?” Hutch asked, and from the tone of his voice Starsky could tell his partner had already assumed the worst.

“Tonight,” Starsky admitted reluctantly. If Hutch didn’t agree, Terry was going to be miffed with him. She really was anxious to meet his partner and had already planned and shopped for a special meal.

“Tonight?” Hutch echoed. “You mean four hours from now? Do you think you could have waited a little longer to tell me?”

“We’ve been busy, okay!” Starsky exclaimed. In actual fact, the case itself didn’t have all that much to do with Starsky’s unsettled state of mind. “‘Sides, seein’ my best friend get shot kinda scrambled my brain.” But not anywhere near as badly as it had scrambled his heart, Starsky admitted to himself. Seeing Hutch fly back into and then through the window from the force of the rifle slug slamming into his chest had snapped something in Starsky, stripping away all that was civilized within him when he had gone after Hutch’s killers. Right up to the moment he had tossed the last onlooker aside and seen Hutch’s living, breathing body, Starsky really had completely forgotten that Hutch was wearing a vest.

“Your brains are always scrambled,” Hutch grumbled, but his hand settling on Starsky’s shoulder and squeezing reassuringly, let Starsky know he understood.

“So, will you come, Hutch?” Starsky asked hopefully. “I really do want you to meet her.”

Starsky could feel Hutch’s eyes on him and took his attention off the road long enough for a quick glance back. But Hutch’s expression was guarded, and the demands of afternoon traffic were heavy enough to prevent him from lingering long enough to interpret what was going through his partner’s mind.

“So she’s still special, is she?” Hutch finally asked very softly.

“Yeah, babe, she is,” Starsky replied. He remembered how he had felt when Hutch had told him the same thing about Abby and then Gillian. It had been a struggle for him to accept what that meant to him, and he wished there were some way that he could save Hutch the same turmoil, but the fact was that Terry really was special. The way he cared for her seemed to be growing every day, not by leaps and bounds as sometimes happened with a new conquest, but one sure step at a time. The more he learned about Terry, the more he liked her.

“Then I guess it’s about time I met the lady,” Hutch conceded, but to Starsky’s ears, his partner sounded anything but happy.

Hutch was just about as nervous as he had ever been in his life, and he cursed Starsky for putting him in this position. If the moron had given him decent warning, he could have suggested they go out to dinner or something, anything, that would have him facing this first threat for Starsky’s time, attention and desire since Diane Parente, on neutral ground. With memories of Diane prominent in his head, and the evidence of a clearly infatuated Starsky fresh in his mind, Hutch was feeling very insecure. But, he had agreed, for Starsky’s sake and to get it over with, so here he sat in his car outside an unfamiliar apartment building in mid-January, 1977. In fact, he had been parked here for fifteen minutes, trying to psyche himself into a receptive frame of mind. Hutch had known all along that someday he was going to lose his dancer. The odds, in fact, were even that it might just be him who fell in love and left Starsky without his angel. He could deal with it, he was sure, just as Starsky had, if it meant his partner’s happiness. What Hutch feared, however, was that this Terry, like Diane, would attempt to sever the bonds of friendship, perhaps even try to sunder the partnership with Starsky, upon which Hutch knew he was emotionally dependent.

He was never going to find out sitting here in the car, however, Hutch reminded himself. Gathering up the paper bag that lay on the seat beside him, he forced himself out of the car. There was no security door on this building, so Hutch didn’t have to ask for admission. He simply boarded the elevator and rode it to the fourth floor. The trip down the corridor to apartment 406 was too damned short, and he dithered for a few more minutes on the very doorstep before finally knocking.

Starsky answered the door. “Hey, Hutch, you’re late,” he offered by way of greeting, stepping back so that Hutch could follow him into the apartment.

The place was smallish, neat, and comfortably decorated. Damn it, Hutch thought, he couldn’t even accuse the woman of having bad taste.

“What ya got there?” Starsky asked, reaching for the paper bag Hutch carried.

Hutch held it away from him. “It’s for your lady.”

Starsky grinned. “Don’t even think of trying to steal her away from me with fancy presents. Terry isn’t that kind of girl.”

“What kind of girl aren’t I?”

The young woman who appeared from the kitchen obviously had to be Terry, and Hutch felt his spirits lift just a little. This was no Diane Parente who had never been seen with a hair out of place or a wrinkle in her carefully chosen wardrobe. Terry was undeniably beautiful with her soft blue-green eyes and feathery brown hair. At the same time, however, she appeared cute and cuddly in her jeans and baggy t-shirt. There was even a smudge of flour across her forehead.

Starsky moved to her, flung an arm around her shoulders, and brushed at the flour smudge. “You’re a mess,” he teased.

“If you want a movie star, you should date one,” Terry advised him. She smiled warmly at Hutch as Starsky drew her forward.

“Sweetheart, this is my partner, Ken Hutchinson. Hutch, this is Terry Roberts,” Starsky introduced them.

Hutch accepted the hand Terry offered him, pleased by the strength and assurance of her grip and the, it seemed to him, genuine pleasure in her smile.

“This is going to sound really corny,” Terry said. “But Dave’s told me so much about you, I feel I already know you.”

“He hasn’t told me anything about you,” Hutch replied. “Except that you’re special,” he added and tried not to be charmed by the attractive blush painting itself across her cheeks.

Terry gave Starsky a little bump with her shoulder. “I thought false advertising was against the law. I’m not special.”

Starsky pulled her a bit closer. “Eye of the beholder, sweetheart.”

The way Starsky kept calling her “sweetheart” just might kill him, Hutch thought, but didn’t let his smile waver. He was a past master at hiding both his thoughts and his emotions behind a veneer of civility. Hidden or not, however, hearing Starsky call anyone else by the endearment that had previously been reserved for their Friday nights hurt more than he would have expected. It made him a little more abrupt when he offered the bag to Terry.

“I brought some wine for dinner. Starsky didn’t know what you were serving, so I brought red and white.”

Terry accepted the bag. “That’s so nice of you, Ken. I was so nervous, I completely forgot about the wine.” She handed the bag off to Starsky. “Dave, will you pour us some? I think I need about five more minutes in the kitchen and everything will be ready.”

Terry disappeared as Starsky preceded Hutch into the living room. “You want some of this, or would you rather have a beer?” he asked.

Hutch stood at the window that looked down onto the street, still feeling awkward and uncomfortable. Terry seemed a nice girl, but, what if… He clasped his hands, that suddenly felt far too big for his wrists, behind him and looked down at the street, spotting his car looking lonely and inviting in the halo created by the streetlight.

“Wine is fine,” he said belatedly.

“But beer is better?” Starsky asked, handing him a stemmed glass. Hutch was torn between wanting to shrug off and wanting to lean into the hand that Starsky laid on his shoulder. “Relax, Blintz. Terry doesn’t bite, and if she tries, I’ll protect you.”

“Like always?” Hutch had intended the two words to come out as a joke, a dismissal of his need for protection in such an unthreatening situation. Instead, they came out as a question, with he feared, all of his insecurity behind them for Starsky to read as if they had been printed on his forehead in bold type.

“Like always, partner,” Starsky reassured him.

“Come and get it,” Terry called from the kitchen. “I hope Dave warned you that I’m a terrible cook,” she added when the two men joined her at the small table set for three.

“Hutch expects to get heartburn no matter where I take him to eat,” Starsky dismissed her concerns.

Hutch couldn’t help but smile as Terry took a swat at his untactful friend with a dishtowel.

“Dave, you’re impossible,” she accused and went off to begin transferring the food to the table.

“She’s certainly got your number,” Hutch observed as he slid into the chair Starsky indicated. “Though I’m not sure I’d say impossible. Maybe improbable.”

Starsky gave him a big smile, and Hutch accepted it for the reward it was meant to be. Acknowledgement for how hard he was trying. It was obvious how important it was to Starsky that his best friend and his new girlfriend get along, so Hutch resolved to try even harder to like her, hoping that Terry also cared enough to put forth the same effort.

“Hey,” Starsky objected when Terry had finished transferring laden dishes to the table and joined them. “Where’s the meat?”

“You told me Ken is into a healthy diet, so I thought it would be nice to have a vegetarian meal,” Terry said, her warm eyes on Hutch.

Hutch had never before thought of blue eyes as warm. They could be cold as ice, like his when he was furious; or hot like Starsky’s when he was aroused, but never warm. Terry’s, however, were just that. As pale as his own, but with a touch of green, and very welcoming.

“But what about me?” Starsky protested, and Hutch could tell he was purposely blowing the issue out of proportion. Playing the clown to help dissipate the tension between the two people he wanted so much to get along. “I’m a carnivore. Remember?” he added, flashing a smile that revealed his incisors.

With a sigh of mock exasperation, Terry stood up, went to the refrigerator and returned with a package of bologna. She laid it on Starsky’s plate. “There you go, Wolfman.”

Hutch couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on Starsky’s face. Nor could he help the feeling of kinship he felt growing inside him toward Terry. After less than ten minutes, he had already seen enough to show him that, at the very least, Terry Roberts was more than happy with the man Starsky was. She certainly knew how to handle him.

“Already you like him better than me,” Starsky complained.

“It isn’t every day I get to meet my best friend’s best friend,” Terry said, and within her gaze, Hutch saw that far from staking her claim to the position, she was, in fact, asking permission of him to share this privileged place in Starsky’s life.

The last of Hutch’s trepidation slipped away. Whatever the dynamics of the relationship the three of them might form in the future, Hutch now knew he need never fear losing his place, in whatever form it might take, in Starsky’s life.

“And this best friend appreciates it,” he agreed.

~*~*~

“Hutch, what are you doing tomorrow?”

When Starsky asked him that kind of question in just that tone of voice, Hutch had learned long ago to answer it with a one-word question of his own. “Why?”

“Ah, Hutch. How come you always gotta do that?” Starsky asked, sounding more like a thwarted ten-year- old than a street hardened cop.

“Because by now I know you only ask me what I’m doing before telling me what you want, if you’re trying to set me up,” Hutch explained, in actual fact, feeling very secure at this display of predictability on Starsky’s part. “If I say I’m doing nothing, then I can’t tell you I have other plans when you ask me to do whatever it is you think I’m not going to want to do.”

“You’ve been hanging around me too long, Hutch,” Starsky accused. “You’re startin’ to use Starsky logic.”

“God forbid,” Hutch laughed. “You’re in the wrong lane, by the way.”

Starsky was driving him home, and Hutch knew it was a measure of how preoccupied his partner was with whatever it was he wanted, that Starsky had almost missed the exit off the highway for Venice. Fortunately, they were on afternoon shift, so crossing three lanes of traffic in time to make the exit wasn’t the problem at midnight that it might have been in afternoon rush hour.

“Why don’t you just ask me what you want?” he prompted his conniving friend.

“Okay.” Starsky nodded decisively as if coming to a decision. “I want you to come and play basketball with me.”

“And?” Hutch prompted, knowing it couldn’t be that simple or Starsky wouldn’t have tried to be so sneaky about it in the first place.

“At the Marshall Center,” Starsky admitted, and then rushed on as if to avoid giving Hutch a chance to say no until he had badgered him enough to make him say yes instead. “Terry was telling me how they just don’t have enough staff to do everything they want to do with the kids, so I said I’d help out. I went over there yesterday on my own, but, geez, Hutch, I just don’t have enough eyes to watch ’em all. Come on, buddy. What do you say? Help me out, huh?”

Hutch hesitated.

“Come on, Hutch,” Starsky coaxed. “You’re great with kids. Look at you with Kiko and Molly.”

“Don’t you have to have training to work with special kids?” Hutch protested. “Like you did at that camp. What if I—”

“I didn’t have any special training,” Starsky cut in. “They gave me a whistle and a t-shirt and told me I was in charge of group six. All you need is patience and love. You’ve got plenty of that, babe. Look at you with Lisa. Hell, look at the way you put up with me.”

“Yeah, Dobey told me just the other day he was putting me in for a commendation for putting up with you,” Hutch replied, deadpanned, but couldn’t hold up under Starsky’s look of pained partial belief. He smiled and reached out to ruffle the longish curls. “Face it, buddy, we put up with each other.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?” Starsky asked eagerly as they pulled up in front of Venice Place.

Hutch gave a long-suffering sigh just to make sure his partner knew he was doing this out of the goodness of his heart. “Okay. When and where?”

“Great!” Starsky exclaimed. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up at ten.”

“Tomorrow! I was right all along; you were setting me up.”

Starsky gave him a big, triumphant smile. “You think I don’t know you just as well as you know me?”

Hutch accepted defeat with good grace and climbed out of the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Starsk. Say hi to Terry for me.”

Inside his own apartment, Hutch went about his normal bedtime routine. He was just about to crawl into bed when the phone rang. If that was Dobey calling them in, Hutch thought, Starsky was going to be one very unhappy camper. But it wasn’t Dobey, it was Terry.

“Hi, Ken. Dave just told me you’re going to come out and help with the kids tomorrow, and I wanted to thank you,” she said.

Hutch was about to reply when he heard Starsky’s voice in the background.

“Did I forget to mention I had to hold a gun on him to make him agree?”

As if by mutual agreement, something the two of them had fallen into naturally when dealing with Starsky at his most absurd, both he and Terry ignored the interruption. “That’s okay, Terry. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Hutch hung up the phone after her cheerful goodbye and crawled into bed. He stared at the ceiling as he waited for sleep to come, and marveled once again that he could have been so worried about nothing. He, Starsky and Terry had spent nearly every night together in the week since their introductory dinner. Whatever they were doing—dinner, movie, staying home to watch TV and play some board game—Starsky had insisted that Hutch join them. Hutch had tried to beg off a few times, but Starsky wouldn’t hear of it, and there had been nothing in Terry’s manner to indicate that she wasn’t just as happy to spend her time with her boyfriend and his friend as she would have been to have Starsky all to herself. To all appearances, if Starsky was happy, then so was Terry, and she seemed to understand that Starsky needed Hutch’s company.

Hutch himself was feeling pretty content. He had never seen Starsky so happy with any woman. He had been infatuated with Diane, but always on edge, always watching everything he did or said in case he displeased her. There was none of that watchful waiting about him when he was with Terry. Even after so short a time, Hutch believed that his friend had finally found the perfect woman for him. And if, at moments like this when he was alone, the green-eyed monster of jealousy tried to crawl out of its box in his brain and sink its poisonous talons into him, Hutch sent it scurrying back into the dark. He refused to count what Starsky’s happiness was going to cost him, but told himself firmly that no price was too high. There was of course, a coin he knew he would never be willing to pay in—their friendship—but, thanks to whatever fate had put Terry in Starsky’s path, Hutch knew now, he would never have to.

~*~*~

Starsky caught the chunky seven-year-old around the waist, lifted her high enough to drop the ball through the hoop, and then lowered her to the ground. As the swarm of mismatched players flowed away from him, he took the opportunity for a break, moving over to the cooler on the picnic table and fishing out a cold soda. Playing pick-up basketball with a group of enthusiastic kids, none of whom had any idea of the rules and could have cared less in any case, was thirsty work. He gulped the cool, sweet soda as he watched Hutch turning in circles, trying to keep track of the kids, admiring the grace with which Hutch side-stepped one charging body without knocking over a second child intent on stealing the ball away.

“Dave, you’re awful,” Terry accused. She had left the cheerleading squad and come to stand beside him.

Starsky slipped his free hand around her waist. “What’d I do now?” he asked, although he thought he knew damned well the source of Terry’s accusation.

“Throwing him in at the deep end like that,” Terry explained.

Starsky grinned as he watched Hutch attempting to break up the crowd that had gathered around the boy with the basketball, who, finding himself totally hemmed in, had wrapped his arms tightly around the ball and begun to howl. Starsky tightened his grip around his girlfriend’s waist as he felt her instinctive motion to go to the distressed child.

“Don’t you worry about Hutch, sweetheart,” he told her. “He’s the best damned swimmer in this sea of life you’re ever gonna find. If the breaststroke doesn’t work, then he’ll dog-paddle through the breakers.”

As if to confirm Starsky’s assessment, Hutch called a time-out to sort out the bottleneck and then went down on one knee, patiently coaxing the ball from the possessive youngster. After a few moments of earnest discussion, the ball was yielded to Hutch who returned it to play. Starsky felt his fond smile widen as Hutch accepted a hug from the child, not even flinching when watery eyes and a mucus-filled nose were wiped on the shoulder of his t- shirt.

“I knew I was being smart when I hooked up with you,” Terry said. “I got two great guys for the price of one.”

“Hey,” Starsky protested. He tossed the empty soda can into the trash barrel, then grabbed her with both hands around her waist and swung her around in a circle, earning, he noticed, delighted grins from the cheerleading squad.

“You just keep your eyes off tall, blond and beautiful over there.” Starsky punctuated his demand with a squeeze. “This is your guy.”

He dropped a kiss on the exaggerated pout Terry offered.

“And here I thought I had really hit the jackpot,” she complained.

“You did, you got me, didn’t you,” Starsky reminded her, anticipating her reaction to his blatant immodesty.

“Hey, Starsk. Think fast.”

Starsky released his girlfriend in time to catch the ball that Hutch, grinning knowingly, had lobbed his way.

“You’re here to play basketball, mushbrain. Not set a bad example for the children,” Hutch reminded him.

Starsky was prevented from replying immediately by a swarm of young bodies, all of them intent on stealing the ball away from him.

“I’ll get you for this, Blintz,” he bellowed as he went down beneath a sea of enthusiastic children.

~*~*~

Being a shift worker in a world of mostly nine-to-fivers was murder on your social life. Day shift was okay, and you could even work around nights, but afternoons were just too awkward to do anything with. Unless, of course, you were Starsky, Hutch thought, as his partner slid back in behind the wheel of the Torino.

It was nearly the end of their afternoon shift on a Saturday night, and Starsky had just stopped at a phone booth to call Terry and confirm plans.

“Okay, we’re set. Terry’s over at my place and, even as we speak, she’s popping a mountain of popcorn— unbuttered for you, extra butter for me—and warming up the TV,” Starsky reported with his usual exuberance.

“Whoa, there, Trigger. What do you mean ‘we’? I already told you I’m not coming to this ‘sleepover’ of yours,” Hutch protested.

Starsky had picked him up for work this afternoon bubbling over with excitement for the activities he had planned for the night. A sleepover, he had enthused, complete with popcorn and pizza and a killer schedule of old movies on television that started at midnight and would run almost to dawn.

“Of course you are, Hutch,” Starsky replied as if the decision was a foregone conclusion, and written in stone as well. “Who else is gonna give us the lecture on the social relevance of The Three Stooges?”

Hutch sighed. It would be a lot easier to protest believably if he really didn’t want to go, or even if either Starsky or Terry had ever once made him feel unwanted. He made the attempt, nevertheless. “You two don’t need me hanging around all the time. I’ll be a fifth wheel.”

Starsky stopped for a light, which, much to Hutch’s discomfort gave him the chance to add his patented puppy dog, pleading expression to his verbal persuasion. “No way. You’ll be the third wheel on a bicycle built for three,” he insisted.

Hutch was relieved when the light changed, and Starsky had to turn his attention back to the road. But, as expected, that didn’t stop his mouth.

“Come on, Hutch,” Starsky coaxed. “You’re usually better than this at knowing when you are welcome. If me and Terry didn’t want you to come, we wouldn’t ask.” He paused, whether for dramatic effect or because the thought really was just occurring to him, Hutch wasn’t sure. “Unless.. .you’re uncomfortable or something.”

“No, Starsk. I’m not uncomfortable with you and Terry,” Hutch conceded. “It’s just…don’t you two ever want to be alone?”

He knew that anytime he had been involved in a serious relationship, especially those first few weeks when you are still walking around with your head in the clouds and your feet off the ground, he could hardly wait to get the object of his interest alone. It was true that he, Starsky and Abby had certainly spent plenty of time together, but then Hutch had never felt that near obsessive desire for Abby that he had felt for Gillian or even Vanessa in the beginning.

“We’re alone plenty, Hutch,” Starsky insisted. “But I guess I know what you mean. When you first meet a lady and, you know, the chemistry is working, you kind of feel like you never even want to leave the house, right?”

Hutch waited for Starsky to negotiate a turn into the station garage and creep along the cramped rows before finding a spot to slide the Torino into. He knew his partner had more to say on the subject and would get to it in his own good time.

“But I don’t have that ‘grab it before it’s gone’ feeling with Terry,” Starsky picked up the conversation while they waited for the elevator just as Hutch expected him to. “I just feel…I don’t know, like I’ve got all the time in the world.”

They had boarded the elevator before Starsky offered up the revelation that really defeated Hutch’s objections. “And I just feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the world ’cause you and Terry like each other so much. It’s that having your cake and eating it, too, thing. And I don’t ever have to worry about indigestion.”

And Hutch, of course, knew he couldn’t refuse now. “You do have a way with the English language, buddy.”

Starsky grinned triumphantly. “So you’re comin’ right?”

“Yes,” Hutch agreed. “But I’m going to have to find a girlfriend if we’re going to keep this up. Poor Terry doesn’t even have anyone to go to the powder room with when we go out.”

“Funny you should say that,” Starsky said as the elevator doors opened up on the third floor, revealing the usual bustle and chaos of change of shift. “Terry has a friend….”

Hutch gave him a shove toward the squadroom. “Forget it, Starsky. I never seem to get along too well with the girls you set me up with. You know, lady wrestlers and lady truck drivers. Now, if you were to tell me that Terry had a sister….”

~*~*~

“There, sweetheart. Ah, you like that don’t you? Feels good, huh?” Hutch crooned as he generously misted the big Boston fern that sat in the shadiest corner of his greenhouse. He could swear he almost heard it purring with pleasure at the attention.

“I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I? Well, not tonight. Tonight I’ve got all the time in the world,” he assured his leafy friend.

It was the last Friday of the month, and, as such, Hutch shouldn’t have a minute to spare. Instead, by his own choice, he had the entire evening to fill. And fill it he would, even if he had to sink so low as to clean his apartment. He wasn’t quite that desperate for distraction yet, figuring he could fill at least a couple of hours giving his neglected plants some much-needed TLC. He had been so busy lately with Starsky and Terry, that he hadn’t had time to do more than water his jungle, as Starsky called it.

He could have made a date with Christine, the friend of Terry’s he had finally let Starsky set him up with. She was a nice woman, and they had hit it off okay, but….

“That’s not what the last Friday of the month is for, is it?” he asked the African violet as he carefully settled it where it would receive a few hours of morning sun. He had read an article recently that suggested, against conventional wisdom, that African violets actually bloomed better when given some limited exposure to the sun. He picked up the special food and measured some into the soil, trying to convince himself that he really was more interested in the nurturing of African violets than in the half-erect cock in his shorts that kept trying to capture his attention.

He moved over to the big spider plant, wondering if he should re-pot it tonight or simply snip off the spiders and pot them or throw them out.

“Like you’re trying to snip off that part of what you feel for Starsky and pretend it doesn’t exist anymore?” he asked himself, grimacing at the bitterness in his voice.

Hutch had spent the entire day today trying to force himself to talk to Starsky about tonight, and he knew that more than once, Starsky had also been on the edge of opening the topic but had backed away at the last moment. He remembered how hard it had been for Starsky to admit he was invoking their rule during his relationship with Diane, so, in the end, Hutch had taken it upon himself to shoulder the unpleasant task. Not by so open a method as actually talking about it, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself quite that far. No, all he had done, as Starsky dropped him off after work, was say goodnight and tell Starsky he would see him in the morning. And he had been so intent upon being a gentleman about it that he wasn’t sure, even after hours of deliberation, whether Starsky had looked relieved or disappointed.

It could have been either, Hutch knew, squinting at a suspicious brown spot on a leaf of his aloe plant, still trying to pretend that he gave a damn at this moment, whether every plant in the greenhouse developed root rot and fell over in their pots. “I didn’t stop wanting him when I was with Abby,” he told the uncaring aloe. “Hell, even when I was making an ass of myself over Gillian, he could still turn me on. You don’t stop being bi, just ’cause something good starts happening with a woman. Right?”

When the aloe didn’t seem to have an answer for him, Hutch moved on to the miniature rose and began picking off withered blooms. “But wanting and doing are two different things. Starsky wouldn’t do that to a lady he’s serious about. Especially Terry. Ouch!”

Hutch put his bleeding finger in his mouth, resolving to be a bit more careful about thorns in the future. The miniature rose might have tiny thorns, but they hurt just as much when they stuck you.

“I am not going to draw any sick, sexual analogies here,” he told the denuded bush. “Starsky is not a rose bush, and he doesn’t have thorns, and, Jesus Christ, I wish he was here tonight sticking me.”

Hutch closed his lips tightly over the outburst, determined that no other self-indulgent drivel was going to escape past them. It was bad enough he was thinking it, it certainly didn’t deserve air time. Starsky hadn’t behaved like a frustrated teenager when Hutch had cut him off.

“No, he went out cruising.”

So much for not letting petty thoughts wilt his plants.

“You better get used to having these Fridays to yourself again, Hutchinson,” he counseled himself. “Starsky loves Terry, and Terry loves Starsky, and you love them both, so just….”

Hutch stared uncomprehendingly at the ponytail plant he had just ripped out of its pot, its dangling and broken roots offering mute condemnation for his carelessness. “Damn. I’m sorry,” he murmured as he gently returned it to the pot and patted disturbed soil back into place, giving it a generous watering in apology.

And he wasn’t going to go on terrorizing his greenhouse while he drew stupid comparisons in his head either, Hutch thought, as he turned out the light and retreated back into the apartment. What he was going to do was have a nice, long shower and climb into bed. He might not be able to have his dancer for real this Friday night, or any other last Friday in the future, but there was no rule to stop him from weaving the angel and the dancer together in his fantasies.

~*~*~

“It’s never going to be the same, you know,” Starsky muttered.

He was slouched in the passenger seat of Terry’s little green Vega, and they were on their way to the Ford Dealership to pick up his new car. After much deliberation, and because the department’s insurer was footing part of the bill, Starsky had decided to order a ’77 Torino, customized to the exact same specifications as his ’74 that had been destroyed in the explosion during the case of the brainwashed assassin. It hadn’t been easy talking the dealer into it, and, for a while, the argument alone to obtain what he wanted at a reasonable price had fueled his determination. However, now that the day had finally come to pick up his new “chariot,” he couldn’t help but compare his lack of enthusiasm with the euphoria he had felt the first time he had laid eyes on the original.

“I’m sure you’ll grow to love her just like you did your first tomato,” Terry offered.

Outwardly, she sounded sympathetic, but Starsky knew she had the same attitude toward the male fixation with cars as most women. If it had four wheels and started when the key was turned, then Terry was happy. He knew her opinion was that a car was just a car after all, and had given up trying to explain his position to her. It was just one of those things he had to accept they would never completely agree upon.

“Maybe I should have bought something else. You know, some other model. Let her rest in peace instead of trying to replace her like she didn’t mean anything to me,” he mused. In a way, the idea appealed to him far more than trying to replace her with a duplicate. After all, could he really expect to own such perfection twice?

“Dave Starsky, I think I’m beginning to get jealous. We are talking about a car here, aren’t we?” Terry asked, and, although she didn’t sound as offended as her words might indicate, for the first time since she had learned of the explosion that had destroyed Starsky’s beloved Torino, she did seem to be losing patience with his obsession.

So Starsky tried one more time to make her understand. “But she wasn’t just any car,” he protested. “She was the first new car I ever owned. And do you know how many times she saved my life? And Hutch’s, too? She took so many bullets for the two of us that Merle started mountin’ the slugs he dug outta her on the wall in his garage. Said it should have been her that got the commendations, not me and Hutch.”

“Then it’s a fitting tribute that you’re buying another one just like her,” Terry said as if she hoped to put an end to the discussion.

Starsky was mollified by her agreement for only a minute or two. “But it’s never going to be the same, you know,” he repeated.

“Oh, look. Here’s the dealership,” Terry announced with such relief in her voice that Starsky had to crack the first smile of the day.

Starsky knew he was being ridiculous, and that Terry really couldn’t understand how he felt about it. Even Hutch, with his preference for well broken in, nondescript vehicles, couldn’t. In fact, Starsky was pretty sure Hutch was pleased with the Torino’s destruction, although he probably wouldn’t admit it. Starsky had yet to challenge him on it, but he was almost certain, despite the shock he himself had felt, that he had heard Hutch whisper “yes!” at the moment his car had blown sky high. That was one of the reasons he had not yet told his partner about the replica he had decided to order.

“Would you mind waiting here, sweetheart,” Starsky asked. “I…well….”

Terry laid a hand over his, her expression trying very hard for understanding, but her eyes dancing with the devilment Starsky knew was never far from the surface. “That’s okay, honey. I understand there are some things a man’s just gotta face alone.”

“You sound like an advertisement for Marlboros,” Starsky complained, gave her peck on the lips, and went looking for Bill Green.

In a profession that saw nearly a daily turnover of staff, Starsky had been surprised to find Green, who had sold him his first Torino, still peddling shiny new cars at Downtown Ford.

“Well, Mr. Starsky. Are you ready to see your new baby?” Green greeted as soon as Starsky walked through the showroom door. He pulled the keys from his pocket. “The insurance company delivered the check this morning, so you can drive away with her any time you want.”

Dragging his feet just a little, Starsky followed Green back out into the sunshine and along the side of the building until they came to the back lot. Just like the last time, the Gran Torino was sitting in solitary splendor like a queen on her throne. This time, however, the earth continued spinning on its axis and his cock didn’t get hard—well, maybe a little—but Starsky had to admit that his first sight of his reincarnated Torino, sitting there so perfect and new that her paint was barely dry, moved him.

His focus on the car was so complete that he jumped when Terry slipped her arm through his.

“So, what do you think, best friend? Can you live with her?” Terry asked him.

Starsky nodded slowly. “Yeah. She’s still one beautiful piece of machinery. But I still say it’s never going to be the same.”

“Maybe it’ll be better, Dave. You never know. Come on. Give it a try,” Terry teased as if she was talking to one of her charges at the Center.

Starsky accepted the keys from Green, unlocked the door, and slowly slid onto the seat. He shifted, then shifted again. “Doesn’t feel right,” he complained.

Terry leaned in the open window. “The old one had years to conform to the shape of your wonderful butt,” she reminded him. “Give it a chance.”

“So you think I’ve got a wonderful butt, do you?” Starsky countered. It was fishing, pure and simple, because Terry was never the least bit reticent about telling him what she liked about him, so he wasn’t surprised when she refused to take the bait.

“So what are you waiting for, Mario. Take this baby out for a spin,” Terry encouraged him, backing away from the car.

“Aren’t you coming?” Starsky protested.

Terry just shook her head. “I’ll see you tonight. That is, if Hutch doesn’t kill you when he sees this car.”

The new car, in motion, was everything her predecessor had been. In fact, if Starsky were completely honest, she was better, lacking a few of the pings, knocks and quirks that Merle had never been able to completely eradicate once the accumulated mileage and repeated bullet wounds began to take their toll. He thought the way he was feeling must be something like being married to a woman for years and suddenly coming home one night to find that plastic surgery had turned back the clock on you.

He wondered what Hutch was going to think. Actually, he admitted, he probably already knew what Hutch was going to think. His partner hadn’t grown any fonder of the Torino as time went on. In fact, in this case, Starsky knew that familiarity really had bred contempt. Whether he had kept it a secret from Hutch because he dreaded his reaction, or anticipated it, Starsky wasn’t sure himself.

In any case, time to wonder about it was gone as he pulled up in front of Venice Place where Hutch waited for him. The look of shocked disgust on Hutch’s face was every bit as vivid as it had been the first time.

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” Hutch moaned. “I can’t believe you did it again.”

And that’s when Starsky finally fell in love with his new car.

~*~*~

Starsky was just about at his wits end by the time he sat down at his desk to try to pull together the few flimsy leads he had on Hutch’s disappearance. Tired, barely holding his temper in check, as evidenced by his attack on Vic Humphries in the elevator, he brushed aside the telephone message slip on his desk without even looking at it. It was only after making three calls that led him absolutely nowhere, that Starsky picked up the message and saw it was from Terry. She had to be frantic by now, he thought, as he picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number.

“Terry, it’s me, sweetheart,” he said, talking low, hunched over the phone in the crowded squadroom.

“Dave. What’s wrong? What’s happened to Hutch? Are you all right?”

The questions rushed out of the phone into his ear, Terry’s voice so strained she didn’t even sound like herself.

“Don’t know,” Starsky admitted into the phone. “Christine called and said when she showed up at Hutch’s last night, he wasn’t there. There was a casserole burning in the oven, but no Hutch. And I can’t find him, Terry. I can’t even get a decent lead…” Starsky closed his mouth abruptly, not sure he could keep his voice from cracking. Revealing his emotions to Hutch, or maybe even to Terry, he could manage. But he would be damned if he would provide any entertainment for the goons in the squadroom.

“You’ll find him, Dave. I know you will. If anyone can, it’s you,” Terry reassured him and Starsky had to admit that her utter faith in him helped him reclaim the sharp focus he needed. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. Pray.”

~*~*~

Starsky could see that Terry was surprised to find him standing on her doorstep.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, nonetheless offering a hello kiss and moving back so he could follow her into her apartment. “I thought you’d be at the hospital with Hutch.”

It hadn’t taken long for Terry to switch from Ken to Hutch. As his feelings for Terry had grown, Starsky had hoped and prayed that his best friend and Terry might find some common ground, enough, at least, for the three of them to all be comfortable together. The bond that had formed between Hutch and Terry had exceeded Starsky’s wildest hopes, however, and had made him a very happy man.

“His leg was hurting him, and the biggest nurse you ever saw came and gave him the biggest needle I ever saw, right in the butt. It knocked him out cold. So when she started threatening me with one, too, if I didn’t get outta there and let him rest, I figured maybe I better go for that better part of valor bit,” Starsky explained as he sprawled in the big, comfortable easy chair and pulled Terry down onto his lap.

He smiled as he felt Terry run a gentle fingertip under each of his eyes. “Maybe you should have let her give you the shot, Dave. You look so tired.”

Starsky captured her hand and brought the finger to his lips, kissing the tip and then pretending to nibble on the nail before she pulled it away. “I’m okay,” he insisted.

“Now that you know Hutch is,” Terry added.

Starsky marveled that from all appearances, appearances he knew to be true, Terry had absolutely no problem with the close interdependency that existed between him and Hutch. In fact, it was almost as if she had stood back and observed the dynamics between her lover and his partner, and then smoothly inserted herself into the mix.

“It really doesn’t bother you, does it, honey? Me and Hutch, I mean,” he asked.

Terry, of course, only knew about the partnership, the friendship, that both he and Hutch thrived on. She knew nothing of the sexual relationship that had also existed between the two men. Starsky wasn’t even certain he was being honest in thinking of it in the past tense. He had told Hutch that it would take someone very special to come between him and his angel. Terry was special, but Starsky truly still didn’t know if she was special enough to make him willing to give up sex with Hutch on a permanent basis. The knowledge disturbed him, that as much as he loved her, Terry might not be enough for him, but he was too self-honest to avoid it. Hutch hadn’t mentioned their Friday night at the end of January, assuming, Starsky was sure, that his relationship with Terry would invoke their rule. Starsky had let it slide then, and the matter was now academic while Hutch recovered, but Starsky knew he was going to have to face it sometime.

In the meantime, Terry was offering him her reassurances. “Hey, mister. My mother always told me never to come between a man and his best friend. Said it was a lot like getting between a mother bear and her cubs.”

Starsky took his cue and growled threateningly. “You better believe it, sister.” He tightened his arms and kissed her soundly.

“So, other than having big nurses brutalize him, how is my best friend’s, best friend?” Terry asked when he released her.

“The doc says he can come home day after tomorrow, though how the hell I’m gonna get him up those stairs at his place, I don’t know,” Starsky said, shaking his head. If the stairs at his place weren’t every bit as awkward for a man on crutches, he would simply install his friend at his apartment for the duration of his recovery. “He’s plastered up from his toes all the way up to here.” He drew a line on his thigh, way up.

“You’ll think of something,” Terry reassured him.

Starsky enjoyed her faith in him. Technically, Terry didn’t need him. She was an independent lady with a satisfying career and a sure and certain knowledge of her own place in the world. No, Terry had never needed him; she had chosen him.

“Already thought of something,” Starsky said. “Hutch is gonna need a car. His is a total wreck. Not that it wasn’t even before it played leapfrog down that canyon. I’m gonna go out and find him a new one.”

Terry looked decidedly doubtful. “Dave, do you think that’s such a good idea….”

“That’s why I’m here to take you along while I go lookin’,” Starsky explained. “Just to curb my natural tendency to buy him a decent car, you understand.”

“I don’t think Hutch wants a tomato, sweetheart,” Terry cautioned.

“I know that,” Starsky said, standing up and catching his lady before she tumbled out of his lap. “That’s why you gotta come and help me find another squash.”

There was a used car lot within a few minutes of Terry’s apartment, so they began their search there, but it wasn’t until they pulled into the fifth lot that Terry spotted a possibility. Starsky circled the dust-covered Ford LTD, eyeing it critically. There was absolutely no doubt about it. This banged up, end-of-the-line relic was a genuine Hutchinson original. Hutch was going to love it. Damn him, Starsky thought in disgust.

When the eager salesman brought the keys, what little doubt Starsky might have had that this was the car for Hutch vanished as he opened the door and the horn let loose with a brassy blast. Hastily, he slid onto the petrified upholstery and shut the door, cutting off the noise.

He grinned at Terry through the open window as he turned the key and the engine wheezed to life.

“You hear that knocking, honey?” Starsky said above the collection of rattles and bangs. “Hutch is never gonna even notice the difference.”

When Starsky completed the deal for the car, he joined Terry where she stood behind it. “What’s on that devious mind of yours?” he asked, noticing her speculative expression.

“I was just thinking about writing ‘wash me’ on the back window,” Terry admitted. “You aren’t thinking of having it washed before he sees it, are you?” she asked in mock horror.

“Are you kidding? It’s probably only the dirt holding it together,” Starsky exclaimed. “But I’ve got a better idea.” He leaned over the trunk and carefully drew his finger through the thick layer of dust on the back window.

Terry was laughing nearly hysterically by the time Starsky finished and came to slip an arm around her waist and admire his handiwork.

“Oh, yes,” Terry chortled. “I think ‘condemned’ pretty well says it all.”

~*~*~

Using the cane for support, Hutch hobbled to the curb as the little green Vega pulled up in front of Venice Place. He smiled at Terry as she leaned over to open the door.

“Just a minute, Hutch. Let me push the seat back for you,” Terry said, twisting into a painful looking contortion to reach the lever under the passenger seat and push it back.

“Be careful you don’t hurt yourself or you’ll be going to the physical-terrorists with me, instead of just taking me there while Starsky’s in court,” Hutch cautioned.

Even pushed back to its limits, the front seat of a Vega was still a pretty small space for a man his size to fold himself into, especially with a knee still somewhat stiff from being casted, but Hutch managed it.

“Ready?” Terry asked, and Hutch signaled her to take off.

“Thanks for driving me, Terry. Not the greatest way to spend your lunch hour.”

“No problem.”

Hutch caught the glance she cut his way.

“If we left it up to you, you probably wouldn’t go. Physical-terrorists, indeed,” she said.

“Well, they are,” Hutch defended his low opinion of the men and women who would be helping him regain the full use of his leg. Although he had suffered a clean fracture that had healed well and completely—due to his healthy diet, Hutch was sure—there had been fairly extensive soft tissue damage from the weight of the car resting on his leg for so long. The doctor had told him, in fact, that he had been lucky the circulation hadn’t been cut off. “And I have to put up with three weeks of them before I can go back to work.”

“Look at the bright side, Hutch,” Terry encouraged him. “Your leg healed faster than the doctor expected, and I know you’ve already been cheating on exercising it. I bet they boot you outta there in a week to make room for people who really need them.”

“Geez, Terry, you sound just like…” Hutch trailed off as suspicion dawned. He saw the suppressed smile on her lips that Terry couldn’t completely hide. “Wait a minute. Starsky’s been coaching you, hasn’t he?” he accused.

Terry laughed merrily. “Of course he has. Dave didn’t want you to feel deprived of his ‘supportive’ presence while he’s in court.”

Hutch shook his head in mock sorrow. “Ah, Terry, it’s a shame the influence that clown of a partner of mine has had on a nice girl like you. You should get out while there’s still hope for you,” he advised.

For a second time, Terry let loose her delighted laughter. “Sorry, Hutch. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’m in this for the duration.”

~*~*~

Hutch almost slipped out as quietly as he had come in, when he saw that Terry appeared to be resting peacefully. The nurse, however, had been quite emphatic that Miss Roberts wanted to see him, so, as quietly as he could, he settled in the chair beside the bed. He studied this woman who was loved so deeply by the most important person in his life, and who, therefore, was also loved by him. But in her own right, as well, Hutch reminded himself.

If he ignored the white bandage around her head, and the pallor of her normally healthy complexion, he could almost fool himself into believing that Terry was only sleeping. She had that sweet, restful quality about her now that he had often seen when she had drifted off during one of their frequent gatherings to watch one of Starsky’s beloved late, late shows. He swallowed down the lump that formed in his throat when he remembered those innocent times were now gone forever.

He must have made some small noise during his struggle to control himself, because Terry’s eyes opened. The long lashes blinked once or twice before the warm, aqua eyes focused on him. Terry smiled.

“Hi best friend of my best friend,” Terry greeted him, bringing that aching lump back into Hutch’s throat.

“Hey, yourself,” he managed to whisper past the obstruction. “How you doing?” he asked inanely, but could think of nothing else to say.

“Just fine,” Terry assured him, though it was an obvious lie. “I’m going home tomorrow.”

“Home?” Hutch echoed. How could the doctors even think of releasing her, he wondered. “But…” he trailed off as he remembered Dr. Kuo telling Starsky that Terry had a decision to make. “Does Starsky know?”

“Of course not. I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

For the first time since Starsky had introduced them, a silence fell between them that was awkward and strained, and Hutch couldn’t find any way to break it.

“I wanted to talk to you, Hutch,” Terry said, reaching out a hand toward him. “I need you to promise me….”

Hutch knew he would willingly promise her the moon and the stars if she would just keep taking one breath after the other. Just stay alive and not break his best friend’s heart. He would give up Starsky. Break up the partnership. Give up the friendship. Never, ever again even think of Starsky with the passion that had survived so many years. Anything, if Terry would only live. They were the kind of promises that, in moments of deepest despair, a man made to God, and Hutch knew he would give anything for the chance to try to keep them. He might have to move clear across the country to do it, but he would gladly try.

“Promise you what, honey?” he forced past the lump that had grown so large it felt as if it filled his entire chest, crowding his lungs and suffocating his breaking heart. He felt tears burn the backs of his eyes and tried to blink them away.

“Promise me you’ll take care of Dave for me.”

“I…I…I’ll always be…” Hutch tried to repeat the credo by which he and Starsky lived, almost since the moment they met. The words wouldn’t form in his mouth. He dropped his head, blinked and felt two fat tears squeeze free and creep down his cheeks. “You aren’t going to die,” he choked out, a plea and a demand that the fates turn their treacherous, uncaring eyes elsewhere.

“Oh, Hutch. Of course I am.”

“You can’t. You promised. You said you were in this for the long haul. Remember?” Hutch paused, trying to bring himself back under control, but it was hopeless. “He’ll never survive losing you.”

The small hand within his grip squeezed with surprising strength and Hutch held on as if he could transfer his will directly into her.

“Of course he will,” Terry whispered.

Hutch looked into the eyes made endlessly wise by the new knowledge that lived behind them. “He’ll never be the same,” he choked, weeping openly now.

“That, dearest Hutch, will be up to you.”

~*~*~

“…Don’t let either of them change,” Hutch read Terry’s last message to him, the pain inside so great he knew that even bellowing his grief at the heavens wouldn’t begin to ease it. He looked at Starsky, saw the way he was fighting tears, and knew he had already failed. Starsky was already a changed man, because Starsky never cried.

Hutch blinked, felt the flood of hot salt bathe his face, and, for a moment, he was back in Terry’s hospital room. He could feel the warmth of the small hand within his, smell the awful stench of death that hovered so close. She had been so serene, extracting the promise from him that she had needed. Once again, he felt the crushing weight of anger and grief, and the terrifying responsibility she asked of him.

Not exactly sure how it had happened, Hutch was nevertheless thankful for the arms that held him, pitifully grateful for the shoulder that cradled his aching, spinning head, and the caring fingers that threaded into his hair. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. It was Starsky who had lost his ladylove, and yet it was Starsky who offered comfort now. As always, his partner was the rock that anchored Hutch in the sea of uncertainty.

“Not the way it’s supposed to be,” he tried to protest.

“Hey,” Starsky murmured against his cheek. “You think I don’t know you loved her, too.”

Suppressed sobs shook the man that held Hutch, rocking them both in the cocoon of their shared grief there on that hard floor, beneath the glare of kitchen lights, and amid the rubble of the stupid game that had seen them through many a hard time. But never one harder.

“Cry with me, Hutch,” Starsky whispered, bringing fresh tears to scald Hutch’s already burning eyes. “She deserves every tear.”

And Hutch cried.

~*~*~

Starsky paused at the gate of the Marshall Center for Exceptional Children. It was so hard to believe that so little time had passed since the day he had been here, laughing and playing with Terry’s beloved kids, while Terry teased him about the weight his frequent absences were causing her to gain. It seemed like such a short time for his life to have changed so much.

He smiled as he felt Hutch come up behind him close enough that the front of Hutch’s right shoulder brushed against the back of his left. He leaned into the contact, relishing the warmth, cherishing the friend who had hardly left his side since Terry died. In his darkest moments, Starsky had pulled himself through by remembering that Prudholm had tried to take Hutch away from him, too, and, mercifully, had failed. Learning to live without Terry was like losing his right hand or his left eye; losing Hutch would have been like losing his heart.

Prudholm, at least, wasn’t likely to be getting off as easy as he thought. The pre-trial judge had refused to accept the plea bargain worked out by his lawyer, so Prudholm would be going to trial. It was a matter of record that juries seldom acquitted a defendant who pleaded insanity. Therefore, in all likelihood, Prudholm would be facing a long time in jail.

“You don’t have to do this, Starsk, if you’re not ready,” Hutch whispered. “The kids haven’t seen us yet.”

“They’ve lost Terry, Hutch,” Starsky said, stepping forward and waving to Sally who had just spotted them and was waving back excitedly. “They don’t need to lose us, too. I’ve got promises of my own to keep, babe.”

In a few moments, they were surrounded by a laughing group of children. Starsky gave them a few minutes of excited chatter, then began sorting them into two teams for a game of basketball. He saw the teacher on duty, who both he and Hutch had met before and with whom he had spoken on the phone this morning to make sure they were still welcome, begin to organize the cheerleading squad, passing out pom-poms and preparing to take her place among them. Terry’s place, Starsky thought, but forced himself not to dwell on it.

The game was its usual chaotic pleasure with Hutch leading the blue team while he led the red. Baskets were made, everybody carried the ball illegally, and nobody recognized out of bounds. At the end of it, Starsky found himself standing by the equipment box, securing the balls and markers, etc., as the children brought them to him.

“You did a really bang-up job out there, Sally,” he complimented as he accepted the pom-poms from the cheerleader. Terry had never admitted to favorites among her kids, but Starsky had always suspected that Sally held a special place in her heart. A suspicion that had been confirmed by the way Terry had been so determined to extract promises for Sally’s care while lying in her hospital bed.

“I tried to do everything just the way Miss Roberts said,” the girl told him in her slow, careful way. “Why did Miss Roberts go away? I miss her.”

As if by magic, Hutch appeared at the young woman’s side. “Sally, why don’t we—”

But Starsky interrupted the attempted distraction. He took Sally’s hands in his. “I know, Sally. I miss her, too. And she wouldn’t have left us if she didn’t have to.”

Starsky paused to make sure he had control of his voice, looked up and saw Hutch watching him with such pride that it looked like it might come bursting out of him any minute. It gave him the courage to say what he had to say.

“But as long as we remember her, Miss Roberts is always going to be with us.”

~*~*~

The last thing Hutch was expecting, on the last Friday of the month following Terry’s death, was that Starsky would make a pass at him. Not exactly a pass, he amended, but definitely an overture.

Hutch had taken up residence in his comer of the couch when the last of the dinner mess was cleaned away, expecting that he and Starsky would watch television for a while and then he would go. Starsky, however, appeared to have other plans. Instead of settling into his own comer, Starsky sat right next to him and then curled up against his side, reaching back to draw the arm Hutch had stretched along the back of the couch around him.

Hutch was so surprised that for several minutes he could think of nothing to say, staring at the blank television screen and knowing Starsky was waiting for his reaction. Even when his brain did drop back into gear, he could only manage one word.

“Starsk?”

His partner stirred in his arms, but neither moved away nor lifted his head so Hutch could see his face.

“You mind?” Starsky asked quietly.

“No. Of course not.” Physical contact with Starsky wasn’t just something he didn’t mind, it was something Hutch required almost as much as he required food and water and air to breathe.

As if he had been uncertain of his welcome before, Starsky now relaxed within the arc of the arm around him, and Hutch felt a warm hand slip around to his back, securing a hold on his loose shirt.

“Something Terry was always trying to teach her kids is that you gotta ask for what you need. It was a lesson I hadta learn, too, except with you. You always seem to know what I need, and I got to thinking tonight that that isn’t fair. You shouldn’t have to guess, so, I wanna tell you.”

“What do you need, babe?” Hutch whispered, knowing he had made the commitment long ago to give Starsky anything he needed that was within his power to give.

Starsky finally lifted his head, laying it back against Hutch’s arm so that Hutch could now look for answers in the blue eyes. He didn’t see desire there. Certainly not the lust that usually darkened the lapis gaze on one of the Friday nights when they came together to share their bodies.

“I know you love me, Hutch. You’ve told me that lots of times and, if I ever needed proof, the way you loved Terry was more than enough. So that’s what I’m askin’ for tonight, Hutch. Not sex. Hell, I don’t know if I could yet,” he admitted. “But I want you to come to bed with me now and just hold me. It’s our Friday, so it’s okay. Right? And I’ll kick you out before dawn, so that rule won’t be broken either. I just….”

Hutch laid a finger over the lips that were pleading for something he had been longing to give so badly his soul hurt. Removing his finger, he crossed the space between them and laid his lips on Starsky’s in a passionless kiss.

“Whatever you need, babe,” he promised when he withdrew from the lips that had returned his kiss just as tenderly.

They moved to the bed hand in hand, stripped each other naked without embarrassment and without desire, then settled beneath the sheets wrapped around each other like sleepy puppies tired from play. Hutch couldn’t tell where he left off and Starsky began and realized that nothing had ever felt so wonderful in his life.

“We’re on a slippery slope here,” he warned, but knew Starsky would be able to tell by the tone of his voice that right here, right now, he didn’t care.

“I’ve been in free-fall since Terry died. Right now is the first time I’ve felt like I’ve got my feet on solid ground,” Starsky murmured. “Don’t worry, babe, I’m not trying to seduce you into buying a little cottage and raising golden retrievers instead of kids. Told ya, I’m gonna kick you out before dawn.”

Hutch threaded his fingers into his friend’s curls, letting them imprison his hand the way their owner had imprisoned his heart. “Different time or a different place….”

“Maybe, Hutch. Don’t know for sure. Right now, some stuff that used to be pretty important doesn’t make a whole lot of sense anymore. But on Sunday, when we put on our guns and climb into the car to go out and protect people from madmen like Prudholm, then….”

“Are we falling in love, Starsk?” Hutch asked, only half as afraid of the answer as he had been a year ago after Starsky was shot. When falling in love with Abby had seemed like a safe place to retreat to.

“Don’t know, babe. Don’t know if I know the difference between in love and love. Thought I did once. But I wasn’t in love with Terry. Yet, even before Prudholm, I was thinking I wanted to marry her. Thinking about making it forever.”

“I haven’t done a very good job of keeping my promise to Terry,” Hutch whispered. “You’ve changed.”

Starsky lifted up then and Hutch could see the peace beginning to grow in his eyes that had been missing for too long. “You never had a chance of keepin’ that promise, and Terry never shoulda asked it of you. Lovin’ her changed me. Losin’ her changed me some more. Nothin’ stays the same forever. It changes or it dies.”

Hutch reached up, brushed his thumb over the mole beneath Starsky’s right eye, then traced a fingertip kiss onto the soft lips. Was Starsky trying to tell him that what they shared had to change? Grow into more? Something different, stronger, that intertwined all the levels upon which they needed each other? Or did he want to go back into the time when the boxes in their minds that held their desire for each other had sturdier walls and stronger locks? He sensed that Starsky wasn’t sure, and he knew that he himself wasn’t yet ready to make that decision.

“When’d you get to be so wise?” he asked, letting Starsky see in his eyes the doubts he, as yet, had no answers for.

Starsky gave a little half-nod, the same way he did when they communicated silently on the street to let Hutch know the message had been received, then he laid his head back down on Hutch’s chest.

“Must be the company I keep, sweetheart.”

 

Working My Way Back To You

“And then, my cousin, Leo, gave Turket the gun, and—”

“For pity’s sake, Huggy, sit down somewhere and shut up,” Hutch demanded. He pointed to the vacant chair beside his desk. “Right there, in case I do need to ask you something.”

“But, Hutch. You need to get the facts straight.”

“You already gave him the facts,” Starsky cut in from the other side of the desk. “And if he puts them all in the report, you, Turkey, and cousin Leo, are all gonna be in shit. None of you have permits to carry a concealed weapon. Hey, Hutch, what are you waiting for? Type. The gun is unregistered. As for firing a weapon in a public place….”

Hutch, who hadn’t gone back to typing the report, grinned at the suddenly subdued Huggy Bear.

“I didn’t think of that,” Huggy admitted.

Hutch looked over his friend’s head, keeping a wary eye on Turket. Huggy’s unlikely partner was apparently wandering casually from desk to desk, but Hutch had no doubt the man was keeping his eyes peeled for any stray bit of information that might turn into a promising meal ticket for the fledgling private detectives. Hutch would be glad when Huggy gave up his gumshoe sideline and turned his attention back to his bar/restaurant. Both the food and the service had suffered in Huggy’s absence.

“Hey, Turket, get over here and make sure I don’t miss anything,” Huggy called to his partner, saving Hutch the trouble of corralling him.

“The facts, ma’am, I mean, sir. Nothin’ but the facts,” Starsky misquoted, then, “Hutch, if you aren’t going to going to finish that report, how about handing it here and letting me do it,” he demanded.

Perversely, Hutch hunkered down over the detested paperwork. “What’s the rush?”

“Wanna get it on Dobey’s desk before he gets back from the commissioner’s office and get the hell out of here,” Starsky explained.

Still, Hutch didn’t know what the rush was. It was true, they were past the end of their shift, but that was hardly an unusual occurrence. And, because of Huggy and his partner’s involvement, this report did need a little more care than the average bust. However, he could see Starsky was becoming more antsy by the minute, so he quickly scanned what he had completed so far, and then began to type again.

“Hug, I think you and Turkey ought to come back tomorrow morning and sign your statements,” Starsky suggested.

Hutch stopped typing and received a glare from his partner. “Why?”

“Don’t you stop typing,” Starsky demanded. “We’re never going to get out of here.”

Giving up on trying to understand his partner, Hutch concentrated on condensing Huggy’s verbal report into the spare, facts-only format that Dobey preferred for official documents, while editing out some of the less legal activities the two had engaged in during their investigations. He rolled the paper out of the machine.

“Finally,” Starsky exclaimed and put out his hand for it. “Give it here and I’ll sign it.”

“For Pete’s sake, Starsky, let me read it over first,” Hutch replied, further puzzled when his partner subsided into a sulky silence. Ignoring the thunderhead on the other side of the desk, he reviewed the report and then handed it to Huggy and Turket. He left the desk to retrieve a cup of coffee while the mismatched partners argued over details.

“What do you need coffee for?” Starsky protested. “We’re gonna be outta here in five minutes. You won’t have time to drink it.”

“Which is probably a blessing,” Hutch said, and went back to his chair. He listened to Huggy and Turket arguing, and watched Starsky drum his fingers on the desk until even he had had enough. He reached out and snatched the report from Huggy’s hand.

“Hey!”

“Does it, or doesn’t it, report the facts?” he snapped.

“Well, yeah,” Huggy agreed. “But it sure sucks the life right outta the adventure,” he complained.

“Welcome to my world,” Starsky told him. “Now, Hutch, can we just sign it and get the hell out of here before Dobey gets back and wants to lecture us ’til midnight?”

“Okay. Keep your shirt on,” Hutch grumbled. He signed the report and handed it over to Starsky who also signed it, then hustled into Dobey’s office with it.

“Come on, Hutch. Whatcha waitin’ for now?” Starsky demanded when he reappeared.

“Is it okay if I get my jacket?” Hutch asked with sarcasm that went right over Starsky’s head. He should know by now that sarcasm was seldom an effective weapon with his literal friend.

Starsky led the way to the elevator, practically dancing with impatience. Again, Hutch wondered what had his partner so wired. The elevator was waiting, fortunately, since Hutch didn’t know how much more delay Starsky could stand, and the four of them entered it together.

“You know, I wanna thank you guys for comin’ on like the cavalry today,” Huggy said just before the doors parted on the parking garage.

“You’re just lucky the cases we were working on overlapped,” Hutch pointed out. “Or we might not have been available when you needed us. Better check out your clients a little more carefully in the future, huh?”

“They will,” Starsky said, and snagged Hutch’s arm. “Night, Hug. Night, Turkey,” he added and dragged Hutch through the opening doors.

“It’s Turket.”

Hutch allowed himself to be dragged a few paces along toward the Torino and then pulled free of his partner’s grip. “Enough is enough, Starsk. Where’s the goddamned fire?” he growled.

“I told ya already, Hutch,” Starsky said as he unlocked the Torino and slid onto the seat.

Hutch couldn’t hear the rest of what he said as Starsky started the engine. He tapped on the window and, when he had his partner’s attention, pointed at the lock on his door.

“What was that?” he asked. He barely had the door closed before Starsky was taking off, complete with squealing tires that would earn them a reprimand if anyone reported it to Dobey.

“I said, I told you already. I’ve got a fantastic little stewardess waiting for me,” Starsky explained.

“But…but, I thought that was just bullshit cover,” Hutch protested, although why he had thought that, he couldn’t say. The other two “fantastic” women Starsky had mentioned had certainly been real enough. They had shown up at the salon for their appointments and been more than eager to let Starsky wreak havoc on their hair while they ogled his tight pants and he leered down their cleavage. Hutch wasn’t sure, but he thought he had seen the redhead, who Starsky had left with a teased mass of curls piled on top of her head, groping his partner’s delectable ass. Maybe that was why she hadn’t complained about her hairdo.

“The wave and set was last night,” Starsky grinned. “Tonight she wants a permanent.”

The wriggling eyebrows invited Hutch to ask for a definition of permanent, but he refrained.

At least now he knew where his partner had sped off to after dropping him off last night. Fucking. Just as he had been every chance he got—and Hutch had noticed when he wasn’t offered the chance, Starsky went out of his way to make it. It certainly hadn’t taken Starsky long to get back into the swing of things, with a vengeance, after Terry died. It seemed to Hutch that Terry’s ashes were hardly even cold before Starsky was dating, and sleeping with, any woman who crossed his path.

Feeling guilty for the disloyalty of his thoughts, Hutch cut a glance toward his partner who was intent upon weaving them in and out of traffic. Everyone knew that each person dealt with grief differently. He had bought and read a couple of books on the subject of grief, hoping to gain some insight into his partner’s behavior and what, if anything, he could do to help. He knew Starsky’s heartbreak over Terry’s death was real. It just hadn’t seemed to last beyond a few short weeks before Starsky began acting like a starving man at a banquet. A not unusual response to the loss of a spouse, or near spouse, the book had assured him, but Hutch still found himself shocked by the abandon with which Starsky had thrown himself into re-establishing his Casanova reputation.

Once again, Hutch forced himself to cut off the judgmental thoughts. Starsky was a very sensual man. Hutch certainly knew that from personal experience. It was Terry who was dead, not Starsky. Maybe this really was his friend’s way of dealing with his loss. By burying himself in a sea of flesh?

This time, Hutch winced at his own nastiness and reminded himself that he was in no position to call the kettle black. Hadn’t he crawled back into Abby’s bed within weeks of Gillian’s death? And, he would have crawled into Starsky’s fast enough as well if, at the time, he hadn’t declared his partner off-limits.

And that, Hutch knew, was really the source of his disapproval. Starsky had been busy hopping from bed to bed, but the last Friday had passed without any indication from Starsky that he wanted to lift the ban on their sexual encounters that had been in effect since his partner met Terry. It wasn’t really disapproval Hutch was feeling, it was jealousy. And longing.

“Hey. You want me to give her a call and see if she has a friend?” Starsky offered.

Jolted out of his morose thoughts, Hutch automatically shook his head. He hadn’t been much interested in putting forth the effort to impress the fairer sex lately, but had been trying to fool himself that he was just too damned busy. Uh, huh, he was really busy, he thought. That’s why his plants were happier than ever before, and he had a whole new pile of canvases painted.

“No, thanks, Starsk. I’m too tired,” Hutch declined and caught the concerned glance his partner threw him. It warmed him and, because of his uncharitable thoughts, made him feel like a shit at the same time.

“You haven’t been fasting or on one of those weird carrot juice and banana diets, have you?” Starsky asked. “I keep telling you, you don’t need to bother with all that bullshit. You’re already in fantastic shape.”

“Fantastic” was Starsky’s word of the week, Hutch thought, trying desperately not to read too much into the compliment. Starsky wasn’t flirting with him. Starsky was just in flirting mode, turning it on at such high gain, everyone in the general vicinity was being blasted by the nimbus.

“No diets, Starsk,” he reassured his partner. “I just feel like a night in. If I don’t spend some quality time with my plants, they’re all going to keel over,” he lied.

Starsky shrugged. “Have it your own way. But, hey, if you spend tonight with the jungle, that means we could go see a movie tomorrow night. Right? There’s gotta be something we both want to see. In fact, I’ve got no preference. I’ll go see anything you want, as long as it doesn’t have subtitles. Maybe go for dinner, too?”

Hutch told himself he hadn’t really been in danger of sliding down into one of his blue funks until thirty seconds ago. Insisted that Starsky’s offer had nothing to do with the fact that rush hour traffic suddenly didn’t seem so annoying, and that there even seemed to be a breath of fresh air in the smog. Dinner and a movie wasn’t a cure for what ailed anybody. Hutch was honest enough with himself, however, to admit that some time alone with Starsky was often the perfect cure for what ailed him.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan,” he agreed. Some of Starsky, as he had decided long ago, was better than no Starsky at all.

~*~*~

“So, when are you meeting Alice?” Hutch asked as he slid onto the passenger seat of the Torino. Rather than letting Starsky spring it on him this time, he figured he might as well get it over with.

“Who?” Starsky asked. He was looking out the driver’s window, watching for a break in traffic to pull out from in front of the station, so Hutch couldn’t see his face and couldn’t tell, just from the somewhat distracted tone of his voice, if Starsky was just trying to be cute.

“Alice,” Hutch repeated. “You know, Ginger. You must have made a hell of an impression there, buddy.”

Starsky shrugged and swung them into traffic. “After the way she’d been jerked around, she was probably just grateful to be out from under Fargo’s thumb. She was okay, you know. Fargo was pulling her strings, had her plenty scared, but she tried to get me clear. Tried to get me outta her place before Williams and Knight showed up.”

Hutch let that subject drop. He wasn’t going to ask, because he didn’t want to know, just how far Starsky had had to go to put the longing in Ginger’s eyes that he had seen today when she had looked at his partner. He certainly knew how persuasive Starsky could be when he turned on the charm. How sensual and tender and so goddamned… Hutch looked out his window, trying to replace the vivid images in his mind with the suddenly drab vistas of greenery just beginning to take on spring’s lime hues.

“So, you really think Chief Ryan will approve medals of valor for the two of us?” he asked instead.

Starsky snorted. “I think he’d rather let the Fire Chief give him an enema,” was the bitter opinion. “I wouldn’t count on those particular medals, buddy, until Dobey pins ’em on our chests.”

Hutch tended to agree, but he hated hearing his partner sound so cynical. This whole case had had Starsky fired up right from the beginning. In fact, other than the fury Starsky had unleashed on him, their conversation in the bar hadn’t been all that different from other, private discussions they had had. Hutch wasn’t sure if it was his own personal loss that seemed to have taken the shine off police work for Starsky or if the daily grind, and especially the lack of true justice that too often prevailed, was to blame.

Starsky’s attitude had changed dramatically, however, once he had something positive to do about the situation. It was only after they had come up with their idea, and Dobey had agreed to let them run with it, that Starsky’s barely bottled rage had seemed to truly become an act. Maybe it had been the rush of working undercover on a dangerous assignment. God knew they were both guilty of occasionally being hooked on their own adrenaline.

“What? You don’t agree?” Starsky asked, bringing Hutch out of his wool gathering.

“Couldn’t agree more,” Hutch said. He turned in the seat a little so he could watch Starsky’s face. “Except, Ryan’s a serving officer, too, you know. And there isn’t a one of us that doesn’t like seeing IA with egg all over their faces.”

Hutch watched the lines that had been settling just a little too permanently around his partner’s mouth, first ease, and then deepen into the pleased grin Hutch hadn’t seen in a while. He wished Starsky would look at him so he could see if the amusement touched the blue eyes.

“Yeah. Forgot about that,” Starsky agreed. “So, what do you think? Ya wanna take the chance and celebrate in advance?”

Oh, yes, Hutch wanted to celebrate all right, but he had already given up hope that Starsky might be thinking about the same kind of celebration as he was. It was the last Friday of the month, and nothing should be stopping them from celebrating in their own special way. Nothing except that Starsky seemed to want everyone in the whole damned city except him. Almost nightly, Hutch re-read the books on grieving, and reminded himself frequently that he was Starsky’s best friend. Best friends understood and sympathized, they didn’t make judgments. It was so damned hard to remember that when he wanted so badly what Starsky seemed determined to give to everyone else.

“Whaddya think, huh?” Starsky prodded. “Maybe hit the new disco over on Meyer.”

That was certainly what Hutch wanted to do—watch the man he wanted dry hump some bimbo on the dance floor when the two of them should be wrapped around each other. Hell, he wouldn’t even care tonight if they were at Starsky’s and he had to put up with those damned mirrors. However, Hutch had to remember that Starsky was going through a process, and that—please God—it would end eventually. All Hutch had to do was hang in there, even if his partner was being an insensitive jerk.

“Sure. Why not,” he agreed. And if he got through tonight, he really would deserve the goddamned medal of valor.

~*~*~

“Broken? It can’t be broken!” Starsky protested.

“I assure you, Sergeant Starsky, I know how to read an x-ray,” Dr. Franklin reminded him.

“But look, I can move it and everything. I was even running on it. Right, Hutch?”

Hutch held up his hands. “Leave me out of this,” he said. He was both surprised and amused by his partner’s protests. Usually, when Starsky was hurt, especially in the line of duty, he wanted the whole world to know about it.

Since it appeared he was going to be here for a while, Hutch tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position on the hard plastic chair he had set between the two beds on which Starsky and Ortega lay in the emergency ward. Neither one of the men was hurt badly, so he had been allowed to stay with them right through their examinations, and he couldn’t see the nurses throwing him out now. He was glad, however, that he had taken five minutes before bringing Starsky in to wash the white mime makeup off his face, or his reception might have been different.

Paco Ortega had taken the poking and prodding of the bullet crease in his thigh stoically, but Starsky had been bitching the whole time he was here, appealing often to Hutch to get him ‘the hell out of this torture chamber.’ In fact, Hutch had had to practically drag him through the doors to begin with.

“It isn’t a bad fracture,” Franklin conceded in what Hutch personally thought might be a tactical error.

“There, you see,” Starsky pounced just as Hutch expected him to.

“But if you don’t take care of it now. If you keep walking…” The doctor leveled a stern glare at Starsky over the top of his glasses that Hutch could see was wasted on his partner, “…or running on it, you could end up with a permanent disability. I understand police disability benefits aren’t particularly generous.”

Hutch had to look away then, and concentrate on Ortega who was struggling just as hard as he was not to burst out laughing. In his present mood, Starsky probably wouldn’t take well to a sympathetic smile, never mind the full-blown amusement trying to leak out. Hutch had forgotten that Franklin was an old hand at managing difficult patients.

“As soon as I’m finished with your friend, I’ll send the nurse in to cast it. Then you can go,” Franklin explained.

“I don’t have to stay?” Starsky asked hopefully.

“I don’t think we need to subject the nurses of this hospital to you for the sake of a cracked ankle,” Franklin said, the barely suppressed laughter thick in his normally somber voice.

When the doctor moved over to Ortega’s bed, Hutch left the hard chair and parked himself on the end of Starsky’s bed. If he was going to be here a while, he might as well be comfortable.

“It hardly even hurts,” Starsky grumbled.

Hutch knew Starsky was looking for a sympathetic ear, but he wasn’t about to give it to him. “That’s what you get for thinking you can fly.”

Starsky pouted. Hutch wanted to tell him that it wasn’t really a good look for him, but, in fact, it was. Starsky looked damned cute with his flattened curls and Charlie Chaplin outfit and his bottom lip stuck out a mile.

“I’m gonna look like an idiot hobbling around with a big hunk of plaster on my foot,” Starsky continued to grumble. He raised his voice for, Hutch was sure, the benefit of the doctor. “And, I am not using crutches. A cane I can live with, but no fucking crutches.”

Hutch patted Starsky’s uninjured foot and tried to sound sympathetic rather than patronizing. “It’s okay, Starsk. If you tried crutches on the stairs at your place, you’d probably break the other ankle. Or maybe your neck.”

When Starsky gave him a glare that should have murdered him on the spot, Hutch transferred himself to the end of Ortega’s bed.

“So, what’s the verdict, doc?” he asked as Franklin laid the gauze pad back over the bullet crease in Ortega’s thigh.

“They’re both going to live,” Franklin assured him. “How is it that you managed to come out of this adventure unscathed?”

Hutch shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Or, maybe it was Starsky’s turn. I think I’ve lost track now of just how many times I’ve treated one or the other of you. It’s almost enough to make a man want to transfer to pediatrics,” Franklin threatened.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without the excitement of the ER,” Hutch countered. “You’d be bored to tears. Just like Starsky and I would be behind a desk all day.”

“True. Speaking of which, I have a waiting room full of the suffering to tend to. The nurse will be in soon,” Franklin promised and left.

“How long is soon?” Starsky called after him, but the doctor didn’t answer.

“Soon is medicalese for ‘when we get to you,’ Starsk. You know that,” Hutch chided. “Besides, what’s your hurry? I thought after you two are patched up, we’ll gimp on back to my place, maybe order a pizza, and sit around congratulating each other for outsmarting Sterling,” he suggested, collecting an agreeing nod from their Chicano colleague.

But Starsky was shaking his head. “No can do.” He looked at his watch. “If I can get anybody around here to drop it into drive, I can still make my date with Laura.”

Another one, Hutch thought in disgust. He wanted to ask what had happened to the stewardess from last week, or maybe it was the week before, but refrained. He dated enough stewardesses himself to know that it was almost always a case of here today, gone tomorrow. Only Kathy Marshall, who both he and Starsky dated, had continued to pop in and out of their lives after the first time they had met her before they were even partners.

“Laura?” Ortega asked, reminding Hutch that the immigration agent hadn’t been on the case yet when he and Starsky interviewed the fashion designer and Starsky met the beautiful, if ditzy, model.

“Laura Stevens. She knocked me into a dumpster and didn’t seem too impressed by the way I dress. So, I’m takin’ her out tonight, dressed to the nines. Show her I’m a class act,” Starsky explained.

“You don’t own anything that rates a nine, Starsk. You’re lucky if you can manage a two on the fashion meter,” Hutch quipped. It wasn’t really funny, but Hutch was pissed off enough to let his tongue get away from him. He bit it, reminding himself that he needed to be tolerant and understanding. The trouble was, he had never believed himself to be abundantly gifted with either trait to begin with, and they were both wearing thin. He knew he was becoming a little snippy and miserable with Starsky, but couldn’t always keep as tight a rein on his tongue as he should, not with jealousy and longing nipping at his emotional heels.

“When did you have time to make a date?” Ortega wondered. “Haven’t we all been busy?”

“Guess I forgot to mention it, Paco. Starsky here is Metro division’s official Don Juan,” Hutch said and saw the bitterness in his tone slide right by his partner. Ortega, who was nobody’s fool, however, caught it and gave him an inquiring look. “So, I guess it’s just you and me. Unless you have a date, too.”

“Not me, man. And if you wouldn’t mind changing the pizza to Mexican…” Ortega trailed off as Starsky snickered and Hutch groaned dramatically.

“Just what I need. Another one who wants to burn the lining right out of my Midwest stomach.”

~*~*~

Starsky gently coaxed Laura’s sprawled form off to his side, wincing as he realized he had shifted her the wrong way. If he tried to turn to face her now, it meant having to shift the heavy cast and then trying to find a comfortable position to rest it in. He didn’t feel good enough to want to go to that much effort.

“Laura, honey. You mind moving over to the other side, please?” he asked.

She grumbled about it, even though Starsky helped support her through the move. First she dragged her long blonde hair across his face, and then, worse, dragged her groin across his overly sensitive cock, pulling a gasp from him.

Why was it, Starsky wondered, that only guys were expected to be considerate in bed? He turned onto his side, wincing again as Laura curled up, ramming her knee into his thigh and jarring him right down to his casted foot. She didn’t even bother to apologize.

“How long do you have to wear that thing?” Laura asked petulantly.

She did petulant very well, Starsky decided. She had been petulant about how his sneaker ruined the look of his suit. She had been worse than petulant that he had embarrassed her in front of the fashion editor. And she had been downright sulky about having to mount him to get his erection inside her when every other position had proven too uncomfortable, if not completely impossible. Starsky thought she probably would have been happier with a storefront dummy and a vibrator.

“Doc said six weeks, but I’ll talk him into taking it off before that,” he reminded her of what he had already told her at least a dozen times. If Hutch thought some of his former girlfriends were dumb, just wait until he got a load of this one. That, Starsky reminded himself, wasn’t going to be a problem. She wasn’t his girlfriend, and Starsky was already congratulating himself on the forethought of not giving her his telephone number.

“Hey, it could be worse. I could’ve been standing there with my toes hanging out when your editor walked in,” Starsky tried to tease, though he didn’t know why he was even bothering to make the effort. There was really no pleasing her and, frankly, Starsky didn’t like her enough to keep trying.

Laura yawned in his face in reply and Starsky decided this was as good a time as any to make his excuses and run—hobble—along out of there. He had the feeling that Laura really wasn’t going to mind. Gently, he eased away from her, unsurprised when she didn’t try to stop him.

“Listen, hon. I gotta get going. Work in the morning,” he lied.

“Mmm. Lock the door on the way out.”

At least her building had an elevator, Starsky thought, as he stepped out of it and limped across the fancy lobby. It had saved him the trouble of dragging himself up or down several flights of stairs. If stairs had been his only option, Laura might have been even more disappointed in his performance. In fact, if he had been facing six flights worth of dragging the heavy cast in order to get his rocks off, he probably wouldn’t have bothered.

Settling awkwardly behind the wheel of the Torino, Starsky put it in gear and turned toward home. At three in the morning, he could almost cruise the streets on automatic pilot. What an advantage, he thought. It left him free to be miserable. Up until a few months ago, Starsky hadn’t known what post-coital depression meant. It was just a phrase in the fancy sex books that everybody and their brother seemed to be writing these days. He understood exactly what it meant now. It was feeling so goddamned low after sex that you started thinking the sex wasn’t worth it. Even the sex itself wasn’t any damned good anymore. He was only going through the motions.

Starsky didn’t bother to ask himself why he kept trying. Chasing every girl in sight and falling into bed with any one of them that would say yes. He already knew the answer, and it was simple.

Pulling up in front of his place, Starsky sat a few minutes, talking himself into making the climb, trying to convince his tired body that maybe the front seat of the Torino might be a good place to spend the night. The warning twinge in his back, at even the thought, was enough to push him out of the car and to the foot of the stairs.

Grimly, he grabbed the handrails and began hauling himself up the stairs. He must look like a toddler just learning to climb as he labored up the endless risers.

At the top, he opened the door, didn’t even reach for the light, and, beyond shrugging his suit jacket off onto the couch as he passed, didn’t bother to undress before he stretched out on his bed.

Yes, he kept trying, and he would keep on trying. He had to. There was a big, empty space inside him now, left behind by Terry’s death, and Starsky was trying desperately not to fill it up with Hutch.

~*~*~

Hutch liked to believe he could take a ribbing with the best of them, but when he left Sue Ann Granger on the stage and charged after the fleeing Starsky, Hutch was planning on visiting serious mayhem on his heckling partner. By the time he caught up to him in the alley behind the Saddle Club, manhandled him up against the wall, and secured a grip on that damned bandana that seemed to make Starsky’s eyes so blue they practically glowed, however, murder was the farthest thing from Hutch’s mind. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he had a mind anymore. If he wasn’t just one huge mass of need as he gripped the smooth jaw in his free hand and brought his mouth down on Starsky’s surprise-parted lips.

The familiar taste he had been longing for, the so well-known feel of the silky lips under his own burst in the few brain cells Hutch had left. And then it got better. Starsky’s mouth opened under his, and a demanding tongue filled his mouth, while two strong hands snatched at his shoulders, scrabbled down his back to his ass, and yanked their bodies together. For one, wonderful moment, he felt the hard, throbbing heat of Starsky’s erection pressing into his thigh, while his own insistent cock found a familiar welcome against his friend’s warm body.

Then it was torn away from him, the strong hands that only a moment before had thrilled him, now clamping hard on his hips, pushing him away and refusing him the touch he needed so badly. “Ah, Starsk, please,” he choked, trying to bring their mouths together. But Starsky denied him, turned his face away and even his desperate strength wasn’t enough to bring it back to him.

“Are you nuts?” Starsky panted, his breathing just as erratic as Hutch’s. “Anybody could come out here.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care,” Hutch almost sobbed. He buried his face in Starsky’s neck, inhaled so hard of all the warm, familiar scents his head swam. “I just want you so damned much.”

He felt the man in his grasp soften then, wanted to weep when one hand came to stroke his hair, press his face deeper into the smooth comfort of Starsky’s neck. He hated himself for the pitiful gratitude the simple gesture gave him. Loved Starsky for giving it.

“Starsk, if you don’t want me anymore,” he said, despite the evidence Starsky’s body had just given him, if only briefly, that he was wanted, “can’t you just tell me so I can…” He couldn’t finish the sentence because he couldn’t think of a single thing he could do if it was true.

“What, sweetheart?” Starsky asked so softly that Hutch could hardly hear him. “Find some other guy?”

“No. No,” Hutch choked out, and he knew it was all too true. “So I can learn to stop wanting you, too.”

“Oh, God, Hutch. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Starsky murmured. “I want you. I just… Oh, sweetheart, I want you.”

Hutch drank in the words he had been longing to hear, but, even as he spoke them, Starsky was pushing him away.

“But I can’t, Hutch. We can’t.” Starsky seemed to cast about desperately, then, “It isn’t the right day.”

Starsky was trying to appeal to his reason, and Hutch wanted to laugh. Didn’t his friend know he didn’t have any reason left? All he had was hurt and hunger and the new burning knowledge that Starsky still wanted him. But he had been living by their rules for a long time, and the habit to obey those rules that protected them both was deeply ingrained.

“Yeah. Okay. I understand.” He glanced around, as much to take his eyes off Starsky, to resist the temptation the kiss-bruised lips represented, as to attempt to actually take in his surroundings. “Sorry,” he added, and tried to take a step back.

“Ah, Hutch. Ya gotta let go,” Starsky protested.

Only then did Hutch realize he still held the bandana that was tied around Starsky’s neck in a grip he wasn’t sure even death could loosen. He had to concentrate fiercely to release each finger, one at a time, to free the crushed material and allow his partner to slip away from him. “Please, Starsk. The next Friday. Pro—”

Hutch clamped his lips over the word. That was too much. He and Starsky never had to promise each other anything. Not as friends or partners, and certainly never as lovers. He was suddenly so disgusted with himself, he could hardly stand to be inside his own skin.

“I can’t promise you, Hutch. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Hutch shuddered as the words hit him, feeling each one like a sucker punch to the gut.

“You keep callin’ it a slippery slope, Hutch, but it feels more like fucking quicksand,” Starsky tried to explain, for once, being the one to stumble over his tongue and struggle for words. “And I’m up to my neck in it. And every time I let myself look at you that way, every time I even think about openin’ that box, I sink a little deeper.”

The appeal in Starsky’s voice was calming Hutch now as nothing else could. Starsky needed him, and even though Hutch didn’t yet know what that need was, or even if he could find the strength to put his own feelings aside to answer it, he knew he had to try. He had been trying, hadn’t he? Without any direction from Starsky. Maybe if his friend could tell him what he needed, give him something to hang onto, to take away this hopeless feeling that Starsky was slipping away from him no matter how hard he tried to hang on.

“What do you need from me, Starsk?” he asked, and that might, if he lived to be a hundred, be the hardest thing he ever did.

“I just need ya to give me a little more time and space,” Starsky explained hesitantly. “Be my partner, Hutch, and, please, be my friend. I know what I’m askin’ isn’t fair. That I shoulda talked to you a long time ago, but….”

Hutch closed his eyes, forced himself to bundle up all the need inside and stuff it back into the box in his mind, though he was no longer sure the flimsy walls could ever contain it again. But he was determined, for his partner’s sake, and maybe for his own sanity, to make it.

“I can do that,” he said, opening his eyes and trying on a smile. When it didn’t crack his face, he left it there while he repeated his promise. “I can do that, Starsk. You know I’m always going to be there for you.”

What response might have been forming on Starsky’s lips was cut off by a wash of light falling across them as the back door of the club opened.

“Hutch? You’re not really going to kill him, are you?” Sue Ann Granger called. “Come on in and give it another try.”

“Oh, no,” Hutch tried to protest, but his partner had him by the arm and was tugging him toward the rectangle of light.

“Yeah, come on, Hutch. Give it another try. But this time sing something happy,” Starsky suggested, then dropped his voice so that only Hutch could hear. “One of us hanging around too long in the rain is enough.”

~*~*~

Hutch watched his partner toss the TV guide onto the coffee table.

“What a bitch,” Starsky commented.

Starsky had his head tilted back and was staring up at the ceiling. Hutch automatically followed his line of sight but saw nothing that might have prompted the comment.

“What’s a bitch?” he asked, wincing as Starsky lifted the beer bottle to his lips and tilted it. He could tell by the angle that the bottle was almost empty and that worried him. Starsky was drinking more lately. Not that he ever got truly inebriated, at least not when Hutch was with him, and never on the job, but he had definitely been reaching for the Coors more often than the Dr Pepper.

“Wally Stone,” Starsky said when he had finished swallowing and the bottle was once again cradled between his hands in his lap.

Hutch nodded. “Yeah. What a shame he ended up that way. Sad.”

“Yeah, Hutch,” Starsky said, lifting his head and giving Hutch a look at his eyes. He was relieved to see that none of the four beers Starsky had drunk since his arrival seemed to have had any effect on his focus. Yet.

“You know, there’s hardly a night when one of his old movies isn’t on the late show.” Starsky waved a hand toward the discarded listings magazine. “He really was a comic genius. Hell, he’s even been able to make me laugh.”

Hutch put his beer bottle aside and then hunkered back farther into his corner of the couch. He pulled up his legs and wrapped his arms around them, propping his chin on his knees. He knew he looked defensive. He felt defensive. He was so tired of living on the surface of their friendship, so tired of feeling closed out of Starsky’s heart while anyone in a skirt seemed to be entitled to at least a piece of his partner. In a dirty alley a few weeks ago, Starsky had asked him for some space and to be his friend, and Hutch was trying. On the surface, at least, the easy give and take of their relationship was back, but the multiple layers that had formed between them that dwelled beneath that surface of friendship and partnership had remained unexpressed for so long. And Hutch needed so badly to re-connect.

“Been watching a lot of late, late shows, have you?” he asked, trying to make it sound casual. Just a ‘so, buddy, what have you been doing with your time’ sort of inquiry. He could tell by the sharp glance his partner gave him that Starsky wasn’t fooled, and waited, very nearly holding his breath, to see if, tonight, he might be allowed in behind the frenetic mask.

“Too many, I guess. Don’t think it’s been showing on the job, has it?” Starsky asked.

Relieved to receive something that approached an invitation to come in behind Starsky’s façade, Hutch shook his head. “No, partner. Sometimes you look a little tired, but you’ve been sharp as ever.”

Starsky nodded once, as if he had received the answer he needed to a question that had been troubling him, and Hutch waited, schooling himself to patience, hoping that after months of being held at arms’ length, his friend might be ready to let him move in a little closer. Just a little closer was all Hutch asked. Just a chance, if Starsky still felt as if he had been standing too long in the rain, to share the umbrella of his love.

“Go to sleep at night okay. Sometimes it’s too quiet, so I’ll put on a stack of records and just let ’em play while I go to sleep. But, sometimes…” Starsky paused to offer a grimace that Hutch knew meant ‘sometimes’ was really ‘too many times.’ “…I wake up, you know. Maybe two, three. Everything’s real quiet. Like one of those movies where the hero wakes up and the world is empty and he’s all alone.”

“You never have to feel that way,” Hutch whispered around the lump in his throat. He could imagine the scenario all too easily; had lived it himself. Nights when it seemed the dawn would never come, when the chug and grind of the garbage truck sounded like music to the ears. “I’m never further away than the phone.”

Starsky smiled, a sad thing that barely twisted his lips and did nothing for the icecaps of his eyes. “I know, babe. Some nights, knowin’ that keeps me sane. I don’t even hafta call, though I’ve come close a few times. Just knowin’ I could hear your voice, that you’d probably come tearin’ over here means the world.”

Starsky paused again, but not long enough for Hutch to clear the boulder lodged in his throat and then reply.

“So, when I wake up, that’s when I watch the late show. Wally’s always there, makin’ me laugh, but then….”

“What, Starsk?”

“Then I think about the three of us and the sleepovers and how, you know, she’d go to sleep when Godzilla or Frankenstein were tearin’ up the cheap scenery, but when Wally was on…God, Hutch, I can hear her laughin’ with us at….”

Hutch couldn’t have stayed in his corner then if someone had held a gun to his head and threatened to blow his brains out. He slid along the cushions, but even then he hesitated until he saw the way the tears had pooled in Starsky’s eyes, watched the full lashes come down once, breaking the dam and letting the river of salt run free down his friend’s beloved face. He gathered Starsky to him then, and, despite the empathic sorrow he felt, knew joy as well when Starsky’s arms crept around him in a grip fierce enough to bruise.

“God, Hutch, I miss you so much,” Starsky moaned.

“I know, buddy. I know how much you loved…” Hutch lost track of the comfort he wanted to offer as what he had heard, as opposed to what he expected to hear, penetrated his brain. “Me?” he breathed.

“Miss… miss me and thee. All of it. Everything.”

Hutch eased back, couldn’t go far the way Starsky was clinging to him, but far enough to tip the grieving face up to his. “You don’t have to miss me. I’m right here. I’ll always be right here.”

“Know that,” Starsky said, and to Hutch’s great disappointment, gently disengaged himself and sank back into the cushions. “Just can’t… even now. Ah, Hutch, I know you’ve been thinkin’ I’m some sort of twisted bastard jumping every woman who comes my way. But it’s like there’s this empty space inside that Terry used to live in, and if I don’t keep tryin’ to fill it up….”

“It just keeps on aching?” Hutch guessed.

Starsky shook his head so hard that Hutch heard the tendons in his neck crack. “No, Hutch. I’m afraid you’ll just move right on in. You already own so much of me. I promised, that night—remember? When you came to bed and held me?”

Hutch nodded only because Starsky was looking at him as if he really thought Hutch might have forgotten that night. How could he, when it was the last time Starsky had let himself be held, the last time Hutch hadn’t been held at bay with an emotional ten-foot pole?

“I promised you then I wasn’t tryin’ to talk you into a cottage and golden retrievers,” Starsky reminded him. “But, sometimes… Damnit, Hutch, I keep lookin’ at puppies in the pet store window.”

That was when Hutch realized that Starsky had been living in the same lonely place he had been after Starsky was shot. Needing and loving too much to do anything but run and hide. He had latched onto Abby then, while Starsky seemed to be indiscriminately grabbing at whoever came his way. Their methods were different, but the results were the same.

“You said that night that everything has to change or it dies,” Hutch pointed out. “Neither one of us knew then which way we were going, just that we wanted to go together. That hasn’t changed for me, Starsk.”

“And, neither has the job, Hutch. You want to walk away from it?” Starsky asked, although it wasn’t really a question. They both already knew the answer. “Hell, even with shit like Garver gettin’ off scum like Billets, and Fargo and his fucking vigilantes, there isn’t anything I want to do more with my life than be a cop. Except….”

“Love me?” Hutch asked bluntly. “More, Starsk? Is it really more? Or is it just right now? Losin’ Terry and me being right here? Safe because I already have my own place and you know I’m not going to try to take over hers? The women you’ve been dating, is there even one of them that had a hope of doing more than heating up your cock? Was there even one who had a chance of taking Terry’s place?”

Starsky shook his head. “No. I was just usin’ ’em, and I’m ashamed of that.”

“They knew the score, Starsk. I think you’re doin’ what you need to do,” Hutch said. He thought about mentioning the books he had read, but decided against it, not wanting Starsky to feel as if he were some sort of clinical case file.

“And I think you need to quit worrying you’re going to somehow ruin my life by loving me. Go ahead and love me, Starsk,” he invited, smiling at the shock on his partner’s face. “We’ll deal with it. Hell, we’ve dealt with everything else that’s come our way. If you need to keep the sex in the box for a while, I’m not going to object. As long as I know what’s going on. Okay? Remember you said Terry tried to teach you to ask for what you need, well, you haven’t been a very good student. Asking means opening up your mouth and asking.”

“I asked,” Starsky defended himself, but only half-heartedly.

Hutch laughed bitterly. “Uh, huh. After I almost raped you in an alley.”

Daring rejection, but needing to connect, Hutch took one of Starsky’s hands between his own, smoothed his thumbs over the calluses, and cradled the strength of it within his own, the way he wanted to surround his partner with his caring.

“We’ve both learned over the years that we can live without the sex. I’m not saying I like it or that’s the way I want it, but I can. What I can’t live without is my friend. Watching him starting to drink too much and not being able to tell him to smarten up. Finding out when he needs me he doesn’t feel he can call me. All of that hurts, Starsk, and it doesn’t need to. I’m not asking you to set a date. You won’t know until you get there when you’re ready. All I’m asking is that you quit holding me on the outside of your life. Okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I can do that. I think,” Starsky conceded, hesitant and yet, to Hutch’s eyes, appearing more at peace with him than he had in too long.

“It’s my fault, too,” Hutch admitted. “I’ve been letting you keep me locked out and that’s never been the way we work. It didn’t work when I tried it either. We keep the lines open between us. I’m there for you, you’re there for me.”

“How long, Hutch?” Starsky wondered. Gently, he withdrew his hand. It wasn’t a rejection, yet it still left Hutch feeling cold and bereft without the contact. “How long do you wait around for me to get my head together?”

“Starsk, you don’t seem to understand. I had already accepted that the sex was over between us when I saw how much you loved Terry,” Hutch reminded him. “It hurt. I still wanted you, but I wanted all the rest of it more. If you never sleep with me again, I’m still going to love my friend.”

“And look for some other guy?”

It was hard for Hutch to interpret Starsky’s expression then. Resentment? Relief? In any case, he could offer nothing but the truth, even if it might hurt his friend. “I don’t know,” he admitted with brutal honesty. “Maybe. Maybe, after a while, I’d look. But, I think I’d find out the same thing you did while I was with Abby. I don’t just want gay sex, I want sex with you.”

“Then, sometime…” Starsky began, let the words trail off and looked away, hiding the expression of hope that Hutch had barely glimpsed.

“We’ll deal with sometime when it comes along. Right now, we deal with each day as it comes. But I’m not pussyfooting around anymore,” Hutch warned him in a tone that, on the streets, meant serious business. “If I get too close, you tell me. Okay? No freezing me out. And if I back off too far—”

“I’ll make you wear a tie so I’ve got somethin’ to reel you back in?” Starsky suggested, and Hutch knew the crisis that had been threatening for so long was finally over. They were back on familiar ground now, and they could fumble through together.

“Not even for you am I going to wear a tie every day,” Hutch said. He knew he needed to end this conversation now and give the other man a little time to process it all. He wouldn’t make the mistake again, however, of giving Starsky too much space. Too much, and Starsky started rattling around in it like the ball in a pinball machine. But there was still one last serious subject they had to tackle. He leaned over and plucked the empty Coors bottle from where it had fallen to the floor.

“And about this,” he began, almost abandoning his duty when he saw the mutinous expression on Starsky’s face. “Just once in a while, Starsk, go for the root beer. Okay?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Starsky agreed with a sigh. “I know I’ve been behind the wheel a couple of times when I shouldn’t’ve been.”

“And tonight’s one of those times,” Hutch declared. “You’re staying here if I have to handcuff you to the couch.”

“Geez, Hutch, don’t go gettin’ kinky while I get my head together, okay.”

Hutch threw a cushion at him and stood up. He needed a little space himself, just for a few minutes, to absorb the fact that suddenly he no longer seemed to be on the outside looking in. He went and retrieved a blanket and extra pillow and brought them back to the couch.

“Tonight, if you wake up and can’t sleep, forget watching Wally on the late show. Wake me up, okay?” he ordered as he dropped his burden in Starsky’s lap.

“Okay, babe,” Starsky agreed.

Hutch retreated into the alcove, made sure there was enough distance between them to reduce the force just in case Starsky also decided to use the cushion as a missile.

“By the way, Starsk,” he said and waited until his partner looked up from arranging his bed. “Golden retrievers make me sneeze.”

~*~*~

“Thanks, Thomason, I appreciate you comin’ by,” Starsky said, and closed the door on the uniformed officer.

Hutch watched, from where he had collapsed on the couch, as his partner carefully set the locks and then cautiously made his way over to sprawl beside him. They were both a whole lot more sober than they had been when they helped each other stagger up the stairs, but still well above the legal limit. The alcohol they had drunk in celebration of the capture of their nefarious doubles was still sparkling in their veins.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” Starsky pronounced.

“What? Having your name on the wrong end of a B&E report, or having Thomason see us drunk as a couple of skunks?” Hutch wondered.

“Hell, no. You think Thomason ain’t seen the bottom of his share of bottles?” Starsky dismissed the assumption. “He heard what’s been goin’ down. Knows we were out celebratin’. Bet he even checked to make sure the Torino’s engine was cold before he came up.”

Hutch chuckled to himself for a minute before letting his partner in on the joke, certain that Starsky wasn’t going to find it anywhere near as funny as he did. “Then it must be your Playboy collection. Must be pretty embarrassing to admit you’ve got—had—about two thousand of the damned things.”

“Do not,” Starsky objected with offended dignity. “Don’t think there’s even been that many.”

“Okay,” Hutch agreed with an amiable shrug. He had never before noticed what an interesting pattern of light and shadow the streetlight shining through the window made on the ceiling. He took his eyes off the dancing display when it began to make his stomach feel uneasy and looked at Starsky instead. He liked this view much better anyway, especially when his friend was looking so mellow. “So, it’s only two hundred.”

Starsky’s mouth tightened as if he was considering being truly annoyed, but smoothed out again into an almost smile. “Fifty, maybe,” was all he would admit to. “‘Sides, I like ’em for the articles,” he insisted with the great dignity that only the tipsy could manage.

The tiredness was beginning to outweigh the happy glow, now, and Hutch let himself slide a little lower on the couch. If he was going home, he needed to call a cab and go soon or he wouldn’t make it up his own stairs. And if he was staying, then Starsky needed to get his butt out of the other comer and let him stretch out before his back seized. The feeling of being in tune with Starsky, of being content and self-satisfied with life and their friendship in particular, however, made him reluctant to put an end to the evening.

“Always thought you had a helluva nerve leavin’ ’em out like that,” he teased, just to keep the conversation going and delay his departure. “Don’t the ladies object?”

“What ladies?” Starsky echoed. “I never bring any ladies here.”

Hutch giggled a little, startled to hear such a sound come out of himself, then did it again just to make sure it had. “Uh, huh. Tell me another one.”

A little clumsily, but certainly with more coordination than Hutch believed himself capable of at the moment, Starsky pushed up onto his knees, one arm braced on the back of the couch while he loomed over his partner.

“Really, Hutch. Never bring the ladies here.”

Hutch felt his brow crease as he tried to concentrate, tried to bring to mind the name of one lady he knew Starsky had brought home to his bed, or, at the very least, had invited to the apartment. “What about Sharon and, uhm.. .fettuccini?”

“Was gonna make it at her place,” Starsky insisted, and Hutch was beginning to realize that, for some reason, the issue was very important to Starsky. Important enough that his partner now appeared completely sober. If Hutch, in his present mellow state, was any judge of sobriety, that is.

“Okay, Casanova. I believe you,” he soothed. “Hundreds of your fellow officers wouldn’t, but I do.”

Starsky brought his right hand up as if swearing an oath. “Really, Hutch. Only ever made love in that bed with you and Terry.”

Sometimes, when you had just a little too much to drink, little details slipped away from you. Things like where you put your keys, your address, or, if you had really been celebrating, maybe even your name. Other times, however, alcohol almost seemed to sharpen the senses, lend acuity to the reason as one’s preconceived expectations slipped away. It was the only way Hutch could explain the fact that he even noticed the tiny, but, to him, astonishing fact that Starsky put him first.

With a hand he thought ought to be shaking but wasn’t, Hutch reached up and fingered an overly long curl, then let his palm cup the curve of the skull beneath. He felt Starsky lean into the touch like a stray cat starved for affection.

His breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat, Hutch half-laid on the cushions watching his partner lean down into him. Starsky moved so slowly, that he had all the time in the world to anticipate the first warm touch, the taste that Starsky’s tongue would share when it took possession of his mouth. All the time in the world to anticipate and object, Hutch realized. His other hand came up, fumbled between them until it could press flat-palmed against Starsky’s chest and hold temptation at bay.

“Are you tryin’ to tell me you’re ready, Starsk? ‘Cause if you aren’t, don’t do this to me. I can wait a long time, babe. But don’t tease me,” Hutch warned.

Starsky shook his head and Hutch realized that he still had a handful of soft curls entwined around his fingers. He freed himself from the clingy strands, brushed his thumb over the mole under Starsky’s right eye and let his fingertip take possession of the kiss he had denied them both. “Don’t wanna wake up tomorrow and have to deal with a couple of hangovers and your regrets.”

Starsky closed his eyes, his expression as bleak as Hutch had ever seen on a human face, then he settled back on his folded legs. “Shit, I’m tired,” he muttered as if his exhaustion was somehow to blame for his actions.

“We both are,” Hutch agreed. “Too many cases. Too much trying to cram some kind of life in between the fucking double shifts.”

“Think Dobey’ll give us some time off?” Starsky asked, but there was no optimism in his voice.

“When little pink piggies grow wings,” was Hutch’s considered opinion.

“Yeah.” Starsky pushed at the back of the couch, flopping back into his corner. “Go on to bed, Hutch.”

“Got it backwards, Starsk. This is your place,” Hutch objected. He was seriously trying to talk himself into calling that cab now, but couldn’t quite do it. They had come so close tonight, and, even though he had put a stop to it himself before they could break the rules, he didn’t want to leave, be alone right now to give his own regrets a chance to torment him.

“Nah. You take the bed,” Starsky offered.

Hutch grunted as Starsky stretched his legs out along the cushions and slid farther down, his sneakers digging into Hutch’s side.

“Like the thought of you in my bed tonight, even if I can’t be in there with you,” Starsky mumbled, crossed his arms over his belly, let his chin rest on his chest and closed his eyes.

And Hutch knew he wasn’t going to get one more word out of his partner tonight. He also knew he wasn’t about to climb into that bed alone. Snagging a toss cushion, he shoved it behind his back, tucked an arm under his head and closed his eyes. His last thought as he drifted off was a prayer, a vain one he was sure, that he wouldn’t be a crippled wreck by morning.

~*~*~

“You know, Hutch, I’ve been thinking,” Starsky said as he poured the last drop from the tiny whisky bottle over the ice in the plastic glass the stewardess had provided. At least they were in first-class for this last leg of their endless trip back from Playboy Island. He really hated flying. In fact, he hated riding in any vehicle over which he didn’t have control. He didn’t trust anybody else enough to really relax. Except Hutch, of course. He trusted Hutch with his life, just as Hutch trusted him. And he had broken that trust. But he wasn’t quite ready to tackle that subject yet.

“I thought I smelled wood burning,” Hutch quipped, sighing as he stretched his long legs out.

Starsky tried to ignore the view, but the clingy white pants his partner wore weren’t making it easy. He looked for the stewardess, tried to work up the same appreciation for her neat little ass encased in the tight uniform skirt and failed. Maybe all the bikini-clad, evil-minded beauties on the island had numbed his appreciation for the fairer sex, or maybe he was just finally coming to his senses.

“Are you planning on finishing that thought?” Hutch asked.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah,” Starsky said. “I was just thinking that I bet Dobey only put us on this case ’cause he was having second thoughts about loaning us his cabin up at Pine Lake.”

“You could be right,” Hutch allowed.

Starsky offered no objection as Hutch reached over and snagged his drink off the fold down tray.

“I bet he tries to call the last week as our vacation time, too,” Hutch predicted gloomily.

Accepting his much-depleted drink back, Starsky took a deep swallow of it. “If he tries it, I’ll buy every candy bar in the machine and eat ’em right in front of him,” he threatened.

Hutch laughed. “Then you can start waddling around, too.”

Starsky didn’t bother to reply. They weren’t saying anything and the banter sounded forced to him. It certainly felt forced. He finished the last of the whisky, took an ice cube into his mouth and crunched it between his molars as he cut a surreptitious glance at his partner. Hutch was looking at him, but he couldn’t interpret the expression on his face and that always bothered him. He was used to being able to read Hutch’s mind from ten feet away. Unwillingly, his gaze dropped to the blue bruising that showed in the open vee of Hutch’s shirt. Bruises that exactly matched his fingers. Damn, he didn’t want to talk about this, but he also didn’t want to take it home with them. That gave him, he glanced at his watch, twenty-three minutes until they landed in Bay City.

“Uh, Hutch….”

“I know, you’ve been thinking again,” Hutch said when Starsky’s voice seemed to stick in his throat.

“Yeah,” Starsky admitted. He wished Hutch hadn’t turned in his seat to face him, resting his back against the window. The position gave him a better view of the bruises, and brought to mind the darker ones that hid beneath the yellow shirt.

“Spit it out, Starsk. Before it chokes you,” Hutch advised gently.

“Did I really try to kill you?” Starsky blurted. He never had, and probably never would, learn to sneak up on a subject.

Hutch’s hand came up to cover the ugly marks on his throat, his fingers gently probing the bruises as if to make sure they still hurt. Funny, Starsky thought, if the marks had been the tangible reminders of his passion for his partner, he would be almost proud of them. Of course, he never would give Hutch a hickey there where it would be impossible to hide, especially in such warm weather.

“Not you,” Hutch tried to reassure him. “Papa Theodore.”

Starsky snorted and looked away, wishing he had thought to have the stewardess leave an extra bottle or three. “You don’t buy into all that voodoo shit.”

“More than I did last week,” Hutch admitted.

“Yeah?” Starsky asked hopefully. He bought into it himself. He always had been superstitious, and right about now he would be damned glad of a little empirical evidence that could convince him someone else was to blame for the marks of violence that marred his friend’s body.

“There are stranger things in heaven and earth…” Hutch quoted with a soft smile.

Starsky didn’t try to place the reference because it really didn’t matter. All that mattered was the expression on Hutch’s face, the undamaged trust he could see in the blue eyes. Whether his own imagination or some jumped up witch doctor had been in control of him when his hands had sought a death grip around Hutch’s throat, Hutch wasn’t blaming him. Hutch, he realized, never had. Starsky returned the smile, but he knew it was going to take him a little longer to forgive himself.

~*~*~

“It’s okay, you know. No big deal.”

Starsky pushed his face a little deeper into the pillow, wishing the inadequate little square of foam was a great big rock he could crawl under. And who was he, he thought bitterly, to be talking about inadequate?

“It happens sometimes. Right?”

Not to him, it didn’t, Starsky wanted to protest from the heart of his wounded male ego. And it was true. Not once since sex had become a part, a damned important part, of his life, had he ever failed to rise to the occasion. Maybe the damned witch doctor had broken his dick, he thought hopefully.

“Maybe you’re just—”

Starsky push-upped out of the pillow. “If you’re about to suggest that maybe I’m just tired, you can just…” He bit his lip over the crudity waiting to spew out, and reminded himself that it wasn’t Kathy’s fault that, despite the many women he had slept with since Terry’s death, he suddenly couldn’t respond to a woman who had always turned him on. He had been going at it so indiscriminately that maybe Kathy was right in a way. Maybe his dick was tired. “Sorry, honey. Maybe I am just tired,” he apologized and sank down onto the bed, careful to turn his face away from her.

He felt the bed jostle and then her warm hand settle on his bare back, stroking soothingly over the shame-stiffened muscles of his shoulders. He wanted to shrug her off, tell her to keep her goddamned hands to herself and leave him to die of mortification in peace. He resisted the temptation, but just barely.

“You know, Dave. I thought we were better friends than this,” Kathy said softly.

Starsky winced. That was a little below the belt, but the truth of the matter was that they were. Kathy Marshall might have started out as a one-night stand, a risky third in a ménage a trois with Hutch from which Starsky had bolted, but over the years of shared fun and laughter and string-free sex, they had become good friends and comfortable with each other. That, of course, was the main reason Starsky could hardly believe his lack of interest.

With a sigh, he rolled over to face her, reaching up to smooth a lock of her long brown hair back behind her ear. “Sorry. You’re right. I’m acting like an idiot. Sorry for letting you down, too,” he added, feeling the flush, that had only just receded from his face, returning.

“Dave, do you think I only like you for your dick?” Kathy asked, the expression on her face more serious than Starsky was used to seeing. But then, most of the time they spent together had been a few hours of fun and frolic. Dinners and dancing and a romp or two between the sheets. It was amazing, really, that they had become such good friends. But maybe Kathy had learned to cram her friendships into twelve-hour layovers, the way she had learned to grab her pleasures where she could.

“Yeah, I know. It’s my charm and my sense of humor. Oh, yeah, and I dance better than Hutch,” he replied, trying for humor, but hearing the edge of his bitterness cutting the attempt off at the pass.

Kathy gave him a poke in the ribs and then lay back down with her head snuggled into his shoulder. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself, Dave.”

“If I was hard, there wouldn’t be a problem, would there?” Starsky muttered. It wasn’t even as if he had had an erection and then lost it. Nothing this beautiful woman had done tonight had been able to arouse him, and that prodded him on a place that was very tender indeed.

“Come on, Dave. Cut it out,” Kathy demanded, and Starsky, contrarily, felt some of his embarrassment slip away along with her sympathy. He couldn’t stand the thought of being the object of anyone’s pity. So maybe it was about time he stopped feeling sorry for himself.

“Sorry,” he murmured and kissed the top of her head. He inhaled the sweet smell of her perfume, trying not to think of how many times in the past just the smell of her had turned him on so easily.

“You know, it’s only been a few months since you lost Terry. Maybe you’re just not ready,” Kathy suggested gently.

Which sounded like an excellent theory, that might even have held water if he hadn’t been fucking his brains out every chance that came his way for months now. Nor did it explain why, ever since they had returned from Playboy Island, all Hutch needed to do was say good morning and his cock was suddenly strangling in his jeans. He was getting hard even now, but Starsky knew it wasn’t the soft curves of the woman in his arms that were arousing him. Too often lately, it seemed that box in his brain where his desire for Hutch was supposed to spend most of its time, had more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

“Maybe you’re right,” he lied, wishing he hadn’t promised to drive her to the airport, wishing the hours of her leave would fly by as they usually did, instead of crawling along like each of them had somehow acquired more minutes than they were entitled to. At least, he could try to turn the subject away from his uncooperative anatomy. “Looks like you should have picked my partner tonight, honey.”

Kathy gave a sputtering little laugh against his neck. “Are you kidding. That new girlfriend of his would have scratched my eyes out. Where the heck did Hutch find her anyway?”

“Diana? She’s the nurse who looked after his hand at the hospital yesterday,” Starsky told her, and then tried to convince himself that the nasty little ache in his belly wasn’t jealousy.

“Yesterday?” Kathy echoed, and Starsky loosened his grip so she could prop herself up on her elbow beside him. “He only met her yesterday?”

“Yeah. Like I said, she patched up his hand and gave him a shot,” Starsky said, grinning as he remembered the air of offended dignity that had surrounded Hutch when he had emerged from the treatment room. He had given Hutch a gentle little boot in the behind, but what he had really wanted to do was offer to kiss it better. “She showed up at Sullivan’s later, looking for a friend.”

“I’ll just bet she was looking for a friend,” Kathy echoed sarcastically. “She sure knew how to latch onto a good thing when she saw it, and I can tell you right now she’s determined to hang on to him.”

“Meow,” Starsky suggested, laughing at Kathy’s uncharacteristic outrage. She had never been possessive of either him or Hutch; happy to settle for either if one had a girlfriend when she flew into town, or even for neither if they were both involved.

“I don’t do the jealous scene. You know that, Dave,” Kathy dismissed his teasing. “Seriously, didn’t you notice the way she was acting?”

The truth of the matter was that Starsky had been making a concerted effort to keep his attention focused solely on Kathy. After the days he and Hutch had spent cooped up in the car together keeping an eye on Linda Baylor, Starsky had been relieved to have something to think about besides Hutch, especially Hutch naked and entwined with the pretty little nurse. Okay, so maybe he was jealous, but he certainly had no right to be.

“I guess she was a little funny,” he admitted slowly, remembering now the abrupt coldness with which she had rejected his invitation to dance. “I just figured she was pissed off ’cause we went to the disco when she doesn’t dance.”

“You know, Dave, I love you, but sometimes I’m not sure your elevator goes all the way to the roof,” Kathy teased, ruffling her fingers through his sweat-tight curls.

“I’m a guy,” Starsky protested. “You can’t expect me to understand women.”

“Well, I sure hope Hutch has his brain engaged because, unless I miss my guess, Diana thinks she’s already got him hog-tied and branded,” Kathy warned.

Suddenly uncomfortable with this subject as well, Starsky flipped them over in the bed, stopping Kathy’s startled exclamation with a deep kiss. He reached for her breast, cupping the soft mound in the palm of his hand, and toying with the ripe nipple between his finger and thumb. He was relieved to feel his cock warming to the idea of some fun with a friend. Even if it was the wrong friend.

“Hey?” Kathy half-protested when he released her lips. “I thought—”

Starsky licked the rest of her words away with an impudent tongue. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he reminded her, dipping his head to place a brief, suckling kiss on the now hard peak. “Gotta make sure you’ve got a smile on your face when you start handing out those over-priced little bottles of booze.”

And maybe, if Diana didn’t turn out to be the love of Hutch’s life, it was about time he and Hutch had a serious discussion about the next last Friday of the month.

~*~*~

When the white-coated Nazis finally let him in to see his partner, Starsky found Hutch so high both eyes were in the same socket. He wasn’t even entirely sure if Hutch knew who he was as he came up to the side of the bed, but he was offered one of Hutch’s sweet, angel smiles, so he returned it as best he could, despite his worry and guilt. It was amazing what a good shot of Demerol could do to put a little space between you and your pain. Maybe he ought to ask the nurse for a cheek full of it himself, he thought bitterly.

“Hey there, handsome,” Hutch slurred around a smile that seemed so permanent Starsky wondered if it might have been stitched into place by the surgeon.

“Hey there, yourself,” Starsky replied. “How ya feelin’?”

“Great. Terrific,” Hutch assured him. The smile suddenly metamorphosed into puzzlement. “Think I’m gonna puke.”

Starsky grabbed the metal bowl beside the bed and helped Hutch over onto his side before the poor guy started heaving. It was the anesthetic, of course, Starsky concluded. Fortunately, they hadn’t had time for dinner, or lunch either for that matter, so there was little to come up.

“Poor baby,” he murmured, brushing the sweat damp strands of blond hair from Hutch’s forehead. “You’ve had a helluva week, haven’t you?”

Eventually, it seemed that Hutch’s stomach decided to give up its rebellion and the heaving subsided. Starsky was careful of the heavily bandaged arm and the IV and transfusion lines as he settled his partner back against the pillow. His hands lingered as they straightened the twisted gown Hutch wore, and smoothed the crisp white sheet over his chest. He had to force himself to take his hands away when he could come up with no further excuse to touch.

“You sure picked a winner this time,” he said as he eased onto the small space beside Hutch’s waist. He suppressed a shiver at how close he had come to losing Hutch, deliberately driving away the memory of the terror that had seized him when Diana had picked up the phone and told him he was too late. And he had been too late. Days too late. He should have listened to Hutch. Hell, even Kathy had tried to warn him, but he had been far too busy being jealous of Diana to really take the threat she represented seriously. If only….

“Mmm…nnn…your fault,” Hutch accused happily.

Since it was exactly what Starsky believed, the accusation didn’t hurt as much as it could have. Besides, he knew it was only the drugs talking, loosening Hutch’s tongue the way one too many shots of whiskey would. Of course, it wasn’t the painkillers putting the thoughts in Hutch’s head; it was just letting them sneak past the guards that would normally be in place to protect his partner’s feelings.

“I know. I shoulda listened to you. I’m so sorry I didn’t take better care of you,” Starsky apologized, the tightness of his throat delivering it in a husky whisper.

A tube-bedecked hand was lifted and waved about until, fearing his partner might pull out one of the lines, Starsky caught the fingers in his, noticing inanely that there was still blood caked around the cuticles. Hutch would be complaining about that in the morning, agitating for a bath despite being held together with the medical equivalent of chewing gum and bailing wire.

Hutch had been mumbling incoherently in accompaniment to his waving, but when Starsky stilled the gesturing appendage, it seemed to focus his thoughts.

“Nah. Big boy. Coulda…” The crease between the fair brows that usually signaled deep worry appeared as the train of thought hit a break in the tracks. “Wouldna…if…so horny….”

“Don’t worry about it now, Hutch. You get some sleep, and I’ll make it up to you when they let you outta here. Okay?” Starsky promised, and tried to pull his hand away, only to have it gripped tighter.

“Gotta unnerstan, babe,” Hutch insisted, but the furrow was gone now, and so was most of the rest of the expression from his face, leaving behind a sleepy boy.

Starsky laid the now lax hand on Hutch’s chest and patted it gently. “I’m gonna take better care of you in the future, sweetheart,” he whispered, and then left before he cried.

~*~*~

“You got any coffee back there, Hug?” Starsky asked as he slid onto the stool at the bar. He braced his elbows on the polished wood, cupped his chin in his palms and stared at Huggy hopefully.

“Whew! For a minute there, I thought you were gonna ask me for a drink,” Huggy said as he picked up a cup and the half-full pot of coffee and moved down the bar.

Starsky accepted the cup and gulped the black coffee down, anxious for the caffeine jolt to hit his system and give him the energy to make the drive to Venice Place.

“Easy, bro,” Huggy tried to caution him. “That brew has been sitting a while.”

“Tastes like it,” Starsky agreed, although, if he could drink the sludge that passed for coffee at the station, he should be able to stomach anything short of battery acid. He put the half-empty cup down and signaled Huggy to top it off.

“A couple more of these and you’re gonna be counting the cracks in the ceiling instead of sleeping,” Huggy warned him. “You know Hutch is okay, so why don’t you just take your tired ass home, crawl between the sheets and slide on down into dreamland for—”

“Can’t,” Starsky cut in, the scenario Huggy presented sounding so good that Starsky had to shut him up before he was tempted to forget his plans for the night.

“Can’t? Why can’t you?” Huggy wanted to know. “Hutch is safe and sound. Linda’s gonna be okay. And Diana Nutbar is locked up tight in the crackerbox. What more do you need for a restful night’s sleep?”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “Goin’ out to Hutch’s. They’re gonna let him out in a couple of days, and I can’t let him go back to that mess. Jesus, Hug, if only I’d listened to him. This is all my fault.”

Despite his grim mood, Starsky had to smile at the classic double take his friend gave him.

“Your fault?” Huggy echoed incredulously. “How’d Hutch hookin’ up with the female Norman Bates get to be your fault? You didn’t introduce ’em. Thought he met her at the hospital.”

Starsky nodded slow agreement. The caffeine was beginning to flood his system now. In a few minutes, he would be able to hit the road and make it out to Venice without falling asleep behind the wheel. This had been one very long day. In fact, it had been a very long week.

“But I didn’t listen to him, Hug. Just brushed him off when I could see how worried he was. Even after she busted up his place, I just told him to change the locks and chalk her up to a case of bad judgment. A little too much of lettin’ the little head do the thinkin’.”

“So where was your head, bro? In bed with the lovely Linda?” Huggy asked.

Starsky swallowed so hard it felt as if the mouthful of coffee went past his Adam’s apple in a solid lump. “Huh?” was the closest thing to an intelligent question he could come up with.

“Even I noticed you’ve been a little more wired than usual. I figured it was your pretty new partner in crime-fighting revvin’ your engines. She’s a treat for the eyes, and you’ve been watchin’ her wriggle around in those tight little hot pants for days now.”

Starsky was relieved that Huggy was on the wrong track, so wrong, in fact, as to be riding the train in a whole other county. There had been something about Detective Linda Baylor that, from the minute he had laid eyes on her, had made Starsky think if he had ever had a kid sister, Linda would have been it. And, whatever some people might say about incest being relative, it definitely wasn’t his kink. Nevertheless, for Huggy’s benefit, he grinned a lascivious leer and wriggled his eyebrows. “She is one hell of a distraction, isn’t she,” he said, implying an interest he didn’t feel because he couldn’t explain to Huggy who had really been on his mind.

“Okay. So, you didn’t listen and now you’ve got a case of the guilts. Don’t tell me you’re plannin’ on goin’ over there and cleanin’ up that mess all by yourself?” Huggy asked. “I saw Hutch’s place. Remember?”

“I’m gonna make a start on it, anyway,” Starsky insisted. He drained the bitter dregs from the cup and set it on the bar with a decisive click.

“You want some help?” Huggy offered. “I close up in half an hour.”

Starsky couldn’t help but smile. Huggy might not understand his sense of obligation, but that didn’t prevent him from offering to help a friend. Two friends, Starsky amended, as he slid off the stool.

“Nah. I owe it to him. But thanks anyway.”

“Well, you call if you change your mind.”

Between the coffee’s jolt and the light traffic, Starsky made the trip to Venice Place without incident. The caffeine had given him new energy and he bounded up the stairs, automatically reached for the extra key above the lintel, then remembered they had changed the lock and dug the new key out of his pocket. Hopefully, Hutch would think twice about his hiding place from now on.

Starsky almost retreated right back out the door when he flicked on the overhead light and was greeted by the mess that was even worse than he remembered from that morning. His attention had been too focused on Hutch after he had half-carried his wounded partner inside to wait for the ambulance, to notice the further destruction Hutch’s struggle with the crazed woman had caused. The once cheerful apartment was such a total wreck that it looked as if nothing short of a stick of dynamite could improve it.

But Hutch would be coming home in a few days and Starsky was determined his partner wasn’t going to walk into this. He had failed Hutch once; he was damned if he was going to do it again.

Still, he was at a loss to even know where to start. One o’clock in the morning was a hell of a time to start cleaning house, but at least he didn’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbors. There was only the restaurant downstairs and it was closed for the night.

Deciding assessment of the damage was the place to begin, Starsky made his way around the scattered debris. He quickly came to the conclusion that, since Diana seemed to have lavished equal psychotic attention on every room, he might as well start at the front door and work his way back.

Two hours later, he had a pile of Hutch’s possessions he judged too badly damaged to be salvageable, stacked at the front door, and some semblance of order returned to the living room and sleeping alcove. The couch cushions were badly slashed, but Starsky thought he could probably hire Kiko’s mom to re-cover them. If he contacted her in the morning, there was even a chance she could have them finished before Hutch was released from the hospital.

The mattress on the bed, however, was one of the things Starsky knew was never going to see another useful day. He sat down on the edge of it and traced one of the gaping slashes. How many times had he and Hutch shared this bed, he wondered? More times than they had shared his. Hutch just seemed to be more comfortable on his home ground. So often, the big blond appeared to stride through life as if he thought himself to be God’s gift to the world, but Starsky knew it for the sham it was. At heart, Hutch was the farm boy that Starsky had accused him of being so long ago, unaware, or unable to believe in, how beautiful other people found him. If he truly didn’t see himself as beautiful and talented and good, how could he understand when others did?

With a sigh, Starsky pushed himself up off the bed. He should be able to buy a new mattress during his lunch break tomorrow and, hopefully, have it delivered before Hutch would need it. Mentally, Starsky consigned the damaged mattress to the growing pile in the hall and moved to check the closet. At least it appeared that Hutch wouldn’t have to buy a new wardrobe, as Diana seemed to have been uninterested in taking her fury out on his clothes.

The kitchen was a hell of a mess, but much of what was scattered all over the floor was undamaged. Dishes, glasses and cups would have to be purchased, but, if there were a few more dents in the pots, Hutch probably wouldn’t even notice. Before he really started on the kitchen, however, Starsky located the coffee pot and set it to brew a new source of instant energy. The coffee he had drunk at Huggy’s had carried him through to this point, but if he was going to keep on going the rest of the night and then work all day, he would have to keep the caffeine coming.

When the coffee was ready, he poured himself a beer stein full—because all the cups were smashed—added a generous double helping of sugar, and sat down at the kitchen table.

As he sorted the mess, Starsky had put the plants Diana had damaged on the table and, while he sipped at the coffee, he did his best to repair some of the abuse she had heaped on Hutch’s leafy friends. Although he watched Hutch puttering with his plants hundreds of times during quiet evenings at home, Starsky wasn’t sure if he was doing more harm than good as he snipped off broken stems and re-settled disturbed roots.

Discovering two badly cracked pots, Starsky went into the greenhouse to search for undamaged ones, but stopped short at the door. For a moment, his heart seemed to freeze in his chest, then restarted with a painful thump in double time. Slowly, he moved to the lounger, trembling fingers reaching out, but stopping short of touching the dried blood that spattered the cushion. Because Hutch had been naked and wet beneath his robe when Starsky arrived, he had assumed that Diana had made her attack while his partner was in the shower. In fact, despite a full bladder that had been growing more insistent since his arrival, Starsky had been avoiding going in there, unwilling to face the graphic evidence of what his negligence had resulted in.

Abruptly, he bolted for the bathroom, hardly even noticing the scene he had been avoiding as he leaned over the toilet and spewed up the bitter black coffee. Shaking, he sank to his knees and braced his hands on trembling thighs, struggling to regain control of himself as his exhausted body rebelled. He needed food, not coffee, his belly insisted. He needed rest, his spinning head added.

When he had calmed a little, Starsky slowly climbed to his feet and forced himself to look around. To see the ripped shower curtain stained with Hutch’s blood, to snap a mental Polaroid of the spatters of the precious fluid that speckled the walls and floor like some ghoulish abstract art. He needed to remember each and every detail. Needed it imprinted so indelibly on his brain that if he was ever tempted to be so negligent with his irreplaceable friend in the future, the memory would haunt him, remind him of how lucky he had been and just how easily Lady Luck could turn her back.

Dawn had secured her hold on the new day by the time Starsky had set the bathroom to rights, scrubbed away each and every bloody reminder so that his friend would never have to see them again. Starsky knew that he himself was never going to forget. He didn’t know how he was ever going to forgive himself either. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing if it meant he would never be so negligent again.

Locking the apartment behind him, Starsky stuffed the list of possessions that needed to be replaced in his pocket and tiredly climbed into the Torino. It was going to take plenty of coffee, and maybe half the candy bars in the machine to keep him on his feet, but he was coming back here tonight to finish what he had started. Somehow, he would make it through the day, visit Hutch and then he was coming back. He didn’t care if he dropped in exhaustion, when Hutch was released from the hospital, Starsky was determined that all trace of the ordeal he had suffered would be gone.

~*~*~

Hutch woke up to find a dark-haired woman in white standing over him. Despite the mass of agony that was his left arm and the tubes that encumbered his right, he rolled off the opposite side of the bed and into a defensive crouch, ready to protect himself even if his head was swimming so badly he could hardly see straight.

“Mr. Hutchinson! What in the world?” the woman exclaimed, hurrying around the end of the bed.

Stumbling, his legs feeling like over-cooked spaghetti, Hutch backed up as she stalked him, new pain clamoring for his attention above that in his arm, as the IV pole caught and the shunts in his hand were pulled.

“Stay away from me,” he growled, his fingers scrabbling at the bedside tabletop for something, anything, he could use as a weapon.

When the woman obeyed his command and even began to back away from him, Hutch took his eyes off her long enough to take in his surroundings and remembered where he was. Slowly, the facts began to present themselves. He was in the hospital. Starsky had been here. A quick, dizzying glance around failed to reveal his partner hiding in any of the non-existent shadows. But he had been, Hutch was sure. He had a vague memory of trying to tell Starsky something important, and Starsky…playing with his hair?

“Mr. Hutchinson. Do you know where you are now?” the nurse asked from where she had retreated to the end of the bed.

Of course he knew where he was, Hutch thought. Now. And now that he looked at the woman who had inspired his immediate fight or flight panic, he could also see she looked nothing at all like Diana.

Slowly, back pressed into the comer into which he had retreated, Hutch slid down the wall as the adrenaline that had given him the strength to leap from the bed dissipated as quickly as it had pumped through his system. His vision narrowed down until all he could see was a telescopic circle. Dumbly, he watched the nurse approach, unable or unwilling to resist as she pushed his head down toward his knees. His arm screamed in protest, but it escaped his lips as an embarrassing whimper.

“What’s going on here?”

Hutch heard the male voice only dimly through the roaring in his ears. Somebody needs to turn down the volume on the ocean, he thought inanely. And then his knees turned black.

~*~*~

Starsky was on the phone to the hospital before his ass hit the chair at his desk, and, of course, was immediately put on hold. Cradling the phone between ear and shoulder, he poured himself a cup of squadroom sludge and flopped into the chair. He ripped open the bag containing two jelly donuts he had picked up on his way in and took a huge bite just as someone picked up the phone.

“Jusaminute,” he mumbled, chewed twice and swallowed hard to force the doughy lump down his throat, then slurped a mouthful of lukewarm coffee to wash it down.

“Sorry,” he said into the receiver. “This is Sergeant Starsky of the Bay City Police. I want updates on the conditions of officers Ken Hutchinson and Linda Baylor, please,” he said, making it sound official because he knew he was far more likely to receive cooperation. He had learned the ins and outs of dealing with hospital personnel years ago. When you were standing right in front of them, an emotional appeal might work, but on the phone, you had to sound like the Chief of Police.

“Both officers are listed in good condition. Resting comfortably.”

Starsky breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you very much, ma’am. And you have a nice day.”

He hung up the phone and took another bite of his donut. This one he nearly inhaled into his windpipe when Dobey, who Starsky hadn’t noticed come out of his office, laid a hand on his shoulder. Starsky whooped and coughed, and finally managed to swallow the un-chewed bite down.

“Was that the hospital?” Dobey asked, seemingly totally oblivious to his subordinate’s distress.

Starsky swung around in his chair to face his superior. “Yeah. Hutch and Linda are doin’ fine,” he croaked.

“Well you look like something the cat left on the doorstep,” Dobey growled. “What do you think you’re doing reporting for duty looking like that? And aren’t those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?”

“Didn’t get away from the hospital ’til late,” Starsky said, telling himself it wasn’t really a lie, just an exaggeration. “I’ve got some stuff in my locker.”

Dobey’s mouth bunched up the way Starsky knew it did when the captain had let his concern get away from him in an undeserved reprimand. “Well, go on then and use it,” he grumbled.

Taking his donuts and coffee with him, Starsky beat a hasty retreat to the locker room where he made fast work of making himself presentable, wondering what Dobey would assign him to while Hutch was laid up. For once, Starsky would welcome an order to complete his paperwork that would keep him at his desk all day. He figured it was far better to fall asleep while in control of a five-pound Smith Corona than when tooling around in a ton or two’s worth of high-powered Torino.

When he returned to the squadroom, he went straight to Dobey’s office. “What do you want me to do today. Captain?” he asked, leaning against the door frame, hoping Dobey would take it for casual insolence rather than the exhaustion it was.

“Make sure the files are ready for the DA on the Frost bust, then…” Dobey paused, looked away and then made a shooing motion, “…go check on Hutch and Linda. You’re going to be useless here anyway.”

Sleep, Starsky’s tired body screamed at him as he slid in behind the wheel of the Torino half an hour later.

“Shop,” he growled back at it mercilessly, patting his pocket to make sure he still had the list before taking off. Shopping might not be his favorite way to pass the time, but it was certainly better than sitting around listening to his guilty conscience until visiting hours started.

~*~*~

“Am I glad to see you,” Hutch exclaimed the minute his partner walked through the door.

“At last, someone who appreciates true beauty,” Starsky quipped, spreading his arms and sauntering up to the bed as if he were a model on a runway.

Hutch snorted. “Put a sock in it, Starsky. My arm hurts like hell, the nurse won’t let me take a bath, this goddamned dress they gave me lets in a draft every time I move, and the food stinks,” he complained. That wasn’t the end of his list, but he ran out of breath, and Starsky jumped in before he could take another one.

“I brought your jammies, along with other assorted sundries, including toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb,” Starsky announced, plunking a carryall down at the foot of the bed.

“And having eaten at this restaurant a few times myself, I also brought you a doggie bag from Huggy.” A brown bag from which warm, delectable odors wafted was placed somewhat more gently on the over-the-bed table and swung around under Hutch’s appreciative nose.

“If your arm hurts, ask the nurse for a shot. And, as for the bath…” Heavy eyebrows wriggled suggestively. “Want me to give you a sponge bath, Sergeant Hutchinson?” Starsky purred hopefully.

Hutch had to laugh even though it hurt like hell. “Starsky, you’re a clown,” he declared.

“Yup. That’s why you love me,” Starsky said, and flopped down onto the chair in his usual sprawl. “So, eat already.”

One handed, Hutch dug into the bag where he found a crisp green salad, a BLT so thick he wasn’t sure he could manage it with only one hand, and, the source of the mouthwatering aroma, hot apple pie. It looked like heaven to Hutch, especially since he had been unable to identify anything that had arrived on his lunch tray.

“Huggy sends his love,” Starsky added. “You need any help there?”

“Uh, uh,” Hutch grunted around the bite of sandwich he had already taken. “Can manage.”

Starsky laughed, heaved up out of the chair, fished the paper napkin out of the bag, and wiped at the dribble of mayonnaise Hutch had felt creeping down his chin.

“You sure about that?” he asked, retreating when Hutch, sandwich still in hand, took a swing at him. “Gonna have to talk to these nurses about the proper care and feeding of my partner,” he added.

Hutch allowed himself to be bumped over a bit so Starsky could sit on the side of the bed. While he handled the business of eating, Starsky wielded the napkin.

“Why don’t you just get me out of here instead of badgering the nurses,” Hutch suggested hopefully when the food was a warm glow in his stomach.

“Soon as the doctor springs ya,” Starsky agreed.

Only slightly disappointed, Hutch eased back against the pillows, watching as his partner pushed the table aside and settled himself a little more firmly on the bed. He was ready for a nap now, even the ache in his arm seemed to have settled down now that Starsky was here.

Contentment, however, took a nosedive into panic and the warm glow of just a moment before became a lump in his belly threatening expulsion as Starsky, his expression suddenly intently serious, began to speak.

“Gotta talk to you about somethin’, Hutch,” he began, plucking nervously at the sheet. “Last night, when you were just wakin’ up after the doc patched you up, you were…you were pretty high, and—”

“And what, Starsk? What’d I do? What’d I say? Something… something in front of the nurses?” Hutch asked when his partner didn’t immediately continue.

“No, no,” Starsky reassured him, and Hutch let himself be comforted by the hand that rubbed absently at his thigh for a moment. “You just…you said that what happened with Diana was all my fault, and I just wanted to make sure you know, in case you don’t remember, that you’re right. It was my fault. I shoulda listened to you in the first place, and especially after she ripped up your place. I wanna do anything I can to make it up to you.”

Hutch knew he must look like an idiot with his mouth hanging open, but couldn’t seem to close it. Neither could he seem to wrap his mind around the fact that, rather than reporting he had made some drug-addled indiscretion regarding their sexual relationship in front of a nurse, Starsky was telling him he had tried to foist the blame for his own poor judgment onto his friend.

“Whoa there, partner. What are you talking about?” he finally asked.

Starsky shrugged, the expression on his face so guilt ridden that Hutch didn’t know whether to try to knock some sense into him or hug him breathless. He was in no condition for the former, and an unlocked hospital room where anyone could, and frequently did, come and go at will, was no place for the latter.

“When they finally let me in to see you, you had this great big smile slapped all over your face and you told me it was all my fault,” Starsky explained.

“Oh, right. And everybody knows that when under the influence of enough drugs to make a nun giggle, everybody speaks nothing but the unvarnished truth. Right?” Hutch said, heavy on the sarcasm, which, one look at Starsky’s earnest expression confirmed, definitely went sailing right over his partner’s head.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. “Like the truth always sneaks out when you’ve had one too many.”

Hutch sighed. A great big, exaggerated sigh that made his arm ache, but was supposed to convey to Starsky that he was nearing the end of his patience.

“I shoulda listened to you,” Starsky continued, proving he wasn’t tuning into their non-verbal lines of communication at all. In fact, it appeared to Hutch as if his partner might be preparing to settle in and wallow in his puddle of guilt for a good long while.

“Starsk, shut up, will you,” Hutch demanded, closing his partner’s mouth, but only, Hutch feared, temporarily. He hastened to try to reason with him before Starsky became so firmly entrenched in his position that it became a matter of pride.

“You weren’t the only one who wasn’t listening to me,” he began.

“What do ya mean?” Starsky cut in, suspicion darkening his expression. “Did you try to talk to Dobey or—”

“For God’s sake, Starsky. Shut up!” Hutch shouted, regretting it immediately as the wound in his arm throbbed a warning. He wanted to clap his hand over his partner’s mouth, but knew he would regret that amount of movement even more. “I wasn’t listening to me either!” he exclaimed.

“Diana hit my make-yourself-scarce alarm the minute I laid eyes on her,” Hutch went on when Starsky offered no further objections, even though he felt like he might as well be talking to a brick wall. He was familiar enough with the stubborn expression on Starsky’s face to know that, although he had managed to shut Starsky up, his partner was in no mood to listen. Nevertheless, he had to make the attempt.

“Even putting aside the fact she showed up waving a fucking big needle and practically the first words out of her mouth were an order to drop my pants, I admit I liked the way she looked. Maybe even flirted with her a little. But you know how I hate liars,” Hutch made yet another appeal to Starsky’s reason. “We both knew she was lying about meeting a friend at Sullivan’s.”

“So why did you…?”

“The same reason I let her push me into breaking the cardinal rule of one-night stands. Make sure both of you know what you’re getting—how much or how little—before the action starts. I was horny, so I played dog to her bitch in heat, with just about as much goddamned conscience, and I fucked her.”

“So you were following where your dick led,” Starsky said with a shrug that dismissed Hutch’s culpability. “We’ve all done that. But you kept trying to talk to me, and I wouldn’t listen.”

“So who are you, fucking Dear Abby?” Hutch countered. “I wasn’t listening to me, why would I have listened to you?”

“After she busted up your place….”

“Come on, Starsk,” Hutch appealed, trying to sit up and sinking back when a wave of vertigo hit him. He really shouldn’t be trying to do this now, but he knew his partner too well to let this sit. “I’m as much a cop as you are. I know what I should do—file a complaint and let the law deal with her.”

Hutch wanted to wipe the tolerant little smile Starsky wore right off his face. He did shrug off the hand that patted his arm.

“Hey, Blondie. We both know who’s the rude son of a bitch in this team, and it isn’t you, Mr. Minnesota Manners,” Starsky teased.

“I can be rude. In fact, I was rude and insensitive and stupid, which is why I’m in this mess,” Hutch insisted. “Goddamn it, that fucking hurts,” he cursed when he tried to sit up again.

“Okay, okay,” Starsky said, and Hutch allowed his partner to settle him back against the pillow.

He grabbed Starsky’s hand, uncaring, at the moment, who walked in and drew whatever damned conclusions they wanted to. “Please, Starsk. Don’t try to snow me. You’re not my keeper, my mother or my nursemaid. You’re my partner and you watch out for me on the job.”

“What about bein’ your friend?”

Hutch was very tired of this conversation. He was very tired of Diana. In fact, all he wanted was for his arm to heal so he could forget it ever happened, although he would be a hell of a lot more careful whom he picked up and slept with in the future. “Nobody’s to blame,” he said wearily. “Diana turned out to be a loose cannon that nobody could predict.”

“Hey, come on, Hutch. You shouldn’t be worrying about this now,” Starsky soothed. “You need somethin’ to take your mind….”

Hutch winced as he saw Starsky’s ‘I’ve got a bright idea’ expression bloom on the long face.

“Why don’t I see if I can get you some wheels and then we’ll both go on up and visit Linda?” Starsky suggested.

Hutch recognized what Starsky was doing. It was the same thing they both did to Dobey. Mouthing ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ ‘whatever you say, sir,’ while doing exactly as they damned well pleased. While Starsky was in this frame of mind, Hutch knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of getting through to him, and the more he badgered, the more firmly entrenched Starsky would become.

“Okay, Starsk,” he agreed reluctantly. “Just try not to find me the Torino of wheelchairs. Okay?”

“Don’t you worry, partner,” Starsky reassured him, jumping up from the bed and heading for the door. “I’ll find you the beatenest up old heap they’ve got.”

~*~*~

Starsky smoothed the last wrinkle out of the new bedspread, fluffed the new pillows, and stood back to admire his handiwork. It had taken him a few extra hours of searching, but he had finally found the exact same bedspread. Just looking at it, even knowing it was new, that the mattress and pillows had yet to witness his and Hutch’s desire for each other, he still felt a shiver down his spine as the memories of other nights filled his mind.

They filled the crotch of his jeans, too, he realized as his cock throbbed against the restraint of tight denim.

“Goddamn,” he muttered and turned his back on the bed, forcing himself to visually scan every nook and cranny of the apartment, looking for any drop of blood, any chip of china or splinter of wood that he might have overlooked. As far as he could see, he had been diligent in his efforts to erase every trace of Diana’s invasion from the very walls of Hutch’s home.

Unfortunately, even reminding himself of the destruction Diana had wrought didn’t seem to have any sort of cooling effect on his cock.

He growled a wordless warning at his conscienceless anatomy and stalked into the bathroom. In this room, above all others, he wanted to be sure that his partner wouldn’t stumble on so much as a tiny shred of the torn shower curtain to bring back memories that needed to be consigned to the farthest corner of Hutch’s mind. Again satisfied that he had missed nothing, Starsky gave the new shower curtain a final twitch and exited the bathroom, closing the door behind him. When he brought Hutch home in a couple of hours, he didn’t want his partner to have to face that room until he was ready.

At least his impatient sex seemed to have taken the hint and subsided into sullen, aching acquiescence, and Starsky mentally consigned it to the devil. He was sick and tired of being led around by his hormones. Even before Diana had slashed her way into their lives, he had known that whatever it was he needed, he wasn’t going to find it in the beds of women he cared nothing for. He had intended, before the next last Friday, to talk to Hutch about resuming their sexual encounters. He still feared falling in love with Hutch, but had finally realized that denying himself and Hutch their sharing wasn’t going to stop that from happening. Hutch had invited him, almost dared him to go ahead and fall in love with him, and Starsky was tired of running. Almost losing Hutch had reminded him just where his deepest commitment already lived, and it was well past time he faced it head on.

But that wasn’t going to happen today. He would deal with it later, when Hutch didn’t need him and he had had a chance to make up for his negligence. Not to mention catch up on some much needed sleep. Yeah, he would think about that tomorrow.

“Jesus Christ,” Starsky cursed as he closed and locked the door. “Now I sound like Scarlet fucking O’Hara.”

~*~*~

For the first time he could remember, Hutch wasn’t looking forward to leaving the hospital. But it wasn’t the comfortable bed, the wonderful food, or the TLC of the hypo-wielding nurses he was reluctant to leave behind. It was the thought of walking into the disaster zone Diana had made of his home that he dreaded. Reliving the memories would be bad enough; the idea of living like that for several weeks while his arm healed and he was limited in how much he could do was truly daunting. He could hire someone to come in and clean it for him, but the thought of anyone else seeing the mess turned his stomach.

Nevertheless, he offered no protest as Starsky wheeled him out to the Torino and loaded him into the passenger seat. He almost asked Starsky if he could stay at his place for a few days, wondered, in actual fact, why Starsky didn’t offer. He was feeling just self-abusive enough, however, to keep his mouth shut as Starsky maneuvered them onto the entrance ramp for Venice.

“You know, Hutch, if you don’t wanna go home yet, you could stay at my place for a while,” Starsky offered when they were about three minutes from home.

That Starsky had waited so long to make the offer made it clear to Hutch that it was only made out of a sense of obligation. Hutch didn’t want to be anyone’s charity case, not even Starsky’s. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. Starsky, he noticed, didn’t insist.

Feeling more depressed with every mile that passed beneath the Torino’s tires, Hutch leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His arm hurt, his head hurt, and he really, really, didn’t want to go home-sweet-home. However, he stubbornly remained silent while Starsky parked the car and helped him out of it.

The stairs were an ordeal. It wasn’t just the strain of lifting himself up each one when every jostle made his arm throb, but the reluctance to face what waited at the top of them. He moved slower and slower as they neared the door of his apartment, not surprised when he felt Starsky’s hand in the small of his back. It seemed to create a patch of warmth within the ice that surrounded him.

“It’s okay, Hutch. Really it is,” Starsky reassured him, which only made Hutch want to hit him.

It was Starsky who unlocked the door and swung it open, stepping back so that Hutch could precede him. Hutch stopped only a step inside and stared around in shock.

“Oh, my God,” he murmured, every bit as stunned by his so very normal looking home as he had been four nights ago when he had walked in to find it trashed. Everything looked so blessedly normal that, having prepared himself for the worst, Hutch just couldn’t seem to take it in.

“Surprise, babe,” Starsky said very softly, and again Hutch felt the steadying hand on his back as he swayed.

“Oops. Let’s get you sitting down,” Starsky suggested, and Hutch gladly leaned his weight into the arm that tightened around him and led him to the couch.

Gingerly, Hutch sank down upon the cushions that, the last time he had seen them, had borne stab wounds at least as deep as the one in his arm. It took him a few minutes to notice that the unblemished material of the cushions didn’t quite match the rest of the couch.

“You okay?” Starsky asked, and Hutch realized that his partner had gone down on one knee in front of him. “I guess maybe I shoulda warned you, huh?”

“My God, Starsk. How did you…? It was such a… I can’t believe… It’s only been….”

“You can finish any one of those sentences any time you want, you know,” Starsky teased him gently.

Hutch looked around again, and, as the shock began to wear off, he could see that things weren’t exactly restored to normal. Some items were missing, and a few things looked the worse for wear. But it was an amazing transformation compared to the devastation he had been expecting.

“How the hell did you do it?” he finally managed to put all the words together to form a coherent sentence. “I was only in the hospital for three days.”

Starsky shrugged as if the task had been too negligible for words. “Dobey gave me an extra day off—”

“That you spent at the hospital with me,” Hutch cut in. “In fact, you spent all three days at the hospital with…” He trailed off as he looked around again. “You did this at night?” he asked/accused. “Visited me and Linda in the hospital all day and then… You must be dead on your feet.”

Again, Starsky gave that little dismissive shrug. “Just didn’t want you havin’ to come home to it, that’s all,” he insisted and climbed to his feet. “You want somethin’ to eat? Coffee? Anything?”

Hutch was about to pursue the subject but remembered how much his partner hated soapy scenes. His gratitude was obviously embarrassing Starsky. Hutch knew his partner was still feeling guilty for not taking Diana’s threats seriously and would likely be thinking that all the work he put into restoring Hutch’s home was the least he could do. That was a subject they were going to have to tackle again, but Hutch wasn’t feeling ready to fight that up-hill battle just yet.

“Sit down, Starsk. I’ll make coffee. I’m not an invalid, you know,” Hutch protested. “Besides, you make lousy coffee.”

Starsky flopped bonelessly into the chair. “You know, Hutch. I keep tryin’ to tell you you should take advantage of it when you’re laid up. Let people wait on you. Enjoy a little TLC for a change. And, for your information, I don’t make lousy coffee; I make strong coffee.”

“Yeah, partner, I’ve noticed how you take your own advice. Wasn’t it you that insisted on having the cast cut off your ankle two weeks early when you broke it chasing that crooked customs officer…uhm… Sterling?” Hutch reminded him.

Starsky shrugged. “Hey, I was right though, wasn’t I? It was healed. Besides, the damn thing itched like crazy. And didn’t I go to physio like a good boy and never complained once?”

“And sweet talked the lady into clearing you for duty after only a week. Hope I get the same gal,” Hutch added. “But I’m making the coffee. I’m in no condition to deal with your high-octane brew.”

Hutch tried to hide what an effort it was to struggle to his feet, but once he was up, and the shock of finding his worst fears were for nothing had passed, he actually didn’t feel too bad. He went to the kitchen and filled the coffee pot, the sound of the water running reminding him that he needed to take a leak. Now there was something he would gladly let Starsky do for him. The thought of going into the bathroom was enough to put the tremble back in his knees. But Hutch wasn’t a man to let his worst fears go unchallenged, so, as soon as he had the coffee brewing, he headed for the closed bathroom door.

“Hutch?”

Starsky’s voice stopped him with his hand on the doorknob and he glanced over his shoulder to find his friend watching him with concern.

“You okay?”

“If you’re asking if I need help, then, no, I’ve been doing this all by myself since I was three. If you’re asking if I want to go in there…” Hutch paused, took a deep breath, turned the knob and pushed the door open, “…the answer is also no.”

Hutch kept his eyes down as he entered the tiny room and closed the door behind him. He locked his knees as he leaned back against the wood just as he had when, wet and going into shock, he had stood here and struggled into his robe after Diana attacked him. He took a deep breath, braced himself, and forced his gaze to lift from the spotless floor. And burst out laughing when he saw the shower curtain. Spread out to display all its gaudy glory, the new curtain hung across his shower like a testament to bad taste. Florescent orange and green fish gamboled amid electric blue waterfalls on a yellow background so garish it almost hurt his eyes to look at it.

“Starsky, you are such a clown,” he muttered with deep affection, imagining his partner at a department store determinedly searching for the most gawdawful curtain he could find.

The trembling had disappeared completely. Starsky’s thoughtful joke had driven it, along with the memories that caused it, to the back of his mind where they belonged, leaving Hutch free to take care of business and leave the scene of his wounding without a backward glance. Even the memory of Diana’s crazed screeching no longer echoed in his ears.

“Starsky, you idiot. Where did you…?” Hutch left the question unfinished as he came abreast of the chair Starsky sprawled in and saw that his partner was sound asleep.

Hutch knew he should wake him up and send him home, or, at the very least, convince him to stretch out on the couch or the bed. That chair had never been meant for sleeping in. But he just didn’t have the heart to wake his obviously exhausted partner. A little while wouldn’t twist Starsky’s spine into a pretzel. Yes, Hutch would definitely wake him in a little while and send him home for a proper rest in his own bed. If the bags under the closed eyes were anything to go by, Starsky needed it. In the meantime, however, Hutch was just going to sit here and let the gentle snoring drive the last of his terrors away.

~*~*~

Starsky checked the list in his hand as he pushed the cart into the housewares aisle of Darcys’ Department Store. He had managed to con his temporary partner into doing the end of shift report, so it was only 3:30. He was hoping to be back on the road and headed out to Hutch’s by 4:00, thereby missing the worst of the rush hour traffic. Pulling into a long aisle where shelves were stacked with boxes and displays of dishes, Starsky felt his optimism sliding into pessimism. It was going to take him an hour just to check out the options, let alone make a choice.

“Can I help you?”

Starsky wheeled around to find an attractive redhead wearing a Darcys’ employee vest watching him with amusement. “Well, uh,” he muttered stupidly, lifting the hand bearing the list as if that would explain his mission.

“Setting up housekeeping?” the woman asked.

“Uh. Not exactly. Just replacing some stuff,” Starsky said.

“Maybe I can help.”

“No, thanks,” Starsky said and hastily swung the cart into the aisle. He was halfway down it before he realized what he was running from. The woman had had that look. The one he was usually more than happy to see on a pretty face looking his way. But not today. Starsky tried to tell himself that, today, he didn’t have the time. The truth of the matter, however, was that he just wasn’t interested.

Dragging his distracted thoughts back into focus, Starsky scanned the boxes on the shelves. Settings for four. Settings for six. China, ironstone and guaranteed unbreakable plastic. Maybe he ought to buy the plastic just in case Hutch’s taste in women… Starsky cut off the uncharitable thought and heaved a box of ironstone dinnerware, setting for four, into his cart. Ironstone sounded strong and the picture on the box looked like it had leaves or something on it. That ought to appeal to Hutch.

Glasses were easier. They came in a box of twelve, four each of small, medium and large. Starsky picked a set that also had leaves on it and added it to the cart. He figured, even if a whole bunch of the plants Diana had damaged and he had tried to provide first aid to decided to croak, Hutch could look at the leaves on his plates instead. He started hunting for the next item on the list.

A cool hundred dollars later, Starsky had the various boxes and bags loaded into the trunk of the Torino and was on the road to Venice. Unfortunately, it was after 4:30, so he resigned himself to a frustrating forty-minute crawl instead of a quick twenty-minute zip and counseled himself to patience.

When he arrived at Venice Place, Starsky parked as close as he could, loaded his arms with his purchases, and went up to Hutch’s. He tried the handle; pleased when he found it locked, then rapped on the door.

“Coming,” he heard Hutch call through the door.

“Nah, you’re just breathin’ hard,” he quipped as the door was swung open and Hutch stepped back to let him in.

“What’s all that?” Hutch asked, following him into the kitchen where Starsky deposited his purchases on the table.

“Just some kitchen stuff I picked up,” Starsky explained casually, giving his partner what he hoped was an unobtrusive once over. Hutch looked better than he had yesterday when Starsky had brought him home from the hospital. Still a bit pale from the blood loss, and the muscles around his mouth remained taut with pain, but better. Hutch was on the mend, and Starsky, unfortunately, had plenty of experience with just how fast his partner healed.

“Starsk, you already bought me all new stuff for the bedroom,” Hutch protested. “And the beautiful shower curtain, of course.”

Starsky returned the grin Hutch gave him. Hutch would be teasing him about that curtain for years to come, bringing it up every time he had to give an example of Starsky’s bad taste. However, he also smiled every time he mentioned it, so Starsky was more than willing to take the ribbing. The damned thing had certainly served its purpose.

“Hey, ya gotta eat off something, don’t you? What are ya planning on doin’, takin’ up eatin’ outta the pots? That’s real sophisticated, Hutchinson,” he teased.

“I was going to go out tomorrow and….”

“You’re not supposed to be driving,” Starsky reminded him.

Hutch threw his un-bandaged hand up into the air, signaling his surrender, which Starsky accepted somewhat less than gracefully.

“That’s better,” he allowed as he began to unpack the boxes. He started the water running in the sink, added soap and only then realized what was missing. “Hey, didn’t you eat today?” he asked suspiciously. Although he hadn’t done it in a while, this was certainly no time for Hutch to be going on one of his fasts.

“Of course I ate,” Hutch protested. He had leaned back against the counter and Starsky could feel the blue eyes watching him as he shuttled back and forth from table to sink.

“So, where’s the dishes? Well, pots or whatever?” Starsky asked.

“I washed them. I’m not an invalid, Starsk. I can manage,” Hutch insisted.

Starsky looked pointedly at the bandaged arm held close to Hutch’s body by the sling.

Hutch shrugged. “Okay, so I’m a semi-invalid for a few more days. It doesn’t mean I can’t wash a few dishes.”

“Then you won’t mind having more to wash,” Starsky pointed out with a grin and began washing the new dishes. “So tell me, Hutch, how does a one-armed man wash dishes?” he asked, setting himself up as the straight man and hoping Hutch would follow his lead. But he could tell by the scowl on Hutch’s face that his friend wasn’t about to play along.

“You know I appreciate it, Starsk, but I don’t want you beggaring yourself out of some misplaced feeling of guilt. You keep going like this and you won’t even be able to afford the Torino’s next oil change,” Hutch insisted.

“It isn’t misplaced, and besides…” Starsky put on his fiercest expression, “…not even for my partner would I neglect my baby. I’m okay. Really. You can pay me back sometime,” he offered.

“I can write you a check—”

“Sometime later. Okay?” Starsky cut in hastily. “Please, Hutch. Just take the dishes and stuff. It’s no big deal and it makes me feel better,” he appealed.

Starsky heard the sigh, watched the resigned expression take up residence on Hutch’s face and relaxed, satisfied that his friend had run out of objections. For now. Starsky was certain they would be having this conversation again, but he was determined that he was going to replace each and every item that Diana had destroyed.

“Okay. You win,” Hutch said. “But if you really want to make it up to me, you could take me to physio next week and listen to me bitch.”

Very pleased to have won the argument and to have coaxed Hutch into playing the game, after all, Starsky scooped up a handful of suds and threw it at him. “Geez, Hutch. Talk about cruel and inhuman punishment.”

~*~*~

Hutch groaned as he opened the door and watched his partner struggle up the stairs with an armload of unused canvases. “No way, Starsky. You are not bringing those damned things in here,” he protested.

“Ah, come on, Hutch. They’re heavy. You’re not gonna make me carry them all the way back down, are ya?” Starsky whined.

Although Hutch could have ignored the whine, there was no way he could close the door on the hopeful expression Starsky was giving him. Reluctantly, he stepped aside and watched his partner carry his burden in and unload it against the inner wall of the greenhouse.

“I had a meet with Jimmy the Fence today. He had some really good info on those robberies up town, and I saw these,” Starsky explained as he aligned each canvas just so. “I figured, with some time on your hands, you might want to do a little painting.”

“Cut the crap, Starsky. My bullshit meter is screaming red alert,” Hutch growled.

“Hey, can’t a guy bring a sick friend a little present? You wouldn’t have bitched if I’d brought you flowers in the hospital,” Starsky said.

“Wanna bet?” Hutch countered. He could just imagine the looks on the nurses’ faces if Starsky had shown up with flowers.

They had, Hutch was sure, already noticed how Starsky kept flirting with him. It was damned blatant at times, and Hutch knew he should put a stop to it, but it felt so good that he just couldn’t make himself do it. They hadn’t talked about it yet, and the chances were they never would, but Hutch was pretty certain that the hiatus of their sexual relationship was over. The last Friday was a week away, however, and before then, he had to deal with Starsky’s determination to put himself into the poorhouse.

“Besides, that’s what you said yesterday when you brought me the new plant pots,” he reminded his forgetful partner. “Diana didn’t break two dozen of the damned things.”

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that,” Starsky admitted, frowning. He brightened after a moment of thought. “I didn’t bring you candy, either.”

Hutch rolled his eyes. “I was in the hospital. You weren’t taking me out on a date.”

“That reminds me. I’m tired of canned soup. Why don’t you and me go out to dinner tonight?”

“For Christ’s sake,” Hutch shouted. “You’re going to end up in the poorhouse.” He realized belatedly that Starsky had successfully diverted his attention away from the canvases and that he was once again a victim of Starsky’s rule of distraction.

“Nah,” Starsky said, coming up beside him and slipping an arm around his shoulders. “It’s not like I’m going to take you any place fancy. Besides, Huggy’ll just let me put in on the tab.”

~*~*~

Hutch heard the familiar growl of the Torino’s engine pull up outside his apartment and went to stand in front of the window, looking down on the shiny red car, waiting for his friend to emerge with whatever gift his ersatz Greek would come bearing today. He wasn’t exactly sure when he had twigged, perhaps between the canvases and the toss cushions, but somewhere along the line, he had figured out exactly what Starsky was doing. He wasn’t salving his guilt with his daily gifts, although he had started out that way. Now, however, he was, for want of a better word, ‘courting’ Hutch. What he had yet to decide was whether Starsky had figured that out for himself, or if he was blind to his own motivations.

It had to stop, of course. Starsky could ill afford it, and it wasn’t necessary, whatever was prompting him to do it. Hutch, however, was reluctant to do so. He was so enjoying being the center of Starsky’s attention, having proof positive that, for at least some part of every day, he was the subject of his partner’s thoughts.

He wondered what Starsky was waiting for, but it wasn’t until Hutch saw him climb out of the Torino and pull a guitar case from the back seat that Hutch could guess the reason for the delay. Starsky had probably been sitting there, marshaling his arguments up like squadrons of marines, ready to throw his army of justification against Hutch’s objections. He was probably expecting to have to scrape Hutch down off the ceiling when he saw the latest gift.

For a moment, Hutch considered not objecting at all, but knew he would be robbing Starsky of half of the pleasure he was receiving from his daily ‘surprises.’ So, he would object, he decided, as he moved to open the door, but not too strenuously. However, he was going to secure a promise that this would be the last one. He was also rather anticipating the fun he was going to have convincing Starsky to accept payment for all the gifts somewhere down the line. Maybe he would just put a check directly into Starsky’s bank account, then Starsky would put it back in his, then so forth and so on, until Starsky finally accepted the money. Hutch thought the game could easily go on for a year.

“No way. Uh, uh. Forget it, Starsky,” Hutch offered the expected protests as soon as he opened the door. He did, however, allow Starsky to push past him. He closed the door and watched as his partner opened the case, withdrew the guitar and propped it in the corner of the couch.

“Come on, Hutch. I got it on sale. And I know that now your arm is almost better, you’re going to want to play.”

Hutch allowed Starsky’s con job to coax him into taking two steps away from the door.

“I’ve been really missin’ listening to you play, babe,” Starsky added with a persuasive smile.

“This is absolutely too much. I’m not accepting this. The dishes and the pots and the canvases and, don’t think for one minute I don’t know I’ve been sleeping on a brand-new mattress.” Hutch brought up his right index finger and leveled it on Starsky who grinned at him, spoiling his intended emphasis when he remembered Starsky confessing he always expected a green laser beam to come flashing out of it.

“It’s the last one,” Starsky hastened to assure him. “I promise. Tomorrow, when I come to get you to take you to get your stitches out, I swear I will come empty handed. Scouts’ honor,” he added, raising two fingers, adding a third, and then going back to two.

“You were never a boy scout. No self-respecting troop would let a con artist like you within a mile of their meetings,” Hutch declared, however, he hadn’t been able to keep from crossing the room or reaching out to stroke the satiny smooth finish on the neck of the instrument. He had been missing his guitar. Playing soothed him.

“It really is the last one,” Starsky promised seriously.

“Only because you’ve already bought everything else,” Hutch murmured, entranced by the feel of the fine wood under his fingers. This instrument might look like his guitar, but Hutch knew enough to recognize that it was actually a far better instrument. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Well,” Starsky purred, his sensual tone snatching Hutch’s attention away from the contentious gift. “If it was the right day of the month, I could make a few suggestions.” The blatant sensuality disappeared as abruptly as it had come. “But since it isn’t, how about you just play somethin’ for me?”

“Black Bean Soup?” Hutch asked.

Starsky grinned triumphantly.

~*~*~

Starsky shifted impatiently on the hard chair. God, he hated doctor’s offices. And hospitals. And physio clinics. Their antiseptic smells could bring back memories of suffering faster than a stack of photographs. Every scar he bore, both visible and invisible, seemed to ache every time he took a breath. But, he reminded himself, trying to sit still beneath the disapproving glare of the receptionist, today he was here for a happy purpose. Today, luck willing, Hutch would receive his all clear from the doctor to return to duty and Bay City’s dynamic duo would be back in business on Monday.

Starsky jumped to his feet when the door to the examining room opened and Hutch stepped out, drinking in the glorious sight of his partner, restored to glowing good health. He hung back as Hutch turned and shook hands with the doctor and then fell into step beside his partner, grinning when he had to lengthen his stride to keep up with Hutch. Obviously, the patient was just as anxious to leave the sterile environment behind, and was putting his long legs to good use.

“So? What’d he say?” Starsky questioned anxiously as they made their rapid retreat out of the medical office and along the corridor to the elevator. “Do I get my partner back or what?”

“Starsk, you are looking at a free man,” Hutch declared, his face, his eyes, a shining testament to how glad he was to be able to say it at last. “Monday morning, I’m back on the job.”

“Monday?” Starsky echoed. “Full duty? You sure this guy knows what he’s doing? It’s only been—”

“He earned his medical degree at Harvard,” Hutch interrupted. “Where did you get yours?”

Starsky closed his mouth over the rest of his objection. He watched the floor indicator rise, trying to get his head around the fact that Hutch was well again. It wasn’t easy, after being in full protective mode for weeks, to settle back into the space where they were both young and healthy and raring to go.

“So, you wanna celebrate?” he asked, hoping Hutch would agree since he had already gone ahead and made all the arrangements.

The elevator arrived and they stepped into it and all the time Starsky could feel Hutch’s eyes on him. After punching the button for the garage level, he turned and faced his partner’s suspicious stare.

“What have you got up your sleeve?” Hutch asked, caution sticking out all over him.

“Who, me?” Starsky asked innocently, holding out his bare arms.

It was a perfect day for the end of August. They were already beginning to have some of those days that promised the cooler respite of fall. Not too cool yet, certainly a day to take advantage of with no sleeves when they were lucky enough to be off duty and didn’t have to hide their guns. But bright and clear. A wonderful day for what Starsky had planned. Now, if he could just get Hutch to agree without having to spoil the surprise.

“Don’t try to con me, Starsky. I know all your tricks,” Hutch warned.

“It’s a surprise, Hutch. Okay?” Starsky revealed, knowing that now Hutch’s suspicions were aroused he was going to have to give him something. The doors parted and they headed toward where they had parked the Torino. “A good surprise. I promise,” he coaxed, walking backward so he could use his expression to help convince his partner, and to keep an eye on Hutch’s so he knew when he had gone far enough.

“No parties. If you’ve planned some kind of party…” Hutch didn’t complete the threat, but he didn’t need to. Starsky got the message.

“No party. Promise,” Starsky reassured him hastily as they reached the car.

He unlocked Hutch’s side first, started to circle to the other side, but Hutch’s hand on his arm held him in place. Despite the lack of privacy, Starsky laid his hand over Hutch’s and squeezed reassuringly.

“It’s a good surprise, Hutch,” he repeated. “If you don’t like it, you can…” He cast about in his mind for a retribution to offer that would put Hutch’s fears to rest. “You can kick my car. Right in the fender.” He patted the shiny red paint. “And you can put on your cowboy boots first.”

~*~*~

The seriousness of the revenge Starsky offered kept Hutch quiet for the first fifteen minutes of the ride to wherever it was Starsky was taking him. Starsky had to be pretty damned confident in his plans for him to offer Hutch such a prize. Hutch never had become any fonder of the Torino, even the new version, and it would be damned tempting to dislike Starsky’s surprise just for the opportunity to realize a long-held fantasy of giving the Tomato a good swift kick. He wouldn’t, of course, but it was tempting.

In actual fact, he wasn’t really worried about what Starsky had planned. It was too early in the day for bars and discos. Besides, he already knew that his friend’s frenetic stage was over. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment it had ended, becoming aware of it more by Starsky’s calmer manner than by any particular event that told him Starsky was back to normal. Or, as normal as his partner ever got.

He watched the familiar streets slide by as Starsky wove them in and out of traffic, but couldn’t make any guesses as to their destination. They could be headed to Starsky’s place, Huggy’s, or, if they took the next right and then onto the freeway, they could even be headed out to Venice. He hoped they weren’t going to his place yet. He had seen quite enough of his own four walls since Diana had stabbed him, to make being somewhere else for the day an attractive idea.

Starsky didn’t take the right and Hutch relaxed a little. In fact, if he relaxed any more, he would be a puddle on the leather seat. He forgave himself. He was happy. On Monday, he would be back on the streets with his partner, and this was the last Friday of August, 1977. He might not know what Starsky’s plans for the afternoon were, but he had some of his own for tonight. He had a brand-new mattress to christen, and whatever it took, short of handcuffing his dancer to the bed, Hutch was determined that he and Starsky would be resuming their sexual relationship on that bed tonight.

He glanced at his partner, taking in the aura of anticipation that crackled around him and knew it wasn’t all generated by his surprise plans. Starsky had been flirting with him for weeks, making veiled promises about tonight, and Hutch had been flirting back and making his own unspoken promises. He saw a small frown crease the familiar profile and realized that his silence was spoiling Starsky’s fun.

“So, where are we going to celebrate?” he asked. Their present location still gave them the options of Starsky’s or Huggy’s, along with about a hundred other restaurants.

“It’s a surprise,” Starsky replied.

They changed lanes and Hutch mentally dismissed Huggy’s. They would have to make a right about two blocks up to go to The Pits, and there were no parked cars that would have forced the lane change.

“I know the celebration is a surprise, but can’t you at least tell me where we’re going?”

Starsky shook his head emphatically. “Nope. It’d spoil the surprise.”

“Okay. How long ’til we get there?” Hutch asked. Right now they still had half the city for options. A time frame could narrow that down considerably. Hutch realized he was warming to the game.

“Uhm,” Starsky hesitated as if considering whether the information might give away the location prematurely, then shrugged. “Fifteen minutes,” he finally revealed.

Hutch did a mental calculation, then scaled down the distance when he remembered that Starsky was driving well within the speed limit, then he eliminated everything behind them. Could still be anywhere, he concluded.

“That doesn’t tell me much,” he complained.

“It wasn’t supposed to. You’re supposed to be anticipating here, Hutch,” Starsky reminded him. “You know, going along ’cause you know your kind and considerate friend has nothing but your best interests at heart.”

“Uh, huh,” Hutch grunted, and revised his calculations when Starsky hung a left. Somewhere west. That let out Starsky’s place. What was on the west side, he wondered? There were a couple of restaurants, including one particularly awful taco joint that Starsky favored.

“Ah, Starsk, not Jose’s trashcan,” he complained, just to see the smile bloom on Starsky’s face.

“Would I do that to my best friend?” Starsky protested.

“In a heartbeat,” Hutch shot right back. “Well, maybe only if you were starving,” he conceded. “So that leaves—”

“Too late,” Starsky announced as he pulled into the parking lot at Westside Park. “We’re here.”

Hutch looked around in confusion. “What do you mean we’re here? It hasn’t been fifteen minutes. You lied,” he accused.

Starsky pulled the car into a slot in the almost empty lot, shut down the engine and turned to offer a triumphant grin. “I exaggerated,” he amended.

Hutch let him have his moment of gloating self-satisfaction. “So, where’s the restaurant?”

“Did I say anything about a restaurant?” Starsky said. “Not very good procedure there, Detective Hutchinson. Making assumptions.”

Hutch followed suit when Starsky left the driver’s seat and joined him at the rear of the car. Starsky bent to unlock the trunk, then lifted the lid with a flourish.

“Ta da,” he announced, waving a hand to indicate the supplies loaded into the space.

“A picnic?” Hutch guessed, taking in the cooler, basket and blanket. “In Westside Park?”

Westside Park, at one time, maybe when Bay City was first planned, had been a green jewel amid the growing concrete jungle. However, in the sixties, it had become a haven for drug dealers and junkies, and criminals of every stripe as the city expanded outward. A couple of years ago, a reclamation project had begun that had been trying to restore it to its former glory. That was one of the reasons Hutch had bought the….

“This is where your tree is planted,” Hutch exclaimed as it all fell into place. “This isn’t a celebration, this is revenge, and you’ve been waiting all this time to spring it on me.”

“I promised you a good surprise, remember? You think I’m gonna take the chance of letting you kick my baby with those big feet of yours?” Starsky reminded him as he leaned into the trunk and pulled out the cooler.

“Yeah, I forgot about that,” Hutch said, reaching for the basket, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Uh, uh, ah,” Starsky chided. “This is your celebration, so you don’t do the work.” He pulled the basket out and set it beside the cooler.

“I’m not an invalid anymore,” Hutch protested.

But Starsky was adamant. The only thing Starsky allowed him to carry was the blanket. It became apparent as they trudged across the grass, Starsky lugging both cooler and basket, that his friend had a definite destination in mind that was revealed to Hutch only when Starsky suddenly stopped and dropped his burdens to the grass.

“This is it,” he announced proudly. “This is my tree.”

Hutch hadn’t felt too bad about giving Starsky the tree for Christmas last year despite his partner’s reaction at the time. He and Starsky, after all, never did exchange their real presents at Christmas, but saved them for their private celebration on the last Friday of the year. Looking at the tree now, however, he felt like a heel.

“Geez, Starsk, I’m sorry,” he apologized.

Starsky offered a wry grin. “Yeah, it is a pretty sorry looking little sucker, isn’t it?” he acknowledged as he spread out the blanket. A wave of his hand invited Hutch to make himself comfortable. “Ya could’ve at least asked ’em to plant a decent tree in my honor.”

“I was right, you are looking for revenge,” Hutch muttered as he sat down and stretched his legs out, but he kept his voice low enough so Starsky couldn’t understand him.

“You should’ve seen it when I came out right after Christmas to find it. It looks good now compared to then. I got after the maintenance man and I come around every few weeks just to make sure he’s takin’ proper care of it, you know.”

As he talked, Starsky was digging into the basket and cooler, laying out a repast of, Hutch saw, all his favorite foods. There was even a bottle of chilled wine and a couple of glasses. Starsky really had been planning carefully, which, combined with the reality of the tree and the story Starsky was unfolding, only made Hutch feel lower than a snake’s belly.

“It’s a birch, Hutch,” Starsky continued his explanation as he worked on opening the wine. “I read up on them, and it’s not unusual for them to be slow starters. But once they take hold…” He paused in his struggle with the cork to give his tree an affectionate pat,”…they can really go like hell. Someday, this little twig will be this big around.”

Again the pause while Starsky illustrated his explanation by holding out his arms in the biggest circle he could make, the now open bottle of wine dangling from one hand. He ended his demonstration by handing a glass to Hutch and filling it halfway up with sparkling, golden liquid.

“Of course, I won’t be around to see it. But it sure is nice to know it’ll be here long after I’m gone. Somethin’ more permanent than golden retrievers, don’t you think?”

And just that quick, what had been a seemingly aimless ramble became a very specific point. The sunshine was gone from Starsky’s expression now and he looked just about as sober as he ever did in court.

“It’s a future, you know, Hutch. Maybe the only thing I’m gonna leave behind. And you gave it to me, babe.”

For a man who insisted he hated soapy scenes, Starsky sure picked the damnedest times and places to drop an emotional bomb, Hutch thought. After a moment he realized, however, that Starsky’s planning wasn’t random. Although there were few other people around, they were still in a public place and Hutch had no choice but to keep his response low key. To wait until the muscles of his throat stopped working against each other, and he could speak again without his voice cracking.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” he finally whispered, and all the talking they maybe should have done, all the explanations and apologies and promises for the future were made silently between their locked gazes. It was the way they so often communicated best, and it seemed fitting to Hutch that they should come to their mutual understanding like this.

But it didn’t seem to be enough for Starsky this time.

“I know I’ve been pulling your chain since Terry died, and I wanna apologize for that, Hutch.”

Hutch opened his mouth to interject, but Starsky’s upraised hand silenced him.

“Just let me say it all, okay? I wanna thank you, too, for putting up with me. I haven’t liked myself a whole lot these past few months, and it’s helped a lot to know that you still like me.”

The dark head dipped a moment, and Starsky toyed with his glass, nearly dropping it before he gave Hutch back his face to read.

“Love me,” he added with subdued pride in his voice and much greater pride in his eyes. “I love you, too, Hutch. That scared the hell outta me for a while, but, I guess I finally figured out that’s gonna be true even if I never touch you again. I’m still gonna try to keep that outta the box,” he warned. “And I’m not sayin’ I’m gonna stop looking for somebody I could marry.”

“Then what are you saying, Starsk?” Hutch asked, already knowing, but, like Starsky, wanting it spelled out between them. Like it had been that night so long ago back in the Academy when they had first decided to live a double life, little knowing how time and experience would blur the lines that had seemed so clear cut then.

“I’m sayin’ I want what I can have. All day, most days, with my best friend. Sex once a month with the only man who lights my fire. And, maybe, if it’s meant to be, maybe somethin’ more to leave when I’m gone besides a tree.”

Now it was Hutch’s turn to study the sparkling liquor in his glass, to tap the side and release the tiny bubbles to break on the surface. Like the need inside him was rising, released finally and irrevocably and just waiting for a chance to break against Starsky’s equally fierce need. He agreed, in principal, though he was almost certain he had long ago abandoned his own hopes of ever finding anyone who could give him the things Starsky still hoped to find. But he no longer cared. Sometime in the future, he might, especially if Starsky ever found a special lady, but at the moment, what he wanted was exactly what Starsky had spelled out.

He lifted his head, and then his glass, waited until Starsky touched the brims together, and then offered his toast. “Buddy, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

~*~*~

Starsky had every intention of making this the most memorable sexual experience of Hutch’s life. To cherish his precious partner, shower gentleness upon him, be considerate of his still weak left arm, and generally conduct himself as the most tender lover Hutch had ever known. Those good intentions went the way of most such plans when Hutch grabbed him with that supposedly weak left arm, slammed him up against the closing door, gripped his about-to-protest jaw, and then rammed their mouths together in a hungry kiss that brought back memories of their last desperate kiss so strongly he could almost smell the dirty alley. This time, Starsky did what he should have done then, grabbed hold and held on for dear life. If he had had the brains to do it then, he would have saved them both a lot of misery.

It wasn’t until he ripped his mouth away to grab what breath he could with Hutch’s chest crushed against his, that Starsky discovered Hutch had his own plans. The big hands that were so competent on the street, so tender in bed, pushed him away from the body he wanted to merge with, and held him at bay despite his instinctive struggles.

“No way, partner. No slam, bam, thank you, sir, and a crumpled heap at the door,” Hutch commanded. “There’s a mattress over there to christen, and we’re gonna do it right.”

Being flexible in your planning could be a good thing, Starsky reminded himself as Hutch began to move slowly backward toward the bed. After the first two steps, the hands left his arms, but Starsky continued to follow willingly when they dropped to his waist, pulled his t-shirt free of his waistband and drew it over his head. Fingertips brushed his sides, traced fleetingly over the stretched-taut muscles of his arms as the material was lifted up, up, up and discarded to lay forgotten where it fell.

His leather belt pulled tight for a moment as Hutch freed the buckle, then relaxed before the soft shush-slap-shush of the strap being pulled through the loops on his jeans snapped anticipation into every nerve. If they didn’t reach the bed soon, Starsky feared he might not make it.

Warm fingers against his belly, then the snap on his jeans gave with an explosive little pop. Starsky echoed the sound in his throat as those same fingers caught at the tab of his zipper and ever so slowly, tooth by tooth, lowered it over the hard arc of his cock.

“Right there, babe,” Hutch murmured, the press of firm palms over his hips holding Starsky in place more surely than a gun to his head.

“Just stay right there.”

It was a command this time as Hutch sank to his knees, hands easing the tight denim down, cool breath teasing over his thighs, making Starsky want to spread them, fling them wide in the hope that teasing promise would blossom into the caresses of soft lips.

“Soon. Soon,” was whispered in place of the kisses Starsky craved.

He moaned aloud, catching on finally, belatedly, to what Hutch needed. Not to be cherished, but to cherish. To reclaim, with slow, obsessive attention to detail, what had been denied him for so long. He groaned when one butterfly kiss was placed with precision on his thigh, just above the inside of his right knee.

This was his forte. To make of his desire for Hutch a symphony of expertise mapped into his lover’s body with worshipping hands and mouth. To receive his own pleasure from the pleasure he gave. To simply accept was so much harder.

The cool silk of blond hair replaced the warm lips as Hutch turned his head to press a second, coaxing kiss against the other knee.

“Let me?”

Seducer became seduced as his strength left him and Starsky sat down abruptly on the bed.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t a question. Nevertheless, Starsky reached out, gathered up a handful of that soft, bright hair, and tugged until Hutch’s face tilted up toward him. “Yes. Christ, yes,” he pleaded.

Surrendering his will to the man who had waited so patiently for this, Starsky allowed the blond hair to slip through his fingers and lay back. He closed his eyes, letting each touch bestowed upon him as Hutch stripped away his clothes paint the scenario upon the blackness. Seeing only through his expectant nerve endings as Hutch discarded those barriers, reveling in the strength that righted his naked body on the bed, and the certainty with which his thighs were parted.

Quivering senses drank in the presence that hovered over him, vibrated to the fingers that combed through his chest hair, twanged as each nipple was found and plucked in turn. He fed Hutch his pleasure in a deep- throated groan. Heard it echoed back to him as sweet lips suckled hot embers into his chest and sharp teeth nipped them to flames.

A trail of heated lava oozed down his belly, pooled by a probing tongue into his navel that, for an eternity, turned the long-healed umbilicus once again into the very source of his life, feeding every organ sensation as it had once fed him his life’s blood.

“Hutch!”

A shouted protest-supplication from a being aching to be born. Reborn. Brought into the world remade, cleansed of grief and guilt, by the lips that slid lower, by the tongue that lapped, hot and wet along the length of his cock. Claimed at the moment of birth by the mouth that devoured him, the throat that offered safe haven and then tore it away when Hutch swallowed a new wave of delight into him. Hands cradled his ass as he arched off the bed, supporting him even while the rippling channel demanded he surrender, die at this moment of sweetest yearning if that was what it took to satisfy the needs of the man who owned his soul.

But death wasn’t what his bright lover craved. Life, his essence, that for too long he had wasted where it had no value, was the only gift demanded, and, willingly, Starsky gave it. Then he let the little death claim him.

And then, for a second time that day, he was reborn when consciousness returned to find himself held in arms that cradled him, entwined with a fully clothed body that protected him until he had grown accustomed to this new being who now lived within him.

White picket fences, golden retrievers, and spindly little birch trees. Quicksand, and, for a few minutes, Starsky allowed it to close over his head. In a perfect world… But, the world was far from perfect.

With a hand that had only begun to regain its strength, Starsky sought out the warm dampness at the juncture of Hutch’s long legs.

“Came in your pants like a hot to trot teenager, didn’t you?” he accused gently.

He heard the long, regretful sigh and waited through the painful pause as Hutch climbed back up his own slippery slope.

“Afterglow’s over, huh?” Hutch complained, but obligingly eased his possessive grip. “You’d think come would stay warmer longer when it’s trapped in your shorts,” he added.

Starsky smiled, kneaded the soft bulk under his hand, careful of the pressure he exerted on flesh he knew would still be quaking with aftershocks. “We can afterglow it again in an hour,” he promised.

“An hour?” Hutch echoed, making Starsky squirm as a rigid finger was poked into his side. “You’re getting out of shape if it’s going to take you a whole hour to recover.”

“I said afterglow. That’s when we’re done,” Starsky reminded him. “Weren’t you the guy telling me no slam bam tonight?”

“Still, maybe you better start running with me every morning,” Hutch suggested. “Jogging in the park is a great place to pick up girls, you know.”

The casual advice might have hurt coming so hard on the heels of what they had just shared, were it not for the fierce possessiveness of the arms that held him. And, Starsky reminded himself when a small spasm quaked his heart anyway, it was the reality of the life they had chosen to live.

“Yeah?” he countered. “Athletes, right? Big, strong, health-food-eating athletes.”

The short pause, one extra little squeeze that let Starsky know Hutch had recognized the description.

“Long-legged, slim, sexy ladies keeping in shape,” Hutch amended.

“Yeah? Okay,” Starsky relented, shifting, stretching, feeling the strength flowing back into him at the realization that now it was his turn to reclaim what he had been foolish enough to deny himself for too long. He used that strength to push Hutch over onto his back and prop himself up over his smiling lover.

“But maybe you better plan all this running for Monday morning,” he suggested, carefully slipping loose the buttons on Hutch’s shirt, one after the other, until he reached the barrier of his belt. “‘Cause after tonight, you’re gonna need ’til then to recover.”

“Promises. Promises,” Hutch egged him on.

“Nah. No promises, sweetheart. Just a whole lot of wasted time to make up for,” Starsky countered, lowering himself until he could brush a soft kiss onto swollen lips. “And I’m plannin’ on makin’ good on every last minute.”

~*~*~

Hutch watched Starsky jog away after the skinny, long-legged blonde who had caught both their attention, and chuckled. A week ago, Starsky had warned him that he didn’t intend to stop looking for a special lady, but Hutch was trying to no longer feel threatened by some possible future Mrs. Starsky. If she someday appeared out of the legion of ladies his partner pursued, well, he would deal with that piece of heartbreak if he ever had to and not before. Crying over spilt milk before it even soaked the carpet was a waste of time and energy, and he was no longer willing to indulge in it.

In any case, something told him the haughty looking blonde wasn’t going to be an easy conquest. She didn’t look like the type that fell hard and fast for Starsky’s brand of charm. That being the case, Hutch set off back along the jogging path, judging his pace and direction to intersect at just about the point where Starsky might be receiving the brush off. And if the lady proved to be an easier mark than he pegged her to be, maybe Hutch might decide to give his partner a little competition. There was no sense letting Metro’s Don Juan become complacent.

~*~*~

“Hutchinson!”

Hutch straightened from where he had almost sat down in his chair, circled the disaster zone of his and Starsky’s desk, and went to stand in the open doorway of Dobey’s office. “Yes, Captain,” he said, meek and mild, just in case Dobey was really as pissed off as he sounded.

“Where’s Starsky?” Dobey demanded.

The use of the name rather than something like ‘that partner of yours’ prompted Hutch to step into the office and close the door. On a scale of one to ten, Hutch estimated Dobey was running a pretty hot seven, and that was going to mean a fair amount of bellowing. He saw no reason to entertain the entire squadroom.

“Well, did you find him?” Dobey prompted.

“Yes, I found him,” Hutch confirmed as he settled into the chair across from Dobey. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Soon?” Dobey echoed. It was pretty obvious that this whole case was souring the captain’s stomach, and Hutch really couldn’t blame him for his foul humor. Frank Malone was one damned big fish and everyone, from the Mayor on down, including those double-crossing lawyers from the Investigative Committee, had to be bringing incredible pressure on Dobey for results.

“Soon,” Hutch repeated because, quite honestly, he wasn’t sure when his partner would be strutting into the squadroom. “This isn’t the easiest assignment you’ve ever given him, you know.”

“Since when does Starsky find it difficult to romance a woman?” Dobey countered belligerently.

Hutch ducked his head, pretending to cough so he could bring a hand up to cover the smile he couldn’t hold back. Starsky’s lady-killer reputation really offended their deeply religious superior. Dobey seemed to think it was well past time that the two of them found someone permanent and settled down. Hutch wanted to point out that there didn’t seem to be that many Ediths left in the world, ready to put up with the demands of a cop’s life. But that was an argument for another day.

“Rosey Malone is a very pretty woman,” Hutch pointed out instead. “And, from all appearances, uninvolved in her father’s business. She’s—”

“And Starsky isn’t supposed to be falling in love with her,” Dobey cut in. “He’s supposed to be getting information out of her.”

Again, Hutch had to force a cough, but this time it was to stop his outrage from spewing out. Starsky wasn’t falling in love. Hutch had seen Starsky in love, and his partner wasn’t anywhere near that much touted state. He was trying to convince himself he was, but Hutch knew better. Even during the months when it seemed Starsky was determined to lay every woman in Bay City, he always tried to play fair. He was an honest man who never, unless the lady knew the score, led a woman to believe he felt more for her than he did. Starsky wasn’t a ‘promise her anything’ type of guy. It went against his personal moral code of conduct. That’s why Starsky was trying so hard to fall in love with Rosey Malone. It was the only way to do his job and still live with himself. He had to be in the same position of risked heartbreak in order to live with the lies and evasions he was forced to tell her.

“No, Captain,” Hutch finally replied. “His job is to distract Frank Malone. Keep him wrong-footed so he can’t concentrate. Nothing like having a cop romancing your daughter to keep you from concentrating on your criminal empire.”

“That theory won’t hold water, Hutchinson. Malone doesn’t even know Starsky’s a cop,” Dobey reminded him.

“He does now, and so does Rosey.” Hutch revealed what he and Starsky had learned. “We don’t have proof, but we think it was Chambers and Goodson who broke his cover. Just like it was them that dropped the tip on Ray Shelby to us. Those two have been sitting back and pulling the strings on all of us, from Frank Malone right on down.”

“Do you have proof?”

“If we had proof, Captain, we’d be making a formal complaint.” Hutch smiled and saw the coldness of it register with Dobey. “Or taking care of it ourselves.”

“Hutchinson….”

Hutch waved the warning growl into silence. “Don’t worry. We won’t give those double-crossing bastards what they really deserve. But you can’t sit there and tell me that Starsky’s out of line for trying to protect the only innocent party in this whole mess. That’s what we swore to do, remember? Protect the innocent.”

“Hardly innocent,” Dobey objected. “Rosey Malone has to have known about her father’s business.”

“You can know something about somebody you love, Captain,” Hutch said as he pushed out of the chair. “But that doesn’t stop you from loving them. Rosey Malone loves her father—”

Hutch was cut off by the ringing of the telephone on Dobey’s desk. He started to leave as Dobey picked up the receiver and barked into it, but obediently remained when Dobey signaled him to.

“All right. I understand,” Dobey said after a few moments of silent listening, and then hung up. “That was Chambers. Malone has agreed to the committee’s deal.”

“What did I tell you? Those bastards have been playing all the ends against the middle. They’ve got what they want now,” Hutch said, moving toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To find my partner.”

~*~*~

Starsky wasn’t surprised when Hutch joined him where he had collapsed on the park bench. He was hot and tired from his run, soaked in sweat and thoroughly out of sorts with the world at large. Nevertheless, he welcomed his friend’s presence.

“Come to tell me I told you so?” he asked belligerently, knowing Hutch would see through it for the self- protective armor it was.

Hutch shrugged, then shifted around as if seeking a comfortable position on the hard wooden slats. But Starsky knew the purpose behind the maneuver was really to bring Hutch’s shoulder pressing firmly against his own.

“Who, me? I didn’t try to tell you anything,” Hutch reminded him mildly.

Starsky turned his head slightly so he could study his friend’s profile. Hutch looked like a man without a care in the world, but Starsky could see the creases in the tall forehead and around the vulnerable mouth that gave the lie to the casual appearance.

“Maybe you should have,” he said, though he knew that, like himself, Hutch believed in a man’s right to make his own mistakes. Especially in love.

“She’s going with her father,” he reported. “Probably running off to Mexico somewhere.”

“Uh, huh,” Hutch agreed.

They fell silent, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. Hutch, Starsky knew, was just letting him sort through it all, prepared to be a sounding board or offer silent support, whichever was needed. The passage of time became something that no longer had anything to do with the hands on his watch, counted off instead by the sound of children’s laughter, the sight of strolling couples, and the rapidly developing aches in his overrun body. Joining Hutch occasionally for his morning jog had not prepared him for the flat out running he had just put himself through.

“Come on,” Hutch said eventually, bumping his shoulder into Starsky’s and rising to his feet. “Let’s walk. I can hear you creaking from here.”

It was, sometimes, so damned comforting to be so well known, Starsky thought as he climbed to his feet. It was only experience and common sense for Hutch to get him moving, but, at the moment, that didn’t matter at all.

They fell into step side by side and Starsky let the mutual rhythm soothe him as well.

“I made a fool of myself, didn’t I?” he said, although it didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it had when Rosey told him good-bye. Wounded pride couldn’t really stand up to much self-analysis. Clinging to it only made you feel like a bigger fool.

“No more than the rest of us mere mortals when it comes to love,” Hutch offered, along with a slight misstep that brushed their arms together. A casual observer might see clumsy, but Starsky knew it for the deliberately offered contact it was.

“Love?” Starsky echoed.

“No?” Hutch offered him more of a benefit of the doubt than Starsky was giving himself.

“No,” Starsky confirmed. He gave his confession a little more thought before he offered it. “Think maybe I was taking a page from your book. Playin’ the white knight to her damsel in distress,” he said and saw the reminiscent smile touch his partner’s lips.

“The lady was caught between a rock and a hard place,” Hutch agreed.

They walked a few more yards along the green path. “I guess maybe I’m still tryin’ to fall in love,” he admitted with brutal self-honesty. “Maybe I ought to just quit trying.”

“Maybe for today,” Hutch agreed. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

“Huh,” Starsky laughed, this time being the one to veer off the path and bump shoulders with his partner. “Now you’re the one soundin’ like Miss Scarlet.”

“Huh?”

Starsky grinned, wishing they were some place private where he could give Hutch a grateful hug. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter anyway.”

They came to the arch where Starsky had watched Rosie walk away with her father. He let himself remember the scene, probed at the thoughts with relentless self-honesty. He had loved Rosey in a way, but not in any sort of way that had a hope of lasting. White knight syndrome he had called it, along with, he could admit now, a healthy dose of ego that competing with Frank Malone had aroused.

“Hutch, you think we’re ever gonna find a special lady?” he asked, hearing the wistfulness of his tone. It was something he was believing in a little less every day.

“Maybe,” Hutch offered, along with an arm across his shoulders that settled briefly and then was withdrawn, but not before it chased away the last of the lingering coldness that had settled inside Starsky when Rosey turned away from him. “I guess until then we always have each other.”

Full circle, Starsky thought. They always seemed to come full circle back to each other. “That’s kinda poetic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed.

Starsky could see the Torino now where it was parked beside Hutch’s LTD. Different as night and day, just like the two of them.

“And, by the way, Starsk,” Hutch said as they headed toward the cars and back to their lives.

“Yeah?” Starsky asked, expecting some final bit of wisdom.

“Your fly’s undone.”

 

Closets and Cages

Hutch pulled the LTD to a stop in front of Starsky’s building and waited for his partner to climb out. He was counting the minutes it was going to take him to drive home, peel off the clothes that were glued to him by his own sweat, and step into a blessedly cool shower. You expected to melt in Southern California in July and August, but a heat wave like the one that had been building all week was just too cruel, coming as it did after a couple of weeks of cooler, September temperatures. Hutch had felt as if he was melting all day, and had even been a little queasy since lunch. He slid his hand into the open front of his shirt and lifted it, hoping to catch whatever bit of breeze there might be.

“Geez, I’m glad it’s Friday,” Starsky said, his tone bringing Hutch’s gaze around to him. “You’ve been drivin’ me nuts with that all week,” he confessed with an anticipatory grin. “So, when will you be back tonight?”

That was when Hutch remembered it was the last Friday of September. Not that he had forgotten exactly. In fact, before the mercury began shooting for the moon on Monday, he had been anticipating tonight. But after the day they had spent stuck in the car for hours while the sun turned it into a steam bath, his thoughts had been more occupied with fantasies of the North Pole than hot sex.

“Ah, come on, Starsk. It’s too damned hot to fuck,” he protested, but his partner, who didn’t seem to feel the heat as badly, was quick to protest in his turn.

“Too hot to fuck?” Starsky echoed. “That’s one of those oxymoron things, right?” His tone turned wheedling. “Besides, I’ve got air conditioning.”

“That ancient hunk of junk,” Hutch objected. “You’ve had that since before we were in the Academy. All it does is suck up electricity and spit out a little semi-cool puff once in a while.”

“Better than nothing,” Starsky defended his antique.

“You’re just horny,” Hutch dismissed with disdain, just as if he wasn’t capable of the same single-minded desire for his partner.

“Horny?” Starsky echoed in disbelief. “Of course I’m horny. Geez, Hutch, don’t you ever look in a mirror?”

He grabbed the rear-view mirror and angled it so Hutch had a view of himself instead of the car parked behind them. To Hutch, his reflection looked wilted and sweaty and miserable.

“Just look at you with your hair all messed up. Stickin’ to your forehead in the front and curlin’ up in the back,” Starsky continued, reaching out to twine one of the longer, damp curls at the back of Hutch’s neck around his finger. Hutch’s head tipped back a little with the small tug Starsky gave his hair, and then he felt the warm fingers glide under the collar that had been tormenting him all day.

“And what have ya been doin’ ever since this heat wave started?” he asked, making it clear it was a rhetorical question by answering it himself. “You’ve been playin’ with yourself. That’s what.”

Hutch shuddered as Starsky’s fingers followed the trail his own had taken so often this past week, the tips grazing his sweaty throat, spreading out to widen the vee of his unbuttoned shirt as they stroked down toward his chest. He should be protesting. They were sitting in a car in broad daylight and Starsky shouldn’t be touching him like this. However, this was a very quiet street, and Starsky’s caresses felt so damned good.

“Every time I look at you,” Starsky growled. “You’re runnin’ your fingers all over your chest, strokin’ your hot, sweaty skin. Fuck, I’ve had to keep stuffin’ my hands in my pockets just to keep ’em off you.”

The slightest puff of moving air slipped between Hutch and the damp material of his shirt as Starsky lifted it away from his skin, fluttering it slightly, just like Hutch knew he did himself.

“And when you start fannin’ yourself like this, what do I get?” Again, no pause was left for Hutch to offer a reply, even had he been able to think of one. “I get a nose full of your sweat, that’s what. That hot, kinda spicy smell you get when I get you hot.”

Hutch nearly protested when Starsky took his hand away, and then abruptly threw himself back against the passenger door as if he didn’t trust himself to be too close.

“Damn right I’m horny. You’ve been walkin’ around like a fuckin’ invitation to rape. My cock’s been on red alert all week, and now you’re tellin’ me it’s too hot to fuck?” The seduction had left Starsky’s voice now, replaced by the strain of too long suppressed need.

“Jesus, Starsk. I’m sorry,” Hutch apologized sincerely. “I didn’t realize….”

“I know you don’t, babe, and I know you don’t do it on purpose.” There was a pause while Starsky cut him a look that said he wasn’t entirely convinced on that one. “Just come back, okay? I’ll crank the air conditioner up as high as it’ll go, and I’ll even serve you ice-cold lemonade.”

Hutch laughed. As if, after Starsky’s passionate declarations, he had any hope of refusing. “Get out of here and go coax some cool air out of that damned machine. I’ll be back before eight.”

~*~*~

Starsky hated breaking promises to his friend, especially on the one night a month when his friend was also his lover, and even more especially after the long hiatus of their sexual sharing that he himself had enforced. This was only the second time in nearly a year they would be together this way, and Starsky was determined that nothing would prevent it or spoil it.

And so, he tried. He even prayed. But no matter how much he begged, cursed or tinkered, his ancient air conditioner refused to do anything more than wheeze, rattle and blow semi-warm air at him. The best that could be said for it was it exchanged the hot, stuffy air inside for the hot, humid air outside.

He also discovered that he had no ice. No lemons, either. A quick trip to the store solved that problem, but left him worrying about another potential headache. The Torino didn’t seem to like the weather either, its heat gauge climbing five degrees just during the short trip to the store and back.

Walking back into his apartment after his trip to the store, Starsky knew he had to call Hutch and offer him a chance to cancel. Hutch suffered far more in the heat. Starsky didn’t know if it was because of the many more years that Hutch had spent in a cold climate, making his body automatically begin to prepare for winter as soon as the last day of August passed. Or perhaps it was that his own blood had been permanently thinned by his tour of duty in Vietnam.

When there was no answer at Hutch’s place, Starsky went back to trying to sweet talk the air conditioner while he changed the sheets on the bed. It ignored him right up to the moment when, in sheer frustration, he kicked it, hard, right in the middle of its fragile grill. The grill crumpled inward, the old motor coughed and stopped, and then, miraculously, surged back to life, sending out a stream of air so cold it gave him goose bumps.

“Thank you, God,” Starsky said toward the ceiling, though, considering the wicked activities he had planned for his rapidly cooling bedroom tonight, he wondered if maybe it had been some less heavenly spirit involved. Whoever, he thought as he went into the kitchen to make the promised lemonade.

By the time Hutch knocked on his door at 8:00 p.m., Starsky’s apartment was noticeably cooler, and he hurried to let his wilting lover in before he turned into a puddle on the doorstep.

“Welcome to Alaska,” he greeted Hutch, barely making sure the door was closed before leaning in and stealing a salty kiss.

Hutch pushed him away after only a moment, looking around the apartment, eyes wide with wonder, as if he expected to find he had somehow ended up in a giant refrigerator. “Oh, my, Starsk, you really do love me. You went and bought a new air conditioner just for me.”

Starsky stole another kiss, then grabbed Hutch’s hand and dragged him to the bedroom to admire his handiwork. “Oh, I love you, all right, but even I can’t work miracles. If there’s an air conditioner left unsold in this whole town by today, you can bet it doesn’t work.”

Hutch walked over to the unit humming happily to itself in the window, pulled his thin t-shirt over his head and raised his arms, turning slowly to let the frigid air wash over his sweaty torso. Although Starsky thoroughly enjoyed the view, he could think of better things to do. He moved over and halted the slow pirouette, wrapping his arms around Hutch’s slim waist and sealing his furry chest to Hutch’s fast cooling back.

“Hey, Blintz, whatcha tryin’ to do? Pick up a little instant pneumonia?” he chided. He ran both hands up the smooth belly, cupping the swell of the pectoral muscles in his palms, feeling the cold-erected points of Hutch’s nipples press into his hands.

“Mmmm. That feels unbelievable. Air’s so cold, and your hands are so warm,” Hutch purred, tipping his head back against Starsky’s shoulder.

Starsky dipped his head, lapping at the salty residue on Hutch’s neck, left behind by drying sweat. Nimble fingered, he worked the buttons of Hutch’s cut-off shorts, spreading the edges of the material to let the cool air work its magic, then pushing the clinging, damp denim away. Hutch gasped, then moaned, as the sudden wash of cold air kissed his exposed genitals before Starsky cupped his hands around the tender flesh to shield it.

Gently kneading his double handful, Starsky pressed his own needful flesh, still imprisoned within the loose running shorts, into the crevice between the firm mounds of Hutch’s beautiful ass. “We gonna do it right here?” he murmured, nipping gently at a soft earlobe.

And that was the moment that, amid a shower of sparks, Starsky’s air conditioner gave up the ghost for good. Fortunately, it preceded its light show with a reverberating bang that dragged both men back from passion’s gate. More fortunately still, Starsky’s hands were cupped protectively around Hutch’s most vulnerable area, so what few sparks they were unable to scramble clear of, landed on less vital spots.

“Damn,” Starsky murmured, yanking the cord out of the wall before the stupid machine caught fire, too. He turned to Hutch, who was making a visual inspection of himself. “I’m sorry, babe. Looks like the only promise I can keep to you tonight is cold lemonade.”

Seemingly satisfied with his un-scorched state, Hutch’s attention turned to him, his gaze dropping to the obvious erection beneath the thin, blue material of his shorts. “Oh, I don’t know. That looks pretty promising to me,” he purred.

Never one to let an opportunity go begging, Starsky moved in and re-claimed his prize, wrapping his fingers around the shaft of the hard, red cock and stripping firmly upward, just the way he knew Hutch liked it best.

“You mean you’re not mad at me?” he murmured, only because he already held the answer to that question in his eager fingers.

“Why should I be mad at you?” Hutch whispered, his hot breath sighing into Starsky’s ear as he nuzzled, sending a shiver of anticipation running the length of his spine. “Just ’cause every goddamned piece of machinery you own picks the worst possible fucking moment to die?”

Starsky froze, paralyzed by the baleful words so at odds with the sweet tone. He felt Hutch’s teeth close over the lobe of his ear and tensed, half-expecting those pearly white edges to nip hard. Instead, the bit of tender flesh was sucked and licked and nibbled as if Hutch was trying to seduce him.

“Gonna get warm in here again soon,” Hutch reminded him, and Starsky felt the big hands settle at his waist, the long fingers slipping into the material of his shorts and beginning to tug the material, ever so slowly, down over his hips.

However sweet were the sensations of Hutch’s fingertips caressing his skin as the shorts were lowered, Starsky couldn’t help feeling as if he were waiting for the other shoe to drop. The erection, therefore, that Hutch laid claim to a moment later was somewhat less firm than Starsky usually presented.

“Babe?” Hutch prompted innocently.

“Hutch, please. If you’re plannin’ on getting me going and then walking away, would you just….”

The smooth caresses continued on his body, but Hutch eased away until Starsky could see his eyes. There was nothing there to read except desire to match his own.

“You think I could do that after the way you talked to me tonight?” Hutch asked. “I never had somebody tell me how much they wanted me like you did tonight. Never knew.”

“Keep tryin’ to tell you, Hutch. You’re a walking wet dream,” Starsky said.

“And an invitation to rape?” Hutch prompted, bringing their naked bodies together in the quickly warming room.

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky agreed, no longer caring if Hutch had some diabolical plan for revenge cooking behind his passion-hot eyes.

“So, you wouldn’t care how much it cost you to be able to fuck me tonight?” Hutch purred.

“If I got it, it’s yours,” Starsky promised recklessly, fully aware that, for once, the shoe was on the other foot and Hutch was seducing him with words and seemingly random caresses. He jumped as Hutch ran his middle finger down the crack of his ass and pressed the tip promisingly against his anus.

“Or to get fucked?” Hutch whispered. “No matter how much?”

“I told ya,” Starsky panted, pushing back against the finger, his stance automatically widening to give his partner all the access he wanted. “Anything.”

“Good,” Hutch announced, and took himself—hands, lips and warm body—away. “Then I know just what to do.”

No longer fearing a visitation by the sometimes weird Hutchinson sense of humor, Starsky allowed himself to be led into the bathroom, where Hutch deserted him just long enough to turn on the taps in the shower, adjusting the spray to a fine, cool mist. Still passive beneath the will of the man who had been bewitching him, albeit unknowingly all week, Starsky followed his lover into the shower stall, shivering as the cool damp coated his skin.

“I was thinking about this in the shower tonight,” Hutch confessed softly. “Thinking how it could be like making it in a waterfall.”

“Nature boy,” Starsky teased, nevertheless falling into the fantasy as Hutch’s hands ran over his slick skin, returning each caress offered to him on the golden body in his arms.

“You look so damned sexy with your hair curling tight against your head,” Hutch continued in that hypnotic tone that was striking Starsky on an erogenous zone he often stimulated in Hutch, but seldom enjoyed himself. It was only logical, of course, that if Hutch’s moans, groans and uninhibited verbal responses to his sex play could inflame him, that when Hutch purposely set out to seduce with words, they would fall on fertile ground indeed.

“Wanna kiss you all over. Wanna lick all the cool mist from your skin. Warm you with my tongue.”

Sinking his fingers into the wet strands of Hutch’s blond hair, Starsky dragged the whispering lips to his own, grinding hot kisses into their softness, releasing them only long enough to suck in a panting breath of the humid air around them.

“Want to give you everything you’ve been wanting all week. Want to taste the wild passion I make you feel.”

And as so often happened to them, either here in each other’s arms, or on the streets at each other’s backs, the mantle of control slipped just that easily from one to the other. Hutch, Starsky realized, had led them to this place of fantasy, now he wanted Starsky to weave their sharing into it. Gladly, Starsky accepted the responsibility for their pleasure, knowing, at any moment he wished, he could pass it back to his lover and it would be accepted as willingly as he accepted it.

“Oh, baby blue. Want you so bad.” He once again gave voice to the needs inside himself, exposing with Hutch, only ever with Hutch, the most vulnerable parts of himself.

Slowly, Starsky sank to his knees, lapping away cool mist from the heated, satin skin from collarbone to hips, lingering over the taut peak of a copper nipple, nibbling longingly at the jut of the very last rib, and pressing his face into the moist, curled pubic thatch. He inhaled, finding the spicy scent he loved even beneath the diluting spray and traces of soap that sought to mask it. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to the heated length of Hutch’s cock, engulfed the head between his lips, and teased at the retracting foreskin until his tongue was free to roam the naked crown.

“Natural boy,” he murmured, lips still nibbling the protective sheath. “Feed it to me,” he invited, parting his lips, feeding on Hutch’s groan as much as on the hot, hard flesh that was thrust between his lips and into his hungry throat.

Dimly, Starsky heard the muted thump when Hutch’s hands hit the wall of the shower stall as the big body arched over him, the slim hips beneath his hands moving strongly, demanding he take what he wanted and give all the pleasure in the world in return. A bargain made in heaven, surely. Surrounded by the protective arc of his lover’s strong body, fed by the desire that matched his own, Starsky sucked and licked. His hands were busy with the full, ripe testicles, and his heart felt nearly as full to bursting as his cock. He heard his name on his lover’s lips only a moment before the beautiful body stiffened and the flesh in his mouth pumped warm, thick salt onto his tongue.

Hands tightening around his lover’s hips to support him through the draining climax, Starsky swallowed, savored the last weak pulse, then released the still hard cock before his touch could turn from pleasure to torment. After a few moments, Hutch managed to straighten, and Starsky was able to rise, gather the shivering body close, and press his aching need into the very cool skin of Hutch’s thigh.

“Too cold, sweetheart?” he asked, running both hands up the long muscles of Hutch’s back, feeling the fine trembling that still coursed beneath the cool skin. “Want to get out?”

The only reply he received was Hutch’s fingers curling around his cock, stroking him with a loving firmness that drew him to the edge of completion.

“Give it to me, babe,” Hutch coaxed, and Starsky gladly passed the mantle of control back into the capable hands that claimed his body with such certainty.

“Walking wet dream,” Hutch chanted, voice deep and breathless. “Invitation to rape.”

The images evoked by the echoing of his own desperate words played out behind Starsky’s half-closed lids. Hutch in the squadroom, the fingertips that even now danced so perfectly on his cock, delicately stroking his own long throat, pausing over the twin moles as if… The fantasy shattered as climax exploded in his balls and his brain, leaving Starsky gasping and shivering in the too-cool mist, surrounded by the security of his lover’s arms.

Starsky was still only half aware when Hutch cut off the water and encouraged him to step out of the stall. He fumbled for a moment with the towel that Hutch handed him, then managed to apply it to his shivering body and rub at his hair that seemed to have absorbed, as usual, half of the water that had sprayed from the nozzle. He was more than content to continue to follow Hutch’s lead to the bedroom where Hutch tucked their too-cool bodies together on the fresh sheets.

“You know what your water bill is going to look like next month?” Hutch teased.

Starsky snuggled a little closer, even in the heat of the room, enjoying the returning warmth as it flowed into the skin beneath his hands. “Don’t care if I’ve gotta mortgage the Torino to pay it.” He tilted his head back so he could look into the pale blue eyes, surrounded by lashes clumped together by the mist in little spikes as if Hutch had been crying. Even if he had, Starsky knew that, at this moment, they would be tears of joy.

“You should have told me what I was doing to you, Starsk. I swear, I didn’t realize….”

Starsky placed a silencing finger over the unneeded apology. He smiled sheepishly. “If ya want the truth, I enjoyed it,” he admitted. “But only ’cause I knew we’d be together tonight and I could stop anticipating and start enjoying.” He bit his lip, wondering whether to confess just how far he had let the walls around the box in his mind fall before tonight, but he couldn’t be less than honest with Hutch. “It was…exciting to pretend you were doin’ it on purpose. Flirtin’ with me like that.”

“Slippery slope, babe,” Hutch warned as it almost always seemed to be his lot to warn. The tightening of his arms, however, reassured Starsky that Hutch really had no objection.

But, Starsky had to admit, it was a slippery slope to let any part of the desire he felt for Hutch creep out of its hiding place except when they were in the safety of their own homes, and within the rules they had chosen to live by. Sometimes, all the care they took seemed like a damned waste of time and effort. The two of them were far more affectionate with and protective of each other than any other partners in the precinct, and yet they got away with it. If anyone had any suspicions about them, there certainly would have been some word on the grapevine that Starsky still took care to keep plugged into. Maybe it was that very lack that had caused him to feel complacent enough to dream his waking dreams of Hutch this past week.

“I guess we’ve been getting away with it so long…” He let the sentence trail off, knowing Hutch was probably already traveling the same mental paths.

“Mmm. Pride goeth before a fall, or something like that,” Hutch murmured.

Starsky savored the feeling as his lover’s body grew heavier against him. Between the heat and the sex and the humid warmth surrounding them now, he felt far more drowsy than normal after only one romp. “Wanna nap, sweetheart?” he asked, stroking his fingers through the almost dry strands of soft hair, knowing he could easily coax his lover to sleep whether Hutch wished it or not. “I won’t let you sleep too long.”

“Hmmm. You’ll spoil me,” Hutch murmured, snuggling in closer.

“Too late, you’re already rotten,” Starsky teased, but knew Hutch had already fallen asleep when no comeback was offered. He let his body relax completely, resting but not sleeping, and simply enjoyed, if only for a while, feeling like he was the luckiest man in the world.

~*~*~

What a difference a few days could make, Starsky thought, as he watched Hutch wipe at his sweaty skin, his fingers spreading and lifting the fabric of his shirt away from his chest. The unconscious gesture didn’t give him so much as a twitch today.

Goddamn, he wished he could wake up from this nightmare. Not be riding in Hutch’s car on his way to see a woman he loved and respected. To shatter her life. Not bad enough she had to lose the man she loved, Starsky thought. Goddamn him, Starsky cursed his friend and mentor, why did he have to die? Why couldn’t he have stayed alive and continued to cower in his closet… Starsky cut the thought off. Even as angry and hurt as he was, he couldn’t be that much of a hypocrite with himself. He slanted a look toward his partner and caught the glance of concern and puzzlement Hutch threw him before turning his attention back to the road. No, Hutch didn’t understand where he was coming from, and, at the moment, Starsky was just too furious and hurt to be able to explain.

Tentatively, he let the hand that lay along the back of the seat creep forward, brushing one finger against the back of the sweaty neck. He felt Hutch lean back into the touch, and something wound so tight in his chest he could barely breathe, loosened just a little.

He took his hand away, tried his best to tuck away his own emotions, and searched his mind for the kindest words he could find to shatter a woman’s faith.

Goddamn you, John.

~*~*~

“Well, how would you have felt about him if he’d told you?” Hutch asked, feeling as if he had fallen down a rabbit hole somewhere. Or maybe it was his partner who had stumbled and fell, landing face first in something that turned him into a man Hutch barely recognized.

“I…” Starsky shook his head, and out of the comer of his eye, Hutch could read the pained expression. “I don’t know.”

“That’s probably why he stayed in the closet,” Hutch ventured, feeling Starsky’s eyes on him, sensing him looking for something from him, but having no idea what would satisfy this stranger. He finally returned the look, but, as he had feared, he didn’t seem to have what Starsky needed. But they sure as hell couldn’t work this way, couldn’t expect to interview the hostile witness Peter Whitelaw was likely to be and receive anything of any value to them in helping to find Blaine’s murderer.

Hutch glanced at his watch, made an arbitrary decision, and hung a quick right as he reached to unhook the mike. “Zebra Three to control.”

Control, Zebra Three.

“We’re going code seven,” Hutch said into the mike, silencing the protest he saw on Starsky’s lips with a glare.

Confirm you are cleared for code seven.

“What the…?” Starsky began to protest.

“Shut up, Starsk,” Hutch commanded. “Don’t say another fucking word until we’re somewhere I don’t have to watch the road. You just sit there and get ready to come clean, buddy, ’cause if you don’t, I’m going to tell Dobey we’re too emotionally involved and to give this case to some other team. Ah! I said shut up or I’ll call him right now,” he quelled a second budding objection. “And if you think I won’t do it….”

To Hutch’s relief, Starsky retired sullenly into his comer of the front seat, withdrawing the arm that, totally at odds with his closed off attitude, had remained across the back of the seat, Starsky’s fingers reaching more than once to connect with him.

They didn’t have time to go to either of their apartments, and, though Hutch preferred a quiet stretch of sand and restless ocean when he had a problem to work out, he knew that wasn’t likely to be available today. With temps in the high nineties, perhaps even topping one hundred by now, Hutch knew that everyone and their dog would be clogging every damn bit of sand within an hour’s drive. There was one place, however. It was on the ocean, but there was no golden sanded beach, just a sheer bluff straight down to the water. Best of all it was, Hutch estimated, only five minutes away.

Starsky was out of the car before the wheels even stopped turning, but Hutch made no attempt to follow him. He shut down the engine and then sat there, watching through the windshield, while Starsky paced back and forth in front of the car. Finally, when he could tolerate the building heat inside no longer, he left the car, but still didn’t attempt to interrupt Starsky’s purposeful pacing. He simply leaned back against the door, feeling the heat from the metal bum through his jeans to his ass, while a hot breeze sifted lazy fingers through his hair.

It took nearly twenty minutes before Starsky finally ran out of steam, or perhaps just became too overheated under the noon sun, and sat down a couple of yards from the edge of the bluff, looking out over the ocean. Hutch waited for some sort of signal, but when it didn’t come, he went and sunk down onto the scrub grass beside his friend anyway.

“You ready to tell your partner what’s going on here?” Hutch asked gently.

He received only a shrug in reply.

“Come on, Starsk. I feel like I’m dealing with a pod person from one of those crazy movies you like so much. You know, like the alien has invaded your body or something and gobbled up your brain,” Hutch tried to tease, but the attempt didn’t coax so much as a grimace from Starsky’s grimly set lips.

Although Starsky’s body had big keep out signs all over it, Hutch dared reach out to connect in the physical way that so often served them when words failed. He wrapped his fingers around a forearm whose muscles felt like forged steel within his grip, and hung on until he felt them slowly soften.

“Come on, babe. We’re alone here. Nobody you have to put on an act for.”

“Act?” Starsky echoed, his voice so hoarse it might have been days since he had last spoken. Hutch, however, knew it wasn’t disuse that clogged his partner’s throat, but held back emotion.

“Yeah, Starsk, act. I know you’re not a homophobe. Nobody else in the world knows why you’re not, but I do,” Hutch reminded him.

“So did John.”

It was said so quietly that, if Hutch hadn’t seen Starsky’s lips move, he might have thought the words only a part of the sound of the waves that shushed up to the rocks below them. But he was watching, did hear, and yet could hardly believe them.

“You mean Blaine knew about us?” he asked, wondering if his horrified question was any louder than Starsky’s confession had been. If his partner, who was still squinting into the sun-dappled ocean, would even know he had spoken.

But it appeared he did, because Starsky slowly, tiredly shook his head. “Not about us, Hutch. He knew about me. When I got home from ‘Nam, I told him about me.”

It was all Hutch could do then not to wrap his friend up in his arms and try to make the world go away. Even when Terry died, Hutch had never heard that tone of hurt bewilderment in Starsky’s voice. He sounded like a child who had been beaten and didn’t understand why.

“What did he say?” he finally asked because he could think of nothing else.

“A lotta shit!” Starsky spat, and he didn’t sound sad and bewildered anymore. There was no room in the deep voice for anything except fury. “Sounded good at the time. How a cop has to be above reproach. How his life has to be a shining example. Every move he makes as clean as his official record.”

Hutch felt the tension return to the arm beneath his hand and made no attempt to restrain Starsky when he scrambled to his feet and began pacing again. He left him to it for several minutes, then, aware of the passage of time, reached out and snagged his partner’s hand as he passed. As if he had suddenly run out of steam, Starsky dropped down beside him again.

“A lotta lyin’ fuckin’ shit is what he told me,” Starsky mourned.

“Starsk…” Hutch tried to soothe his friend now that he understood at least where the anger came from, but Starsky, now that he had started, seemed to need to say it all.

“But what he didn’t tell me was that I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t the only one fightin’ needs, fightin’ half of myself.” Starsky turned to him then, and Hutch saw the fury had passed and the hurt bewilderment had returned. Of the two, Hutch thought he preferred the anger. He never had been able to tolerate Starsky’s pain. “You know what it would have meant to me back then? I worshipped that man.”

“Maybe he’d been in the closet so long, was in so deep…” Hutch didn’t need Starsky to interrupt him, he let the pitiful excuses trail off on his own.

“Hell, Hutch, I know all that. Ain’t you and me in the closet just as deep? We’re just so fucking lucky we have each other,” Starsky admitted.

When Starsky reached out to take his hand, Hutch relaxed, knowing that, whatever else the world was preparing to throw at them, he and Starsky were connected again and that somehow they would face it together.

“I know it, Hutch, but I can’t help feelin’ like he failed me when I needed him most. Honest now, babe, can you tell me if Kiko came to you tomorrow, like I went to John, you’d let him go on thinkin’ he was alone? That he had some sort of disease he could cure himself of if he just tried hard enough?”

Hutch slipped his hand around the back of his friend’s neck and squeezed, wishing fiercely that he could kick John Blaine’s much-decorated ass for him. What good were all his medals when, in the end, he hadn’t had the courage to risk himself for one troubled young man who loved him? Of course, it also looked like he hadn’t had the courage to take those risks for the man he loved either. Hutch wondered if, when actually faced with the choice, he and Starsky would deny each other. That they might, sickened him.

“No, babe, you’re right. I couldn’t turn Kiko away if he needed me like that,” Hutch said, hoping it was true. “Do you want off the case, Starsk?”

“Jesus, Hutch, no,” Starsky answered immediately. “It’s like Maggie and you said, there were a lot of other good things about John, and he didn’t deserve to die like that, whatever his ‘unacceptable’ needs drove him to. And even if I couldn’t do it for him, I gotta do it for Maggie.”

Hutch squeezed once more, then let go and climbed to his feet, offered his hand to Starsky and hauled him up, too. For a brief moment, he held the smaller hand within his and then released it as well.

“Come on, partner. We’ve got a cop killer to find.”

~*~*~

Back in the tortuous steam bath of the LTD after their interview with Peter Whitelaw, Starsky waited for Hutch to start on him again about his attitude. When his partner remained silent, Starsky accepted that Hutch had already done his part and that it was up to him to keep the communication going between them. Hutch had called him on his behavior once, and he shouldn’t need to do it a second time, whatever demons were riding Starsky’s back.

“You going to give me shit for acting like a pod person again?” he ventured into the steaming silence.

Hutch shrugged as if it was no concern of his, but Starsky could tell by the tension around the full lips that Hutch’s feelings weren’t as casual as he tried to make them appear.

“I thought we talked it all out,” Hutch admitted. He shrugged again, eyes on the road. “Wasn’t too sure if you were just playin’ bad cop to my good, or what.”

Starsky laughed humorlessly. “Sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have left you carrying the can like that. I just didn’t expect….”

“Expect what, Starsk?” Hutch asked.

“That I’d hate him so much the minute I laid eyes on him,” Starsky confessed, grateful that Hutch let him take the time to sort through his emotions without prompting him further. “Or that I’d feel so damned sorry for him.”

The old car rocked as Hutch took them through a left-hand turn and then smoothed out.

“Pretty extreme reactions,” Hutch observed mildly.

Starsky stretched his arm out over the back of the seat, his fingers re-establishing the contact with Hutch that he needed to keep those extreme reactions from knocking him right off his feet.

“Couldn’t seem to help it,” he admitted.

“You made some good points back there,” Hutch said. “I think even Whitelaw was surprised.”

“Surprised, hell. Shocked. He knew I hated him. Had my number the first time our eyes met. He just got the reasons all wrong. He thought I hated him ’cause he’s gay. All that shit about thinkin’ two men together is ugly.” Again, Starsky let loose laughter so bitter it left a metallic tang on his tongue. “You think I look up at the mirror over my bed when we’re makin’ it and think ugly! Hell, no.”

“So why’d you hate him?” Hutch asked.

Starsky knew Hutch was simply playing devil’s advocate or poor man’s analyst now, just prompting him to dredge around in his own motives rather than questioning them himself. “‘Cause he’s out. I know he didn’t plan it, didn’t want it, and it cost him what he really wanted to do with his life. But it’s over. I think I envy that…freedom, and that’s why I hated him.”

Starsky saw Hutch react to that, knew before Hutch even knew himself what was going on in the blond head. “And before you panic, no, I don’t want that for us.” At least he didn’t think he did, and until he was sure, he didn’t plan on shaking Hutch’s world any more than the earthquake of Blaine’s murder and double life had already done.

“Taking up mind reading?” Hutch asked.

Starsky tapped at the taut muscles of Hutch’s neck where his fingers had lain since the conversation began. “Muscle reading more like,” he corrected, and felt that smooth flesh ease beneath his touch.

“Did you feel sorry for him for the same reasons?”

“No. I felt sorry for him ’cause the man he loved was too big a coward to stand by him when the shit hit the fan.” Starsky searched for the words to express the fear inside him, that he, too, would be too afraid to expose himself to the humiliation, ridicule and loss. He liked being a cop. It made him sick to think, if the situation ever arose, that he might abandon Hutch to the wolves just as Blaine had deserted Whitelaw.

“Never gonna happen,” Hutch declared with such utter conviction that Starsky was ashamed of his own fears. “We’ve always known that we hang together or we hang separately.”

Starsky wished he could be as sure as Hutch sounded. If a man like John Blaine could be so cowardly in the face of discovery, how could he ever hope to find the strength within himself to stand?

“Nobody really knows what they’ll do until they have to do it,” Hutch reminded him.

Starsky tried to take comfort from the words. There were certainly other times in his life when he had feared he didn’t have the strength to do what he must, but he had found it eventually.

“There’s the Green Parrot,” Hutch pointed out, nodding to where the sign stood out two blocks ahead of them. “Think you’re ready for this?”

“Me!” Starsky exclaimed, putting aside his fears for the time being. “If I’m remembering right, it’s not me who’s gonna be a babe in these woods,” he teased, realizing the feeling of black despair that had surrounded him since Dobey had delivered his tragic news was retreating. It wasn’t gone. They had a long way to go before it would be banished, but finding and jailing the man who had stolen Blaine’s life, however unhappy his mentor might have been with it, was the first step.

“That was a long time ago,” Hutch blustered.

“Uh, huh. Well, partner, let’s go see if you still remember how to blush.”

~*~*~

Starsky heard the water turn off in Hutch’s shower as he laid the jeans he selected on the bed. If he remembered correctly, this particular pair were every bit as tight as his and looked particularly good where they were faded almost threadbare around the bottom of the back pockets. Hutch had declared them too worn for work, and Starsky decided it would be nice to see them again.

He returned to the closet and began flipping through the hangers, looking for a shirt. He knew damned well Hutch would insist on adding his own touches to whatever undercover costume Starsky chose, but it couldn’t hurt to give him the basics.

“I am not wearing those jeans,” Hutch said before he was even halfway from the bathroom to the alcove.

“Sure ya are, Hutch. Ya gotta fit in,” Starsky pointed out. He pulled out a green t-shirt, held it up between him and Hutch, judging its aesthetic appeal, and then hung it back up. He always had hated that color on his partner.

“You’re not trying to tell me that John dressed like that to go to the Green Parrot?” Hutch complained. “John didn’t even wear jeans at home for a backyard barbecue.”

“John wasn’t in his thirties and he wasn’t lookin’ to blend in with the crowd,” Starsky reminded him and decided to try a little Starsky’s rule of diversion. “I’d like to know just how it was decided you were goin’ undercover anyway. You’re gonna be blushin’ too hard to look out for Corday.”

“And if I let you loose on the dance floor, you wouldn’t be able to do your job. You’d be six-deep in guys,” Hutch snapped.

Starsky was too stunned to reply.

“Now who’s blushing?” Hutch growled and tried to shoulder Starsky out of the way to reach the closet.

Starsky brought his hands up, circled the still damp skin of Hutch’s upper arms and exerted just enough pressure to hold him in place. “Are you jealous?”

Hutch pulled away abruptly. “Of course not.”

Since this wasn’t the time, even if it was an appropriate place, to start discussing their own double life, Starsky let it slide. “I gotta admit though. I wish it was gonna be the two of us out front.” He tried and failed to keep his gaze from traveling over Hutch’s towel wrapped form. “Would like to dance with you in public again, babe,” he admitted.

“Jesus, Starsk,” Hutch protested.

“Quit lookin’ like a scared rabbit. I’d just like to teach you how to dance decently,” Starsky joked, trying to backpedal away from the dangerous moment he had set loose, but he could see Hutch wasn’t buying it.

“Starsk?”

Starsky’s attention returned to the closet, and he began flipping through the hangers again without really noticing what was on them. “Okay. Okay. I admit it. Sometimes it gives me a pain in the gut that I can’t be honest about everything you are to me. I can pick up some bimbo in a bar and climb all over her and hardly anybody’d bat an eye. But if I wanna give you a hug in public, I better have a damned good reason,” he growled.

“We get away with a lot,” Hutch pointed out.

“I know we do, and that pisses me off, too,” Starsky complained. “That we have to feel like we ‘get away’ with anything when all we ever let show is our friendship.”

“It’s the way we’ve chosen to live our lives, Starsk,” Hutch reminded him gently.

Starsky closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to focus on the array of Hutch’s clothes. At random, he pulled out a white t-shirt and shoved it toward Hutch. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it all the time,” he growled and then took Hutch by the shoulders, turning him toward the bed where the rest of his clothes were laid out. “Get dressed, Hutch. We have a job to do.”

~*~*~

Hutch completed the report on the Corday arrest and handed it to his partner. Despite the fact that he and Starsky hadn’t left the station until after three this morning, they had been back at their desk by seven. They were both anxious to complete the report, and put the case of Blaine’s murder behind them, even if the repercussions of it would continue to reverberate through their lives for who knew how long.

Dobey had come in a few minutes ago, grunted a grim greeting and disappeared into his office. Hutch knew Dobey wasn’t too happy with himself right now. They all had to work within the system, and Hutch knew that Dobey had actually put himself on the line by giving them the amount of freedom that he had. Hutch still harbored some disappointment with his superior, but he knew Dobey had, especially given his own religious beliefs, done what he could.

“You want to take that into him?” Hutch asked, nodding to indicate the report that Starsky had just countersigned. “Or just put it in the out box and get the hell out of here?”

The precinct wasn’t a happy place to be today. Blaine’s death, followed so closely by the revelations of the double life he had led, and then capped by the arrest of the crooked cop who had murdered him, had rocked morale from the Chief right down to the meter maid on the street. There was hardly a cop in Bay City today who wasn’t searching his own conscience and wondering about his or her fellow officers. The morning papers hadn’t been kind to either Blaine or Corday, and it had burned Hutch’s ass to see a man like John Blaine lumped in with a bastard like Corday.

Starsky replied by gathering up the report and pushing to his feet. Hutch joined him at the door of Dobey’s office, trailing behind when Dobey called admission.

Starsky walked straight up to the desk and handed the report over to Dobey, who laid it aside without even looking at it.

“Sit down, both of you,” Dobey invited.

And it was a request, Hutch realized, not an order. Automatically, he looked at his partner, wondering what Starsky made of it, but the handsome face was guarded, the usual energy and impatience subdued. He did, however, perch on the edge of the offered chair, so Hutch took the other one.

“You men did a good job,” Dobey began. “And I want to thank you for finding the man who murdered a good cop.”

“That’s our job, isn’t it?” Starsky asked belligerently. “Why thank us for doing our job.”

“Because sometimes it needs to be acknowledged when a man puts aside his own feelings and does what he has to,” Dobey explained without bluster.

“Hey. That’s what the department gives medals and commendations for. Not that they count for shit when it really matters,” Starsky said bitterly.

“Starsky…” Dobey began, but then seemed unable to think of anything else to say.

Hutch didn’t blame him. He couldn’t think of much to say in defense of the department either, not after the news Starsky had given him on the way into work this morning. The news that, Hutch knew, was really the source of Starsky’s barely contained fury.

“We need to take a couple of days off,” Starsky said, and it wasn’t a request. Hutch knew Starsky planned on taking the time whether Dobey allowed it or not. “Maggie needs help makin’ the arrangements for John’s funeral.”

Dobey sighed and leaned back in his chair, wiping at his sweaty face. It seemed as if this damned heat wave was never going to end.

“You heard about that then,” Dobey said, his dark gaze going first to Starsky and then to Hutch.

When his partner didn’t respond, Hutch nodded. “Yeah. We heard, and we think it stinks.”

“You think I don’t?” Dobey blustered, then deflated. “I argued with the chief that John Blaine deserved an official department funeral until he was ready to bust me back down to traffic control, but he just wouldn’t budge.”

“Kinda makes you wonder what John tortured himself for all those years, doesn’t it?” Starsky said quietly.

Hutch tensed, his gaze flying between his partner and his superior, wondering if Dobey had caught the tone that, to Hutch, spoke of Starsky’s intimate knowledge of the torment Blaine had suffered. But Dobey seemed to take Starsky’s statement at face value.

“We’ve all wondered whether the job is worth the price we pay,” Dobey said. “But we keep on doing it, don’t we?”

Starsky pushed to his feet. “You going to give us the time off, Captain?”

“Of course I am.”

“And are you and Edith going to be at the funeral?” Hutch asked before Starsky could make it another challenge.

“Of course I am,” Dobey repeated. “John Blaine was my friend.”

“Well, that’ll make four of us,” Starsky said bitterly.

“Starsky…” For a second time, his subordinate’s name seemed to be all that Dobey could come up with.

“There’s a dozen or more men in this department alone who owe their lives, their careers, or both to John Blaine,” Starsky spat. ”But I’ll bet you anything you want that there won’t be more than a handful of his brother cops at his funeral. Oh, I forgot, you’re not a gambling man, are you, Captain?”

“I took a hell of a gamble on you two,” Dobey reminded him.

Hutch saw the belligerence drain out of Starsky, then, and allowed himself to relax.

“That’s right, Captain, you did,” Starsky acknowledged “And you’ve done it before. I’m not saying we don’t appreciate it.”

“I know,” Dobey agreed wearily. “But the situation stinks.”

“To high heaven,” Hutch agreed and hauled his partner out of there before Starsky said something they would both regret.

~*~*~

“Maggie, you know you don’t have to do this. Starsky and I can take care of everything for you.”

Starsky stood in the living room that had been his home away from home when he was a kid, listening as his partner attempted to dissuade Maggie Blaine from doing what she had to do. His gaze touching upon each medal, trophy, and commendation in turn, Starsky smiled a little, knowing Hutch was fighting a losing battle.

“I’m a police officer’s wife, Ken. Any woman who marries a police officer knows that some day she may have to do what I have to do today,” Maggie said in the tone of voice that Starsky remembered so well from childhood. It was the tone that had warned him then that sweet, malleable Maggie had made up her mind. Even John had known to retire gracefully from the field when his wife put her verbal foot down.

“Maggie….”

Starsky gave up his study of the commemorative comer that, when all was said and done, summed up John’s life far better than the scandal that had been the result of the circumstances of his death, and joined his friends at the door.

“Give up while you’re ahead, partner,” he advised Hutch, offering his arm to Maggie. “The lady knows her duty as well as we do,” he added, and led Maggie out to the car.

Starsky made sure he was standing close by Maggie when it came time for her to identify her husband, but the supportive hand he placed beneath her elbow wasn’t really needed. Maggie was as steady as a rock as she looked down at her husband’s dead face and calmly confirmed his identity. For the first time, Starsky wondered if Maggie, like John, had only worn the mask of a loving spouse for the world to see. It had been obvious to him that Maggie had known about John’s homosexuality for a long time. Had the knowledge burnt out her love for him, and, if so, why had she stayed? They were questions that suddenly seemed vitally important to him, but he knew he would never ask Maggie. Their relationship, although warm, wasn’t on a level that he could ever presume to probe so deeply into her heart.

When they returned to the house, Maggie invited them in, and, after exchanging glances with Hutch, Starsky agreed. Maggie, he thought, didn’t need to be alone right now and anything else they had to do, or arrangements to be made, could be done later or on the phone. Starsky didn’t object when Maggie insisted on making them lunch, knowing it would help her to be occupied. She shooed him out of the kitchen and as soon as he entered the living room, Starsky once again went to stand before the wall of valor that John had worked so hard for. He felt his partner come up beside him.

“Hey, partner. How you doing?” Hutch asked softly.

Starsky resisted the need to slip his arm around Hutch’s waist, sensing that, now that his usefulness was passed for the time being, Hutch was feeling at a loss. Perhaps even only beginning to take it all in now that there was no case to solve, no arrangements to make. And yet, not entirely free to get on with his life, to decide where the ramifications of the last three days fit into that life. Then he remembered a time when Hutch had offered him such a comforting embrace, on the street, in broad daylight, in front of dozens of people who had gathered to mourn a young man whom Starsky had killed.

“Hey, yourself,” Starsky replied, slipping his arm around the trim waist and hugging Hutch against his side for a moment before easing his grip, giving Hutch the option of moving away. Hutch remained within the curve of his arm for a moment, and then moved just enough to free himself of the embrace, but his comforting closeness remained.

“Are you avoiding the question, or trying to tell me it’s none of my business?” Hutch asked.

“Just not sure what to say, I guess,” Starsky admitted. “There’s a lot of stuff still pretty mixed up in my head, but I guess I’m getting there. It’s kinda like losin’ my dad all over again, but different ’cause I’m…” Starsky paused as he realized what he felt now was hardly different at all. “…or maybe not so different. I remember bein’ mad at my dad, too.”

Hutch moved in closer again, not offering an embrace, but Starsky felt just as comforted, just as connected, by the shoulder that brushed against his as he would have had Hutch pulled him into his arms and hugged him until his ribs creaked. Their relationship had always been like that. The simplest of touches, the briefest of exchanged glances, offering or receiving whatever comfort, support or understanding was needed by the other.

This was getting far too close to a soapy scene, however, so Starsky turned his attention back to the many framed proofs of the good Blaine had done in his life.

“These should be at the funeral tomorrow, you know,” he commented to his partner, but it was Maggie who answered as she entered the room with a laden tray.

“No they shouldn’t, David,” she said with that same quiet authority with which she had insisted she knew her duty. She slid the tray onto the low coffee table and came to stand between them. “Tomorrow won’t really be for us. Not for the people who cared about John, who can forgive him his humanity. That beautiful, restful room we saw today will be crowded tomorrow, but not with people coming to celebrate John’s life and the good he did. They will be there because their morbid curiosity will want to see if I weep real tears, to see if any of the men who worked with John, who perhaps owe their lives to him, will honor his memory. They will be there to see if any lover he may have had dare show his face.”

Starsky took her hand in his, squeezing gently, while her other hand swept an arc over the shrine to John’s courage. “Someday, perhaps, John will be remembered for this, but not tomorrow. Tomorrow is for the thrill seekers. Only a very few of us will mourn tomorrow. Will think of his life instead of the circumstances of his death.”

Starsky almost flinched as Maggie turned her grieving, probing gaze upon him. “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive him, David. To remember the many good things he was, and to forgive him for the things he could not help. John was a good man, but he was only a man.”

“I’m doin’ my best, Maggie,” Starsky whispered, drawing her into his arms, his eyes meeting Hutch’s over her head. “I’m doing my best.”

~*~*~

This was worse than he had expected, Starsky thought, as he shifted yet again to try to shield Maggie Blaine from the eyes of the curious. The new widow had remained stoic throughout the service, but both Starsky and Hutch, who was stationed on Maggie’s right, were determined to shield her grief should her composure fail her.

Starsky let his gaze run over the crowd. Fifty or so people, he estimated, but, of those present, only perhaps a dozen were true mourners. The rest were reporters, photographers and the mercilessly curious. There was even a gay activist and a small contingent of his followers present, who, fortunately, had had the good taste to keep themselves separate. Of Peter Whitelaw, there had as yet, been no sign.

The minister droned on and on, extolling Blaine’s career and many virtues, and pointedly steering clear of the controversy surrounding his death. Starsky tuned him out. If anyone was aware of the goodness of John Blaine’s life, it was the troubled youth he had taken under his wing and shepherded into confident adulthood. However John may have fallen short in retrospect, Starsky had found the place inside himself that let him lay the shortcomings to rest and remember only the seemingly never-ending support his friend had given him.

Starsky’s attention moved to his partner. Hutch, with hardly a word, with only his presence, had helped him find that place, just as he stood now, ready to support Maggie or Starsky, whichever one of them might need his strength. Their eyes met, neither one of them tempted to smile under such solemn circumstances, but their silent communication network was wide open between them, providing the support and comfort each of them needed.

Starsky broke the gaze and returned to his study of the people around them. Harold and Edith Dobey stood directly across the grave from them. The captain looking expectedly somber, while Edith, anyone could see at a glance, was torn between sympathy for her long-time friend, and profound relief not to be standing in her shoes today. Every cop’s wife might know this day may come to her, but each was human enough to pray that this bitter cup might pass her by.

Other than himself and his partner and the Dobeys, however, there was only one other officer present from the many men and women Blaine had served with. The identity of that one man, though Starsky had known of his intention to attend in advance, still surprised Starsky. When Randy Briggs had buttonholed him in the corridor outside the squadroom the day before yesterday for a quiet conversation, Starsky had, of course, been prepared for one more shame-faced, but adamant, stream of excuses. The conversation had, however, made him reassess their long-time colleague.

“Want to know where Blaine’s funeral is. What time? ” Briggs said with a defiance that, at first, puzzled Starsky.

“Why?” Starsky asked, full of belligerence and suppressed fury from the gossip and attitudes of almost all their fellow officers.

“Why do you think, you moron?” Briggs snapped.

Starsky pinned him with a hard look that Briggs met and held, then gave his colleague the information. “Why?” he had to add when Briggs would have turned away.

“If it wasn’t for John Blaine, I’d have been worm fodder two years ago. I wouldn’t have Sarah and we sure as hell wouldn’t have Daniel. A man doesn’t forget that. Not if he’s any sort of man,” Briggs explained.

“What about your partner?” Starsky asked, remembering that the incident Briggs referred to had also nearly cost Conner his life.

“I guess some men count their own lives cheaper than others,” Briggs observed and walked away.

Starsky watched him go, rousing from his introspective thoughts when Hutch joined him.

“Something wrong?” Hutch asked softly. “Besides the obvious, I mean.”

Starsky shook his head. “No. I’m just tryin’ to figure out exactly when it was Randy Briggs grew up without the rest of us noticing. “

It was almost over, Starsky realized, when he saw that one of the funeral home employees had started the mechanism, and the coffin containing the remains of the man who had been a surrogate father to him began to slowly sink into the open grave. He felt Maggie begin to tremble and slipped his hand, which had been offering a supportive grip beneath her elbow, around her back. Hutch did the same and their arms crossed around her, offering the partners the same comfort they gave.

Just a few more minutes, Starsky knew all too well from the too many funerals he had attended in his life. His father. Other relatives. Too many colleagues.

“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” the minister intoned.

Starsky’s grip tightened around Maggie’s waist as the black-clad widow stepped forward, knelt to scoop a handful of the disturbed soil and gently rained it down upon the man with whom she had chosen to spend her life. Waste her life, Starsky wondered? He dismissed the thought. Whatever had lived beneath the façade of Maggie and John’s perfect marriage was none of his business.

He felt Maggie stiffen as the final benediction was made and the group of mourners shifted, drawing in around her. Or at least the women did. The men, Starsky noted, led by Dobey and Briggs, turned outward toward the pack of reporters who were attempting to close in on her. Starsky almost smiled as he watched the sober-suited group fan out and intercept the eager gossipmongers.

Edith Dobey was the first to reach Maggie, and both Starsky and Hutch stood back, allowing the women to embrace. With most of his attention on the surrounding reporters, Starsky lent only half an ear to Edith’s expressions of condolence and offered support until he became aware of Mrs. Dobey’s pointed regard.

“Harold told me the two of you intended to wear your dress uniforms,” she said.

Starsky exchanged a glance with his partner, the pale blue eyes telling him clearly that the ball was in his court. He turned his attention back to their superior’s wife.

“Somebody had to,” he said quietly.

Edith nodded her head decisively. “Yes. Somebody did.” She glanced past them to where her husband, exercising the authority of his position, was clearing the area of the unwanted guests. “Harold would have worn his, but it doesn’t fit anymore,” she confided.

Edith departed and other women took her place. Starsky let it go on until he saw the last reporter drive away and then took Maggie’s arm.

“Come on, Maggie. Time to go home,” he encouraged when only the three of them remained.

Gently, Maggie took her arm back, patted his hand and took a step away. “In a moment, David. I just want to say good-bye.”

Reluctantly, Starsky and Hutch moved away a few steps, allowing her some privacy. Starsky felt Hutch move a little closer, bringing their shoulders together, and he leaned into the contact, wishing he and Hutch could claim the freedom to embrace here, share their grief openly. But even as defiant as he felt now, Starsky knew that would be going too far. They could wait. They would stay with Maggie until she shooed them away, and only then would they be free to retreat to the haven represented by either his or Hutch’s apartments—which didn’t matter—and help each other come to terms with their loss.

The ride back to the Blaine house was made, for the most part, in silence. Maggie had decided against the usual gathering after, and so it would just be the three of them to spend the rest of the afternoon and perhaps into the evening remembering and laying John to rest in their own way. Starsky had to admit that he was just as glad.

There was a black and white sitting outside the Blaine house when Starsky pulled the Torino into the driveway. While Hutch went to see what the purpose of their presence was, Starsky escorted Maggie inside. As he had expected, Maggie retreated to her kitchen and Starsky didn’t try to dissuade her. If it comforted her to prepare food for two men who really felt no appetite, he, for one, would find some way to choke it down.

Hutch joined him at the shrine to Blaine’s valor where he, also predictably, had retreated. He needed to keep reminding himself of all the good Blaine had done, the courage his mentor had shown. Let that take the bitter edge off the sordid facts of his death and the secret he had hidden so obsessively.

“Dobey has the black and white stationed to keep the reporters away,” Hutch explained.

Starsky turned his back on the useless awards, wishing he could turn his back as easily on the doubts and fears the knowledge of John’s homosexuality and the lengths he had gone to hide it, had raised in his own mind. Feelings he knew he needed to talk through with Hutch. But not here. They were here to help Maggie, not start trying to work out their fears.

He unbuttoned the tight dress uniform jacket and shrugged out of it on the way to the couch, folding it neatly and laying it over the back before sinking down onto the cushion. He invited Hutch to join him with a look, smiling indulgently when Hutch also took the time to discard the jacket before sitting down. The heat wave had broken, but the cooler temperatures didn’t make the heavy uniforms much more comfortable.

“You think it’s true what Edith said about the uniform?” Starsky asked.

“That Dobey couldn’t get into it?” Hutch replied with a small smile. “Are you kidding?”

Starsky grimaced at him. “No, dummy. That he was going to wear it today. It was okay for us, but the department really coulda come down on him.”

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed and tipped his head to rest against the back of the couch.

Starsky watched the pale blue eyes tracking, wondering what mental pictures his artistic friend might be painting on the blank white canvas of the ceiling.

“Dobey will buck the department for a principle if it’s important enough to him,” Hutch continued. “But with his religious beliefs, this one has to be hard for him to swallow. Guess he just made up his mind that twenty plus years of friendship is worth a little hassle.”

Maggie returned then with a tray of coffee and sandwiches. “I suppose that’s true of all of us,” she said as she slid the tray onto the table and sat in the chair.

Watching her pour coffee, Starsky realized that for the first time since he had known her, Maggie looked her age. She was pushing fifty, he knew, but until a few days ago, most people wouldn’t have believed it. Grief could do that. He remembered how sorrow had wiped the youth and vitality out of his mother’s face, and that they had never come back. He hoped that, for Maggie, that wouldn’t be true.

“You two won’t have to hang around here long. My sister is coming in from Florida. Her flight arrives at five.” Maggie paused, her expression becoming chagrined. “I don’t mean you aren’t welcome.”

Starsky accepted his cup and smiled to reassure her. “We know what you mean, Maggie. How long is Annie going to stay?”

“Just a few days,” Maggie said, passing a cup to Hutch and then finding something utterly fascinating about her own fingers. “I…I’m going to go back with her to Tampa. Maybe…maybe even move down there.”

As ashamed as he was to admit it, Starsky felt just a bit of relief at the news. He wouldn’t mind not having to come to this house for a while, or maybe never again.

“I’ll have to come back eventually. Deal with the house and all, but…” Maggie lifted her head, her eyes a defiant plea for understanding, “…I hope you won’t think I’m being cowardly….”

It was Hutch who rid himself of his cup the quickest and leaned forward to engulf her hands in his. “We think you’re an incredibly brave lady who deserves a chance to re-group her forces. Some time and privacy, and we know you can’t get that here.”

“At least not until the next seven-day wonder comes along,” Maggie agreed. “I…I’d like to keep in touch, David.”

Starsky grinned. “Hey, I call my mom every Friday night. You let me know the number and I’ll be callin’ Florida, too. Great way to start the weekend, talkin’ to my two favorite ladies.”

~*~*~

“You want a beer?’ Hutch called to his partner who was digging through the closet to see if he had something more comfortable here to wear than the dress uniform. He stood waiting in front of the refrigerator door, unable to guess which way Starsky might decide tonight. He had been going pretty easy on the alcohol since Hutch’s warning, but today, certainly, the cause would be sufficient to put back a few.

Starsky appeared with a pair of his crummy jeans in one hand and a navy t-shirt in the other. He held up the shirt. “Is this yours or mine?”

“Does it matter?” Hutch countered. They could wear each other’s shirts and often did, even though their taste in clothing wasn’t always similar. “Hey,” he stopped his partner when he started to turn away. “Coors or not?”

“Better make it root beer,” Starsky decided. “I’m not staying tonight.”

Hutch chewed over that information silently as he opened the bottle, listening to the small sounds Starsky made as he changed his clothes. He decided on tea for himself and stood watching the kettle, his mind wandering unhappy paths.

“Watched pots don’t boil, babe,” Starsky said from right beside him.

Hutch jumped. He had been so deep in his morose thoughts that he hadn’t heard Starsky come into the kitchen. He relaxed a little, his nerves settling, when Starsky slipped an arm around his waist, squeezed briefly, then picked up the soda off the counter and wandered away. He almost protested the desertion, but kept his thoughts to himself for the time being.

“I can’t stay tonight, Hutch,” Starsky repeated when Hutch came into the living room with his tea.

Can’t. Not don’t want to. Can’t. Again Hutch refrained from comment, knowing Starsky would open up to him when he was ready. The pod person had disappeared, and Starsky had certainly done his duty and more by Maggie, but there was a brittleness to the veneer. Hutch knew that, now they were alone, it was just a matter of time before it cracked. He put down his tea and went to change.

When Hutch returned, Starsky was flipping through the TV guide. He stopped beside the set. “You want to watch the tube?”

There was a moment of deliberation and then Starsky laid the guide aside. “No. Don’t think I’m in the mood for Barnaby Jones tonight.”

Hutch moved as far as the couch. “Monopoly?”

Starsky shrugged a denial. “Nah. Just wanna talk. ‘Sides, I think it’s still at my place.”

Satisfied that Starsky wasn’t in the mood for distraction, Hutch sat down in his corner and curled up with his tea. “Talk?” he asked/invited.

“Don’t know where to start,” Starsky confessed. He picked up his root beer, but didn’t drink, just sat in his corner of the couch turning the bottle in his hands, carefully wiping away the condensation in stripes from the neck down.

“That’s not usually a problem for you. You just open your mouth and say what you’re thinking,” Hutch teased gently, rewarded by the brief smile that creased the down bent face.

“Not even sure what I’m thinkin’ right now,” Starsky admitted.

“How about why you won’t stay here tonight?” Hutch prompted. “You worried there’s some IA puke across the street making notes?”

“Too late to worry about that,” Starsky acknowledged, lifting his head and giving Hutch the benefit of his eyes to read. “Dancer’s a little close to the surface tonight, babe.”

Hutch nodded his understanding. The angel wasn’t exactly firmly locked up in his box tonight either. Understandable, he allowed for both of them.

“We’ve been getting away with it for a long time now, Hutch. Eight years, and nobody knows but us. I guess there’s something to be said for hiding in plain sight, huh?” Starsky said with an ironic little laugh.

“And never breaking the rules,” Hutch added. He held his mug between both hands and curled up a little tighter. Now that he had been acknowledged, the angel was clamoring louder to be set free. He remembered from the books on grieving he had read, that men often reacted to death by wanting sex, wanting a reaffirmation of life. But he was a thinking being who could make choices above his instincts, not just a skin full of reactions.

Starsky winked at him and lifted the soda bottle in salute, acknowledging the temptation they were both resisting. “I guess I can understand John’s fear in a way. I mean, I’ve got as much to lose by being exposed as he did. I keep tryin’ to tell myself that when I got back from ‘Nam, maybe he really did believe what was goin’ on with me was just, you know, the circumstances. Maybe he really believed that I could make it go away now I was home.”

Hutch shook his head, not in negation of Starsky’s speculations, but at the predictability of it. Starsky didn’t love that many people, but once you became one of the lucky few, you joined a damned privileged club. Starsky would defend those he loved to the death, and that was exactly what he was doing now. Searching for justification that would allow him to forgive, put his anger to rest, and re-establish John Blaine in the place he had occupied in Starsky’s heart for so many years. It wasn’t easy to find out your heroes were human, but it was all too often true.

“Maybe, back then, he hadn’t even admitted to himself he was gay,” Hutch added. “Some guys hide it from themselves even better than they hide it from the rest of the world.”

Starsky brightened at that. “Hey, I never thought of that.” He considered that through a couple of swallows of root beer, his expression becoming more serious yet again. “If that ain’t the way it was, I don’t wanna know. I’m just as glad I can’t ask.”

When his partner subsided into silence, Hutch left him to it, sipping his tea and watching the emotions flicker over the well-known face. He could almost track the thoughts by the changes on Starsky’s features, each one bringing with it its own display of emotion as it was brought forward, considered and somehow dealt with to Starsky’s satisfaction. He knew, by the sudden blanking of the long face, when Starsky hit a brick wall he couldn’t climb over on his own.

“You know what scares me, though, Hutch?” Starsky asked.

Hutch was almost willing to bet a month’s salary what Starsky was about to admit to was the exact same fear that had been souring Hutch’s stomach for days now. He prompted the confession with his eyes, rather than speech.

“What if…if push came to shove… Jesus, Hutch, it makes me sick to think I’d give you up the way John gave up Whitelaw.” The confession was made in a horrified whisper as if a louder tone might give it greater validity. “Our luck can’t hold forever.”

Hutch set aside his mug and uncurled. Whatever temptations the angel might be wrestling with, he knew this was no time for him to be sending a message of rejection with his body language. “I don’t think anybody really knows what they’ll do until they have to do it. I certainly never thought I could kill a man, but when I had to, I did it. I can’t imagine anything happening that would make me deny what I feel for you, for all the things you are to me—friend, partner…” He paused to acknowledge the weight of the last before he said it. “…lover. I panicked about it once. Remember? Back when you bought the first Torino and the guys were giving us the gears. I wanted to keep the secret then, but I sure as hell didn’t want to give you up.”

“I don’t like… ambiguity,” Starsky said, shrugging to acknowledge his uncommon choice of word. “That’s why not knowing gives me a pain in the gut. I try to think about it. You know, what might happen if anybody ever found out, but I guess it’d be different for us than it woulda been for John. Whitelaw was the one exposed, and John knew he could run away. You and me, hell, since it only ever is you and me, there’d be no question that it would be both of us in hot water.”

“Parboiled in that particular case,” Hutch reminded him. “But you’re right. It would be me and thee against the whole fucking department,” he added, and saw that that, more than any other argument he could have made, settled Starsky into a place he could live with. Hutch wished he could do the same for himself. Over the years and ground down by experience, Hutch’s idealism had become far less narrow minded. He could see the grey now, even appreciate its many, varying tones. In others. He never had learned to cut himself the same slack. Although Starsky might continue to wrestle occasionally with the problem until the time came when his resolve was put to the test, Hutch knew the lack of certainty would drive him to question himself. He would search his own motives again and again, analyze every stray thought on the subject until he, somehow, knew what his choice would be. Even though, all along, there really was only one way to know.

“You think what Dobey said is true? About the department being under pressure to let gays on the force?” Starsky wondered, interrupting Hutch’s self-chastisement. “Jesus, the shit’ll really hit the fan if it happens.”

“And I sure as hell don’t want to be the first. Whoever it is, the poor bastard will be lucky if he lasts a week,” Hutch predicted gloomily. “But I think that’s still a wave of the future, building, yeah, but not ready to crash on the BCPD’s beach just yet. But you can bet your ass there’s going to be some witch hunting going on. IA will be anxious to turn the spotlight off their own mess—Fargo and his committee. And digging up a little dirt to put the heat on someone else is just their lousy style.”

Starsky leaned back in his corner, held up the bottle and turned it, his eyes following the small darts of reflection as they danced around the room. “You know what I just realized, Hutch?”

The speculative expression and smug tone aroused Hutch’s curiosity. “What?”

“As far as you and me go, IA’s hands are just a little bit tied up. For a while anyway. I mean, they come after us when it was us that exposed Fargo? How the hell would that look, huh? They might like to think they’re a bunch of little tin gods, but, hell, even IA’s gotta answer to somebody. Right?”

“It would be a mistake to think we’re somehow immune, Starsk,” Hutch warned him. “IA has its own rules.”

“So, what do you want to do? Sit on our hands and wear blinders? We tried that and it nearly drove us nuts. Or are you sayin’ you want to cool it with the sex? No more Friday nights until IA has somethin’ new to think about?” Starsky paused, his expression hardening. “Or do you just want the sex to stop?”

Hutch leaned forward, found a tangled grip in Starsky’s curls and tipped his head back. “Don’t you even think about it,” he growled warningly, watching Starsky respond to his touch, the soft lips parting in expectation. He forced himself to release his friend and retreated back to his corner.

“But maybe we’d be smart, just in case IA doesn’t subscribe to Starsky logic, to give them what they expect,” he suggested, shaken by how close he had come to letting his angel loose.

“Snow job?” Starsky wondered, looking almost as shell shocked as Hutch felt.

“Smokescreen,” Hutch clarified.

“What exactly are you talking about here, Hutch?” Starsky asked warily.

“Nothing but what we should be doing anyway,” Hutch said, hesitating, not entirely certain how Starsky might take his next observation, but knowing it needed to be said. “Dating. How long has it been since either one of us took a woman out more than once?” He paused to offer Starsky an opportunity to comment, but hurried on when he saw the warning tightening of his jaw. “We don’t even make a game out of competing for the same girl anymore,” he pointed out. He leaned forward when he saw the tautness spread over the rest of Starsky’s face. “Starsk?”

“Sometimes it felt more like I was competin’ with her for you,” Starsky admitted reluctantly. “Thought it would just be better not to play that game for a while.”

“Starsk, are we getting…?” Hutch closed his mouth when he realized he wasn’t entirely sure how to describe what he heard in Starsky’s voice.

“Too serious?” Starsky finished for him. “Hutch, I think you and me are about as serious as a heart attack. We keep it caged, but if it wasn’t pretty fuckin’ strong, what would we need the cages for, huh? When this started, we knew we needed the rules and whatever we wanna call it, it sure hasn’t gotten any weaker.”

Hutch wanted to curl back into his corner, deliberately wanted to send a message of rejection to his outspoken friend. Starsky, he sensed, was in the mood for rebellion. Angry at John Blaine, furious with the department, and generally pissed off with the world at large for forcing him to live a lie. But, most of all, disgusted with himself for allowing himself to be forced.

“Ah, shit, Hutch. Don’t look like that. You think I’d ever do anything that would expose us?” Starsky asked seriously, then, suddenly changing attitude as if someone had thrown a switch, he offered an exaggeratedly innocent smile. “At least not without askin’ you first.”

“Starsk…” Hutch growled in his best ‘drop it’ street voice.

Starsky held his right hand up and his left hand out as if resting it on a bible. “I swear, Hutch. I’m not sittin’ here makin’ plans to fuck up our lives just so I can thumb my nose at a bunch of homophobic bigots. What kinda revenge would that be anyway? Them cruisin’ their beats and me standin’ in the unemployment line.”

It wasn’t the plans Starsky was making that concerned Hutch, it was a sneaky subconscious he was worried about. And his own for that matter. Hutch was every bit as pissed at the powers that be as his partner, and he wasn’t sure if he was up to resisting his own temptations and Starsky’s, too.

“But I think you’re wrong about the snow job, smokescreen, whatever you wanna call it,” Starsky said. “IA are cops, too, and what’ll make us sit up and take notice faster than somebody changin’ the way they act? And, Hutch, honest to God, I couldn’t stomach the thought of usin’ some lady. It was bad enough what I did all those months after Terry, but at least I never tried to con any of them.”

“Come on, Starsk. Don’t try and tell me that you aren’t still interested in women?” Hutch scoffed.

Starsky shook his head. “That isn’t what I mean, and you know it. Quit bein’ a pain in the ass here, babe.”

“So, business as usual when we go into work tomorrow,” Hutch summed it up. “This is who we are, who we’ve always been, and fuck you if you can’t take a joke?”

Starsky shrugged. “Guess so. I mean, can we do anything else after all these years? I guess if anyone asks what we think then…” The speculative expression returned, along with a certain sparkle of devilment in the blue eyes that Hutch knew to be wary of. “…you be for and I’ll be against.” He held up a hand and Hutch closed his lips over his protest. “Then the next guy that asks, I’ll be for and you be against.”

“Neither one of us could carry it off. We’re good actors, but not that good.”

“Hey, how many times do people get us mixed up, even our undercover names?” Starsky said, and Hutch could see that the serious discussion was over for the night. Starsky obviously felt the need to back away and Hutch had to admit that he wasn’t ready himself to analyze too deeply all the changes that had developed in their relationship in the last few years. It was too easy to just enjoy it. As Starsky had pointed out once, it was having your cake and eating it too. Hutch, however, wasn’t as certain that they both might not be courting a serious case of heartburn.

“And we’ll practice. Right,” Starsky continued. “Get it so well rehearsed we’ll just fall into the roles.”

Hutch could tell that Starsky was warming to the idea, seeing it as one huge practical joke, but he knew Starsky wasn’t really taking it as lightly as it might sound. Laugh so you don’t cry had a really close cousin that Starsky believed in whole-heartedly—laugh so the world can’t tell what you’re thinking. Just another part of Starsky’s rule of distraction.

“Does this mean I have to put up with that pod person again?” Hutch asked, going along because that was what they both needed. “I didn’t think much of that guy.”

“Yeah. But you’ll get to be the pod person, too,” Starsky pointed out. “This’ll be better than the time we gave out Dobey’s extension and he started getting all those calls for hamburgers and fries.” Starsky was almost rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“You’re certifiable, you know that, don’t you?” Hutch protested laughingly.

“So, you wanna be the homophobe or the liberal first?” Starsky asked, giving a shrug to let Hutch know he understood his doubts. “Better than tryin’ to resist bein’ the dancer and the angel tonight, isn’t it?”

~*~*~

“…And you’re not even a good kisser.”

Starsky leaned over the back of the car seat, deliberately close enough so that when he spoke his warm breath would wash over Hutch’s ear and neck. “How do you know that?”

Hutch thumped the steering wheel. “Went too far with that one, didn’t I?”

Starsky stretched out in the back seat again and picked up his magazine. “Yeah. But it’s a pretty good argument. Oughta try that one on Conner. It’ll rot his socks. Okay, let’s try it again, but this time, you be the pod person.”

~*~*~

“I’ve got an idea.”

Hutch knew those words in that tone. They made him wince as he looked out through the passenger window, and his expression had nothing to do with the backed-up traffic he could see on the off ramp to Venice. Heaven deliver him from Starsky’s bright ideas, he implored whatever deity might be listening. He knew it would do no good not to offer Starsky a prompt, but he withheld it anyway. As he expected, it didn’t dim Starsky’s enthusiasm one little bit.

“I think we should invest in real estate.”

“Say what?” Hutch asked. He had expected something along the lines of maybe trying their luck at a disco. Although no actual decision had been voiced between them, after Blaine’s funeral, they had been dating more. Hutch was even seeing Carol Wade on a fairly regular basis. He wasn’t sleeping with her, but they enjoyed each other’s company well enough, and Starsky seemed to like her too. He had even agreed to do their Laurel and Hardy routine for her third grade variety show.

“You know. Buy a house.”

“Buy a house?” Hutch echoed incredulously, turning his head so he could try to gauge whether Starsky really had lost his mind or was only setting him up. “Now? With IA rattling the skeletons in everyone’s closet from Chief Ryan right on down to the night file clerk, you think we ought to buy a house together?”

“An investment,” Starsky repeated. “Make a few bucks.”

“Oh, yeah, Starsk. That’s what I really call coolin’ it.” Hutch picked up the mike and pretended to hail control, his thumb firmly not on the transmit button.

“Control, Zebra Three. Patch me through to IA, will you, Mildred? IA? Yeah, this is Sergeant Hutchinson over at Metro homicide. Now, I know you’ve got a push on right now. Yeah, need to clean all those subversive, limp-wristed queers out of our squeaky-clean force. I just wanted to run somethin’ by you here.”

Starsky made a grab for the mike, but Hutch held it away from him, squeezing back into the corner against the door as he brought the un-activated unit to his lips. “My partner and I are thinking about buying a house together. Nothin’ pink about it, I assure you. He just figures we can make a few million on the real estate market so we can quit, thumb our noses at you bastards and be as queer as we like. No. You don’t have a problem with that? Oh, good.”

“Okay. Okay,” Starsky laughed. “I get the point.”

Hutch hung up the mike, watching as his partner wiped tears of laughter from his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Seriously, Starsk. Don’t you think that might be taking just a bit of a risk? Like waving a red flag in front of a bull, maybe?” he suggested. So far, the subconscious risks he had feared Starsky might be inclined to take hadn’t materialized, and he wondered if this just might be the first.

The laughter was gone from Starsky’s profile, now, his attention fixed on the road and his hands white knuckled around the steering wheel, although the slow-moving traffic warranted neither.

“Yeah, I guess it is a risk. Drawing attention to ourselves,” Starsky conceded, looking as if he had just tasted something particularly sour. “But, fuck it, Hutch, I can only take so much of bein’ told how to live my life.”

He punched the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn, making them both jump and earning them about a hundred bad tempered honks in reply. Hutch silently compared their fellow travelers to a bunch of brainless geese, but refrained from shouting his opinion through the open window.

“I know I’m dancin’ to their tune just livin’ by the rules we made,” Starsky continued. “But, fuck it….”

“There’s a difference between making your rules and having somebody else’s forced down your throat?” Hutch suggested.

Starsky nodded and leaned back against the seat, finally giving up his concentration on the car ahead of him since its brake lights hadn’t dimmed for five minutes at least, and looked at Hutch. He nodded again, more decisively. “Yeah. Guess so,” he conceded. “Just pisses me off that IA seems to care more about who I get my rocks off with than if I’m on the take.”

“Flavor of the month,” Hutch reminded him. “Screw up on the job, and they’ll be happy to roast you for that, too.”

“Yeah. It still feels like a toothache I can’t do nothin’ about,” Starsky complained, but his tone wasn’t as angry now.

Hutch nodded in agreement, reached out and gave his partner’s shoulder a consoling pat. “I’ll think about it, okay?” he said, not because he really wanted to buy a house but because he hated seeing Starsky this frustrated.

“You will?” Starsky brightened considerably, Hutch’s agreement something he had obviously given up as a lost cause.

“Think about it,” Hutch repeated, hoping he wasn’t going to regret it in the not-so-distant future. “But I’m telling you right now, partner, I’m not going to live with you.”

~*~*~

In the past forty-eight hours, Starsky had developed a whole new sympathy for the ants in the ant-farm he had given Hutch for Christmas. He was glad now that Hutch had insisted on setting them free, even if his excuse had been bullshit. Oh, yeah. Hutch was a nature boy, all right. But not so deeply committed to every creature’s right to freedom that the sight of the poor caged insects had made his heart bleed. Starsky wished right now that some medical Hutch would come along and free him.

Claustrophobia wasn’t something that usually bothered Starsky. He didn’t have to have the window open in the car in the rain, nor did elevators give him the heebie-jeebies. And he certainly couldn’t complain about the companionship. If he had had to pick one person he could share a glass-fronted cage with for who knew how long, Hutch would definitely be on top of the list of one. But not with the threat that either one of them could even now be incubating the virus that had killed Jake Donner. That he might lose Hutch to the fucking, microscopic bug scared Starsky so much he had no time to be worried that he might have it too. He wondered if he was always going to react to death or to the threat of death by wanting sex? He didn’t like that about himself, but, especially locked up with Hutch, and certainly when this close to the end of the month, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

Thinking such thoughts weren’t helping him at all with the re-occurring problem that was throbbing in his briefs. So what if Hutch was hanging around in a dress that wouldn’t stay closed in the back, lounging on his bed to play cards with those long legs of his stretched out?

Starsky squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to replace the tantalizing images with a star-spangled blackness.

He could only hide out in the bathroom so long. Parked on the john lid and trying to sweet talk his cock into temporary impotence, he knew he must look like an idiot. He certainly felt like one. And since this was his fourth trip in here since lunch, Hutch was already giving him concerned looks every time he managed to get his wayward anatomy under control and could emerge from the one tiny refuge of privacy they had. If only they had had time to at least retrieve their pajamas and robes. Although Starsky wasn’t sure he even remembered where his pajamas were.

His cock finally having taken the hint and subsided into aching, penile protest, Starsky washed his hands and exited the bathroom.

“Who’s turn is it to deal?” he asked Hutch as he sat down on the edge of his partner’s bed.

“Yours,” Hutch said.

Starsky could feel Hutch’s blue eyes watching him as he dealt the cards, but since he kept his own eyes on the worn rectangles of cardboard, he had no way of knowing just which of several possible expressions his partner might be wearing. It could certainly be anything from annoyance, through puzzlement, and into concern considering the fact that his only source of diversion kept retreating into the bathroom every five minutes.

“Ah, Starsk. Do you have a problem the doctors should maybe know about?” Hutch ventured.

Starsky picked up his cards and started to sort them, then realized he couldn’t even remember what game they were playing. Maybe there was some truth to the feminist assertion that testosterone rots the brain.

“What do you mean?” he asked automatically. Was it Gin, he wondered? No. He couldn’t remember either one of them calling ‘gin.’ Not enough players for Hearts. Maybe, War? Hell, they could have been playing ‘Go Fish’ for all the attention he had been paying. He had been too busy noticing how good Hutch looked in yellow and hoping-dreading that the next time Hutch raised his arms the damned gown might ride all the way up to his hips.

“You’re starting to wear a track in the floor to the john,” Hutch pointed out. “If you’re not feeling good, Starsk, we should let somebody know. That’s what they have us in here for, you know.”

Not feeling good definitely wasn’t the problem. More like feeling too damned good, and thinking too damned much about how good Hutch felt in his arms, how good he looked… Uh, oh. Starsky shifted a little more sideways and propped up the knee closest to Hutch to try to hide the fact that his gown suddenly had a tent pole in the center of it.

“Been drinking lots of water,” he mumbled, shuffling his cards compulsively. He would just tell Hutch right out if it wasn’t for the fact that Hutch didn’t seem to be the least bit inconvenienced by their close captivity. Starsky wasn’t used to wanting Hutch and not being wanted in return.

“Since when does it take you twenty minutes to take a leak?” Hutch pursued relentlessly.

Starsky threw down his cards and dropped his knee so Hutch could see his condition. “And you keep telling me you’re the brains of this outfit,” he growled.

Hutch’s eyes widened and then he smiled. A slow, cat-got-the-cream smile of pride. “Since when is that something to squirm about between you and me?” he asked gently.

Starsky threw a look toward the observation window, then glared at his partner. “Since I seem to be the only one with a problem,” he growled.

Hutch’s smile, if it were even physically possible, became even more smug. “Meditation,” he confessed.

“Medi…” Starsky stared at him suspiciously. Nobody could meditate and play cards at the same time. Could they? He didn’t know. Hutch kept trying to teach him, but Starsky just couldn’t seem to get the hang of clearing his mind. There were too many boxes in there, each and every one of them appearing to grow more anxious every day to spill out what they were supposed to contain.

“What do you think I’m doing out here while you’re locked in the bathroom talking your dick into behaving itself?” Hutch teased.

“Ohming?” Starsky ventured.

“Ohming,” Hutch confirmed.

“Oh. I guess that’s okay then,” Starsky said, and picked up his cards. His problem suddenly didn’t seem like such a problem anymore now that he knew Hutch was sharing it. “What the hell are we playing anyway?”

~*~*~

Just one more time. If Starsky grunted, sighed, rolled over or punched his pillow one more time, Hutch was going to throw something at him. The way he felt right now, the way he had been feeling for the past fifty-six hours, that something would most likely be himself.

“Shit.”

Or cursed.

“For God’s sake, Starsky. Go to sleep,” Hutch demanded. With his back to his partner, Hutch couldn’t see the startled expression, but he could imagine it based on the abrupt silence. Had Starsky really thought him asleep? With a whirling dervish only three feet away? A new definition for perpetual motion under a thin blanket and thinner sheet, wearing nothing but a scrap of navy blue material pretending to be briefs?

“You ever try and sleep with a hard-on?” Starsky whined in a whisper.

“I am trying,” Hutch snapped. He didn’t know why Starsky was whispering. Anybody with the inclination might be able to come and gawk at them through the big, un-curtained window as if they were the newest exhibit at the zoo, but no one could hear them.

“Oh.”

Nor could Hutch understand why Starsky would sound so surprised. Did he think Hutch was Superman? Immune to his flimsy-gowned presence? Blind to the threat that hung over their heads?

“Ohming isn’t working?” Starsky said, still whispering, but in a lower register that sent warm, ghostly fingers tiptoeing up Hutch’s spine.

“Noisy neighbor,” Hutch accused.

That echoing, expectant silence fell again during which Hutch prayed that Starsky would take the hint, give it up and go to sleep. Hutch didn’t trust himself to resist just about anything Starsky might suggest, or that he might even start making a few suggestions himself.

“Hutch?”

Of course not. When had Starsky ever taken a hint that wasn’t written in florescent letters six feet high?

“No.” Hutch put all the determination he possessed, which, at the moment, wasn’t even enough to fill a shot glass, into the rejection.

“Come on, babe. Turn around and face me.”

It went against his better judgment. Hell, even his worst judgment was trying to tell him he was an idiot. But how could he resist that oil-over-gravel tone of yearning? This one didn’t bother tickling his spine, it went straight for his balls. Hutch rolled over.

Ugly green blanket half on the floor. Crisp white sheet caught beneath a muscular arm and pulled taut across the long torso. Curls awry and hot blue eyes watching every breath he took. Hutch realized that, with the light from the window behind him, he could see Starsky far better than Starsky could see him. Lust went into overdrive.

“Do it with me, babe,” Starsky coaxed.

Hutch watched the talented left hand slip under the sheet, his eyes tracing its progress down, the gasp Starsky gave as it reached his groin burning through his ears and into his brain.

“You’re out of your mind,” Hutch accused, but weakly, because even as he said the words, his equally talented right hand was skimming down his chest, over the taut muscles of his belly until his gasp of discovery echoed Starsky’s.

“Insane with lust,” Starsky agreed. “Do it with me. You know how you like it. Hard at the base, tender at the tip.”

Nobody knew what he liked better than Starsky. Hutch wriggled down just a little so that the table between their two beds no longer obscured his view of Starsky’s face. A face limned in dim florescent light from the corridor and set aglow from within by pleasure. They had never had sex in the dark before, or even this close to dark. They both liked the light, wanted to feed on each other’s beauty, the expressions of each other’s pleasure. The near night gave this an added kick. The risk. The forbiddenness of it. So close to breaking the rules, but not quite.

“Let me see you, Hutch,” Starsky crooned. “Back’s to the window. No one can see you but me.”

How far can you bend a rule before it breaks? Best judgment. Worst. No judgment at all. Hutch swept back the blanket, saw Starsky’s eyes widen, the movement beneath the sheet quickening.

“Wait for me,” Hutch demanded, and the pumping slowed in immediate obedience.

“Not going anywhere without you, sweetheart,” Starsky promised. “Nowhere to go without you.”

That was it. No more need to worry about the flexibility of rules, the reason for which Hutch could no longer remember. Not when the oath was nearly enough to make him climax, the grip and slide and pump of his fist almost superfluous.

“Now,” he commanded his dark twin, and the warm, smooth gush of his semen rushed into his palm as the moan and gasp of Starsky’s climax rushed into his ears.

A handful of come cooling almost as quickly as his brain, Hutch opened his eyes to find Starsky watching him, his closed fist pressed to his lips.

“Don’t do it, Starsk,” Hutch warned, his tone threatening both himself and his partner. Now that passion’s fog had lifted from his mind, he had the sense, however belated, to be truly frightened.

Starsky’s hand disappeared beneath the sheet. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Hutch snapped. He didn’t want to hear Starsky apologize for what he could not bring himself to regret. As terrifying as this was, he didn’t want to deny anything they shared that sprang from the depths of their feelings for each other.

“We’ve stepped too far over the line,” he whispered, needing desperately for Starsky to be the sure and certain one now, to cast aside, if he felt any, his own fears and reach out to calm Hutch’s.

“Step back, Hutch,” Starsky whispered, the seducer gone, the friend watching him with concern. “Come on, Hutch. You can do it. Step back.”

Hutch closed his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, bringing the blanket back over him, squeezed the handful of the evidence of their folly until his nails bit into his palm. He lined up justification in his mind. Bent not broken. They hadn’t touched. They were held captive. They could be dead in days. If they had been able to walk away, they would have. He repeated the mantra until he believed it enough to open his eyes, relax his fist until it splayed stickily against his chest.

“Never again,” he decreed.

“Never,” Starsky promised.

But Hutch didn’t believe either one of them.

~*~*~

Starsky felt like a man pursued by the hounds of hell by the time he thrust out through the door of the isolation room where Hutch lay. Where Hutch lay dying.

He was running by the time he reached the stairs, deaf to Dr. Kaufman calling his name, his brain refusing to acknowledge the distraction. His eyes saw only Hutch’s tortured face, his mind heard only “Hutch is dying.”

By the time he reached the Torino, Starsky was shaking so hard, inside, outside, that the key slipped through his fingers as he tried to fumble it into the ignition. He reached down, doubled over, face pressed into the steering wheel as he groped beneath the gas pedal for the keys. The horn sounded from the pressure of his face just as his fingers connected with the keys and he jack-knifed, heart in his throat, his hand fisted around the metal so hard the edges cut into his palm.

“Hutch,” he murmured in despair, bent forward again and laid his forehead on the wheel.

He felt so helpless. Never before had he been faced with the possibility that he could not, somehow, protect his partner. Lost. Tortured. Injured. There had always been a way for Starsky to come to the rescue. This time….

Slowly, Starsky straightened, and with a suddenly steady hand, he slipped the key into the ignition and fired the engine, pushing down so hard on the gas that the Torino roared to life, seeming to rattle the walls of the parking garage.

The familiar growl focused him. He wasn’t helpless. Fuck the thousands who might share Hutch’s fate. For Starsky, it came down to just one fragile life, hanging by a thread, and he wasn’t about to stand by and watch that thread snap. Any man who thought to stand in his way—whether king of crime or captain of police—better be prepared to find his brains on his blotter.

Starsky put the car in gear.

~*~*~

Starsky kicked the heels of his Adidas against the scrub-covered cliff pressed against the back of his legs, watching the moonlight reflected off the restless waves beneath him. Hutch had taught him this. To seek out the ocean when he needed to let his mind roam. But where Hutch liked to walk the sandy beaches, let the nearness of the awesome ocean put his human existence into perspective, Starsky liked this place better. Perspective was all well and good, but Starsky never wanted his sense of self so completely immersed by any outside force. Maybe that was why he had never been able to accept the gift of meditation. But Hutch had given him this gift, brought him to this place the day John Blaine died and gave him back his sense of balance.

Starsky leaned back on his hands, feeling a rock press into his palm and tilted forward again, closing his hand around the sharp edges and bringing it with him. He turned it, examining it with the tips of his fingers while his eyes continued to follow the play of light and shadow upon the water. He was seeking that balance again. Had to have it firmly in place before he saw his partner again. Had to have all the little boxes in his brain sealed up tight. Idly he wondered if, were it possible to take a picture of his brain, it would reveal an intricate Chinese puzzle of boxes and mazes where feelings and memories had to be stored, separated from each other, but never sitting completely quiet within their cages.

He was tired. He had spent days doing everything he could to make sure the Feds and the BCPD stood by the promise he made Callendar. He had been obsessed with the feeling that to renege on the price he had bargained for Hutch’s life would have been to cheapen the gift of Hutch’s restored health and, perhaps, tempt fate to try to steal him away yet again.

He was too tired for what he was trying to do now, but time had run out. He had to see Hutch before the night was over, could feel, somehow, how much his partner needed him. But not like this. A Hutch given a new lease on life, and, Starsky had been fully aware during his two very brief visits, ready to grab at it with both hands, wasn’t someone Starsky would be able to resist while all his heart was so firmly enthralled by the wonder of Hutch’s life.

So, the ocean called him, whispered soothing reminders of love and lust and caring and sharing and—the sweetest reminder of all—that Hutch lived. The status quo that had been chafing against emotions grown too large to be contained, no longer felt so restrictive. Where days ago, Starsky had wanted to shout his love into the face of the microscopic enemy that was stealing away the object of that love; today he was prepared to once again accept half a cup, less than all, to live within the boundaries and be damned grateful for that much.

Abruptly, he pulled back his arm, flung it forward so hard he almost overbalanced and followed through right into the water. He released the rock, not even bothering to listen for any splash the tiny interloper might make in the boundless ocean. It was like the all-encompassing love he had discovered while standing on the wrong side of an observation window—unique in itself, but only a very small part in the vastness of his love for Hutch.

For one sweet moment, Starsky allowed his view of the restless waves to be obscured by a dream. He saw himself slip into Hutch’s room, slide boldly right into bed with him. He would take his startled friend into his arms, say ‘I love you’ and then watch understanding that he meant it in all the ways there were to love, bloom in crystal blue eyes.

A sweet fantasy indeed, Starsky thought, as the vision faded. He climbed to his feet, toes aligned with the edge of the bluff, slapping the pins and needles out of his butt. A fantasy that had no place in the lives he and Hutch had chosen for themselves. Someday, perhaps. But not today, or tomorrow, or any day in the near future.

In the meantime, at Hutch’s side was where he needed to be now. Starsky turned his back and walked away.

~*~*~

By 11:00 p.m., Hutch had given up hope that the sleeping pill the nurse had given him was going to work. Tired, yet restless, he tossed from side to side, unable to find a comfortable position. After days of fever and pain, there didn’t seem to be an inch of his skin that wasn’t sore or a muscle that didn’t ache.

Visiting hours had produced Huggy, full of gossip and bearing delectable edibles to tempt his returning appetite. Drs. Meredith and Kaufman had also made appearances and had even engineered his move to this private room. Four solid walls, the only window looking out onto the staff parking lot, and a door that he could walk through any time he wanted. Although he still had a ways to go to a full recovery, at least he no longer felt like pheasant under glass.

But Hutch had also given up hope on his partner. He had seen Starsky only twice since Callendar had turned himself in, and both times were before Hutch’s quarantine had been lifted. He had still been too weak to leave his bed at that point, and so they hadn’t even been able to talk. Why Starsky hadn’t ‘suited up’ and entered the isolation room, Hutch hadn’t been able to ask.

Rolling over for the tenth time in as many minutes, searching in vain for a cool spot on the pillow, Hutch was suddenly blinded by a shaft of light from the corridor falling across his face. Before he even had a chance to shield his eyes, the light was gone as the door was pushed closed. He didn’t need his eyes to adjust, didn’t need his mystery visitor to speak, to know that his absent partner had finally appeared.

“Starsk?” he whispered, nevertheless.

“Who else?” came the so-familiar voice out of the darkness.

Hutch heard a few hesitant steps, then a muted thump and a not so muted curse as Starsky ran into something.

“What are you doing?” he asked just as he was blinded for a second time, this time by the light from the bathroom. In a moment, the painful brightness retreated to the barest of glows as the bathroom door was pushed almost closed.

“Just shedding a little light on the subject,” Starsky explained as he pulled the chair up as close as it would go to the head of the bed and sat down.

More than anything in the world, Hutch wanted to reach out to his partner, but tucked his hands more firmly under his head instead. After days of being untouchable, of being denied the warmth of a human hand in the midst of his suffering, Hutch longed for Starsky’s touch. Especially when, the last time Starsky had touched him, they had been separated by the obscenity of surgical rubber.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, wanting to add ‘now’ or, even more directly, ‘where have you been?’

“Ah, fuck it,” Starsky said, and, before Hutch could protest, his partner scraped back the chair and unceremoniously, Adidas, leather jacket and all, climbed into the narrow bed with him. Not that Hutch was inclined to object. The scrape of leather against his unshaven cheek, the harsh rasp of well-worn denim upon his fever-sore skin was more welcome than the serum that had driven the invading virus from his body.

“You’re crazy,” he murmured lazily, anxious restlessness banished by Starsky’s presence.

“As a loon,” Starsky agreed. “But now you’re in here all by your lonesome with no great big window for every Tom, Dick and Judith to come peeking through, I figure I can get away with a couple of minutes of insanity.”

Hutch wished he could purr to show his appreciation as Starsky ran his fingers through his unwashed hair. He had been promised a shower tomorrow, and maybe the day after….

“When they gonna spring ya from this joint?” Starsky asked.

“Judith said maybe the day after tomorrow,” Hutch replied, wriggling a little, adjusting the fit of his body in Starsky’s arms, and soaking up the contact the way a cat soaked up the heat of the sun on a cold winter day.

“Judith, huh?” Starsky echoed, the amusement rich in his voice. “Still flirtin’ with the pretty lady doctor, are you? Think that’s gonna fly now you’re better?”

Hutch chuckled a little. “Uh, huh. It’s gonna fly all right. Right on back to Alabama.”

“Hmmmm. Lotsa fish in the sea,” Starsky reminded him.

Stretching out, straining every muscle and then curling back up again, Hutch nodded. “Oh, yeah. And with another hundred years to go, there’ll be lots of time for all of them.” He tilted his head back against Starsky’s shoulder, squinted to make out his partner’s satisfied expression in the near darkness. “And hundreds of last Friday nights.”

The grin that lit up Starsky’s face then could have illuminated a whole city, never mind one small, dingy, hospital room. “You can make book on it, Angel.”

The last lingering trace of fear disappeared and Hutch realized that, just like his partner, he had given up on the sleeping pill too soon. Sweet lassitude was creeping into his limbs, weighting his eyelids.

“Go to sleep. Get well,” Starsky coaxed him.

Hutch let his eyes close. He knew Starsky would have to leave soon and instinctively tightened his grip. At this moment, he truly believed he would be happy to spend every one of the next hundred years in this man’s arms. He was going to have to start working on Starsky to eat better if he wanted his irreplaceable partner to share all those wonderful years with him. He would start on him tomorrow.

“Night nurse,” he reminded.

“You let me worry about Florence Nightingale,” Starsky said. “I’ll just turn on the charm. Or hide under the bed. Whichever works.”

“Feelin’ pretty cocky, aren’tcha?” Hutch accused.

“Damn right. ‘Top of the world, ma!”‘ Starsky crowed.

“Cagney, right?” Hutch muttered, almost asleep, only the chance to tease his friend holding him back from slumber’s arms.

“Yeah,” Starsky confirmed.

“Don’t quit your day job, sweetheart.”

 

Between Optimist and Pessimist

Between optimist and pessimist, the difference is droll.
The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.

Starsky gripped the steering wheel, using the leverage to pull forward in the seat. It didn’t help. Then he tried shrugging his shoulders. That didn’t work either. He shot a quick glance at his partner, but Hutch was looking over the back seat, talking with the girls, probably about Heroes, the movie they had just seen, although Starsky was so distracted he couldn’t say for sure. So, he couldn’t warn Hutch off with his eyes or expression, and he sure as hell couldn’t say anything with Molly and her friend—whatever her name was—in the car. But he couldn’t ignore it either.

One of the girls giggled, and Starsky wondered if she had noticed what Hutch was doing. How the long fingers were persistently stroking the back of his neck, finger-tipping into his curls where they tugged and petted before retreating down under the collar of his jacket. And then starting all over again. Christ on a crutch, Starsky thought desperately, shifting again, but this time to ease the pressure on his cock that was reacting predictably to Hutch’s familiar caress. Was Hutch out of his mind?

As if it wasn’t bad enough that after the movie, Hutch had shuffled Whatshename into the back seat with Molly—not exactly great double-dating etiquette. Then he had to start with the fingers. Starsky hoped the darkness inside the car prevented the girls from seeing that Hutch’s hand had now wandered around to the side of his neck and was going for the open front of his shirt.

“Hey! How about we all drop in at your dad’s place, Molly?” Hutch suggested. “I keep telling Starsky that your pop has the best hot pastrami in Bay City.”

“Sure,” Molly agreed. “Pop won’t mind.”

Starsky brought his chin down sharply on Hutch’s hand, trapping it for a moment against his throat, then releasing it, hoping Hutch would get the message. Hutch, however, appeared determined to remain oblivious, his fingers retreating, but only around to the back of Starsky’s neck. Again, Starsky took his eyes off the road, and this time he caught Hutch watching him. The expression on his face left Starsky in no doubt that his partner knew exactly what he was doing.

“Sorry to disappoint ladies,” Starsky demurred, since there was no way he was going anywhere he couldn’t speak freely with Hutch in some kind of crazy, dangerous mood. “But I’m whipped. Besides, who ever heard of eating hot pastrami at this time of night?”

It was a dare, and Starsky waited for Hutch to take it up. Hutch knew he had a cast iron stomach and that his excuse was bullshit. Hutch also knew that Dobey had been taking it as easy as he could on them since he had only been out of the hospital for a few weeks, so Starsky couldn’t possibly be as tired as he claimed.

Hutch didn’t take up the challenge, just grumbled, “Spoil sport,” and kept his fingers firmly entwined in Starsky’s hair.

“That’s too bad,” Molly said. “Maybe next time.”

They were only a few minutes from the L&A Market Delicatessen, where Molly lived with her father in the apartment above the deli, so, in the absence of other instructions, Starsky continued on until they were parked in front of the building. Hutch had to release him then, to help Molly out of the back seat. Starsky allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

“I’ll just be a couple of minutes,” Hutch announced, leaning back into the car before he closed the door.

As soon as Hutch’s back was turned, Starsky twisted around to face his date. “Wanna move up here for the rest of the ride?” he asked with his sexiest smile.

“Sure,” the woman agreed, and Starsky hurried to scramble out of the driver’s side so he could make the transfer before Hutch returned.

“You know, I’m really embarrassed to admit this, but I didn’t catch your first name when Molly introduced us,” the long-legged blonde confessed as she slid onto the front seat.

Starsky settled in beside her. He gave a little bump with his hip, hoping she would take the hint and move right on over to the passenger seat so Hutch would be forced to climb in the back. However, when all she did was bump back and smile at him, Starsky gave up. She was supposed to be his date for the evening, and he had suggested the move to the front seat. Most of all, he certainly didn’t want to make it too obvious that his only interest in her was to provide a nice solid buffer between him and his partner.

“I kept hoping Ken would use your name so I wouldn’t have to ask, but he always calls you Starsky.”

Not always, Starsky thought. Sometimes Hutch called him Dancer. He chased the thought, brought forward weeks ahead of schedule by Hutch’s teasing behavior, back into its tattered box. “It’s Dave,” Starsky replied aloud. “And I think Molly must mumble worse than Hutch says I do ’cause I didn’t catch your name either. Sorry.”

“We’re not exactly getting off to a stellar start, are we? My name’s Brenda,” the woman said.

“Well, I hope you’re not ready to write me off too soon,” Starsky said automatically, once again applying his smile and hoping he didn’t look as distracted as he felt while watching Hutch stroll back to the car.

“I guess I could—”

“I’m back,” Hutch announced as he opened the door and slid onto the front seat, crowding Brenda over toward Starsky. “So, where do you live, honey?”

Starsky glared at his partner over the blonde head between them, as Brenda, given little choice, provided the address.

“That’s only a few minutes away. We might as well run Brenda home, huh, buddy?” Hutch suggested.

Hutchinson, you are in such shit, Starsky thought as he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. But he kept his mouth shut until he could get his partner alone.

“Molly never mentioned that Ken was such a controlling personality,” Brenda observed when Starsky walked her up to the door of her building. “Why do you put up with him arranging your life like that?”

Starsky kept a curb on his tongue, but he was doing a slow burn, whether because she dared to malign Hutch or because, tonight, she was too damned right, he wasn’t sure. “Cut him a little slack. He’s been sick,” he mumbled. “Goodnight,” he added, patted her shoulder and walked away. He wondered if Molly had any other friends to set him up with, because he very much doubted his and Brenda’s less than stellar start was going to go anywhere except downhill. Maybe he should specify a brunette. He really preferred to pick out his own blonds, he thought with a grin as he strode toward the car. Starsky felt his number one blond’s eyes on him as he came down the sidewalk, and his humor disappeared. As Ricky Ricardo would say, Hutch had some ‘splainin’ to do.

~*~*~

“Don’t even think about it,” Starsky warned as he climbed back into the car.

For a moment, Hutch considered further mutiny, even began to stretch his arm out over the back of the seat again, then changed his mind. He really had been courting disaster tonight, and Starsky had every right to be mad. He made a show of folding his hands primly in his lap and waited for Starsky to give him hell.

“What exactly were you trying to prove?” Starsky growled when he had them turned around and headed for Venice Place.

The tone of Starsky’s voice told Hutch that his partner was as much rattled as angry, and, again, the little devil that had been playing havoc with his control lately, tried to convince Hutch to keep on pushing the limits. Or, more accurately, the little angel. It seemed that for the past few weeks, despite a blossoming relationship with Molly, Hutch’s angel had suddenly learned the combination to pop the lock on the box where Hutch kept him caged most of the time. But while he played his flirtatious little games with Starsky, even in the squadroom, Hutch hadn’t been able to figure out why he was doing it, or to put the brakes on until Starsky called him on it and forced him to rein in his sensual alter ego.

“Whatsamatter?” Starsky asked, making Hutch realize he had let the silence stretch out too long. “Molly not comin’ across? You’re horny, so you’re takin’ it out on me?”

Hutch recognized that tactic. There was nothing Starsky hated more than the silent treatment. So he was trying, at the very least, to prompt Hutch into a gentlemanly defense of the lady’s honor. Hutch, however, was just as aware that lack of communication never worked for them. It was damned hard, however, to talk out a problem and find answers together, when you weren’t even sure what the questions were.

“Molly has nothing to do with this,” Hutch finally replied. He sighed as Starsky pulled the Torino up behind the LTD and shut down the engine. He heard his partner shift around on the seat. He knew, if he looked, he would find Starsky twisted to face him, back to the door, right knee drawn half-up onto the seat. He didn’t need to see it, to feel the expectant gaze upon him.

“Maybe I’ve just been feeling a little immortal,” he suggested. He didn’t necessarily believe his last minute escape from death by deadly virus had set a reckless madman loose inside him, but he could think of no other possibility.

“You sure it doesn’t go back a little farther than that?” Starsky asked. “Like maybe to that night in the isolation unit when we stepped over the line?”

Of course, Starsky would have his own theories. Had probably been cooking them since Hutch came back to work and Starsky found himself playing little boy with his finger in the dike more and more often. However, if his sudden interest in the new dent in the LTD’S trunk was anything to go by, Starsky wasn’t at all happy with his theory.

“Been wondering if…well, we’ve been together a long time and, well…” Starsky’s suggestion faded out into silence.

“You think it’s the risk turnin’ me on?” Hutch guessed. He had considered the possibility, but on their last Friday night, just before he had returned to work, he had been every bit as hot for Starsky as he ever was. Well within the rules and with no possibility of discovery that hadn’t existed all along, Hutch had hardly been able to wait until his apartment door was closed behind them to get his hands on his partner.

“Did taking the risk give you a kick that…I don’t anymore?”

Hutch could only imagine the courage it had taken for Starsky to say that. More courage than he would have had, certainly. He had to reach out then, grasp Starsky’s shoulder and hold on tight, hoping, in fact already knowing, that Starsky would recognize the difference in this touch and accept it.

“Oh, no, babe. Not wanting you is definitely not the problem,” he reassured him, and felt the taut muscles beneath his hand ease just a little. “Besides, I sure as hell didn’t deal with that night very well, did I? Almost broke quarantine.”

“But maybe in retrospect….”

“In retrospect,” Hutch repeated, stressing Starsky’s unusual word choice, “I was scared shitless.” He shuddered a little, remembering. The forbidden-ness had added an extra thrill at the time, but Hutch realized that, given all the circumstances, the risk had actually been minimal. Just as it had been tonight. It was very dark in the car and he had been careful to keep both girls’ attention firmly on his face with a debate about the merits of the movie they had seen. It wasn’t the risk turning him on. Of that much, and if only that, he was sure.

“Or maybe,” he blurted as the thought formed in his brain. “It’s because I’ve been feeling a little too mortal.”

Starsky’s hand covered his and squeezed hard. “Now that I can dig.”

Hutch laughed humorlessly, the memories of fear and pain and, for the first time, really believing he was going to die, nearly overwhelming him. Chasing those memories back into the dark corners of his mind he could do, but keeping them there wasn’t possible on his own. He forced himself to laugh again, for his own sake and for the man who helped him guard the gate on his waking nightmares.

“You sound like Huggy,” he quipped, weak wit being all he could muster at the moment, but it was better than cowering in fear.

“That’s my boy,” Starsky encouraged him. “Tuck it back where it belongs. Remember that guy in that village. Wherever it was.”

Hutch took a deep breath, held it and let it go slowly, feeling Starsky’s grip on his hand ease as his chest deflated.

“Kinda snuck up on me,” he admitted.

“You been neglecting your meditation or something?” Starsky asked. “Too much time with baby Molly and not enough clearin’ all the lost luggage outta your brain?”

The same hand that had been holding onto Starsky’s shoulder for dear life doubled up into a loose fist and gave him a rabbit punch in the arm. “She’s older than she looks,” Hutch protested. He felt back on more solid ground now, the angel back in his box and, perhaps, even a few nameless fears put to rest. Or, at the very least, tucked away out of sight.

“She’d hafta be,” Starsky agreed. “But you should tell her not to put her hair in pigtails when you take her out. Really makes you look like a pervert, partner.”

“For God’s sake, Starsky. She’s twenty-four years old! Do you think her old man wouldn’t have…?” Hutch bit off the rest when he noticed the self-satisfied little smirk on Starsky’s lips. “Starsky’s rule of distraction,” he concluded.

“Works every time,” Starsky agreed. “You spend too much time in that blond head of yours. Oh, and speaking of blonds, not to mention distraction, see if Molly’s got a brunette friend for next time, okay? I think you’re just about all the blond I can handle right now.”

Hutch’s amusement faded abruptly. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair….”

“Fair, schmair,” Starsky cut in. “Since when do you and me keep a score card, huh? We’ve both had times when the angel and the dancer sneak out when they shouldn’t. I think the honors are about even. Now, go on and get outta here. Go meditate or somethin’. Whatever it takes. Okay?”

“Didn’t you just say I spend too much time in my head?” Hutch reminded him, evading the hand that tried to mess up his hair in retaliation. He popped the door and climbed out, then stuck his head back in through the open window. “Thanks,” he offered, certain now, as he hadn’t been at the beginning of the conversation of his gratitude. It was never easy letting someone else poke around in your head when even you weren’t sure what might be lurking in there. He was lucky to have Starsky, who seemed to be willing to do it so fearlessly.

“De nada, partner,” Starsky dismissed the thanks just as Hutch knew he would. “See you in the morning.”

Hutch walked toward his apartment, noticing that Starsky didn’t start up the car right away. That the deep roar of the Torino’s engine didn’t reach his ears until he had climbed the stairs, let himself into the apartment, and turned on the light. Even then, Starsky didn’t leave until Hutch pulled back the curtain and showed himself in the window. He stayed there until even the faint glow of the Torino’s taillights had disappeared, taking with them the feeling of calm that had settled over him as he and Starsky talked.

He felt…restless again and unable to find a cause for it. Mortality or immortality, now that Starsky was no longer here, didn’t seem like such a plausible excuse for this… There was just no other way to describe it than restless. Yearning, maybe, but for what, he didn’t know.

Hutch dropped the edge of the curtain, but his thoughts refused to be dropped along with it, chasing him into the kitchen where he stood in front of the refrigerator debating whether he wanted a beer or should take Starsky’s advice and try for a little more self-discovery. Deciding his psyche had had enough prodding for one night, Hutch opted for a Coors and some mindless distraction. If he were lucky, maybe one of Wally Stone’s old movies would be playing on the late show. Idly he wondered, as he settled onto the couch, whether there was such a thing as reinforced concrete for the boxes in your brain.

~*~*~

Would Jim Spencer please report to the warehouse office.

Hutch accepted the crate Spence handed up to him. “Sounds like somebody’s playing your song,” he said as he handed the crate off to Starsky.

“Yeah. Better go see what they want,” the aging fighter agreed as he tucked his gloves into the back pocket of his jeans. “If Burrow and Cruiser come back, you just remind ’em that I’ll be back, too. Okay?”

“Sure thing, Spence,” Hutch agreed. He jumped down to the ground and took the boxer’s place, lifting the next crate and passing it up to Starsky, letting his mind, unneeded for the repetitive work, wander.

Starsky sure was on a tear these past few weeks. If, of course, even half of what his immodest partner claimed was true. It was hard to tell with Starsky sometimes. He seemed to swing, like an unpredictable pendulum, between refusing to kiss and tell and a need to tell all. Hutch wondered, as he had been wondering for weeks, what exactly it was about this particular fly-girl that seemed to have given Starsky diarrhea of the jawbone. He might have suspected that Starsky was deliberately trying to make him jealous, but that just wasn’t his partner’s style. And to what purpose? More likely, given the fact that the last Friday of the month was approaching, Starsky’s verbosity was aimed at letting Hutch know that he was serious enough about his stewardess to invoke a hiatus of their sexual relationship. Hutch didn’t think Starsky was serious. The way his partner had been going at it, if anything, Starsky would be just too worn out by the end of the month to be interested in more sex with Hutch.

So far, Hutch had been able to maintain a façade of tolerant amusement of Starsky’s puppy-in-heat behavior. Actually, up to a few minutes ago, it hadn’t even really been a façade at all. He knew from experience, both his own and Starsky’s, that fires that flared and burned as hot as Starsky’s latest conflagration, tended to burn out quickly. Their passion for each other being the exception. But maybe that was only because it was curtailed, held in check most of the time, and, he added cynically but without belief, had the titillating element of the forbidden to it.

Cynicism was a good guard for the heart, Hutch had discovered. Trot it out when someone touched you on a tender spot, and no one would be the wiser that beneath your sharp tongue and amused smirk throbbed a wounded heart. Why couldn’t Starsky have kept his big mouth shut, just this once?

Quit being so melodramatic, Hutch chided himself, thrusting up yet another crate at his oblivious partner. So he and Terry were no longer the only two privileged lovers to ever grace Starsky’s bed. It wasn’t an honor he had looked for in the first place, and it certainly wasn’t practical to think it would continue forever. Fidelity wasn’t something either one of them was in a position to offer the other, even had they been inclined to. And Starsky certainly didn’t seem inclined….

“Hey!”

Hutch was jolted out of his bitter thoughts by Starsky’s cry of protest, followed by the solid thump of his partner landing hard on his ass on the flatbed, the heavy crate that Hutch had just thrust at him with unnecessary force, teetering half on his lap.

“Jesus, Hutch. What’dya throw it at me for?” Starsky protested, grimacing as he shifted to get a hand under him, making the crate topple onto the flatbed. “Bet I’m gonna end up with a black and blue butt.”

“Sorry, buddy. Guess I don’t know my own strength,” Hutch joked, holding in the rest of his reply until he could strip every trace of hurt and sarcasm from it, offer his partner a smile of innocent sympathy, and make his suggestion with the amused tolerance he was determined to recapture.

“You’ll just have to ask Sharon to kiss it better for you.”

And Hutch determinedly, for the sake of his own peace of mind, refused to imagine that scenario.

~*~*~

“I’m sorry,” Starsky muttered to Hutch after Sharon had given him a sisterly peck on the cheek and walked away. He was still in shock, feeling like an idiot that the dumb blonde he had been pursuing and bragging about with such single-minded obsession had dumped him for her ex-finance. Had, in fact, been using him all along to define what she wanted. That he had been using her with just as little conscience, Starsky was too honest not to acknowledge. At least to himself. Sharon was not too bright and fun in bed. Just the kind of woman Starsky often chose for distraction. Despite his dramatic declarations to Hutch of “I think I’m in love.” Starsky wasn’t looking for someone to love anymore. He had already found him.

“Huh,” Hutch grunted, still moping at the beer soaking his jeans. “If you froze it off, babe, it’s as much your loss as mine,” he grumbled.

“Ah, ‘scuse me,” Spencer said from beside Sharon’s empty chair. “I just wanted to let you know we’re heading out.”

It was obvious, from the uncomfortable expression on Spencer’s face, that the ex-boxer had heard what Hutch had said. For a second or two, Starsky waffled between trying to cover, or pretending Hutch hadn’t spoken at all. He finally had to opt for the latter, because he was too stunned to think of one plausible thing to say to explain Hutch’s gaff. He scrambled to his feet and held out his hand, wincing internally when Spencer hesitated ever so slightly before taking it.

“We wish you the best of luck in the future, Champ,” he said, with a smile he hoped didn’t look too sick, on a face he prayed wasn’t as red as it felt.

“Thanks, guys. I really appreciate everything. And if I can ever do anything…” Spence said, trailing off, looking at Starsky, then Hutch, and then not seeming to know exactly what to do with his restless gaze.

“Just have a good life,” Starsky said, and sank back onto his chair as Spencer left the bar with his wife and son. He looked at Hutch, but the blue eyes seemed to have been afflicted with the same wanderlust as Spencer’s.

Before speaking, Starsky was careful to look around to make sure no one else was within hearing range. “Jesus, Hutch. Are you out of your fucking mind?” he hissed. “Saying something like that in public. He heard you.”

Hutch gave up dabbing at his beer-soaked pants, threw the napkins on the table and rubbed both hands over his red face. “I’m sorry. Okay?” he muttered, the apology negated by the defiant tone it was delivered in. “I didn’t think.”

“Didn’t think?” Starsky echoed incredulously, keeping his voice low through force of will alone. “You just blew eight years of toeing the line in one sentence,” he accused, trying to think with the head on his shoulders and not the one swelling in his jeans. Whether his sudden arousal was caused by fear, or something a whole lot less straightforward, this was hardly the time or the place to try to figure it out.

“You think Spence’s gonna go running to Dobey?” Hutch defended himself. “He doesn’t give a shit and he’s leaving—”

“And it could’ve been Huggy standing there,” Starsky cut in on Hutch’s lame excuses, knowing by the amount of stubborn defiance Hutch was putting into it that his partner knew exactly how feeble they were.

“He wasn’t,” Hutch insisted sullenly.

“He could’ve…” Starsky bit his lip. “We sound like a couple of five-year-olds,” he said, needing to diffuse the situation before it escalated and attracted Huggy’s attention. Their mutual friend was seated at the bar not twenty feet away and, as proven by the very fact that he always seemed to have whatever information they might need at his fingertips, could easily zero in on an interesting conversation from farther away than that.

As if to prove Starsky’s point, Huggy left the lady at the bar and wandered over. He sent a pointed glance toward Hutch’s lap. “New fashion statement you makin’ there, my man?” he asked.

Hutch picked up the soggy napkins and began blotting at his wet jeans again, leaving Starsky to carry the can on this one.

“My partner will have a dry pair of boxers and jeans to go,” Starsky offered a quip as lame as Hutch’s excuses had been.

“I’d offer you somethin’ from my extensive wardrobe, Hutch, but…” Huggy left the invitation dangling, an expressive wave of his hand indicating their disparate builds.

“Thanks anyway, Hug,” Hutch said with a weak smile. “But I’d like to be able to father children sometime in the future. I think there’s a pair of jeans in the back seat of my car. Would you get ’em for me, Starsk?”

“The back seat?” Starsky echoed, not at all adverse to the opportunity for a few minutes alone to gather his wits. “Why am I not surprised?” he sighed as he stood up. “If I’m not back in half an hour, send out a search party,” he requested of Huggy. “God only knows what’s lurking in the back seat of that heap.”

It took him ten minutes to unearth the jeans from the back seat—a.k.a. the city dump—and return to the Pits. The table where he and Hutch had been sitting was deserted, so Starsky started for the men’s room, altering his route when Huggy hailed him and pointed toward the ceiling. He climbed the stairs, knocked and entered the apartment over the bar.

“Did you find them?” Hutch called from the bathroom.

Starsky moved to the half-open door and found his partner at the sink, rinsing beer out of his jeans. The towel Hutch had wrapped around his waist didn’t go very well with his jacket and socks, but Starsky kept his opinion to himself. He silently handed over the fresh jeans, working very hard at not noticing Hutch’s long legs, and working even harder at not thinking about the naked flesh hiding under the towel. It wasn’t supposed to be this warm in January, was it? If tomorrow wasn’t the last Friday of the month, Starsky knew he would have to leave the apartment. As it was, after only a couple of minutes, he had to withdraw into Huggy’s living room.

“Ready to go?” he asked when Hutch emerged from the bathroom fully dressed.

But Hutch didn’t follow him to the door. When Starsky twisted around with his hand on the knob, he found Hutch standing in the middle of the living room, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, looking uncomfortable.

“Hutch?” he asked, taking two cautious steps toward his partner, not entirely sure if it was safe for them to be alone together right now.

“I just want to apologize,” Hutch blurted. “It was a stupid thing to say where someone might hear.”

Starsky took another step, firmly reminding the dancer that it was Thursday. “Did kinda shock me.”

“Starsk.”

Foot raised for yet another step, Starsky froze, held fast by the searching gaze suddenly pinned on him. “Yeah?” he ventured warily.

“Were you trying to make me jealous on purpose with Sharon?”

If Hutch’s tone had been at all accusatory, Starsky might have reacted in instinctive defense and denied the allegation out of hand. But it wasn’t. Hutch sounded and looked the way he often did when he was thinking aloud, trying to draw the threads of a case together to weave a pattern that could, and so often did, give them the answers they needed. From force of habit, Starsky fell into the same mode, mentally thumbing through the past few weeks.

“Was I acting differently than I usually do?” he asked. He didn’t think he had been trying to get under his partner’s skin, but wasn’t sure if he completely trusted his own judgment where Hutch was concerned.

“Not when you’re just having fun,” Hutch admitted. “But you seemed…pretty hurt…” His voice and eyebrows both rose on that word, turning what could have been a statement into a question, “…when Sharon dumped you tonight.”

“Embarrassed,” Starsky amended, thought about it some more and nodded decisively. “Felt like a prize-winning chump.” He waited a couple more beats, then decided that since Hutch had raised the subject, he was at liberty to pursue it. “Were you jealous, Hutch?”

Hutch turned away, walked over to Huggy’s stereo and fiddled with the knobs, his back to Starsky. “I thought maybe you’d be cutting me off.”

“I’d’ve told you…” Starsky began, then, more honestly, “I guess I’m not good at that, am I? I never come out and tell you. Always leave you wondering. Not fair.”

“Like you said before, Starsk, nobody’s keeping score. And, I guess maybe I was a little jealous,” Hutch admitted.

Starsky felt adrenaline flood his system at the confession and reminded himself sternly not to jump to conclusions until and unless Hutch gave him good reason to.

“It’s been a while since I broke up with Molly,” Hutch added, dashing Starsky’s hopes before they had any sort of chance to get out of hand. Not jealous that Sharon had him then, but the other way around, Starsky understood. Just as well, he supposed, but couldn’t suppress a small ache of disappointment.

“Need a new lady in your life?” Starsky ventured.

Hutch turned around then, his expression lighter, even if his eyes still seemed a bit introspective. “You could be right. I don’t think I was exactly meant for monkhood.”

Starsky had to grin at the ridiculousness of that idea. “Good thing then that tomorrow is Friday, huh?” he asked, turning back toward the door.

He heard Hutch follow him, caught the rattle of the plastic bag that held the wet jeans. “Too bad I’ll have to be doing my laundry,” Hutch warned.

Starsky laughed at the empty threat. “Now who’s talking as much your loss as mine?”

~*~*~

“Hutch.”

Hutch drifted back from the edge of sleep, rolled to his side and slid his hand onto Starsky’s back. He ran it down the muscular length to the little triangle of down that grew just above the waistline. Ordering his fingers not to stray any lower, he reminded himself that the night was almost over. Not that he could get it up again. He had barely managed for their last, languorous sixty-nine. Still, he was in no hurry to leave Starsky’s bed.

“Hutch.” There was a warning in Starsky’s tired voice now.

Hutch forced himself to remove the finger that, with intent all its own, had ventured below the downward point of the triangle. “I know. I’m going,” he promised, then leaned over and placed his lips on the curve of Starsky’s shoulder.

“Not if you keep that up, and you know it,” Starsky rumbled, before he also rolled to his side, giving Hutch regretful eyes in an exhausted face.

Hutch let his hand fall into the space of creased sheet between them. He would not touch anymore. To do so would be tempting fate, and he had been doing quite enough of that recently. The horrendous blunder he had made the night before had put the fear of God into him. Enough, at least, to resolve to make a sterner effort to turn back the clock. To return to a time when he only saw Starsky as the dancer one night of the month. To take it in stride when Starsky’s sensual nature was focused on someone else. To be content with Starsky as his friend and partner the rest of the time. To find someone who could… Too bad it wasn’t New Year’s Eve, he thought, as he realized that his inattention had let him reach out for Starsky again. He certainly had a damned fine list of resolutions going.

Starsky had, fortunately, intercepted his hand, entwined their fingers and rested them between them.

There hadn’t been much talking going on tonight, and there probably should have been. Uncharacteristically, they had kissed and caressed right through the afterglow following each climax, exchanging few words not directly related to sex, and flowing seamlessly into the next eager joining. It was too close to dawn to start a serious discussion now, Hutch decided, reassuring himself that he wasn’t evading any issues. Maybe all he needed to stop noticing Starsky so much was to start noticing someone else. The way it used to be. He couldn’t remember exactly when he had stopped looking for someone to fall in love with. Maybe it was time he started again.

Hutch pulled his hand free and rolled out of bed, gathered up his clothes and pulled them on, aware of Starsky’s gaze following every move he made. He felt Starsky’s hand settle on his back when he sat on the side of the bed to put on his shoes. It just lay there, a warm spot about halfway down his rumpled shirt until after his shoes were tied and he had straightened up again. Then the fingers moved up to his collar, gave it a tug and then retreated.

“Hey. You okay?” Starsky asked.

Hutch half-smiled at his shoes, then turned his head enough to let his partner read his face. Not exactly okay, but, after hours of pleasure in his lover’s arms, far better than he had been. Even the persistent restlessness that had continued to plague him off and on for months, now seemed to have been banished by their sharing, although Hutch sensed it would return.

They never kissed good-bye. It wasn’t a rule or anything, more of a tradition, and an acknowledgement, Hutch supposed, that when it came to the other, each of them had to draw the line on temptation somewhere, even on the last Friday of the month. He was leaning toward his partner, realized his intent and hesitated, waiting for Starsky to call him on his lapse. He didn’t. The tired face wore an expression of welcome, eyes soft, chafed lips slightly parted. Hutch accepted the offer, brushed his mouth once, twice over Starsky’s, and then forced himself away.

“See you tomorrow,” he promised, grabbed his jacket and left the bed before he crawled back into it, and hurried out the door before he had to stay.

~*~*~

“Mmmmm, Hootch.”

Hutch smiled as he settled his sleepy ballerina more comfortably on top of him. Her head nestled on his chest, the silky sweep of her hair caressing his naked skin, while his erection slowly subsided against her soft belly.

They had played too long, he realized. Kissing and caressing, teasing each other with hesitant forays for bare skin. He had lost more clothes than she had, he noticed, as his hand stroked down the satin material covering her back. But then he had been wearing more to begin with. His jacket, tie and boots were scattered somewhere, and his shirt was open to Anna’s inquisitive fingers, but his pants were still securely zipped, his belt buckled. He even had the presence of mind to know that his gun was only a few inches away, lying on the table on the other side of the arm of the couch his head rested on.

He should be disappointed, but he wasn’t. Was glad, in a way, that all they had shared were a few almost innocent touches and deep kisses. It had been…refreshing. Besides, his little dancer was going to need her sleep….

Hutch’s eyes widened as he realized the title he had bestowed upon Anna. It was just a word, and certainly true enough, in fact. Ballerinas were, after all, dancers. But the word wasn’t just a word to Hutch. It was an endearment. Assigned long ago to one man and never thought of or uttered in connection with another, and certainly never in the possessive. Starsky was his dancer. Anna Akhanatova was a sweet, intelligent, talented lady who would, if he and Starsky did their jobs right, be flying out of his life forever the day after tomorrow. There was more than half a planet between Bay City and Leningrad, as well as an impenetrable iron curtain that cared nothing at all for the matters of two hearts.

And that, Hutch realized, was why he felt free to love her. A beautiful woman whom he could hold for a night or two, dream an intangible fantasy with for a few hours, and take as a warm memory back into his real life. The real life that hadn’t been a very comfortable place to reside in for months now. It would be so easy to accept his self-reassurance, but it was Hutch’s nature to question himself, and he had long ago given up trying to deny his nature. And so, now, lying sleepless with a beautiful woman in his arms, he put his motives under the glare of the unforgiving scrutiny of his worst critic—himself.

If he could, would he love Anna with all his heart? Follow her as she danced her way into the hearts of spellbound audiences around the world? Live in oppressed misery with her in her mother country? Never see Starsky again? Fat chance! Well, that question had certainly provoked an adamant response, and, even though he knew he was spinning whole cloth out of gossamer thread, Hutch allowed himself to continue presenting the questions.

Never spend another lazy day free from duty with his friend? Never hit the mean streets with his partner at his back? Never again make love with his dancer? Make love? Whoa! His subconscious was really stepping out of the dark corners of his psyche tonight. And even in the privacy of his own thoughts, Hutch chided himself for crossing the mental line he had resolved to stay behind from now on. These weren’t questions he was supposed to be asking himself, let alone pondering possible answers for.

With a determined effort, Hutch brought his attention back to the woman who slept within the circle of his embrace, sank his fingers into her long, straight hair to anchor himself to the here and now. Whatever romantic flights of fancy he might wish to conjure tonight, the truth of the matter was that he was not willing to sacrifice so much for sweet Anna Akhanatova. That he would lay down his physical life to protect the lovely, threatened woman he held in his arms, Hutch didn’t doubt for the time it took to form the thought. That he might sacrifice career, country and freedom for Anna was a question he would never need to face. But it was a question that might, the ever-honest part of himself insisted, someday, demand an answer of Starsky’s angel. It disconcerted Hutch that, after all these years with Starsky, he felt he had none to offer. He should know. Shouldn’t he?

“Mmmmm. Hootch?

“Shh,” Hutch murmured, stroking his fingers through the soft hair that draped him. “It’s not morning yet. Dream your dreams, Anna Akhanatova.”

But even as Anna slid back into her dreams, Hutch knew he would continue to wrestle with his demons.

~*~*~

Starsky slipped his arm through the crook of the arm of the coach, Masha Barovnika, gently but determinedly, leading her toward the elevator. “Why don’t I take you for a cup of tea and then you can tell me all about your life. Then I’ll drive you to the theater,” he offered, ignoring her protests. “There’s been a little change in plans,” he added, laying on the charm so thick he was surprised they both weren’t suffocating.

“A prima ballerina cannot afford to change plans,” the Russian woman insisted. “If she expects to retain her privileged place, she must work, work, work.”

The elevator arrived and Starsky led the reluctant woman into it. “Sounds like the BCPD, though we cops…policemen, have to work, work, work just to keep our jobs.”

“Policeman, bah,” Barovnika sneered. “In my country, a policeman wears a uniform and no one must guess his position.”

Starsky held down a grin, wondering what the lady would think of his and Hutch’s usual work clothes. He thought he looked pretty damned spiffy, even if he was uncomfortable as hell. But Dobey had been adamant. This assignment was different. In effect, he and Hutch were working as an extension of the State Department, and needed to look the part. Starsky just hoped that, if action became necessary, the fancy clothes, and especially his missing sneakers, wouldn’t mean the difference between success and failure.

“That’s very interesting,” Starsky said as he led the dragon lady into the hotel coffee shop and graciously seated her at a table. “You mean there aren’t any plainclothes policemen in Russia?”

“Of course there are,” Barovnika snapped. “They are known as the KGB.”

Starsky noted that the name of the secret service was said with far less than all due respect. But then, from what he had heard—exaggerated for propaganda purposes he was sure—it would be hard to hold much respect for an organization that could drag you out of bed in the middle… Starsky left the thought unfinished. Politics wasn’t his concern at the moment, and he had seen the state it had whipped his partner into. If Hutch’s condition when he answered the door this morning, coupled with Anna’s doting behavior, were any indication, Hutch had also discovered that waving the flag certainly wasn’t the way to handle these foreign ladies.

Fortunately, the waitress’ appearance saved him from having to reply. They ordered tea, which Starsky personally hated, but, from the small amount of reading he had been able to do on their subjects in general, he knew Russians loved.

“What are these change of plans?” Anna’s coach asked after the tea arrived and she finished complaining about it.

“Well, there’s been a much more specific threat against Miss…” Starsky thought twice about the tongue twister of a name and opted for simplicity, “…against Anna, so Hutch is gonna take her to ground.”

“He is going to bury her?”

“No, no. That means take her to a safe place and hide her until tonight,” Starsky hastened to correct.

“Where?”

Now, Starsky knew damned well exactly where Hutch would take the lovely lady. He would bolt for home, hunker down on the couch or in that big brass bed of his… The twinge Starsky felt at the thought, he chose to blame on the burrito he had for breakfast. It was only a couple of weeks ago that he had been thinking that maybe Hutch needed a new and exciting challenge to come along. Maybe he should have been more careful what he wished for. He didn’t really begrudge Hutch his pretty ballerina, except for the fallout he knew he would have to deal with after the inevitable parting. Hutch would be sad and lonely and looking to his partner to help fill in the space Anna left behind. A task Starsky was willing to take on usually when Hutch needed a friend. Lately, however, it seemed that Hutch wasn’t as content with just companionship, and Starsky knew his will to step on Hutch’s seductive behavior was growing weaker. Even twelve solid hours of turning each other every which way but loose at the end of last month hadn’t been able to blunt his desire for his partner. However, since his blunder had inadvertently exposed their secret, Starsky had to admit that Hutch, both in public and private, had been on his best behavior. The experiences of the last few months, however, made Starsky fear that it wasn’t going to last.

Forcing his mind back to the job, Starsky made a show of looking around at the other diners as if he expected any one or all of them to be spies. “Can’t tell you that. Matter of security.” He winked at her. “You understand.”

The dark head nodded reluctantly, and Starsky suddenly felt bad for his act, knowing it probably heightened the woman’s fears needlessly. He laid a hand over hers where it rested on the table and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t you worry about Anna. Hutch’ll keep her safe,” he said with the most confident smile he possessed.

The coach snorted inelegantly and took her hand back. “And she will keep him busy.”

“Huh?” It wasn’t a very intelligent response, but it was the best Starsky could come up with. It wasn’t so much the words as the tone that alerted him to the fact that the coach knew exactly what was going on between Hutch and Anna, and Starsky couldn’t figure out how she would know when he had nabbed her right at the door.

“You do not think your policeman, Hutch, is the first bodyguard Anna has had,” Barovnika said, speaking as if he were a not particularly bright five-year-old.

Not all Russians, it seemed, had a problem pronouncing the diminutive of his partner’s name. It looked like little Anna had more feminine wiles than it had at first appeared. Blue as the Balaya River, indeed. Starsky was willing to bet, if there was such a river, it was probably mud puddle brown and clogged with pollution.

“Ah, well, at least this ‘fling’ must be of short duration. We will be gone tomorrow.”

Ah, Hutch, you sure can pick ’em, Starsky thought toward his partner several floors above his head.

Fortunately, however, unless Anna herself gave the game away, and Starsky, based on her performance this morning, doubted that, Hutch need never be the wiser. Starsky sure wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

~*~*~

Over the years, Hutch had never become any fonder of hospital waiting rooms. Tonight, sitting with a Styrofoam cup of cold coffee cradled in his hands, his head jerking up every time the door to the long OR and recovery corridor opened, was no exception. Starsky was in there somewhere, and it felt to Hutch as if every minute of the almost hour he had sat here after his partner had been wheeled through those doors, had borrowed extra minutes from some stockroom of unused time.

How long could it take to patch up a bullet wound in somebody’s leg, he asked himself for the hundredth time? Surely, even with entry and exit wounds to contend with, a competent surgeon should have been done by now.

Unable to sit still a moment longer, Hutch left the uncomfortable couch, dumped the disgusting cup of sludge in the trashcan, and started pacing. Twelve steps to the door to that medical inner sanctum and fourteen steps back. He allowed himself to be distracted by the discrepancy for the time it took to retrace his steps twice. No big mystery. He took longer, more eager steps toward where Starsky was somewhere behind that door; and shorter, reluctant steps away.

He realized, suddenly, that he must look like an expectant father from one of those squeaky-clean movies from the fifties where nobody ever fucked and everybody slept in separate beds, but babies managed to get themselves conceived anyway. He unlocked his hands from the small of his back and stuffed them in his jacket pockets.

“Ow,” he complained, pulling his right hand out of the pocket holding Starsky’s watch. A spring end had managed to find its way under his thumbnail, leaving behind a stinging ache when he pulled it free.

Starsky had given him his watch. Starsky had been willing to give up his life. Hutch hadn’t even been able to acknowledge the enormity of that at the time, too focused and too determined to get both of their chestnuts out of the fire that was about to flare up around them. Not that, under any circumstances he could imagine, would he have accepted the offer. No more than Starsky had been willing to accept the same self-sacrificing offer from him. Hutch had never doubted his willingness to either die or kill for his partner. Whether he was willing to live for him was the question that had been plaguing Hutch since, he had finally realized, John Blaine’s death.

“You are not getting on that mental hamster wheel tonight,” Hutch admonished himself, stuffing the broken watch back in his pocket. “And if….”

“Sergeant Hutchinson?”

Hutch whirled around, too relieved to see an actual person, who might be able to give him some news of Starsky’s condition, to even be embarrassed at being caught talking to himself. “If you aren’t here to take me to my partner, I suggest you lock that door,” he threatened the OR nurse who stood holding open one of the doors to the inner sanctum. He softened it with a smile, but, nevertheless, meant every word.

“No need to draw your gun, Officer,” the nurse quipped. “Right this way.”

Hutch was treated to Starsky’s toothiest grin when he pushed open the door to the room the nurse led him to. It wasn’t his favorite of his partner’s many smiles. It crunched Starsky’s blue eyes up too much for his taste, but it was both welcome and predictable and settled Hutch’s high-strung nerves faster than a shot of valium.

“Hey ya, babe,” Starsky greeted.

Hutch pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down, leaning closer to study his partner for a minute and then settling back.

“Yup. Both eyes are in the same socket. You’re definitely high. Good drugs they gave you, huh?” he asked, humor being the best cure he had for the lump in his throat.

Starsky giggled. Not laughed or chuckled or even chortled. It was definitely a girlish giggle. Hutch shook his head in fond amusement.

“Po…policeman’s gotta take his fun where he can get ’em,” Starsky pronounced.

“How’s the leg?” Hutch asked.

“What leg?” Starsky replied.

“Oh, sweetheart, they really have got you flyin’, don’t they?” Hutch laughed.

“Shshsssh,” Starsky demanded, sounding like a slow leak in a hot air balloon, an index finger pressed to his lips slurring his words even worse than the drugs. “Mushant call me schweetheart here.” He looked around the room, zeroing in on the still-empty second bed beside him. “Wallsa got ears, babe.” He subsided for a moment while Hutch allowed the last of his worry to be bled away by laughter at his friend’s antics. Whoever had said laughter was the best medicine, sure knew what he was talking about.

“‘Sides,” Starsky pronounced with the seriousness only those furthest from sobriety could achieve. “You’ll get me going.” He lifted the sheet over his head, checking, Hutch assumed, for an erection he was too numb to feel.

“Whew! Nothin’ yet,” Starsky exclaimed, dropping the sheet.

“It’s a lucky thing you’re going to be asleep in about five minutes,” Hutch said, laughing. “Or you’d drive the nurses crazy.”

Starsky’s face assumed an expression of exaggerated disgust. “Are ya kiddin’? Ya seen my nurse? She’s got a mustache.”

“You never kiss anybody with a mustache before?” Hutch teased.

“Jusss my Aunt Rosie.”

Hutch stroked his naked upper lip. “Maybe I’ll have to grow one then. Give you a new experience. Kissing a guy with a ‘stache.”

Starsky’s expression grew so sweetly earnest that Hutch’s gut tightened. It was the same expression he had worn in the barn as he had offered first his life and then his watch into Hutch’s hands, and Hutch just knew his partner was about to say something that was going to turn him into a puddle of sentimental mush. And then the s.o.b. was going to conveniently pass out.

“Ah, sweetheart. Don’cha know? Never ever kissed no guy but you.”

~*~*~

As soon as Starsky heard Hutch on the landing outside his door, he stashed his cane under the sink, leaning his hip against the counter to take the weight off his wounded leg. It’s show time, he thought, as he finished piling the bread he had just sliced into a basket.

“Starsk? What are you doing? You shouldn’t be on that leg,” Hutch protested, bellying up to the opposite side of the counter.

“Just puttin’ dinner together,” Starsky explained as if Hutch should have expected it all along. He handed Hutch the basket of bread and waited until his partner had turned his back to put it on the table before swiveling to take one step, just one step without any trace of a limp, to collect dishes from over the sink. “I knew damned well you wouldn’t eat all day without me there to badger you,” he said. The best way to pull the wool over Hutch’s eyes was, of course, to put him on the defensive.

“I ate,” Hutch protested, coming around to take the plates and cutlery from Starsky’s hands.

Starsky forced himself to stand firmly, without wincing, on both feet, while Hutch subjected him to minute scrutiny. It went on at least a short eternity, Starsky was sure, until he finally lifted his eyebrows toward his hairline and gave Hutch his best ‘what are you lookin’ at’ glare.

“Let me guess. Two breath mints, six cups of coffee, and fourteen glasses of water,” Starsky guessed, hoping the distraction would work and Hutch would move away so he could move back to the counter. Jesus wept, but his leg hurt.

Fortunately, it worked. At least for the time being. Hutch moved away to set the table, grumbling all the way. “I don’t need a keeper, you know, Starsk.”

“Sure you do,” Starsky gave back the second half of their oft-repeated banter. The humor disappeared quickly, however. “I don’t like you working alone.” And that was the one and only reason behind the Oscar winning performance he was desperate to put on tonight. Snow job, smokescreen, and lie through his teeth. Whatever was necessary. When he showed up in the squadroom tomorrow, Hutch had to believe he was fine, because the thought of Hutch hitting the streets alone, or even with someone, possibly someone totally competent, watching his back, made Starsky sick to his stomach. No one, he was sure, could look out for Hutch like he could, even half-crippled as he was now, because no one else had the emotional investment in Hutch’s life that he did.

Now it was Hutch’s turn to try a little distraction. “Where’d you get the food? You’re not supposed to be driving.”

“Had to get the stitches out today. Remember?” Starsky reminded him. “Leg’s fine, but I wasn’t walkin’ all the way to Memorial and back. Just made a grocery run on the way home.” He leaned hard against the counter, bracing himself for the next few absolutely normal steps he had to take. Dinner was due for a check and he had to make it to the stove under Hutch’s watchful eyes that, with the table set, were once again pinned on him.

“What kind of idiot took your stitches out less than a week after you were shot?” Hutch protested. “He ought to have his license revoked.”

That was exactly what the ortho-surgeon, Dr. Hart, had said when Starsky insisted this morning that the stitches had to be removed. The doctor had, however, had the sense to believe Starsky when he had threatened to do the job himself.

“Told you, Hutch, I’m fine,” Starsky insisted, pushed off from the counter and made it to the stove. His gait wasn’t exactly his usual strut, but in a small space like the kitchen, Hutch wouldn’t expect that anyway. His cover was almost blown completely, however, when Hutch crowded in beside him and reached for the oven door. He disguised his desperate grab for the counter with a reach for the potholders, bit his tongue over the epithet that leapt onto it, and unobtrusively shifted all the weight he could to his left leg.

“Ah!” he admonished his partner, slapping Hutch’s hand away from the oven door. “Get outta there.”

“I brought you a present,” Hutch tempted with a smile.

Damn. Hutch knew how much he liked presents. “Present?” he echoed, trying to invest his voice with some eagerness when the only thing he really wanted in the world right now was to sit down.

“I left it on the couch,” Hutch gestured, but the scrutiny didn’t waver one bit.

Double damn. It would be so far out of character to ignore a present that Hutch’s suspicions would start screaming and he would be subjected to an eagle-eyed observation all night. That good an actor he wasn’t and never would be. He had to ally Hutch’s suspicions somehow in the next few minutes or the game would be up. But the couch seemed so far away.

“You go open your present and let me finish dinner,” Hutch offered. “What are we having, anyway?”

“Paul Muni special,” Starsky muttered, eyeing the distance to the couch where he could see the present wrapped in gold paper.

“Red meat, huh?” Hutch grunted and pulled on the oven door.

Starsky had no option but to scramble out of the way. Praying Hutch’s back would be turned long enough for him to make it to the couch, Starsky made the trip as quickly as he could without completely giving in to the screaming protests from his calf. He was so grateful to sink down onto the couch that he had to blink back tears. He picked up the flat package, guessing immediately that Hutch had bought him an album.

“How come you’re bringing me presents?” he asked, ripping into the paper. “It isn’t my birthday, and you hate giving Christmas… Oh, my.” Starsky stared dumbstruck at the worn album cover that had emerged from within the wrapping. He didn’t even have to turn it over to know it was autographed. “I found my thrill, on Blueberry Hill,” he sang softly. He remembered how he had sung it at the top of his lungs as he and Hutch had made their drunken way up his stairs. Remembered, too, the incredible patience Hutch had shown through the months it had taken Starsky to work through his grief. It made him feel bad for the deception he was trying to perpetrate now, but not bad enough to make him quit trying.

“I’m sorry about your watch,” Hutch said softly from where he had come to stand beside Starsky.

“But you didn’t even like my watch,” Starsky murmured, struggling with his conscience.

“I don’t much like Fats Domino either,” Hutch quipped, and Starsky glanced up at him sharply to see the tenderness Hutch was unable to hide. “Go and put it on. You know you’re dying to. Dinner’s ready, by the way, so you can boogie on over to the table.”

Hutch returned to the kitchen and Starsky forced himself to get up off the couch and put the album on the turntable. He hesitated before placing the arm on the first track. He could do it. He knew he could. It wasn’t all that far from the stereo to the table. Maybe a dozen steps. He could make it if it meant Hutch was no longer vulnerable. He knew he could count on Dobey to go easy on them for at least a few days, just happy not to be an officer short. And a few days was all Starsky needed for his act to become a reality. Fortunately, he healed fast.

Starsky gently dropped the needle onto the vinyl, turned, locked his jaw, and smiling all the way, bebopped to the table.

“Hey, I guess you are feeling okay,” Hutch said as he took the other chair. “So are you coming in tomorrow?”

“Nah,” Starsky said, putting the second part of his plan into play. “Gonna try and milk it for at least another week. Right?” He winked at Hutch. “Or do you think Dobey’d be more sympathetic if I showed up with my cane and all? Hmmmm, wonder where I put that thing.”

~*~*~

“Come on, partner. Let’s roll.”

Hutch closed his eyes. Clenched his teeth. Counted to ten. Very slowly.

“Oh, silly me. I forgot. Only Saint David is allowed to call you partner,” Conner said from where he stood directly behind Hutch’s chair.

In his opinion, Hutch showed admirable control. He didn’t shove his chair back into Conner’s paunch as he pushed up to his feet and caught his jacket on one finger. Nor did he utter a single one of the blasphemies sitting impatiently on the tip of his tongue.

“You know, Conner,” he did say, flashing a smile of sweet condescension at his temporary partner. “Everybody used to feel sorry for you because you were stuck with Briggs. Now we feel sorry for Randy.”

“Nobody feels sorry for you and Starsky,” Conner shot back. “We all figure you deserve each other.”

We most certainly do, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, Hutch thought, following Conner out into the corridor. He veered off toward the stairs when the other detective went straight for the elevator.

“What is it with you and elevators?” Conner called after him.

“Wouldn’t hurt you to take the stairs once in a while. Barely forty and you’re already a heart attack looking for a place to happen,” Hutch challenged and retreated into the stairwell.

It couldn’t just be circumstances. Lady Luck, fate or a particularly malicious Murphy had to have had a hand in guiding a bullet into Starsky’s calf and a tire iron down on Randy Briggs’ clavicle within a week of each other. Whoever had engineered the injuries, the result was that Hutch was stuck with Conner.

The first week after Starsky was shot during Johnny Bagley’s attempt to exact revenge against Hutch for his brother Ernie’s death, Hutch had worked solo. He hadn’t liked it much. Hitting the streets without Starsky was like knowing his gun was unloaded or the back seam of his pants split. It made him feel defenseless and exposed. After three shifts with Conner, however, Hutch would be more than happy to go back to a partnerless existence. But Dobey was adamant. A man only worked solo in his department if there was no way around it.

“I don’t know how you can call it exercise when it takes you eight minutes to come down three flights of stairs,” Conner complained when Hutch finally came through the door into the parking garage.

“You timed me?” Hutch asked incredulously.

“What else was I going to do while I was waiting?”

“You need a life,” Hutch concluded, and again followed where Conner led. He winced internally. The exchange was exactly the kind of banter he and Starsky might indulge in, but it felt obscene with Conner batting his one-liners back at him. Almost as if he were being unfaithful to his partner.

They passed the LTD, but Hutch didn’t suggest they take it. Starsky always put up a token argument when Hutch insisted they use his car, then would often give in with good grace. There had been nothing graceful, or tactful, about Conner’s refusal to appear in public in Hutch’s car. Being within, God and Starsky’s doctor willing, two days of unloading his unwanted substitute, Hutch couldn’t be bothered to argue. He was just as happy to let Conner do the driving; it gave him more time to think.

Hutch logged them on duty and settled into the passenger seat of Conner’s Chevy, tuned his cops’ senses toward the streets they cruised, and let the rest of his mind wander. It went immediately, like iron filings for magnetic north, to Starsky.

Starsky. His irrepressible and irreplaceable friend, partner, and lover, who should be back on the streets with him come Monday morning. But, before that, there was the wonderful fact that the next day was the last Friday of February to anticipate. Even with years’ worth of hot sex between them, Hutch had to admit that their sexual encounters had never been more exciting to him. Ever since he had recovered from the plague, and even with various girlfriends drifting in and out of their lives, Hutch had never before anticipated each end of the month more eagerly. Since his inadvertent exposure of their secret to Jim Spencer, Hutch had been more successful in controlling the temptation to fold, spindle and mutilate their rules every other day of the month. Starsky had only had to call him on one lapse since then, but only because Hutch had been making such a stern effort to ride herd on his own impulses. Too often, something as simple as seeing Starsky chewing on the end of his pen while he considered how to word a report, could make Hutch wish they were alone so he could….

“For Christ’s sake. What the hell am I supposed to call you?”

Hutch jumped, and swiveled his head to find they were sitting at a stoplight and Conner was glaring at him. His cops’ senses, obviously, weren’t attuned to respond to Conner’s voice. “Huh?”

“I just tried Hutchinson, Hutch, Ken and Sergeant,” Conner complained. “What the hell will you answer to?”

“How about sir?” Hutch suggested with a grin.

“Hell’ll freeze over first,” Conner growled. “I’m the one with seniority.”

“Not at Metro,” Hutch reminded him. He lurched back in the seat as Conner pulled away from the light. “Christ. I’ll be glad to get Starsky back. At least he can drive.”

“Huh.” Conner grunted. “Here you are so anxious to get your partner back, and I’d be just as happy if Briggs ended up on a disability pension.”

Hutch admitted that, except when they were actually working on a case together, he only ever half-listened to Conner. The man was a homophobic asshole, and Hutch could barely keep his lip buttoned when Conner got going, but that statement commanded his complete attention. “What? I thought you and Briggs were a solid team.”

“You know, Hutchinson, I’ve never been able to figure out if you really think you’re better than the rest of us, or if you just naturally go around with your head up your ass most of the time,” Conner complained in disgust. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to dump Briggs ever since he went to that pansy’s funeral.”

The fury that possessed Hutch then made him understand, for the first time, what people meant when they claimed they were so angry they saw red. Fortunately, it also closed his throat, preventing him from venting that fury along with his resentment toward this jerk, and quite possibly exposing himself and Starsky to a man who could and would cause them a lot more trouble than Jim Spencer would ever have dreamed of.

“I know you and Starsky did, too. And I’m not saying I blame either one of you,” Conner allowed. “It was different for you two. You had to support his wife. Starsky’s known her since he was a kid. Right? So you had to be there for the lady. But Briggs had no excuse.”

Every word Conner spoke just deepened the pit of disgust Hutch felt, and he wished fervently that he could push the other detective into that pit and cover it over. Never have to deal with him or narrow-minded idiots just like him ever again. And if wishes were horses, Hutch would be riding with Starsky in the Torino right now.

“You mean other than the fact that John Blaine saved his life?” Hutch asked icily. “And yours, too, as I recall.”

“Bullshit,” Conner spat. “Blaine was always grand-standing. Playing super macho cop, charging in to ‘save’ guys. Pretty obvious now why he was doing it, isn’t it? Had to keep his dirty little secret, didn’t he?”

Discretion was the better part of valor, Hutch tried to remind himself, but he was beginning to fear he might have a stroke if he had to sit here and listen to much more of this. He looked out the passenger window, praying for some criminal to be committing a daring, daylight bank robbery. Hell, at the moment, he would settle for a really stupid purse-snatcher.

“Let me tell you somethin’, Hutchinson. The day they start hiring homos is the day I take early retirement. And I won’t care if I have to shoot myself in the foot to get it.”

“Good riddance,” Hutch muttered, even though it was a stupid thing to do. He couldn’t have held it in if he had slapped duct tape over his mouth. But he damned well better get hold of himself. He and Starsky had a tendency to count on each other to hold them back when temper got the best of them, but his partner wasn’t here to make him step back from the edge. Hutch had to do it himself even though he might enjoy giving Conner several pieces of his mind.

Fortunately, it appeared he had kept his voice low enough that Conner hadn’t heard him.

“First time since I joined the department that I ever wanted to give IA a pat on the back,” Conner said. “They did a helluva job.”

“A helluva witch hunt, you mean,” Hutch snapped, angry all over again when he remembered the tense weeks that had followed Blaine’s death. It had seemed as if IA was poking their long noses into everyone’s lives. Morale in the BCPD had never been lower, and the men who IA had singled out hadn’t been the only officers to leave. Others had walked away in disgust. This anger, however, wasn’t as personal, and, since almost every officer on the force hated IA, certainly more open to interpretation.

“And long past due,” Conner insisted.

“I seem to remember you being a whole lot less pleased with the headhunters when they were investigating you for taking sex in exchange for leniency from the hookers down on Emerald,” Hutch reminded him, trying for reason but fearing he was smashing his head against a brick wall.

“That wasn’t true!” Conner objected.

“Did IA care?” Hutch asked.

For the first time, Hutch felt he might have actually said something to make Conner stop and think.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll give you that,” Conner conceded.

“So, maybe they were just as wrong about the men they hounded out of the department,” Hutch added. This was a stupid conversation for him to be having with a homophobe like Conner. He knew there was no way anything he said was going to alter, by so much as the smallest fraction, his colleague’s opinions. All he was doing was giving himself an acid stomach and swimming far too close to troubled waters for his and Starsky’s good. As much as it bothered him that he couldn’t seem to find the certainty he needed that if they were ever exposed, he would be man enough to stand by his friend and lover, Hutch was still in no hurry to bring the crisis down upon them. Was he? And even if he was, he had no right to drop Starsky into the shit without even a word of warning. That thought, more than any other he could have come up with, helped Hutch rein in his reckless anger.

Conner shrugged. “If they’d cut and run like that, they were probably cowards anyway, and I sure as hell don’t want any coward backing me up.”

Hutch closed his mouth. Bit his lip to anchor it. There was no getting through to this idiot, and if he kept on arguing, at some point, he knew the bastard would make him lose his temper. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, he reminded himself, mentally dropping his verbal rocks back into his mind, because too often the other guy turned out to have boulders and a catapult.

“So where do you want to have lunch today?” he asked. Hopefully, food would be as safe a topic with his temporary partner as it was with Starsky.

~*~*~

“I shouldn’t be doing this, you know, Sergeant Starsky,” Dr. Franklin said as he probed at the healing wound in Starsky’s calf.

Starsky kept his face frozen, refusing to let even the slightest wince escape his control despite the pain. It wasn’t that bad, he insisted to himself, just as he had been insisting to everyone around him for the fourteen days since he had been shot. His game had been revealed when Hutch knocked the cane out from under him in the squadroom, and Dobey had sent him packing last week. However, with a medical clearance in hand, Dobey would have no choice but to let him back on duty.

“I know, Doc,” he replied. “But the ortho guy is on vacation for another week, and I just want to get back on the job. Just clear me for duty. Okay?”

“Point your toes,” Franklin requested.

Starsky did as instructed. The movement stretched the barely healed scar tissue until it burned something awful. But Franklin didn’t have to know that. Just to prove his point, Starsky performed the entire range of motion routine the physiotherapist had been putting him through all week.

“Very impressive,” Franklin pronounced with the sardonic humor Starsky knew so well. “But would you mind telling me just what the tearing hurry is? Two weeks is not a very long time to allow a bullet wound to heal. Especially when you have both entry and exit wounds.”

“Hey, you ever watch daytime TV, Doc?” Starsky appealed. “Captain Kangaroo and Days of Our Lives are just about enough to drive a man to drink.” He hopped off the table and paced up and down in front of the doctor, making sure that not a trace of the limp that plagued him when he was tired showed now. “See? I can walk on it. Run on it, too, if I have to.”

Franklin had leaned back against the table, arms folded and Starsky could feel the steady gaze following him as he sat down on the chair to pull on his jeans.

“I’ll clear you for duty on Monday—” Franklin began.

“Monday?” Starsky protested. “Why not tomorrow?”

“Monday,” Franklin repeated firmly. “But only if you tell me why you want to go back on duty before your leg is properly healed and risk possible future complications. The truth, Sergeant, not some song and dance about daytime TV programming.”

Starsky stood to pull up his jeans and fasten them, then sat down again. He picked up his right sneaker, held it between both hands and stared at it. There were no answers that would likely satisfy Franklin there. No answers anywhere for someone who had never had a partner. And certainly not for a man whose partner, if he had ever had one, was also his best friend and lover. He didn’t know exactly how to communicate his feeling of urgency to Franklin. However, the doctor had known both of them long enough that Starsky hoped the man could, on some level, understand the compulsion he felt.

“It’s Hutch. First he’s hitting the streets all by his lonesome and now Dobey’s got him paired up with a ho…moron watching his back,” he finally gave Franklin only the gist, unable to articulate the substance of his fear, then busied himself getting the shoe on his foot and laced.

“All right,” Franklin agreed with a sigh. “If I know nothing else about the two of you, I know better than to try to come between you. I’ll clear you for Monday, but you have to promise to keep your appointment with Dr. Hart next week and to keep doing the physio exercises.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Starsky agreed. “But I really am okay. If I thought for one minute I couldn’t back Hutch up….”

Franklin handed over the completed form. “And that, Sergeant Starsky, is the only damned reason I am releasing you for duty. Now get out of here before somebody finds out what you’re here for and I end up with my behind in a sling.”

~*~*~

“Hutchinson.”

Hutch sighed and straightened from where he had almost managed to sit down at his desk. Sometimes he thought Dobey had a sensor hooked up to that chair that let him know when Hutch was just about to park his butt.

“My master’s voice,” he muttered to no one in particular as he turned toward Dobey’s office.

“Yes, Captain,” he said, just poking his head inside the open doorway, hoping Dobey wasn’t in the mood to chew him out. Today had been every bit as bad as the previous three. Running up an alley in hot pursuit of a fleeing drug pusher, while hearing Conner’s labored breathing fall farther behind with every step, had returned that vulnerable feeling and made Hutch yearn for Starsky beside him all the more. He was looking forward, more than he had been, to seeing his partner tonight. If nothing else, just being with Starsky would remind him that he wasn’t going to have to live in Conner purgatory forever.

“Come in, Hutchinson. I want to talk to you,” Dobey invited.

Hutch bit his lip. He had either done something particularly wonderful or something even more particularly awful, but he couldn’t think of anything that would fall into either category. Dobey bellowed when he was pissed or pleased, but he only came on quiet and reasonable when the cause was sufficiently serious. There was no hint on Dobey’s face, so Hutch did as he was told and settled into the visitor’s chair.

“Your partner just called. The doctor has cleared him for duty starting Monday,” Dobey began.

Hallelujah, Hutch was tempted to sing, but had enough respect for Dobey to restrain himself. “Good news, Captain.”

“Hmmmph,” Dobey grunted and looked down at his blotter. He pulled a file toward him, but didn’t open it. If Hutch didn’t know better, he would swear the Captain was nervous.

“I try never to interfere between partners,” Dobey began, looking at Hutch briefly and then back down at the unopened file. “As long as you get results, how you choose to treat each other is none of my business. But the incident last week just… It was just outright cruelty in my opinion. I think it has a lot to do with how little real rest you and Starsky have had in the past few months. I know the workload has been heavy, and, believe me, if there was a way I could give both of you the time for a real vacation, I would. Since I can’t, however….”

Dobey had lost Hutch somewhere around ‘partners’ and every word the Captain had uttered since had only put him further at sea. He held up his hand to halt the bass-voiced monologue long enough to interject a bewildered, “What incident?”

“Last week,” Dobey explained with a familiar expression that said he wasn’t in the market or the mood for a snow job. “When Starsky came in here and you knocked his cane out from under him. That was just too damned cruel, Hutchinson. Even if you were mad at him for some reason, the man was shot by someone bent on revenge against you, and….”

For a second time, Hutch held up his hand to bring Dobey’s accusations to a halt.

“Ah, Captain. I think maybe you got the wrong impression—”

“It’s hard to get the wrong impression when someone maliciously—”

“Maliciously?” Hutch echoed. Okay, now he was mad. Dobey ought to know him better than that. “It’s nice to know you have such a high opinion of me, Captain.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I think it’s just a sign that you’ve been overworked and I want to offer—”

“Don’t you remember what Starsky did after he was poisoned?” Hutch cut in yet again. It was a very odd moment for it, but he suddenly realized just how often his and Starsky’s interaction with Dobey was conducted by mutual interruption. “Came hobbling in here on that same damned cane looking for extra time off to spend in St. Thomas with the New York secretaries.” And even though he was defending himself, Hutch hoped his face wasn’t revealing the guilt he felt. Starsky still wouldn’t admit it, but, for reasons Hutch had yet to pry out of him, his partner had been determined to trick him into believing that he was far closer to healed than he actually was. Hutch had bought it hook, line and sinker, right up to the moment he had seen the real pain on Starsky’s face as he had fallen into Dobey’s arms. The only excuse Hutch could offer for his willful blindness was that he needed Starsky at his side as much as Starsky seemed to need to be there.

Dobey’s face was a study of conflicting emotions. Outrage that he might have had the wool pulled over his eyes, all muddled up with a continuing belief in his own conclusions. “Are you trying to tell me that that conniving… has been sitting on his duff for two weeks when there’s—”

Interruption 2,278 coming up, Hutch thought before he overrode Dobey’s outrage. “No, Captain. Starsky was wounded. You saw the report. But you know what he’s like. I was just giving him a reminder that he wouldn’t get away with the same trick twice. Not that we let him away with it the first time.” Hutch’s grin invited Dobey to remember the dripping, outraged Starsky. “I swear, Captain, yes, he needed the time off, but he was hardly an invalid. I was at his place the night before and he was bopping all over the place to the Fats Domino album I gave him.”

“Fats Domino?” Dobey echoed. “I seem to remember something about a break in at Starsky’s….”

“Okay. So I bought him a present,” Hutch admitted reluctantly. “But it was the least I could do since it was my fault his new watch was shot to pieces.”

“Then Starsky’s already had a two-week vacation?”

“Hardly a vacation,” Hutch scrambled to defend his partner now that he had set Dobey straight about his own actions. “If he’s not at the doctor, then he’s been at physio. It wasn’t a crease, but you know what Starsky’s like. Constitution of an ox. Starts healing before the doctor even gets a chance to treat him.”

“Would you like me to find you a trowel so you can lay that on a little thicker?” Dobey asked.

Hutch laughed dutifully and started to rise. “If that’s all. I do have an end of shift report to do.”

Dobey signaled him back down. “You just stay put a minute,” he ordered and subjected Hutch to the type of scrutiny that, at one time, back when he really had believed the captain could read minds, would have had him squirming in his chair. Now he just sat back and waited, able to see that Dobey had something more on his mind and was deciding whether to air it.

“All right. So I misread the situation. I should have known better with you two anyway. But that doesn’t change the fact that the pair of you are tired. If I could afford to give you the time for a real vacation, I would. You’ve both earned it. But this department is case-rich and manpower-poor, so the best 1 can offer you is four days, starting tomorrow, and the use of my cabin up at Pine Lake.”

Oh, shit. Hutch took a breath, opened his mouth, thought better of the first thing that came to mind, and closed it again. “That’s very kind of you, Captain…” he trailed off, trying to think fast. “But, uhm, I’m still working tomorrow and Starsky’s starting back on Monday, and….”

“Is there something wrong with spending a long weekend up at my cabin?” Dobey asked suspiciously.

“Of course not, Captain. I love camping. Nothing like the fresh air, trees and water, water and trees.” Hutch shut his mouth when he realized he was babbling. “But Starsky, now, he—”

“Good,” Dobey interrupted, obviously uninterested in Starsky’s likes and dislikes. He pulled open his desk drawer and retrieved a key and a hand drawn map that he offered to Hutch. “Then it’s all settled.”

Reluctantly, Hutch accepted the items, wishing now more than ever that his glib-tongued partner was here. Starsky usually handled Dobey so much better than he did. He slipped the key into his pocket, summoning up a smile that he hoped would satisfy Dobey, while frantically wondering how the hell he was going to break the news to Starsky.

“The whole weekend, now, you hear? You both need the rest,” Dobey reminded him, and Hutch knew it wasn’t a suggestion but an order. Kindly meant, but an order nonetheless.

Sick smile in place, the key burning a hole in his pocket, Hutch retreated. “Thanks, Captain,” he managed before he cleared the doorframe.

“You’re welcome. You have a good time now.”

Hutch slumped down behind his desk, suddenly dreading the trip over to see Starsky that only a few minutes ago, he had been anticipating. Unless he was way wrong, and he already knew he wasn’t, Starsky was going to have a fit. And Hutch would be willing to bet a week’s wages that it would be the same fit his libido was having even as he turned his attention to the end of shift report. There had to be some way around this, and Hutch knew he had from now until he walked through Starsky’s door to come up with it and then think of some way to convince Starsky. His best bet, especially within a day of the last Friday of the month, was seduction, but was it fair? Fair, schmair, as Starsky would say. Necessity, in this case, had better be prepared to be the mother of one great persuasion.

~*~*~

“We’re going where and we’re doing what?” Starsky asked from where he sat on the floor in front of his television. Before Hutch’s arrival, he had been patiently working through his exercises, and he hadn’t bothered to rise when his partner had come in, thrown his jacket on the chair and slumped down onto the couch before making his unwelcome announcement.

“You heard me. We’re going camping in Dobey’s cabin up at Pine Lake,” Hutch repeated.

“That’s what I thought you said, I just couldn’t believe my ears,” Starsky muttered as he climbed to his feet, wincing only slightly as the almost healed bullet wound in his leg pulled. It didn’t hurt much anymore, he reminded himself firmly, on the theory that if he said it often enough, then it would be true. But the new scar certainly knew how to let him know when it had stretched as far as it was going to.

He moved over to his end of the couch, favoring his right leg only slightly, and sat down facing Hutch, who, surprisingly, didn’t look any happier than he felt. “You know how I feel about jungles, Hutch. Why would you ask the captain—?”

“I didn’t ask,” Hutch cut in peevishly. “He offered. Almost ordered us to go. How could I say no? And it’s not a jungle, Starsk, it’s woods. There are no jungles in California.”

“You coulda said no. Dobey’s offered us lots of stuff. He offered to bust us down to traffic. He offered us a tour of duty as meter maids. You didn’t have any trouble saying no then,” Starsky reminded him. “And as for orders….”

Hutch gave him a look that Starsky knew meant he was seriously questioning his sanity. Which was okay, since Starsky was seriously questioning his.

“He was being nice,” Hutch insisted.

“Come on, Hutch. You know how I feel about jun…the great outdoors,” Starsky repeated. “Nobody’s ever been able to explain to me what’s so great about a bunch of trees and bugs and wild animals and—”

“Starsky, Pine Lake isn’t Vietnam,” Hutch interrupted, obviously deciding to be calm and reasonable rather than condescending, missing the mark by only a little that revealed his own lack of enthusiasm. “No snipers. No creeps. No poisonous snakes.”

“What about mosquitoes?” Starsky asked, knowing he sounded like a petulant five-year-old. He felt like one. He thought he had been doing a fair job of hiding the extent of his disability even from Hutch, but he knew he wasn’t up to hiking through a bunch of creepy woods. He didn’t really understand how anyone could consider camping any sort of vacation. Vacation meant room service in a fancy hotel like the one where that ballet dancer, Anna Whatshername, had romanced Hutch.

“Are you trying to tell me there’s no mosquitoes? We’ll both end up with malaria,” he insisted, the memory of finding Hutch disheveled and embarrassed making his voice a little bit sharper than he had intended. He had managed tolerant amusement at the time, the exact same attitude that Hutch had given him when he had been dating… Starsky realized he couldn’t remember the stewardess’ name. She would be cataloged in his memory only as George’s finance—whoever George was—and forever overshadowed by the look on Hutch’s face when he realized that he had inadvertently exposed their secret to Jim Spencer. Fortunately, the boxer had left town with his family a week later as he had planned and, Starsky could only assume, had kept his mouth shut about what he had overheard.

Starsky came back from his unscheduled stroll down memory lane in time to see Hutch roll his eyes. That was never a good sign. It usually meant his partner was coming to the end of his patience, and, if Starsky was wise, it might be a good time to give in gracefully.

“Dobey was trying to be nice. He thought I was tired.” Hutch paused, rubbing both hands over his face and when he emerged from behind them, Starsky noticed just how tired his partner did look. Working solo and then putting up with Conner had definitely taken their toll. Suddenly, spending a day or two someplace where Hutch felt completely at ease seemed like a good idea, even if Starsky knew he was going to hate every minute of it.

“Okay,” Starsky agreed. “We can run up there Saturday morning, come back Sunday sometime. I guess I can stand a day or two of smog-free air,” he conceded with a grin that invited Hutch to share the joke.

“Four days,” Hutch said, sounding like a judge who was passing down a life sentence. “Dobey expects us to use it four days. I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, and we don’t have to be back until Tuesday. We have to go up tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Starsky echoed, feeling his grin crumble in on itself and slip off his face. “But tomorrow’s Friday.”

“What did you want me to say?” Hutch exploded defensively. “Thanks, Captain, but tomorrow is the one night a month when Starsky and I get together and fuck each other’s brains out? Discreet, Starsk. Very discreet. Aren’t you the one who’s been reminding me that I’ve been careless?”

“Well, shit, Hutch. You told me to call you on it when you step over the line. That wasn’t stepping, that was fucking charging,” Starsky accused, knowing exactly the incident Hutch was referring to because it was the only time that he had had to remind Hutch since that night at the Pits, and Hutch hadn’t taken the warning very well.

Rebellion squared off Hutch’s jaw and tightened his full lips. “I was just being a little friendly.”

“No way, babe. I didn’t buy it then, and I’m not buyin’ it now,” Starsky countered. “You were practically rubbin’ off on my ass when I was trying to show you my new watch at Miss Jill’s. And don’t try to tell me that wasn’t your thumb slidin’ down my back seam ’cause I don’t believe in ghosts.”

A little pat on the butt on the way out the door was, in Starsky’s opinion, being friendly, or maybe a little more than strictly friendly, he admitted. It was still casual enough, however, to slide under just about any homophobe’s radar. But Hutch’s hand groping his ass had lit a fire in Starsky that had been damned hard to bank. If it hadn’t been for Joey Carston and her taking ways distracting Hutch at just about the moment Starsky was ready to forget all about the watch, Hutch might have found himself dealing with more than being told he was being indiscreet.

“Shouldn’t wear your jeans so tight,” Hutch challenged, in Starsky’s opinion, damned unfairly.

“Me,” Starsky sputtered. “What about those new black ones you bought? Tight? Shit. Every time you zip ’em, you put the Hutchinson family jewels at risk,” he accused, resisting the urge to scramble farther back into the comer when Hutch’s eyes, suddenly droopy-lidded and hot, tracked over his bare chest and thighs.

“So you noticed?” Hutch purred.

“Fuck’s sake, Hutch. Cut it out,” Starsky demanded. “You’re sittin’ there tellin’ me I’m not getting you this month and….”

The lazy seduction left Hutch’s face as suddenly as it had come. “What makes you think you’re not getting me?”

“Ah, come on, Hutch,” Starsky appealed. “You know the rules as well as I do. Hell, you made most of ’em up. Besides—”

“What rule?” Hutch asked, but Starsky could see he hadn’t had a sudden memory loss. “We’ve never had a rule that said we couldn’t—”

“No hotel rooms, no…” Starsky tried to cut in, feeling as if he was teetering on the edge of a very dangerous place. A place he had become far too familiar with in the last few months.

“Dobey’s sending us up there together, Starsk,” Hutch reminded him. “Nobody around for miles. There’s no reason we can’t have our Friday night.”

“Yeah?” Starsky challenged. “We gonna go at it all weekend? Don’t sit there and try to tell me we won’t either. There’s a damned good reason I kick you out or you kick me out before dawn.”

“Don’t you want me anymore?” Hutch asked softly.

The accusation shot Starsky off the couch with the need to either escape it or show Hutch in no uncertain terms how much he was wanted. He paced away a couple of steps, putting what he hoped was a safe distance between them before he turned back to face his partner.

“You know damned well I want you,” he growled. “But it wasn’t me who couldn’t deal with bending the rules. You’ve been pushing a little more all the time ever since that night in the hospital, and I’m getting to where I can’t….”

“Settle down, Starsk. If you’re that worried about it, well, maybe you’re right,” Hutch capitulated suddenly. “I know I’ve been a little reckless, and you’ve really been helping me toe the line. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it,” Hutch said with a grateful smile. “And except for that one time, haven’t I been a good boy?” he added with an innocent smile.

“Yeah, okay,” Starsky conceded. “You’ve been keepin’ it together better since—”

“So, as long as we don’t sleep together,” Hutch interrupted. “Well, I don’t think we’d be breaking the rules, but, if you do—”

“I do,” Starsky cut in, relieved and disappointed at the same time. “Besides, Hutch, getting it on in Dobey’s bed? I couldn’t get it up.”

“You’re probably right,” Hutch agreed. “But we are going to have to go.”

“How would Dobey know if we didn’t go ’til Saturday morning?” Starsky wondered, suspicious, despite a sincere desire to believe his partner, of the too easy capitulation. He searched Hutch’s face but saw nothing there but disappointment and resignation to match his own. Still, Hutch had given in far too easily, and Starsky knew he would have to be on guard for any attempt Hutch might make to seduce him. He was not entirely sure, however, who he could count on to stop him from trying to seduce Hutch. Just the memory of Hutch’s hand on his ass in the jewelry store could arouse him. If Hutch couldn’t keep those knowing hands to himself this weekend there would be broken rules all over Captain Dobey’s rustic getaway.

“How does he know almost anything we don’t want him to know?” Hutch countered. “He was so stuck on this, I wouldn’t put it past him to call just to make sure.”

“There’s a telephone?” Starsky asked, distracted by the possibility that there might actually be a few modern conveniences available. If there were, and maybe a half-decent town close by, perhaps he and Hutch could make it through the weekend without trampling all over the rules, after all. “You mean electricity and everything? Maybe a TV?”

“No TV, Starsk.”

Starsky remembered then why he had been willing to even consider a jaunt into the dreaded woods. Hutch needed a break. He grabbed hold of his doubts, wrestled them to the ground, and even managed to come up with an encouraging smile. “Okay, Hutch, so we hafta go. Won’t be the first Friday we’ve had to miss,” he said, knowing he was trying to convince himself as much as his partner. “Guess we’ll just be all the hotter next month, huh? But I still think you coulda come up with an excuse if you really wanted to. You like trees and stuff. I know I gotta go. That doesn’t mean I gotta like it. And,” he paused to be sure Hutch understood this was non-negotiable. “We are not taking my car.”

~*~*~

Hutch sat on his bed, his almost full suitcase beside him while a pile of fishing gear, sleeping bags and other assorted camping necessities waited by the door. He held one last item in his hands, turning it over and over, debating the wisdom of putting temptation in his way and questioning his motives. He had promised Starsky, and a promise was a promise, however reluctantly given.

Making a decision, Hutch put the brand-new tube of lubricant back in the bedside drawer. “Starsky’s right,” he told it, pushing on the drawer to close it. “A rule’s a rule and when it’s a good rule, you don’t fuck with it.”

He stopped pushing the drawer, stared at the unused tube sitting beside the completely depleted old one. He shivered, remembering how Starsky’s fingers had felt spreading the last of the gel from that flat tube up inside him. His fingers tightened on the handle and pulled the drawer back out.

Maybe Starsky wasn’t right. They had spent plenty of long weekends together after a Friday night sexathon. Even stayed over at each other’s places on the Saturday and Sunday and never given into the temptation, if either of them had felt any, to start up again. He tried very hard not to remember that they were always careful to make sure that those weekends were filled with other people. Dates for each of them. Carefully planned excursions with Kiko and Molly. Lazy days of basketball and good food with the Walters family before Jackson’s death. Memories that wouldn’t be tucked away, now that they had emerged, made him start to push the drawer in again. It stuck.

Neither were they a couple of randy teenagers who didn’t have the strength of will to control themselves when they knew it was for their own good. It was like booze. They both knew when to stop when they had to. Hutch pushed a little harder, but the drawer still refused to close.

“It isn’t an omen, you slob,” he chided himself. “It just means you have too much junk stuffed in the drawer.”

Still. Hutch’s hand hovered over the tube a moment, then scooped it up and tossed it into his suitcase.

“It doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” he muttered and closed the case.

~*~*~

“I know I had pajamas. Blue ones. So where the hell are they?” Starsky asked the assortment of jumbled briefs and socks in his dresser drawer. He had searched through every drawer and there was no trace of his pajamas. His leg twinged just then, prompting him to sit on the bed and, incidentally, bringing back the memory of what had happened to his pajamas. He had left them at the hospital. Thrown them out at the hospital, actually. They had blood on them, and, since he hardly ever wore them anyway, except in the hospital, Starsky had decided he would replace them. Who knew he would be needing them in two weeks?

He would just have to take an extra pair of jeans and a sweatshirt if he didn’t want to freeze his butt off. He already knew there was no way he was crawling into bed with Hutch this weekend. A man had to know his limitations, as Dirty Harry Callahan advised, and, although Starsky was a firm believer that a man couldn’t really know his limitations until he pushed past them, there was one thing he did know. Dobey’s bed or not, if Hutch made a move on him, there would be no way he could resist. Maybe Saturday night and Sunday, but not Friday. He loved Hutch. Every single day of the week, every week of the month, in every way there was to love someone, and only one night a month was he free to show it. He might not be able to say it in words even then, but he could say it with his body, allow himself to feel it. Being denied that expression, having it snatched away when it was less than twenty-four hours away, was too cruel.

“Get a grip,” Starsky growled, disgusted with himself for sitting around whining. “Pack. Go to bed. Get up at the fucking crack of dawn. And go camping.” With every sentence, he could feel himself growing even less enthusiastic for their excursion. Although how you went down from zilch, Starsky didn’t know. Into the negatives, he supposed. Higher math had never been his strong suit.

His suitcase was overflowing by the time Starsky had folded and packed what he thought he would need, but he still didn’t have anything to sleep in. He hated sleeping in his clothes. Reminded him too much of Vietnam and stakeouts. He returned to his dresser and started hunting through the drawers again. That was when he found them. Under a pile of sweatshirts. Red long johns. He had bought them, along with the hiking boots sitting by the front door, the last time he and Hutch were supposed to use Dobey’s cabin but had ended up on Playboy Island instead.

The long johns had remained unused, but Starsky pulled them out now. They were perfect. They would keep him plenty warm at night. In fact, he might even wear them under his clothes. Best of all, however, was the indisputable fact that nothing, in his opinion, looked sillier than a man parading around in a union suit. Nothing sexy in that. Nothing to tempt Hutch, if he really did intend them to keep their hands off each other, into bending, breaking or otherwise messing with the rules.

As far as Starsky was concerned, he was just about ready to throw out the rules, but it was pretty obvious that Hutch wasn’t. Hutch might be pushing the limits, but he wasn’t dealing with the consequences well, and Starsky had promised to help him toe the line. Even if it gave him a terminal case of the blues.

~*~*~

Stretched out in Dobey’s imitation leather easy chair, Hutch was supposed to be reading. Agatha Christie didn’t have a hope. How could the mystery novelist expect to hold his attention when, only a few feet away, Starsky was busy making up his bed on the couch?

Since the first night Hutch had met his friend, he had never seen Starsky wearing anything that he liked better than his own glorious birthday suit. That was still true, but only by a narrow margin now. As Starsky stretched and bent over the couch, wearing nothing but that contour hugging union suit, Hutch couldn’t have ignored him if he had been blind. Red, of course. Starsky knew what he looked good in.

Hills and valleys, bumps and ripples, intriguing curves and fascinating mounds. All sights that Hutch had long ago schooled himself to ignore, except for one delicious day of the month. Today was that day, and there was Starsky, busy with his bed-making contortions, and here sat Hutch with a hard-on threatening the integrity of his zipper.

He glanced over at the bed in the alcove, hoping just the sight of their superior’s resting place could put a damper on his eager flesh. His cock, however, after all the visual input, wouldn’t have cared if that narrow mattress had belonged to the Pope. It was absolute torture just to sit still, not leap through the few feet that separated them, and tumble Starsky down onto his just-completed bed.

“I’m gonna grab a shower,” Starsky announced.

In the spirit of the day, Hutch knew he ought to make some reference to spiders or silverfish lurking in the barely adequate facilities, but his brain just wasn’t up to being clever at the moment. He was lucky his brain was capable of producing the distracted grunt he managed before Starsky disappeared through the door on the other side of the sleeping alcove.

Hutch heard the shower go on and managed to remain in the chair, reminding himself that Starsky really felt very strongly about the whole issue. And Starsky certainly didn’t seem to be having any trouble dealing with denial. There was no way he could have hidden an erection in those gorgeous long underwear. Starsky, however, Hutch reminded himself, was a very sensual man, and years of experience proved that persuading him, especially if Hutch was smart enough to give up on words and go straight for his gonads, shouldn’t be too hard. It was Starsky’s own fault anyway, Hutch tried to justify to himself, for parading around in that red cotton second skin.

Having talked himself into it, Hutch leaped out of the chair and threw the neglected book down onto the cushion. Starsky had declared in no uncertain terms that he would never be able to get it up in Dobey’s bed. Okay. Hutch was willing to concede that point, but that narrow mattress wasn’t the only horizontal surface in the cabin.

It took Hutch thirty seconds to destroy Starsky’s neatly arranged bed. He tossed the pillow and sleeping bag onto the floor before pushing first the couch and then the low coffee table out of the way. As quickly as possible, he spread the sleeping bag out over the carpet before the fireplace, then retrieved his own bedding from the alcove and added it to the improvised love nest. Then he added wood to the fire. Not so much as to encourage Starsky to shed that intriguing union suit, just enough to keep Hutch warm naked.

He heard the shower turn off and hurried to strip and arrange himself between the two sleeping bags, his back to the cheerily crackling fire. His heart racing in his chest, its beat echoed by the pounding at his groin, Hutch propped himself up on his elbow, carefully arranged the sleeping bag to expose him down to just above his groin, and waited for Starsky to appear.

Two seconds later, he was scrambling up again and shooting across the room to dig through his suitcase. He heard something hit the floor on the other side of the bathroom door, then Starsky’s muttered curse, before he found what he sought and could resume his seductive pose before his unsuspecting partner emerged from the bathroom. The brand-new tube of lubricant he had retrieved from his suitcase, he slipped under the pillow.

“Dobey needs a new water… Hutch?”

A jolt of excitement pumped its way to Hutch’s already overtaxed heart. He couldn’t see Starsky, his view obscured by the couch, but he could imagine the scene. Starsky reacting to the near darkness lit only by the flames in the fireplace, his blue eyes seeking and failing to find Hutch already tucked up in bed, that failure giving the uncertain twang of fear to his name.

“Over here, Starsk,” Hutch reassured him. “Come and get it,” he added under his breath.

Starsky appeared a few moments later, freshly scrubbed and looking so delectable in the clingy red long johns, the seductive invitation Hutch had intended to make stuck in his throat. All he could do was hold out his hand in mute appeal.

Starsky looked around distractedly, but his gaze seemed irresistibly drawn back to the fire-lit scene and the man who waited for him. “Christ, Hutch, you’re enough to tempt a saint,” he whispered.

Hutch let the slow smile creep over his face, lowered his eyelids and peered up at the object of his desire through his lashes. “Are you feeling saintly tonight, sweetheart?” he purred, deliberately using the endearment, knowing how it melted him inside every time Starsky said it.

Starsky continued to hesitate, but the struggle between reason and longing was clear on his face. “Come on, Hutch. You promised.”

“Can’t help it, Starsk,” Hutch apologized sincerely because he really had thought he intended to stick to the rules. “Whoever sold you that union suit ought to be arrested for inciting a riot in my balls.”

Starsky looked down at himself, his expression startled. “These?” he asked uncertainly.

“If I had a full-length mirror, I’d show you just what I mean,” Hutch offered. “But since I don’t….”

“They’re silly lookin’,” Starsky protested, his tone and the two reluctant steps he took closer to Hutch’s fire-lit love nest branding him a liar. “Aren’t they?”

“Silly is the last word you bring to mind right now. You look like every present I ever wanted for my birthday all wrapped up in red. God, Starsk, I want you.” Hutch held out his hand again, no longer playing the seducer, but completely seduced by his need for his long-time lover.

“What about the morning, Hutch?” Starsky asked, and Hutch realized that Starsky wasn’t just resisting on his own behalf, but was making good on the promise he had made. Hutch could see that Starsky, too, had grown hard and knew exactly what his continued resistance was costing him.

“I’m going fishing at dawn. Before that, you kick me out or I kick you out,” he promised.

Starsky capitulated then, but instead of words, he gave Hutch his body, snuggling into his arms in a heartbeat, despite the slight limp the long day had returned to his gait. Hutch gladly took possession of the mouth offered to him, drinking deeply of the Starsky taste that hid beneath minty toothpaste. His hands roamed the hills and valleys that had intrigued him so only a few minutes ago, while the heat of his lover’s body bled through the smooth material stretched over it.

“No, don’t,” Hutch protested when he felt Starsky’s hand between them, fingers fumbling for the buttons that marched down the long torso from throat to crotch.

“Wanna unwrap your present yourself, do you?” Starsky teased, and if he had any doubts left, he was ignoring them. He wriggled ever so slightly, perfecting the fit of their bodies to such a fine degree that for a moment, all Hutch could do was hang on and struggle not to come all over the front of those long johns.

“Not even supposed to be getting this present tonight,” Starsky reminded him.

Hutch ignored the warning. “Little bit at a time,” he finally managed to gasp, demonstrating his intentions by carefully slipping loose just one of the buttons on the convenient little access panel that shielded his lover’s delectable ass. He stroked every centimeter of the firm triangle of flesh revealed with just one finger, sending juddering spasms through the body he held. Slowly, one button at a time, he continued as he had begun until the ripe cheeks were fully exposed and cradled in his big hands. Never in his life was he more grateful for the size of his hands than when they allowed him the pleasure of completely encasing Starsky’s ass.

“Don’t know if that’s what the inventor of these things had in mind for that trap door,” Starsky teased, breathless and husky, and Hutch knew there would no longer be any danger of Starsky objecting.

Hutch nuzzled his way across the smoothly shaven cheek, nosed aside the dark curls, and blew softly into Starsky’s ear before he replied. “I don’t know,” he mused. “Bunch of lumberjacks, months from civilization.” He squeezed the firm handfuls, pressing his fingertips into the deep crevice between the cheeks. “Maybe this is exactly what this convenient little door is meant for.”

“If it ain’t, it oughta be,” Starsky panted, pushing back, giving Hutch more access.

“Mmmmm,” Hutch hummed, lips pressed to the little cluster of sensitive nerves he knew lived just behind the lobe of Starsky’s ear, feeling the vibration thrum right through his lover and into the hands that clutched his shoulders. “Wanna get fucked in your union suit, do ya, babe?”

“Nah,” Starsky denied, and Hutch went with the push that laid him out on his back, tightening his grip to bring his lover with him. “Wanna get fucked in my a… Ow! Shit!”

The howl of pain loosened Hutch’s grip, brought him up half-sitting to hover over Starsky who was twisted into a human pretzel, trying to massage his wounded calf.

“What, Starsk? Did I hurt you?” he said, one hand on the broad shoulder closest to him, trying to bring Starsky around to where he could assess the problem.

“Just a twinge,” Starsky panted, but Hutch could see by the expression on his face that the shortness of breath was no longer caused by passion.

Slipping out from beneath his lover, Hutch brushed aside Starsky’s hands, finding the calf taut beneath his seeking fingers, but, familiar with healing muscles himself, able to recognize that the cramp was already passing.

“Too long on your feet today?” he suggested as he rubbed the last of the tension from the injured muscle.

“Mmmm,” Starsky agreed, stretching out on his side, the pain gone from his face and the passion returning. “And that ain’t exactly the area I’d like you to be rubbing with those magic fingers,” he hinted.

Sobered somewhat by the interruption, Hutch hesitated. If he was smart, he would back off now. As if he could, he thought, tipped his lover onto his back and straddled him. “Hmmm. Wouldn’t want to cause a relapse now, would we?” he mused. “Maybe we better….”

“If you think for one minute you’re getting up now…” Starsky threatened, wrapping both hands around Hutch’s arms. “You started this.”

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Hutch reassured him, knowing the expression on his face had Starsky waiting for a visitation of his weird sense of humor. He gently twisted his arms free of Starsky’s grip and settled his bare ass more firmly on Starsky’s cotton-covered thighs. “I’m not going anywhere,” he crooned. “It’s just time for you to lie back and think of England.”

Starsky grinned up at him, impish devilment that Hutch could never hope to match sparkling in his blue eyes. “England?” he echoed saucily. “As in, no sex, please, we’re British?”

“Okay,” Hutch conceded, making Starsky arch and gasp as he leaned down and nuzzled into the long throat, nipping and licking a few pleasurable moments, then rising up just enough to whisper into the sensitive ear.

“Think of the Statue of Liberty. Do it for the red, white and blue.”

Then his lips were captured, ravished, while Starsky’s hands made free with every inch of his naked body they could reach. Seeking fingers crept in between their tightly pressed bodies to tweak his hard nipples, burrowed down between their bellies to stroke and tease his cock, and tunneled out from between them to scamper down the length of his spine. Starsky strained to reach farther than he had any hope of touching, finally finding Hutch’s shoulders and pushing him away.

“Can’t get into me like this,” Starsky pointed out, his sturdy thighs pressing hard against where Hutch held him immobile within the strong grip of his bracketing thighs.

“Change of plan,” Hutch revealed, letting his fingers walk the length of the hard rod straining red cotton. He toyed with the white button perched over the tip of the full erection. He slipped it, his fingertip tracing the contours of the hot, swollen head revealed.

“Keep it up and you’re gonna get a premature Fourth of July,” Starsky warned.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Hutch chided, slipping the second button, delicately drawing back the cloth until the full length of Starsky’s burgundy cock was bared to him. “No pulling the trigger ’til you’re fully cocked and loaded.”

“Oh, I’m loaded,” Starsky assured him, and Hutch nearly surrendered when the talented hands slid up his body as far up as they could reach, then traveled down to capture the angry red penis tapping his belly.

“Mmmm, you certainly are. And as soon as I’m cocked, you can give me all you’ve got,” Hutch reassured him. He coaxed Starsky’s fingers away from his erection, and then leaned forward to slip his hand beneath the pillow under the dark head, searching for the tube he had secreted there, while Starsky arched toward him, cramping calf obviously forgotten now as he braced on shoulders and heels.

“Pretty hot and bothered, huh?” Hutch murmured, sitting back, his fingers working to open the tiny cap while he held the tube below Starsky’s line of sight. “Maybe we better cool you down some,” he suggested, and then, without warning, squeezed cold gel directly onto Starsky’s hot cock.

Starsky yelped. He tried to jack-knife up, but Hutch pushed him down, leaning braced on one hand while the other wrapped around his lover’s erection. He knew what a shock it had been, that the sensations couldn’t have been sharper if he had run an ice cube from the tip down to the full balls. And he didn’t need words to tell him that Starsky loved it. It was the salt with the sugar, the bitter with the sweet, the bite that hid within the smooth glide of slow-aged scotch.

Hutch massaged the quickly warming gel into the smooth flesh, fingers careful to leave no tiny patch uncovered, then reached for Starsky’s hand. Gently, he uncurled each finger from the death grip it had on the sleeping bag and led them to grasp the slippery shaft. “Hold it up for me, Starsk,” he commanded.

Tossing the open tube aside, Hutch braced his hands on either side of Starsky’s head and knee-walked up until he could feel the wide tip seeking blindly between his cheeks. It took only a moment for his lover to find the yielding place, like a compass needle finding true north. He felt the first tentative probe and then, again without warning, sat down hard, driving nearly the full length of Starsky’s cock deep inside himself in one thrust.

He felt Starsky’s hands scrabble at his hips, supporting him as the sudden impalement rocked through his body. His head went back, the cabin a whirl of barely perceived colors before his half-closed eyes, his mouth opening to voice a cry of unimaginable pleasure.

“Damnit, Hutch,” Starsky protested, then cried out himself as, with the impediment of Starsky’s hand removed, Hutch pushed down again, taking the rest of the hardness into himself, feeling it throbbing in perfect time inside him with the channel that sheathed it.

Then Starsky’s hands were on him again, raking his naked nerves with tender caresses while he raised and lowered himself. The strain in his thighs was a pitiful voice in the wilderness as it clamored to be heard above the pleasure singing through his body each time he thrust down onto the hard flesh that filled him and then lifted until that sweet instrument of torment almost slipped free.

“Do it, babe. Been waitin’. Wantin’,” Starsky panted, both hands wrapped around Hutch’s penis now, squeezing and stroking until Hutch could no longer separate the pleasure that scoured him from within from the pleasure that rocked him from without. He pressed down into the strength that met him, matched him, took everything he offered and gave everything he needed in return.

He heard Starsky cry out again, felt his lover’s body still abruptly beneath him and pushed down hard one last time, reveling in the sweet spasms that gripped the penis within him even as strong fingers milked the semen from him.

“Down you come, Angel.”

Even had he the coordination to prevent it, Hutch wouldn’t have had the heart to resist the arms that coaxed him down upon his lover. He was too heavy, he knew. Could feel the way Starsky’s chest labored to lift with each breath he took, the vibrations sending aftershocks through his pleasure-soaked nerves to where the bulk of his lover’s cock still rested inside him.

“You weigh a fucking ton,” Starsky complained, his tone caught somewhere between a sated purr and a petulant whine.

“Leave me some bones next time,” Hutch countered, mourning the loss when he felt Starsky’s softening penis slip free, pressing his face into his lover’s neck, fighting sudden tears as Starsky’s hands stroked comfort into his back.

“Easy, sweetheart. You okay?”

The only answer Hutch could muster was a groan as he fought to uncurl the cramped muscles in his legs and shift his weight off his lover before he crushed him.

“Why is it,” he asked when he had finally found a position of some comfort sprawled on the sleeping bag beside Starsky. “That every position that feels so good to get fucked in hurts so much to get out of after?”

“Nature’s way of makin’ you pay the piper,” Starsky offered his opinion and then a less than charitable, “Deal with it.”

Hutch grunted, thought of reminding his conveniently-memoried lover of the many times Starsky had made the same complaint after one of their more adventurous romps, then remembered he had offered much the same response. Besides, the discomfort was more than compensated for by the pleasure.

“That was incredible,” he admitted. “Everywhere I touched you, all I could feel was your heat through those goddamned long johns. But, at the same time, you were so deep inside me…” He ran out of words, returning the fierce hug Starsky gave him, then wriggled around beneath the sleeping bag Starsky had pulled over them, until he could pillow his head on his lover’s shoulder. He wouldn’t stay here long, he promised himself. Didn’t want to give Starsky pins and needles in his arm to go with the cramps in his leg.

“‘Member the first time you fucked me?” he muttered, wondering if it was as firmly imprinted in Starsky’s memory as it was in his. He couldn’t tell by the affirmative grunt Starsky offered, and felt far too lazy to lift up to check his expression. “‘Member you told me it was never gonna be that good again?”

“Yeah,” Starsky confirmed, sounding just as lazy and contented as Hutch felt.

Fresh air and sunshine and hot, hot sex. Nothing like that combination to put a man to sleep. Just for a few minutes, of course. The last Friday of the month still had hours left to revel in.

“You lied,” Hutch murmured.

~*~*~

The new day was just beginning to encroach on the night when Starsky woke. For the time it took full awareness to come to him—perhaps thirty seconds—he was happier than he had ever been in his life. His fantasies lately had more to do with waking up with Hutch in his arms than with hard cocks and hungry mouths, though he wasn’t yet ready to exchange the latter for the former, more interested in somehow finding a way to merge the two.

Fresh air and sunshine, water and trees had a lot to answer for, he decided as he realized they had slept the night through. Neither one of them had awakened to continue their usual Friday night activities. At least he hadn’t, and, since Hutch hadn’t moved so much as an inch, he had to assume that nature boy had slept undisturbed as well.

The fire was down to barely glowing embers whose warmth didn’t extend even as far as the nest in which they lay. His nose was cold. Starsky bent his head, rubbed the tip of his nose against the top of Hutch’s head. The fine strands of hair were cool, but the scalp beneath was warm from where it had been tucked beneath his chin.

The movement was enough to begin the waking process for Hutch. That, and the deeply ingrained knowledge, that also lived in Starsky’s brain, that dawn on the last Saturday of the month must never catch them napping.

Another broken rule. Well, perhaps, if they could separate now, they could call it only bent. Folded perhaps. Creased a little. Starsky tried to tighten the arm wrapped around Hutch, just the thought of letting him go making him want to hold on all the harder, and discovered he didn’t seem to have a right arm anymore. Or a right shoulder, either. Amazing the way a little loss of circulation could cut romanticism off at the knees.

“Hutch,” he whispered, bringing his left hand around to shake Hutch’s shoulder. At least that was his intention. His fingers, it seemed, had ideas of their own, tracing lightly over the warm, bare skin beneath the sleeping bag, creeping around blind until they found the back of Hutch’s neck, pressing the sleeping face closer.

Starsky felt soft, dry lips press into his throat. So, Hutch was awake. Aware yet, Starsky wondered? Or only in that partly conscious state that had been such a welcome place for him just a few short minutes ago?

Starsky knew the moment full awareness returned to Hutch. It felt as if every muscle in the body he held snapped taut as a drawn bow, then just as suddenly relaxed against him. A second kiss was pressed into his throat.

“No way, Hutch,” Starsky chided softly, though it made his heart ache in his chest. “Morning has broken. There’s a fish out there with your name on it. Remember?” His voice nearly cracked on the last word, and he knew Hutch would be able to feel the way his Adam’s apple was working. Over the years, Starsky had learned to blink back tears, pull a mask of indifference over his face, and force words past constricting throat muscles, but he had never been able to school that one telltale manifestation of grief.

Hutch shifted just a little against him, enough to bestow yet another kiss, this one directly over the bobbing gland. “Let ‘im live another day,” he whispered.

“Then it’s time you climbed into old Dobey’s bed,” Starsky insisted, forcing his hand to release the grip it had on Hutch’s hair, ordering it to escape from under the sleeping bag without lingering over the bare flesh of Hutch’s back.

“It sags in the middle,” Hutch complained.

One big hand was sliding down Starsky’s shoulder, grazing over his cotton-covered chest, aiming for his groin where his long johns gaped open. If Hutch got hold of him, Starsky knew he would have no hope of offering even a token resistance.

Starsky trapped the hand against his belly, wrapping his fingers around the sturdy wrist from outside the sleeping bag. “Then sleep on the edge,” he suggested.

The option didn’t appear to appeal to Hutch. He broke the grip Starsky had on him, leaned more of his weight into him. That was when Starsky discovered how hard it was to escape someone you were so evenly matched with while one arm was a dead thing and your will to resist wouldn’t have budged the needle on any meter that tried to read it.

“Once is never enough for us,” Hutch murmured, his hand doing such delicious things that every stroke was burning through Starsky, the sensations a fiery synapses from his groin to his brain and scorching everything in between.

“Need to taste you.”

A warm, wet tongue lapped at Starsky’s throat.

“Need to touch you.”

An impudent hand that ought to be safely trapped under Hutch found its way between two buttons on his chest and pinched his nipple.

“Need to feel you, soft and strong, around my cock.”

Of their own accord, Starsky’s legs spread, anticipation almost drowning out the tiny voice of reason, making what would be his final protest little more than a whimper. “Damnit, Hutch. You promised.”

The hand released him and the weight lifted away abruptly and Starsky found himself staring into a pair of confused blue eyes in a face that didn’t know whether to be lustful or contrite.

“The damned rules mean that much to you?” Hutch growled.

The truth trembled on his tongue, but Starsky knew he had to lie to Hutch. It was the only way to get them onto the other side of this torrent of need. “Yeah. They mean that much,” he panted. “And an hour from now, or a day, or maybe not until we’re back in the city, they’ll mean that much to you, too.”

“God,” Hutch breathed and it was hard to tell whether the single word was a prayer or a curse.

Starsky gasped as Hutch suddenly rolled, dragging the sleeping bag away, exposing him to the cold air in the cabin. He locked his jaw against the moan that tried to escape as pins and needles started up in his arm.

“Goddamn it, Starsk. Who asked you to be my conscience?” Hutch demanded.

“You did,” Starsky reminded him. “‘Never again’ you said in the hospital, and I promised. And ever since then—”

“All right,” Hutch growled. “I’m horny, not terminally stupid.”

“I know a lotta ladies who’d say they were the same thing,” Starsky tried to joke, desperate to pull them both away from the mistake they were still so close to making. He could feel Hutch’s heat all along his right side and it drew him like a magnet.

“Starsk, I didn’t plan it, you—”

“No?” Starsky ran right over the attempted delusion, determined that, this time, they would sort out whatever it was that had Hutch playing fast and loose with their rules. “What about the lube? Did ya bring that along just in case we happened to run into a couple of accommodatin’ lady bears?”

Starsky heard Hutch roll over to face him, and didn’t dare turn his head to look at him. He flinched a little when Hutch’s hand gripped his shoulder and then slid down his arm, but didn’t pull away when he realized that Hutch was trying to rub the pins and needles of returning circulation out of his arm.

“I’m sorry,” Hutch murmured. “I told myself I was just being prepared, but maybe….”

It was getting lighter, Starsky noted, counting the shadowy beams in the ceiling. Twelve? Or was it fourteen? He could have cared less if the entire redwood reserve had been cut down to build this one cabin. All it meant to him at the moment, was something to look at other than the man who tempted him beyond endurance. “Maybe what?”

Hutch’s only reply for several minutes was a frustrated sigh and the steady rhythm of his fingers on Starsky’s arm. Starsky remained silent, feeling them sliding away from the edge of disaster, getting their emotional feet back under them, and their sensual alter egos tucked back in their cages.

“I want to help, you know, Hutch,” he offered softly. “I just don’t know what to do. Don’t know what’s been bugging you. Is it the risk?”

“Talked about that already,” Hutch reminded him softly, his fingers digging in hard enough to make Starsky wince.

“Come on, Hutch. You’ve gotta have some idea,” Starsky appealed. “Talk to me, buddy, ’cause I don’t know how much longer I can—”

“Starsk,” Hutch interrupted for a second time, his tone urgent. “Don’t you ever…?”

“Ever what?” Starsky prompted, beginning to feel as if his sole purpose in life was to force Hutch to finish a sentence.

“Ever think about John?” Hutch asked hesitantly.

Starsky turned his head then, needing to see the expression on Hutch’s face to try to follow where the twists and turns of Hutch’s mind were leading them both. “John Blaine?” he asked uncertainly.

Hutch nodded once, took his hand back and tucked it beneath his pillow. “I worry about it,” he admitted, although what he was admitting to wasn’t immediately apparent to Starsky. “Didn’t even realize I was worrying about it until a few weeks ago.”

Fine, straight lashes came down to veil Hutch’s blue eyes, robbing Starsky of what little hope he had of following where Hutch was leading without the need of actual words between them. When Hutch didn’t say anything more, Starsky let his mind scan back to the blistering heat of last October. He flipped through the memories. The shock of John’s murder. The revelation of his double life. The case. The funeral. The long evening… Damn, he should have known.

Starsky rolled, gathered his friend up in his arms and held on tight. “You had some pretty good answers for me that night, but none for yourself, huh?” he guessed and felt Hutch’s nod against his shoulder.

“Damn. Sometimes I wish I could teach you how to see the donut,” he murmured. He didn’t need to see Hutch’s puzzled expression to know his partner wasn’t following him. He pulled away just enough to let Hutch see his amusement. “You know, the optimist sees the donut, and the pessimist sees the hole.”

“I don’t like donuts,” Hutch muttered, almost, but not quite, pouting, and Starsky knew his friend wasn’t entirely sure whether he was being teased or sympathized with. The blue eyes were a little guarded as they looked for something, a certainty, in Starsky that they could, perhaps, claim for their own. Or, maybe, more beneficial in the long run, the same uncertainty that tormented Hutch.

“Sure you do,” Starsky reminded him gently, carding his fingers through the cool, soft strands of hair. “Once in a while. The plain ones. The ones that haven’t got a lot of icing and sprinkles and junk on ’em. The ones that are a lot like me and thee.”

Hutch smiled at that, almost laughed a little, and that let Starsky know he was on the right track. Oddly enough, although Hutch didn’t exactly tune him out when he was being deadly serious, when it came to the less tangible elements of life, Hutch often took Starsky more seriously the less seriously Starsky chose to present his arguments. But now that he had his partner’s attention, it was time to offer what reassurance he could. In a roundabout way, of course. It was always better with Hutch to lead him within the scent of an idea and then let him get there on his own.

“In all this pessimistic soul searching you’ve been doing,” Starsky said, feeling his way, watching Hutch’s face to try to gauge when he had said enough. “You ever wonder what I’d do?”

Hutch blinked, opened his mouth, closed it, then shook his head. “No,” he stated emphatically.

“How come?” Starsky asked, making his tone curious, as if he really didn’t already know the answer.

“Because I know you, Starsk,” Hutch said earnestly. “Know your loyalty and your faith and your….”

Starsky let the grin he had been holding back bloom on his face as he saw Hutch follow along the path until he reached his own conclusions.

“Know you better than I know myself,” Hutch concluded softly.

Starsky tightened his grip on the hair binding his fingers, tugged a little to add punctuation. “You just get a little lost in here sometimes,” he whispered. “But you’re never gonna get so lost that I can’t find you, babe,” he promised.

“What happens when you get tired of looking?”

Starsky could see the terror that flickered in Hutch’s eyes then even though the blue gaze tried to flit away from his to hide it. “Then I’ll stick a goddamned beeper in your belt,” he growled.

There was a silence then of locked gazes and wide-open communication that had been missing for too long.

“It was a mistake to come up here this weekend, wasn’t it? A bigger mistake to seduce you last night,” Hutch admitted.

Starsky shrugged. “Can’t ever say I’d regret being seduced by you, but we do need some distraction,” he agreed.

“Not much chance of that up here,” Hutch reminded him doubtfully.

“Then we’ll just have to keep a sharp eye out for whatever comes our way. Lady bears not included,” Starsky qualified. “But just about anything else a possibility.”

“Guess I should go fishing, huh?” Hutch suggested with such obvious reluctance that Starsky had to laugh. “Wanna come along? It’s a beautiful view out on the lake at this time of the morning.”

“Not on your life, nature boy. The only view I plan on taking in while you’re playing Willie Woodsman is the insides of my eyelids,” Starsky declared and saw Hutch accept the wisdom of putting a little space between them, for a few hours at least.

Needing to limit the temptation he had to resist, Starsky didn’t watch as Hutch climbed out of their nest and, shivering, pulled on his clothes. A naked Hutch was never an easy banquet to forego and, when they were as emotionally in tune as they were right now, it was nearly impossible. He thought about getting up and moving to the couch, but decided to wait until Hutch left the cabin. He might imagine how ridiculous he must look with his long johns gaping open in the front and the trap door flapping around the back of his knees, but he was no longer so certain that Hutch would see it the same way he did. Who would have guessed that Hutch would go a little kinky on him over a pair of red long johns?

Starsky drifted back from his contemplation to find Hutch standing over him, looking like the cover of Field and Stream.

“Bob the Bass doesn’t stand a chance,” he complimented.

“Trout, Starsk. It’s trout season,” Hutch corrected him with a long-suffering sigh.

“Timmy Trout, then,” Starsky said, rolling away and pulling the sleeping bag over his head. “I’m havin’ Froot Loops for breakfast.”

“Philistine,” Hutch pronounced and left the cabin.

“Phil Stein was a damned good barber,” Starsky muttered as he gathered up his sleeping bag and pillow and limped over to the couch. He didn’t bother trying to make up a bed for the few hours of sleep he might be able to steal before Hutch returned and forced him to join in some great, nature adventure. After buttoning himself more securely back into his union suit, he just jammed the pillow against the wooden arm, curled up on the ugly cushions, and pulled the bag over him.

Distraction was definitely the order for today, and tomorrow, and… He had to face it, distraction had been his watchword for months now, and it would have to continue to be for who knew how long into the future. He didn’t know how long he could go on hiding the depth of his love for Hutch. Hopefully, long enough for either Hutch to somehow end up in this same place, or, and whether it was more or less likely Starsky could only speculate, find someone else for him to be in love with.

“You’re supposed to be the optimist,” Starsky reminded himself as he sought a marginally comfortable position on the couch. “So you better start lookin’ for the donuts.”

~*~*~

The trip up the coast to Jamieson College to follow up on the flimsy lead that both Richards and Morgan had attended there, should have been a chance for Hutch to relax a little and enjoy the beauty of nature. There would be a million miles of microfilm to go through at the end of this trip. He would probably end up needing glasses before he was done. If Starsky was any sort of partner, he would be in the passenger seat beside him preparing to suffer eye strain in the line of duty instead of pretending to follow up leads in bed with sultry miss ‘are you experienced.’

Hutch recognized that the taunting little voice in his head was singing its bitter song from inside the Friday night box and threw on the brakes, figuratively and literally, just in time to prevent the LTD from going into a tight curve far too fast. When he put his foot back on the gas, he reminded himself to keep the lead out of it. The last thing he needed was to attract the attention of some zealous highway patrolman. The mood he was in, his brother officer would probably decide he needed an attitude adjustment and arrest him. Then Dobey, or worse, his partner, would have to bail him out. He would never hear the end of it.

“Don’t know why you’re having a fit anyway,” Hutch chastised the unhappy blue eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. Starsky had made it clear last night what he intended to do, and, even if Hutch had tried to kid himself then, pulling up behind that fancy silver testosterone machine this morning had certainly sent the message loud and clear. Last night, the idea hadn’t bothered him so much. No more than knowing, or even seeing, Starsky lavish his high energy sexuality on Rachel. Or was Starsky’s girl Mary and his Rachel? He would have to sort that one out before they saw the girls again. But, this morning, seeing Starsky a fucked-out wreck had….

Hutch eased up on the gas again, checked the mirror and found the road behind him empty. If he didn’t keep his mind on his driving, he was going to end up a dead man. And, though he might be madder than hell, he was in no greater hurry than usual to visit it. Besides, one experience of playing leapfrog down a mountainside had been enough for one lifetime. Hutch smiled grimly at the ocean stretching out on his left. At least this time he wouldn’t have to lie around for days waiting for Starsky to rescue him; he would just drown in a hurry and get it over with.

But the memory had served a far greater purpose. Reminded him that sexy Catlin was enjoying only a small—or not so small—part of Starsky. A part that Hutch could, and enthusiastically did, lay claim to once a month. But what Hutch already had, what Catlin and no other man or woman had ever had, was all the rest of Starsky. Let Catlin have her one-night stand, let Rachel have a few weeks until Starsky became bored; it was Hutch, and only Hutch, that Starsky always returned to.

Hutch slipped on his sunglasses, eased back into a more comfortable position in the well-worn seat, and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. It was a beautiful day, with lots of beautiful scenery to admire, he reminded himself, once again guiding his car around the twists and turns of the highway instead of driving on autopilot. Still, there was that tiny little angel voice that just had to have the last word.

“Maybe Catlin will give him a good dose of the clap,” the angel postulated.

“And then he’ll give it to you,” Hutch reminded the stubborn wretch.

Outflanked, the angel retired from the field.

~*~*~

Letting himself into his apartment, Starsky put Louise’s cardboard box on the coffee table, tossed his jacket on the couch and went to get himself a cold one. Bottle in hand, he sat down on the couch and lifted the top off the box, reaching in to gently stroke his future fortune’s soft fur.

“I guess it’s just you and me tonight, schweetheart,” he repeated to the squeaking creature that seemed totally oblivious to his worries. “Think between me and Hutch, I definitely got the best of the bargain.”

Starsky had met Vanessa Hutchinson only once, years ago. By then, he had already gleaned enough from Hutch’s infrequent comments to despise her sight unseen. He couldn’t seem to completely dismiss, however, a feeling of grudging obligation or gratitude or whatever this vague notion could be called, that, if Vanessa hadn’t been stupid enough to throw Hutch back, then he never would have had his angel. The woman was beautiful enough to overload a man’s pacemaker, but, when she wasn’t turning on the charm, Starsky could see that there was nothing but evil in her soul.

For a while now, Starsky had been wondering if Hutch was yearning for a past when things had been simpler between them. Perhaps, after all, what Hutch had been nostalgic for was a past that had nothing to do with Starsky at all. When he had been young and in love, the sole heir and brightest young star in the Hutchinson heavens. If so, then Starsky would be willing to bet the money he hadn’t yet made on his new enterprise, that Vanessa wasn’t the way for Hutch to re-capture it.

“Geez, Louise,” he told the oblivious chinchilla. “I sure hope Hutch’s got his brain engaged when Vanessa strolls into Huggy’s tonight.” He shivered a little, remembering Kathy saying something similar about Diana Harmon. “That psycho bitch had it in her head to cut his heart out,” he told the beady black eyes. “But Vanessa’d gladly grill it and have it for lunch.”

Louise squealed a protest as if she really understood his gruesome prediction.

“No kidding. That lady, and I use the term loosely, is a bona fide barracuda,” he pronounced judgment on his friend’s ex.

“Ouch!” Starsky pulled his hand out of the box, frowning at the two bleeding puncture wounds in his finger. “Shit! Whaddya do that for?”

Louise just sat there looking cute and furry.

“You’re just like all the rest of the female persuasion, aren’t you?” Starsky accused. “Gotta stick up for each other no matter what, huh?”

~*~*~

“Drink it,” Starsky commanded.

Hutch picked up the water glass half-filled with brandy and obediently sipped. The liquor burned, then glowed, and he sighed shakily.

“What happened,” Starsky asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Hutch said hesitantly, shaking his head. “I went out for a run. Gone ten minutes, maybe twelve. Van said… said she’d make me eggs.” He lost his train of thought as his eyes were drawn irresistibly to the blanket-draped corpse on the floor. He was still unable to equate the vibrantly alive, if conniving, woman he had left in his bed with the fast-cooling piece of murdered meat he had found on his return.

“You’re doin’ fine, Hutch. Just take another drink and tell me the rest,” Starsky encouraged him.

Obediently, Hutch brought the almost empty glass to his lips, pouring the last of the liquor into his mouth and swallowing, feeling the fiery trail it left behind. “I came in the door and there she was. On the floor. My gun and badge….”

“Just like they are now?”

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed, hung his head, breathing deep, hoping that driving more oxygen to his brain would clear the moving-under-water feeling away. “Didn’t touch anything.”

“What happened to your hand?” Starsky asked.

A tiny spurt of renewed panic shot through Hutch, jerking his head up, but it was quelled immediately by the uncomplicated gaze that met his and the gentle fingers that lightly brushed the scabbed over scratches on his hand.

“Vanessa tried to slap me at Huggy’s. Didn’t like hearing the truth now any more than when we were married, I guess. I blocked the slap; she scratched me instead.” He remembered the surprise on the cold bitch’s face. He never used to protect himself when Vanessa became physical.

“Hutch!”

Hutch jolted, nearly over-balancing the chair, focused on Starsky’s worried face and realized that his thoughts must have gone off on a bitter tangent.

“You call Dobey?” Starsky asked more quietly.

“I…” Hutch fought to remember just what he had done. He should have called it in, but… “No. Called you,” he admitted and let Starsky’s smile be a lifeline, grabbing the blue gaze and letting the absolute surety, the professional calm, tow him back to safe harbor.

“Okay, babe. Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Starsky said, getting up and moving to Hutch, his hand under Hutch’s arm lifting him gently to his feet. “I’m gonna call it in. Get Dobey and give him the bare bones. You, Hutch, you go get in the shower. Hot, cold, whatever it takes to put your brain in gear and take the wobble outta your knees.”

More than grateful to be given direction, Hutch allowed Starsky to maneuver him around Vanessa’s body. He no longer felt a compulsive need to stare as if he expected her to throw back the blanket any moment, smile her manipulative smile, and tell him that it had all been a scheme to gain his sympathy. Vanessa was dead, and, search as he might, Hutch couldn’t find a shred of grief to offer her memory. The only emotion he could feel now was the trepidation for what trouble Vanessa would cause him by the circumstances of her death.

Starsky released him just short of the bathroom door, gave his neck a squeeze and his shoulder a little push in the right direction. “And while you’re at it, brush your teeth. Don’t wanna hafta explain to Dobey, or whoever shows up, why I fed you booze at seven o’clock in the morning.”

Hutch’s stunned brain latched onto the anomaly that he had been too shell-shocked to notice while the liquor had been sliding down his throat. “Why?” he asked, stubbornly refusing to be nudged into the bathroom until Starsky explained. “You never let me have a drink when I need it.”

“I didn’t think you’d take polluted tea this time,” Starsky admitted, then shrugged, looking chagrined, embarrassed and defiant all at once. Hutch almost expected him to kick the toe of his sneaker against the carpet. “Guess I watch too many old westerns,” he mumbled, then, defiance finally winning out over the other two. “Isn’t that what they always do with a festering wound?” he asked softly, his grip on Hutch’s neck tight.

Slowly, Hutch nodded his understanding. Starsky logic, and, God help him, after less than twelve hours in Vanessa’s company, it made perfect sense to him. His failed marriage, the wasted love and Vanessa’s hateful abandonment had been festering deep in his soul for so long that it would take more than a shot of brandy to purge her.

Hutch allowed himself to be pushed through the door.

“Go pull yourself together, partner. I’ll take care of the rest,” Starsky promised.

~*~*~

Starsky shifted carefully on Huggy’s easy chair, freezing when it creaked loudly and Hutch, stretched out on the adjacent couch, murmured softly. It was too dark to see, but Starsky heard his partner twitching as he was almost pulled from his restless sleep. If Hutch didn’t need some kind of sleep, Starsky would wake him, deliver him from his nightmarish hell as he hoped, tomorrow, to deliver him from the waking one Vanessa’s murder had plunged them into.

But Hutch did need his sleep, and so did Starsky. Needed to be clear eyed and clear headed tomorrow when he tackled Wheeler. They both had to be as sharp as a couple of brass tacks if they hoped to outfox the murderous fence and keep both their asses out of San Quentin. So, he should be sleeping. Huggy’s snoring and Hutch’s persistent murmuring were excuse enough for his restlessness, but Starsky knew the blame for his insomnia couldn’t be laid at either friend’s door. He was too keyed up, his coming performance too important for him to be able to tuck it away and let sleep claim him with his usual ease.

“No.”

Without moving his body, Starsky stretched out his neck toward his partner, trying to see through the darkness. Trying to judge whether the depth of Hutch’s distress warranted waking him. Was no sleep better than hours of riding an unrelenting nightmare?

“Hutch?” Starsky whispered it. If Hutch was awake, then the whisper was loud enough. If he wasn’t, maybe just the sound of his voice entering his dreams would be enough to turn the path of those dreams, let Hutch know he needn’t stumble through the horrorscape alone.

“Yeah?” Hutch whispered back.

So Hutch was already awake, and, from the tone of his voice, haunted.

“It’s gonna work out,” Starsky reassured him, because Starsky firmly believed that it was. One way or the other, Hutch wasn’t going to suffer any more than he already had for the crime of being a nice guy.

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Hutch muttered darkly.

“Damn straight,” Starsky agreed, pretending he hadn’t heard the doubt and sarcasm.

Starsky heard the couch creak and groan almost as much as his partner as Hutch turned over. “Starsky, you’re impossible.”

“Thought you and Terry decided I was only improbable,” Starsky reminded him, remembering that first dinner with the woman who, had circumstances been different, might have been his wife, and the man who already owned a very large piece of his heart.

“Oh, yeah,” Hutch murmured and Starsky knew he was remembering, too.

Starsky felt almost as if the two of them were alone in the world. It was dark and it was so quiet. Too quiet. Huggy wasn’t snoring anymore, and Starsky wondered if their mutual friend was awake and listening.

“Starsk?”

“Uh, huh?” Starsky invited.

“How did you know? That I didn’t kill Vanessa? You didn’t…hesitate…didn’t doubt—”

“‘Course I knew,” Starsky gently overrode Hutch’s fumbling for words. As if he could doubt Hutch for the time it took to take even one breath.

“How?” Hutch insisted, and Starsky could feel the pleading gaze even if he couldn’t see it.

“Ah, Hutch. Don’t do this to yourself,” he groaned, knowing his partner was lost in the rat’s maze self-analysis could make of the certainties Hutch should have. Sometimes, Starsky wished that Hutch’s Grandpa Daneborg had lived closer when he was growing up. Every kid needed someone who loved them unreservedly. It would have made Starsky’s job of being that one person now so much easier if Hutch had already known what it was like to be loved like that and could recognize it. Easy or hard, however, it was a position that Starsky could hardly imagine willingly giving up.

“How?” Hutch repeated. “Come on, motormouth.”

Starsky sighed. They needed light and they needed to touch. Anywhere else, he would have flicked on a lamp, climbed onto the couch and gathered his lost partner up in his arms. Not anywhere, of course, only in the safe haven of his or Hutch’s place. But certainly not here with Huggy listening from ten feet away.

“You trying to tell me you’d have doubted me?” he asked softly.

“No!” Hutch protested. “But….”

“Okay, Hutch, you need some words? I’ll give ’em to you, but don’t you start tellin’ me how corny I am,” Starsky warned as improbable inspiration struck.

“Starsk.”

Starsky could hear the warning in the tone and knew that Hutch was also aware of the extra pair of ears in the darkness.

“You remember that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk is on trial for negligence or something?” Starsky began, bracing himself for Hutch’s reaction.

“Star Trek?” Hutch echoed right on cue. “I’m…we’re up to our asses in alligators, and you’re quoting some hokey science fiction program at me?”

Distraction, distraction, distraction. It seemed to Starsky that he had spent half his time the last few months distracting Hutch from one set of doubts after another. Maybe it was about time he stopped distracting and started meeting them head on. If Hutch would let him, of course. But not tonight while the success or failure of tomorrow’s scheme hung over their heads.

“Well, you insisted,” he protested.

“Okay, Starsk. Explain to me how Captain Kirk told you I didn’t shoot my ex-wife,” Hutch invited, sounding exasperated, amused and long-suffering all at the same time.

“Not Captain Kirk, Spock,” Starsky corrected. “Spock tells the lady DA that he knows Kirk isn’t guilty. She wants to know how, if he didn’t see what Kirk did or didn’t do. Spock says somethin’ about not needing to see a hammer fall if he drops it to know it’ll hit the floor.”

“There’s a point to this, right? Please tell me there’s a point,” Hutch pleaded.

“Yeah, Hutch, there’s a point,” Starsky reassured him. “That after all the years I’ve known you, I didn’t need to see who pulled the trigger to know it wasn’t you.”

“You know, Starsk, this is really scary. I think I follow your reasoning,” Hutch whispered in mock horror.

Starsky pulled the toss cushion from behind his back and heaved it toward the couch. “Shut up and go to sleep,” he commanded.

The soft chuckles were music to Starsky’s ears as he listened to Hutch settling more comfortably on the couch. He pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, pushed his butt down into the worn cushion, and realized he would be able to sleep now, too.

“Hey, Starsky,” Huggy’s voice interrupted the silence that had just begun to settle in around them. “Everything I ever needed to know, I learned from watching Star Trek, huh?”

If Starsky had had a second cushion, he would have thrown it through the open bedroom door.

~*~*~

Hutch looked up from the untouched beer he had been gazing into as if it were a crystal ball. He watched his partner, who held a brimming shot glass in each hand, sit down on the opposite bench and dexterously butt-walk his way backward across it until he could lean up against the wall. And all without spilling a drop. Impressive. One of the glasses was placed gently on the table and carefully slid over the scarred surface until it rested beside his beer.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Hutch asked, giving the liquor the same, un-tasted scrutiny as his beer.

Starsky sipped cautiously from his glass, his eyes sharp on Hutch over the brim. “Celebration. I just beat Dobey. Defending the honor of the team. Rah, and all that,” he explained.

Hutch’s eyes wandered to the pool table where, it appeared, Dobey was now talking Huggy into a game. This was supposed to be a celebration, and, though intellectually he knew it was in honor of their escape from internment in San Quentin, it still seemed a little obscene to him. Not that he thought he ought to be wailing his non-existent grief for Vanessa, but the woman had, once, been his wife, and, he had believed at the time, the love of his life. All of which, of course, Starsky knew, Hutch realized as he met his partner’s concerned gaze.

“Still pouring whisky on festering wounds, are you, partner?” he asked without rancor. There were times when Starsky’s need to somehow always make everything right in Hutch’s corner of the world could be smothering. Tonight wasn’t one of those times. In fact, Starsky’s appearance was exactly what Hutch had been waiting for while he had been gazing, his brain idling away in neutral, into the uninformative depths of his beer. He was more than willing to accept the caring, but the glass he left sitting on the table.

“Talk to me, buddy,” Starsky encouraged him. “Tell me what’s on your alleged mind.”

“Besides conniving ex-wives, over-zealous IA officers and…” Hutch paused, made sure he had a good solid hold on Starsky’s gaze with his own while he offered his, he knew, unnecessary thanks, “…and partners who deserve the medal of honor.”

Starsky actually blushed. It made Hutch smile and lightened the load he had felt settle on his shoulders the minute he heard Vanessa’s voice on the telephone. Starsky didn’t blush much anymore; that was still Hutch’s fair-skinned curse.

“Lotta stuff for one brain to handle,” Starsky observed mildly, squirming just a little.

Hutch took pity on him and let the intensity ease, allowed Starsky’s gaze to roam to the billiards drama taking place across the room. “Dobey,” he observed, “is going to split a seam if he doesn’t make his shot soon.”

Starsky was studying him again. “Talk to me,” he repeated.

“Have I gotten old?” Hutch asked, feeling the squint his smile, in reaction to Starsky’s surprise, put around his eyes. “Vanessa said character suits me.” It seemed pretty cold that, rather than pity for Vanessa, he had been sitting here pondering his own mortality, but that was what had been circling around in his brain.

Starsky snorted inelegantly. “And here I thought the woman wouldn’t know a good thing if it sat up and bit her.”

Hutch took hold of his glass then, but didn’t pick it up. He just watched as his fingers turned the glass compulsively until a little of the liquor spilled over the side, wet his thumb and the table. “Not so much the angel anymore,” he murmured, his voice low, so low he half-hoped Starsky wouldn’t hear. Self-pity was such an ugly, petty little emotion. But Vanessa had looked so damned beautiful, so unchanged from the woman who had abandoned him, while he….

The silence lasted so long that Hutch finally had to look up, risk seeing what he didn’t want to see in his partner’s face. But there was nothing in Starsky’s familiar features to read but fond affection.

“Time marches on, sweetheart. Doesn’t mean we have to let it trample all over us,” Starsky observed.

“Careful, Starsk. You don’t want to tempt me to start taking risks again,” Hutch warned, warmed all the way down to the small icy spot labeled Vanessa that lived in his heart. “What would Dobey and Huggy think if they looked over and saw us holding hands?”

Starsky was watching the pool game again, but there was a reminiscent smile playing around his lips. “Did it once right in the squadroom. Remember? The roof didn’t cave in.”

That day seemed like such a long time ago, now, but it still had the power to send a shudder of terror slashing its way into Hutch’s chest. Impulsively, he reached out and found Starsky’s hand also seeking his in the middle of the table. Their fingers entwined, squeezed once, then retreated, while Hutch’s world settled back onto a little more stable axis.

But there was an anger in him now, a resentment of the powers that be, even Dobey, who could dismiss the years of service, of sacrifice, that he and Starsky had given. A record of outstanding service hadn’t seemed to mean much when compared to a load of circumstantial evidence. Except to his partner.

“If I’m not careful,” he observed, fighting to find another dark corner to tuck yet another bitter memory into. How much more room was there for such memories? How long before, combined, they consumed him? “You’re going to be stealing my white knight title,” he teased, chasing the questions away along with the memories.

It was a joke. At least, Hutch had meant it to be, but he could see that Starsky didn’t think it was funny. The relaxed sprawl disappeared as Starsky swiveled, both feet coming down onto the floor and the long body suddenly leaning intently toward him.

“You’re always gonna be my white knight, Hutch. Time and trouble are never gonna change that,” Starsky declared fiercely. “Doesn’t matter what shit the world throws at you, babe. You’re always gonna shine.”

It was a hell of a testimonial to live up to, and Hutch had never been sure if he could or ever had lived up to Starsky’s opinion of him. All he really knew was that Starsky loved him, didn’t somehow, despite all the years, see how very flawed he truly was. “I’ll always try,” Hutch promised.

Starsky winked at him then, pushed his half-empty glass into the middle of the table and slid out of the booth. “Come on, partner. Time you and me went home. As I recall, there’s a hell of a mess waiting at your place. Again.”

Obligingly, Hutch left the booth and started for the door, feeling Starsky’s reassuring presence close at his back as they waved their goodbyes to Huggy and Dobey.

“Which reminds me,” Starsky added. “Think it’s about time you put your key on your key ring, babe.”

Maybe he would do just that, Hutch decided as they walked out the door. There was only one person he wanted to have easy access to his life, and Starsky already had the key.

 

The Games People Play

“Wonderful stories?” Starsky echoed. “You wanna hear wonderful stories?” he asked sarcastically, red-faced with fury, his hands gesturing sharply to emphasize every angry word. “I’ll tell you a wonderful story about a wonderful partner who sat in this wonderful bed, worrying about—”

Shame goading him into a self-protective defense, Hutch sat up, pulling his hand from the sling to jab his own emphasis. “Well, maybe you’ll think about this the next time—”

“What in the world is going on in here?” the night nurse demanded as she pushed open the door to their room. “There are sick people trying to rest in this hospital.”

Starsky’s head swiveled, his angry, outraged glare moving from Hutch to the nurse and back again, while Hutch braced himself for the deluge of professional disdain that would come down on his head when Starsky revealed what he had done. He saw Starsky bite his lip, watched as very nearly visible reins were pulled up on his friend’s justified fury.

“Sorry,” Starsky finally offered with what Hutch assumed was supposed to be a scapegrace grin. “Just getting a little frustrated, I guess.”

“Well, this is no way to behave with someone who is already suffering the trauma of amnesia,” the woman chastised Starsky. “If I had another room available, I’d move you right now so Officer Hutchinson—”

Hutch couldn’t stand it. After what he had done, Starsky was still covering for him. His partner was standing there, meek and mild, while this old bat gave him an undeserved chewing out.

“I was faking it!” Hutch blurted, pushing up off the bed to stand at Starsky’s shoulder. He took in his partner’s shock, and then, to satisfy the masochist in him, repeated it. Quieter, slowly, and with some elaboration. “I was faking it. I never lost my memory.”

It was almost worth the coming humiliation just to see the woman gaping at him like a gaffed fish. But that was only part of his reward, Hutch realized, when he looked at Starsky and saw a small spark of pride in his eyes. Pride? Of course. Starsky was always proud of him when he did the right thing, whatever his motives, and however belated.

“I… I’ll have to inform Dr. Green of this in the morning,” the nurse muttered when her shock began to fade. “Perhaps I should call him now and…and expose this charade.”

Hutch sank down onto his bed as Starsky circled the end of his, hustling up to the outraged nurse. “Now, no sense in bothering the doctor tonight. Besides, remember my partner here is pretty banged up and well….”

Hutch buried his face in his hands, tuning out the rest of Starsky’s soothing bullshit, remembering only as he cupped his burning cheeks how much his hand still hurt. He had forgotten the pain, or at least ignored it, while he had been waving a rigid finger under Starsky’s nose, but he remembered it now as pain radiated outward from his wrist to his elbow and fingertips. Contrarily, he didn’t tuck his arm back into the sling, but pressed his fingers harder into his forehead and let the pain bum through him. He deserved it. That and more. He deserved Starsky’s fury, not the protective defense Starsky was running with the nurse that saw her hustled out of the room before, quite possibly, she realized what was happening.

Hutch heard the squeak of the metal frame as Starsky climbed up onto his bed, dropped his hands and looked at his partner. That was what he deserved. Starsky looking at him as if he were a particularly loathsome form of insect. Something with a hundred legs that dropped unexpectedly out of a dark comer down your tucked-in shirt.

“Starsk, I’m sorry,” he offered, further ashamed to realize that he wasn’t sure if this was the first time he had said it.

“Shut up,” Starsky commanded and lay down with his back to Hutch, then reached up to pull the string to douse the over-head light.

Couldn’t get any clearer than that, Hutch thought. Moving as quietly as he could, Hutch also eased onto his bed and turned off the light over his head. He trapped the hiss of pain behind clenched teeth as he tucked his hand back in the sling and tried to convince himself to go to sleep. Uh, huh. That was possible. With Starsky’s silence lashing him with guilt and his own conscience, making a second belated appearance, getting in plenty of licks of its own.

Hospitals weren’t quiet places, even at night. There was always someone walking in the corridor, new patients arriving amid the clatter and crash of gurneys, and the muted scream of sirens from emergency. No wonder the nurses pushed the sleeping pills. The pretty one on afternoons had asked both him and Starsky if they wanted one. Starsky, who could sleep at a rock concert, had refused, and Hutch, who never took a drug he didn’t have to since Forest, had as well. Hutch wished he had accepted it now, and he bet Starsky did, too. He knew his partner wasn’t sleeping because there was no snoring amid the other sounds keeping Hutch miserably awake.

They forgot to close the blind. Their room looked down onto the parking lot that, of course, was lit up by about a thousand light standards. Wouldn’t want to encourage a thief to make off with someone’s car just for the sake of making things a little more comfortable for the suffering patients. He should have rented a television. At least then he would have something to listen to besides Starsky not snoring, not shifting around looking for a comfortable spot on the terminally uncomfortable mattress, and not speaking to him.

Acutely aware of every sound Starsky was making, Hutch realized with the kind of horrified fascination some people felt for the scene of a fatality, that his partner was crying. He struggled to sit back up, but by the time he had made it to the side of his bed and turned the light back on, the sound had been going on long enough for Hutch to realize that it wasn’t tears he was hearing from Starsky’s shadowy side of the room. It was laughter.

“Starsk?” he whispered, unable to believe his ears or his interpretation.

Without answering him, and no longer trying to suppress the sounds of his mirth, Starsky rolled over and sat up to face him.

Face to face with Starsky, there was no doubt about it. Starsky was definitely laughing, even if he was wearing an expression that said he was amused despite himself. “Geez, Hutch. You really do have the weirdest sense of humor. Never thought even you would come up with faked amnesia. Shit, didn’t know you were such a good actor you could even fool me. Gotta hand it to you, though. You really pulled it off.”

There was grudging admiration in Starsky’s tone that Hutch could hardly credit until he remembered that, on the whole, Starsky knew how to take a joke, however questionable. But Hutch also knew that sometimes beneath the jovial, accepting façade, hid hurt feelings. Relieved as he was that Starsky’s initial anger seemed to have passed, Hutch needed to be sure his friend understood how truly remorseful he was.

“Starsk. I really am….”

“Don’t say it again, Hutch,” Starsky cut in, the last traces of unwillingness disappearing from his amusement. “You don’t do humble worth a damn.”

That prompted an equally unwilling grunt of laughter from Hutch, but he didn’t know exactly what else he could say. He felt an urgent need to keep them talking despite the fact that Starsky had already spent most of the day talking. Starsky saved him the trouble.

“I’m sorry I got you hurt,” Starsky offered his apology in turn.

Hutch could feel the blue eyes touching each and every scrape and bruise on his face. The cherishing caress that was so full of caring, it should have been able to cause a miraculous healing all on its own. “You almost killed us,” he countered, but softly, because it was no excuse. When the situation called for it, they had both risked life and limb in the course of their duty. Starsky had recalled one incident when Hutch had been the maniac behind the wheel, but there had been others.

“If you were gonna bitch about my driving,” Starsky groused, “don’t you think you should’ve done it about six years ago?”

“I did,” Hutch reminded him, offering a small smile that hurt his face like hell. But it was a good kind of hurt, a healing hurt. Maybe it was his turn to play ‘let’s remember.’ “Remember the time I asked Dobey for hazard pay? That first chase after you bought the Tomato?”

Starsky returned the smile, but Hutch could see the two of them had done enough wandering in the past for one day. Better to stick with the here and now. “I was just mad, Starsk.”

Starsky gave a little nod of understanding that could only come from the fact he had a temper of his own that could sometimes lead him into unwise actions.

“You were pissed off before you even got in the car,” Starsky said, a shrug and a sheepish grimace offered to acknowledge his contribution to Hutch’s ill temper. “Guess I didn’t help matters, goin’ on about the car. You never were too fond of the Torino.”

“Brilliant deduction,” Hutch muttered, knowing they were on more certain ground when Starsky gave him an opening like that to insult his ego machine. If the truth were told, most of the time, Hutch never even thought about it anymore. The Torino was just Starsky’s car. As much a part of his partner’s style as his curls, his worn leather jacket and blue Adidas. No more eccentric than Hutch’s preference for his beat-up old heap.

“Is it the job, Hutch?” Starsky asked with the insight that often delved into Hutch when even Hutch didn’t know what was eating at him. “I know the way IA jerked you around over Vanessa’s murder pissed you off. Seems like you’ve been sort’ve…simmering since then.”

“Yeah,” Hutch admitted. “Dobey, too, sometimes. I know he came through for us in the end, but…” Hutch trailed off, unwilling to give voice to the humiliation he had felt when Dobey had demanded his gun and badge.

“Guess it’s kinda hard to keep riskin’ your ass for truth, justice and the American way when it isn’t reciprocal,” Starsky observed with understanding that Hutch knew came from experience. IA and/or the department had tried to roast Starsky alive more than once.

“Starsky, is it still worth it to you?” Hutch asked. It felt like such a loaded question to him. Being cops wasn’t just what they did, it was who they were, and it scared the hell out of him to find himself questioning that commitment. To be looking for, perhaps even hoping to find, that same uncertainty in Starsky.

To Hutch’s relief, Starsky gave the question serious consideration before he answered. Hutch was willing to wait for it, more than willing to sit half the night and watch Starsky compulsively pleat and then smooth and then re-pleat the hem of the hospital gown he wore if that was what it took. He didn’t want an off the cuff reassurance, he wanted the clearest truth Starsky could give him.

“Yes,” Starsky finally said simply, looking up as he repeated it even more firmly. “Yes. I know you and me don’t look on what we do the same way. We never did. We’ve always traveled the same highway, side by side, but in different lanes. I didn’t ever want to fix the whole world like you did, Hutch. I’m happy if I can just keep some of the shit out of a few of the corners I take care of.” A second pause, this one shorter, as if Starsky was giving one last review to the paths of personal logic he had followed to bring him to his conclusion. “So, yeah. The job is still worth it.”

It was a pretty straightforward answer, but it was the expression on Starsky’s face that let Hutch know it wasn’t all the reason behind Starsky’s willingness to climb out of bed every morning and do the job whatever it threw at them. There was pride and satisfaction in that face Hutch knew came from their partnership alone.

Silence fell as it often did between them when Starsky opened up like this, but it wasn’t, Hutch was relieved to feel, that awkward silence that had been sneaking in and setting up housekeeping between them all day as if it had squatter’s rights. It had a quality that usually meant Starsky had something more to say and was looking for the words. Hutch was again content to wait. So many ghosts, both welcome and unwelcome, had been invited to visit by Starsky’s stroll down memory lane that Hutch couldn’t begin to guess just what his partner might still need to talk about.

“You know, Hutch. I can understand how this whole thing started, but why’d you let it go on so long?” Starsky paused, his expression hopeful. “Was it just that once everybody knew, you didn’t know how to stop it without ending up with egg all over your face?”

Hutch hesitated. He knew why he had let it go on, but now it was his turn to grope for words.

“Come on, Hutch,” Starsky prompted him. “Whatever it is, you might as well tell me now instead of letting it bite your butt and make us both miserable for a few months.”

It was Hutch’s turn now to be fascinated by an inanimate object, straightening the edge of the sling until it lay just so across the back of his right hand. It kept his eyes from seeing the waiting on Starsky’s face, but it couldn’t stop him from feeling it in the small space that separated them. Starsky had a right to know, and his friend was also right. The knowledge would eat at him if only because Starsky had asked and Hutch refused to tell.

“I guess,” Hutch began, hesitated, then forced himself to amend the claim of uncertainty. “No, I know. I was waiting for you to say something about Fridays.” Hutch gave up on the sling then, looking up, giving Starsky his face to read and trying to interpret the caution on Starsky’s. “Waiting for you to call me sweetheart.” That part he whispered, feeling almost as if he were invoking some forbidden spirit into this inappropriate place of un-lockable doors and intrusive staff. He had waited all through the day for Starsky to be the one to speak the incantation, to call forth the strongest sensory memories between them. Surely, his partner must know, just as Hutch did, that even if his mind really was capable of forgetting, his body could never lay aside the memory of Starsky’s touch.

This was a subject that was seldom mentioned between them, except within the strict framework of their rules. Hutch had expected a reluctance or hesitation to match his in bringing it into this public place. That Starsky replied immediately was proof he had already given the thought plenty of consideration.

“For thirty out of every thirty-one days, Hutch, you’re my partner and my friend.”

The answer, the heartfelt tone of Starsky’s voice and the straightforward meeting of eyes he offered with it, should have been a balm to Hutch’s battered spirit. It wasn’t. It stung. A biting little green-eyed whiplash of pain inside him. How stupid and petty could he be, to be jealous of himself? Especially when, asked the same question, honesty would force him to give the same reply. Or would it? For years, Hutch had believed that if he had to put partnership and friendship on a scale of worth against their part-time sexual indulgence, the outcome would be heavily one-sided. He wasn’t so sure anymore if the two needs weren’t of, at least, equal importance to him now. That the balance was still so certainly one-sided for Starsky was…disconcerting.

“Besides,” Starsky added, giving Hutch an excuse to banish his uneasy thoughts. “All banged up the way you are, it would’ve been hard for prince charming to kiss the sleeping angel awake.” A comical leer and wriggle of heavy brows made Hutch laugh. “I’ll have to make it up to you the next last Friday. When we’re both fit as a fiddle and ready for fun,” he promised.

‘Love,’ Hutch corrected silently, but didn’t say aloud because love wasn’t what last Fridays were for. Love was what Starsky was giving him now in the form of unqualified forgiveness and understanding. The promise itself, however, aroused him, pumped a little adrenaline into his veins. It wasn’t enough to cause that jittery, move-now-or-explode feeling; just enough to make his skin tingle and heighten his sensory awareness of Starsky. Enough to tempt him into playing the dangerous game of out of season seduction. But he had promised himself not to start that shit again.

“And speaking of making up,” Starsky said, for a second time rescuing Hutch’s mind from where it should not be wandering. “Did you have to shovel it on so thick with Dobey? You better be ready to do some serious ass-kissing there, Sergeant unless we want to spend the next ten years tellin’ snot-nosed little brats to look both ways.”

“We?” Hutch echoed, understanding the plural, but needing to hear it from Starsky. A last confirmation that he was forgiven without reservation.

“Of course, we,” Starsky scoffed. “Me and thee, babe. Like always.”

~*~*~

“I just can’t believe the incompetence. Did you see that scene? It wasn’t even taped off properly. If there was any evidence to be had around that cab, you can bet it’s been contaminated by every Tom, Dick and Harry on-looker who wanted to get close enough to gawk at that dead cabbie.”

Starsky sighed. A very quiet sigh as Hutch made the left-hand turn onto Main Street, while Starsky mentally counted the stoplights between here and the station. Hutch was really full of it today. He had been ranting from the minute they climbed back into the car for the trip to Metro. If they didn’t have to report the results of their preliminary investigation of the murder of the third cabbie to Dobey, Starsky would be tempted to get out and walk. Despite the fact that the windows were rolled down, he felt like the LTD was one very tiny, air-tight tin can and Hutch was busy using up all the oxygen with his bitching. Starsky didn’t understand it. Hutch had seemed okay when he arrived to pick him up this morning, and appeared even-tempered on the way to the call. It wasn’t until… Starsky sought for the moment, but couldn’t find it with Hutch’s grousing in his ear.

“No damned perimeter to speak of, and what there was, was too far out from the—”

“Hutch,” Starsky interrupted. He didn’t necessarily disagree with Hutch, he just felt it would be better to put it in a report that might prompt a superior officer to do something, than to go on and on uselessly about it now.

“What?” Hutch snapped, the glare that had been focused out the window relocating its laser lock on Starsky’s left ear. Starsky didn’t need to see it; he could feel it there, almost burning through his hair to singe the lobe. Fortunately for his ear, Hutch had to turn his attention back to the road.

“Your shorts too tight today or something?” Starsky asked, knowing he risked pulling the pin on the hand grenade of Hutch’s temper, but deciding it was better Hutch exploded here at him than in Dobey’s office. Dobey was still a little touchy with Hutch after the amnesia insults, and Hutch couldn’t seem to get the idea that sarcastic near-insubordination was probably not the best way to get back on the captain’s good side.

“What are you babbling about?” Hutch demanded.

“You’ve been walking around like somebody’s got your balls in a vice ever since we arrived at the scene. Takin’ pot shots at everybody. Surprised you haven’t started in on me yet,” Starsky said. He knew he was inviting Hutch to let fly even if he had to make something up. Personally, Starsky couldn’t think of anything he had done to merit it, but it wouldn’t be the first time he had made the invitation just to vent Hutch’s spleen. He knew something had been priming the pump of Hutch’s discontent lately, but hadn’t yet pried out of him or been able to divine for himself, what it was.

“Now that you mention it…” Hutch began with, it seemed to Starsky, unusually fine relish, “…do you always have to zero in on anything in a skirt? Even a cheap hooker?”

“Cheap?” Starsky echoed, hoping to inject a bit of humor that would coax Hutch out of his foul mood. “I’ll bet that down-home honey demands at least the going rate.”

“You oughta know,” Hutch muttered.

Starsky knew he wasn’t meant to hear that part so he ignored it. Hutch wasn’t really accusing him of frequenting hookers. Hutch was doing exactly what Starsky had hoped, so he didn’t take it personally.

“And you really need to watch it with Baker,” Hutch went on with his unfounded accusations.

“Baker?” Starsky echoed, this one coming at him from so far out in left field he hadn’t even seen an incoming speck on the horizon. Hutch was the one taking young-and-eager Baker’s report. Starsky had hardly exchanged five sentences with the blond rookie.

“Oh yeah, babe,” Hutch said with the air of a man whose advice should be heeded. “If you’re not more careful around him, he’s either going to develop a fatal crush on you or turn you in for sexual harassment. Exhaust pipe, indeed.”

The red light at the last intersection before the station gave Hutch another opportunity to take his eyes off the road and glare his displeasure at Starsky, who, suddenly, could almost see the green-eyed monster perched on Hutch’s shoulder.

“Christ, Hutch. You’re acting like a j—” Starsky cut himself off, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if Hutch told him a light bulb had suddenly appeared above his head. Hutch was acting like a jealous lover, or one of those insanely possessive husbands, Starsky realized. But that couldn’t be. Could it? There wasn’t time for him to think it through, and this certainly wasn’t the place to blurt it out in any case, but Starsky was going to have to give that some thought. Could Hutch be falling in love with him? He didn’t dare even let that question stay in his head beyond the split second it took to form. Later, he promised, as he tucked away the possibility that seemed so improbable.

“Like a jerk,” Starsky belatedly completed his sentence.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hutch capitulated suddenly, as if he had heard the original thought and wasn’t buying the substitution even at bargain basement prices. “Sorry. Maybe my shorts are too tight today.”

The light turned green and Hutch had to return his attention to the road. Starsky cursed the timing that robbed him of a clear view of Hutch’s face just then, because the big blond continued in a tone that was guaranteed to light Starsky’s fire.

“But if they are, it’s all your fault,” Hutch accused. “Don’t you own a pair of pants you don’t have to be poured into?”

Don’t start that shit again. Starsky shot the command along that mental connection he and Hutch seemed to share, hoping Hutch would get the message with the actual silence he offered to the accusation. The last thing they needed was for Hutch to start playing fast and loose with the rules again. Then again… For the second or third time in fewer minutes, Starsky tucked an idea way with the promise that he would revisit it later. But not too much later.

~*~*~

With patience few people would believe him capable of, Starsky carefully wove the black thread into delicate rigging on his latest model ship. It was fine, painstaking work of tiny knots and taut string that could usually push away all outside considerations in favor of the concentration necessary to set it just right.

Almost. Almost. A gusty sigh escaped Starsky as the string wrapped around his pinkie slipped at the last second and the knot he was tying ended up too far down the matchstick-thin mast.

He let the rest of the thread slide off his fingers and sat back in his chair, flexing his cramped hand. He rubbed his palm over his face and then back through the curls still damp from the shower he had taken to rid himself of the lemon meringue pie Hutch’s ex-girlfriend had thrown at him. Girlfriend, Starsky corrected himself. If Hutch’s teasing, flirting behavior tonight was anything to go by.

Starsky was trying to be pragmatic about his dashed hopes that Hutch could be falling in love with him, but it wasn’t easy. Hutch’s ever-worsening mood when Starsky had been flirting with the pretty, cab-driving, country and western singer from Rhode Island on their last case, had given Starsky hope that his theory might have some basis in fact. His partner’s out of proportion anger at Starsky’s strictly business discussion with Chickee yesterday had seemed yet more evidence. Hutch certainly seemed to have a real problem with Starsky having anything to do with pretty blonds, male or female. However, Hutch’s determined pursuit of Laura’s attention had certainly shot that theory down in flames.

Starsky sighed again, visually attempting to sort out the cat’s cradle of black thread on the deck of the model, not even trying to avoid the thought that the tangle seemed a mocking illustration of his relationship with Hutch. He really needed to stop sighing like some heroine in a sappy romance novel. Even if Hutch was the only hero he had left, there was no way Starsky could imagine himself as one of those bosom-heaving heroines.

Besides, it wasn’t really the vapors giving him a case of the perpetual sighs, it was the demanding monster throbbing away in his shorts. If only Hector Salidas’ ship had come in one day later. If only he hadn’t picked the Kanen house as his lair to cower in. Then Starsky would be happily humping the object of his lust, love and devotion instead of sitting here making wishes on stars that hadn’t even come out yet.

Pragmatic be damned. Starsky was pissed off and frustrated and disappointed that his theory hadn’t seemed to have a thread of fact in it after all. He was wasting his time sitting here courting a case of blue balls to add to the rest of his misery, when he ought to just jerk off and get it over with.

Starsky knew as soon as he heard the knock on the door who it was. He tried to tell himself it couldn’t possibly be. If Hutch was fucking anyone tonight, it would be Laura Kanen. But his heart knew. Or maybe it was his cock. In either case, it took him only a second to reach the door and pull it open.

“Hi,” Hutch said with that Friday night angel smile that, if Starsky hadn’t been hard already, would have raised his cock from the dead.

Still, Starsky stood in the doorway, knowing he was staring stupidly at this so unexpected gift a very early Santa had dropped on his doorstep.

“Are you going to let me in? Or are you planning on putting on a show for the neighbors?” Hutch asked, a wave of his hand indicating the hard-on that was clearly outlined in the front of Starsky’s skintight, white shorts.

“Just surprised to see you,” Starsky said, gathering the wit to step back into the apartment. Hutch followed him, pulling him into eager arms before Starsky had even flipped the door closed behind them. “I thought…” The kiss Hutch gave him then, whether because Starsky hadn’t expected any or because it was even more hungry and demanding than usual, took his breath away in a second and didn’t give it back until Hutch’s lips made their lingering departure.

“Thought what?” Hutch husked, his lips brushing Starsky’s with each syllable.

“The way you were flirting with Laura…” Starsky murmured, loving the way his mouth felt moving against Hutch’s, almost as if he were speaking the words right into Hutch.

But Hutch drew away then, the expression on his face and the desire in his eyes telling Starsky what he maybe should have realized all along. Should have remembered from other last Fridays when they had teased each other all day long. Hutch’s flirting hadn’t been meant to woo Laura Kanen into his bed. Its sole purpose had been to titillate Starsky. To work them both into a fever pitch of lust before they even came together.

Hutch was nuzzling into his hair now, lips nibbling at the shorter hairs of Starsky’s sideburns before moving on to his cheek. A wet tongue slid along the arc of his cheekbone, continued down the slope of his cheek to his chin, then lapped its way back up before Hutch spoke again.

“When she hit you with the pie,” Hutch whispered. “Oh, God, Starsk. It was all I could do not to lick it off you right in front of them.”

Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, Starsky’s cherished hopes and theories were reborn. They swelled in him so strongly that he had to make light of the moment or risk spewing them out there and then. Not yet, instinct warned him. Jump too soon and the brass ring of Hutch’s love would slip right through his fingers. He had to bide his time, maybe even buy into the game of seduction that Hutch played too often for their good, and keep hoping Hutch was moving in the right direction.

Starsky lifted his arms that, he realized only then, had been hanging uselessly at his sides, and threaded his fingers into the long satin of Hutch’s bright hair. “Geez, Hutch. All this time and I never knew you had a kink for food sex.”

Hutch’s sexy laughter vibrated from the lips that were pressed to the nerve center behind Starsky’s ear right into his central nervous system, fanning out in every direction.

“Sure you did,” Hutch reminded him. “Orange juice. Remember?”

They had always been able to seduce each other with words and memories, and this one, Starsky found as it sizzled through him, was particularly powerful, harking back as it did to that very first night. The encounter that was to be the one and only of its kind and had, instead, given birth to over nine years of sensual delight.

Hutch had worked his way down to his throat now, and Starsky knew when he spoke, the vibration would do to Hutch through those teasing lips what Hutch’s earlier words had done to him. He relished the anticipation for a moment, let Hutch wait just a heartbeat for what he knew was coming, then, “Think there’s some whip cream in the fridge.”

Hutch groaned, then laughed, coming up out of his hiding place, those cool, china blue eyes hot with desire and his face sharp-edged with need. “Oh, no, babe,” he denied their need for anything so mundane as sexy aids. “That isn’t the kind of cream I’m interested in at all tonight.”

~*~*~

It was only 7:22 on the first day of Hutch’s summer vacation, but he wasn’t sleeping. He was standing in front of the mirror, trying to talk himself into going back to bed. It was useless. He had awakened precisely at 7:00, despite the fact that he hadn’t set the alarm and had been up late visiting with Starsky. That was what had awakened him, Hutch was sure. The flight Starsky had booked had taken off at 7:00 and Hutch could almost believe that it was the roar of the jet engines overhead that had awakened him as they carried Starsky east for his annual two-week vacation with his mother.

No, not two weeks. Only twelve days. Hutch closed his eyes, letting the warm memory pass through his mind.

“That’s right, Ma. I’ll be arriving on the eighteenth and flying back here on the thirtieth. “

It was Starsky’s usual Friday night call to his mother, this time to confirm his travel arrangements. Hutch deliberately hadn’t been looking at his partner. The sight of Starsky holding a phone, the way he cradled the receiver in his palm, his fingers wrapping possessively around it, had the most amazing effect on Hutch’s breathing. It always made him think of the way his lover held his face as he kissed him, especially when Starsky was at his most tender. The way the palm cradled his chin and the fingers fanned out to delicately claim possession of his cheek and jaw. It was definitely a sight to be avoided when relief was seven weeks away. This year, Starsky had had to settle for the last two weeks of July for his trip.

The mention of the dates, however, caught Hutch’s attention. The thirtieth? That was the last Friday of July. Starsky was supposed to be staying until the Sunday after that. He always flew home from New York on the Sunday and then staggered his way, jet lagged and dopey, through the first day back on the job on Monday. The discrepancy brought Hutch’s head up from his disinterested study of the TV guide to find Starsky watching him. It took Hutch a moment to interpret the hesitant, hopeful expression on the familiar face.

“Yeah, Ma. I know it’s only twelve days, ” Starsky said into the phone, but those eyes continued to look for something from Hutch.

Approval, Hutch wondered? He offered a hesitant nod and then a more confident smile when Starsky’s eyes lit up. “Early Friday flight?” he mouthed silently and received a lecherous grin and a sweeping appraisal of his shorts and t-shirt clad body as his reward for guessing right.

“It’s the jet lag, Ma, ” Starsky continued to make excuses to his mother, the bullshit sliding off his tongue with the ease of the memorized Miranda phrases. “Think I’m getting too old to fly all day and work the next. Not safe for me or Hutch. Early flight on Friday will give me all day Saturday and Sunday to adjust. All night Friday to…sleep. “

Oh, yeah, they would sleep when Starsky got home. And the tooth fairy really did leave quarters for rotten little baby teeth, Hutch thought. He snorted at the cynicism and told it to get lost. He wasn’t in the mood to feel cynical even if he did have two weeks—no, twelve days—of Starskyless existence to fill. It was also work-free existence, and Hutch had already made his plans. A day or two or three with Kiko and Molly, lots of time to paint, hours to play his guitar or stroll on the beach.

And anticipate Starsky’s return on the last Friday of the month. Look forward to the end of days empty of even Starsky’s friendship with a night full of Starsky’s passion.

Hutch met the unfocused eyes in the mirror and saw his desire for his partner there. Whew! By the time Starsky came back, Hutch would be ready to jump him at the door.

“What’s so unusual about that?” Hutch asked his horny reflection. “You’re always ready to dry hump him against the front door.”

Especially lately. Since the games had begun. A few weeks ago, now. Hutch wasn’t even sure which one of them had started it. Was it him—falling victim to the same temptation that had driven him for months before Vanessa’s murder? Or was it Starsky—suddenly, for reasons Hutch hadn’t wanted to search for, pushing the limits of the rules he had previously enforced so strictly?

The truth of the matter was that Hutch didn’t give a flying fuck who, why or when the teasing, flirting, seductive games had begun. He only knew he loved it. The job that had become increasingly aggravating suddenly held a whole new attraction. He climbed out of bed eagerly every morning now, anxiously anticipating what new adventure of hiding in plain sight the day might bring. Friendly challenges had always been a part of his and Starsky’s relationship, along with the seemingly insulting banter that had always puzzled their colleagues. Now that they were imbued with sexual tension, however, they had become a heady drag Hutch lived for.

But he wouldn’t be receiving his next fix for twelve days, Hutch reminded himself. In the meantime….

Hutch picked up the can of shaving cream and shot foam into his left hand, thinking of meringue in dark curls and the offer of whip cream. He shook his head to clear away the memories. He had to pay attention, at least long enough to shave, or he would cut his own throat.

After dabbing the white foam on jaw, chin and neck, Hutch’s hand hesitated, hovering over his upper lip.

“Hmmm,” he hummed, as he considered the fine stubble between his nose and his lip. Should he or shouldn’t he? He had threatened/promised once to grow a mustache. Had considered it seriously a time or two since. But that scruffy, growing in stage, when his job demanded that he appear at least semi-acceptable, had held him back. Two weeks away from work ought to see it fairly well started, even with his comparatively light beard.

What would Starsky think? Hutch wondered, as he considered the interesting possibilities. Would he love it or hate it? There was only one way to find out, he decided, rinsed the remaining foam from his hand and picked up the razor.

If Starsky truly hated it, Hutch could always shave it off.

~*~*~

Starsky bounded up the stairs to Hutch’s apartment, rapped a cocky tattoo on the door and waited impatiently. His flight from New York had touched down not even two hours ago, but anticipation had sped him through baggage claim, prompted him to promise a big tip to the cabbie if he delivered him home in record time, and flew him through a shower so fast the water had barely wet his body. His refrigerator remained empty and his luggage, except for the removal of Hutch’s presents, stood untouched beside his front door. They could wait; his need for Hutch couldn’t.

“Come on in, Starsk. The door’s open.”

Starsky didn’t question the anomaly of Hutch not coming to the door on the last Friday, he just let himself in, leaning back against the closing door, his fingers fumbling for the cool metal of the lock and flicking it on. There, for the next few hours, the world was locked out and he and Hutch were locked in together. His eyes scanned the home as familiar to him as his own, seeking his lover and not finding him. The sound of running water through the barely open door of the bathroom alerted Starsky to Hutch’s whereabouts.

“I’ll just be a minute, babe,” Hutch called through the open door. “You’re earlier than I expected.”

Starsky strolled to the coffee table and deposited Hutch’s presents there, then moved to the bathroom door. He could push it open and walk right in if he wanted. He and Hutch had no modesty with each other. They never had. But he stayed where he was, back propped on the door frame, arms folded over his chest, legs casually crossed, making his tight shorts a warm, firm fist that cupped his genitals. Anticipation. Just a few more minutes to anticipate the night to come.

“Flight got in a little early and my cabbie was a madman,” Starsky answered the implied question in Hutch’s comment. He didn’t bother to mention that it just might have been his promise of a twenty-dollar tip that had prompted the cabbie’s vehicular insanity.

“Did you have a good time?” Hutch asked, the running water nearly drowning out the polite inquiry.

“‘Course. Ma fed me like I haven’t seen food in a year. Set me up with every female under forty she knows.” Starsky paused and grinned to himself, speculating whether Hutch was wondering if he had slept with any of those women. “I’m beginning to get the divorcees now,” he continued when Hutch didn’t comment. “Complete with ready-made family.”

“Anybody tempt you?” Hutch asked.

That might have been a question weighted with the jealousy Hutch seemed so prone to lately, but Starsky couldn’t tell for sure with the noise of the water obscuring nuances of tone. He had concluded, judging by the way the steady rush of the water was occasionally interrupted, that Hutch must be shaving.

“Be a helluva commute,” Starsky replied, non-committal as to whether his interest might, even once, have been distracted from the promise of tonight. “Those New York girls don’t much like leavin’ the Big Apple, and I’m sure as hell not interested in freezing my ass off eight months out of twelve.”

There was a grunt from inside the bathroom and the water turned off, but Hutch didn’t appear.

“What about you?” Starsky asked. “Did you get in all the rest and recreation you had planned?”

“Uh, huh,” Hutch agreed.

Starsky heard the medicine cabinet door open and then close. Aftershave or cologne, he guessed and almost protested. He would much rather smell Hutch, but left it to his partner to make his own grooming decisions. Starsky knew that, especially once they got going, Hutch’s scent would come through whatever chemical disguises he donned, to tantalize him.

Pushing away from the wall, Starsky strolled toward the couch, calling back over his shoulder, “Hey, Blintz. I’m gonna get a complex if you don’t get out here soon. I’ve been here a whole five minutes and you haven’t shown your face, never mind…” Starsky turned as he heard the door creak open behind him. “…given me a hello—what is that thing?” he asked in surprise.

Now it was Hutch’s turn to lean in studied casualness against the door jam, his hand sliding down his body to cup the half-erect cock under his shorts. “How soon they forget,” he pronounced dramatically.

Starsky laughed as he retraced his steps, sauntering up to his friend, brushing aside his hand and laying claim to the fast-growing bulge himself. “Oh, no. Him, I know,” he teased, squeezing gently the way he knew Hutch liked it when the evening first began. His other hand lifted, index finger brushing the new addition to Hutch’s face. The stiffness of the bristles, so different from the silk of Hutch’s hair, aroused him all out of proportion to the simple touch. “It’s this caterpillar I’m not familiar with.”

“I promised you a mustache a long time ago. Remember?” Hutch asked.

Oh, Starsky remembered. Vaguely. A drug-addled conversation after he had been shot in the leg by Johnny Bagley. Most of the conversation was a blur, but he remembered Hutch’s tender concern.

“And a promise is a promise,” Hutch insisted with teasing self-righteous virtue that simply begged to be challenged.

Starsky was more than willing to oblige. “Some promises are better broken, babe.” His probing finger wandered from the harshness of bristle to the smooth softness of lip, and Starsky realized that concealed beneath the new growth, this tender, vulnerable, upper lip was only for him to know about now. The knowledge delighted him, but he continued the teasing banter nonetheless. “No offense meant, but this sucker is pitiful. I thought at first you’d had a glass of milk and forgot to wipe your mouth.”

“Oh, yeah?” Hutch growled and nipped the finger that caressed his mouth. “Well, get used to it, buddy, ’cause it’s here to stay.”

The thrust and parry of their verbal foreplay. Starsky had always loved it. But since he had begun responding to Hutch’s flirting outside the sanctuary of their homes, and had purposely begun initiating it himself, it had become an intoxicant he craved. To heighten that craving now, he took his hands back, turned and began to walk away.

“Your face, babe,” he offered in seeming compliance with Hutch’s right to choose. “But you ain’t kissin’ me with that thing.”

Starsky spun to meet the charge he knew was coming, held out his arms to accept the momentum of Hutch’s big body, and they hit the floor rolling. The coffee table skittered out of their way, teetered a moment on two legs before tipping onto the carpet as they wrestled and rolled. Grasping hands found illegal and delightful holds on crotches and asses until Hutch’s experience finally won out.

Laughing up into the victorious face that loomed over him, Starsky let his eyes continue to flash defiance even as his lips parted to welcome the kiss from the mouth that sought his. That kiss was everything Starsky could have hoped for. All the very best of Hutch’s familiar, well-loved possession, coupled with the new, delicious reminder—as if he needed any—that this was a man he was kissing.

“Doesn’t do a thing for me,” Starsky taunted when Hutch released his mouth, knowing that his body, his face, and his voice branded him a liar.

For a second time, Hutch accepted the challenge. He propped himself on one hand while he worked the t-shirt up Starsky’s chest. With the suddenness of a striking predator, Hutch’s head dipped, but his mouth was sweetly gentle as it latched onto Starsky’s nipple, sucking and licking the bud to sensitize it. Then, with perfect timing and exquisite precision, he brushed the mustache over the wet, hard peak.

Starsky arced up off the floor, the electric charge singing through his body as Hutch repeated the bristly, almost-painful caress a second time, and then a third, before retreating. Starsky opened his squeezed-shut eyes to find his beautiful angel, expectantly smug, hovering over him. He reached up and fingered this new instrument of delight before confessing his surrender.

“Okay,” he conceded. “So maybe I can get used to the cookie duster after all.”

~*~*~

Still furious with Harding for his bungling, foot-dragging on the case he had just appropriated for himself and Starsky, Hutch barely nodded in response to the greetings one or two of his colleagues offered as he made the trip from Missing Persons back up to the third floor squadroom. Dobey had asked him to go down and take a look at the files, offer some insight if he could. Dobey had not authorized him to take over the case, but Hutch doubted very much if the captain would object. He was certain Dobey would agree that two very pretty, and very dead, victims was enough. Some new nutbar was obviously loose in Bay City. Hutch wondered if the fact that he sometimes felt as if he was teetering on the edge of madness himself made him more qualified to catch such a killer. Whether more or less, was neither here nor there, Hutch thought ironically. If he could help it, Michelle Brady wouldn’t be the next body found wearing a solid gold ankle bracelet inscribed with the name Sharon.

Hutch pushed open the squadroom door and saw Starsky, back to him as he searched through a file cabinet, and immediately felt his irritation lessen. If he was going mad, then it was a fine madness indeed, and Starsky seemed just as infected with it. Hutch had no idea what had prompted Starsky to begin participating in their flirting games, he only knew that without it, he would be floundering in a sea of growing dissatisfaction with a job that was no longer the compelling vocation it used to be. It had been a long, hot summer in Bay City, but he and Starsky hadn’t hesitated to jack up the thermostat.

Starsky pulled a file from the cabinet, slid the drawer closed and, as he pivoted toward the desk, noticed Hutch. The way the blue eyes slid over him, so briefly that no one else would even notice, chased away the last of Hutch’s bad temper.

It might prove to be an interesting case. Certainly, if they could find the killer, a worthwhile expenditure of their time. Working it with Starsky, however, was definitely the kicker. Hutch smiled as the private potential for the undercover roles they were about to assume occurred to him.

“Hiya,” Starsky greeted him as Hutch moved around to his side of the desk. Blue eyes followed the movement as Hutch laid the appropriated file on the desk, a knowing smile quirking his lips. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist taking over. Knight in shining armor coming to the fair damsels’ distress, huh?”

Hutch flipped the file across the desk to his partner and gave Starsky a few minutes to digest its contents. Business first, he reminded himself as he watched the flickers of emotion skitter across Starsky’s face as he took in the facts and briefly scanned the photos of the victims.

“So, what’s the plan?” Starsky asked as he closed the cover over the dead face of lovely victim number one. “You must have one, or you wouldn’t have grabbed the case.”

Starsky knew him so well, Hutch thought with the old feeling of security that knowledge always gave him, and the new tingle of excitement the recent use of that knowledge meant. “The victims had only one thing in common,” he pointed out. “They all liked to get down and boogie at the same disco. Fever.”

“Fever?” The protesting echo was automatic, cut off by Starsky as their eyes met.

Hutch knew the challenge was waiting in his eyes for Starsky to accept or reject. They hadn’t yet agreed, if only in the unspoken communication of their private bond, to deliberately play out one of their games during the course of an investigation. A little back and forth flirting in the squadroom or in the car was one thing; to deliberately set out to interweave their mutual teasing into a case was another. The potential for professional disaster at once appalled and fascinated Hutch.

Heavy, dark lashes came down to veil Starsky’s thoughts, and he ruffled the edge of the file with his thumb while Hutch waited, torn between longing that Starsky would agree to play, and hoping that his once dependable partner would balk. Somebody needed to throw the brakes on here, and Hutch knew it wasn’t going to be him. The one taste of addiction that Forest had forced upon him, had taught Hutch that no one was impervious to it. He had taken care since then to guard against allowing any outside force to have more sway over his actions than his own force of will. But he knew he had allowed himself to become hopelessly hooked on Starsky, and the idea of going cold turkey, of trying to stuff his out of control angel back in its box, was out of the question.

“Fever?” Starsky repeated, the heavy lashes lifting, but only halfway, giving him that sleepy, fuckable look that caught Hutch by the balls and squeezed ever so gently. “We’ll stick out like a couple of sore thumbs. It’s a bunch of babies down there,” he protested.

The words said ‘no, no, no,’ but Hutch read ‘yes, yes, yes’ in the lazy tone of them. For a moment, the professional in him tried to make himself heard, but Hutch silenced the inner protest. He and Starsky were more than capable of working a case and indulging in a little harmless flirtation at the same time. They had done it hundreds of times over the years with women. The voice of reason whispered that the two of them were not always at their best when they allowed a beautiful woman to distract them. Again, Hutch silenced that inner, still- relentless conscience with glib reassurances that such distraction had yet to influence the outcome of a case. They could play their teasing game without becoming so immersed that they lost their ability to work a case.

“What’s the matter, stud? Not so sure Dancer is up to it?” Hutch needled, upping the stakes and setting the stage. “Losing the old flash and dazzle in your old age?”

Starsky’s grin accepted the challenge without any trace of reservation now. “At least I had it to start with,” he countered.

Game set. They would see tonight at Fever who took the match.

~*~*~

The girl was good. A talented dancer in her own right, and responsive to a firm, leading hand. Starsky wouldn’t have cared if she were a storefront dummy. He had chosen her for her height, form and costume, and for one purpose only—to set him off. She was nothing but a perfect visual foil for his height, his form, and the costume he had chosen.

Standing naked in front of his closet earlier tonight, Starsky had almost selected faded jeans and a red silk shirt, but the cop that still governed at least half of his Hutch-addled wits, had reminded him that he was working. Going undercover in a place where such a combination would attract unwanted attention was simply stupid. If he couldn’t dress to deliberately invoke Hutch’s sensual memories, however, Starsky chose to look smart. Eye-catching white, though he refused to add the contrasting, John-Travolta-clone, dark shirt.

The white suit had another advantage. The pants were dressy-loose and pleated over his groin. Starsky knew he would be getting hard. The dancing alone was usually enough to give him an erection; knowing he danced for Hutch guaranteed it.

Hutch was watching. Brief glances as he guided halter top and hot pants within the sphere of his hip-thrust and gyration confirmed it. Starsky didn’t let their eyes meet yet. He wanted the china blue probes tracing the ever-shifting line from his shoulders to his heels. Front and back. It hadn’t been heat that had prompted him to discard his concealing jacket; it had been the unobstructed view he wanted to present.

Starsky smiled as he met his dancing partner’s eyes. He bet she thought it was for her. It wasn’t. Was Hutch wondering where his gun was? Ankle holsters were wonderful things when you didn’t want to spoil the hang of your suit, or flash your law enforcement identity when your jacket was a crumpled heap on the floor. Pre-planning was everything.

With casual expertise, Starsky caught the lady’s long leg just below the scrap of red satin masquerading as a piece of clothing, let his hand side down the length of her slim, naked flesh as he lifted and guided her thigh up to his groin. He gained a knowing look from dark brown eyes as she pressed into his erection and gave it back to her, along with the arc of hips and spine that firmed the pressure.

Hutch was watching. That was all Starsky needed to know to keep his male flesh firm and alert. Over the top of the lady’s head, Starsky sought out Hutch for another adrenalin-pumping check. Hutch hadn’t moved an inch, his eyes riveted, face almost slack with the memorization of his sole focus.

A chill passed through Starsky and he nearly missed a step. Hutch was hypnotized. Oblivious to absolutely everything around him. Everything. Starsky knew it by the unblinking eyes, the slightly parted lips. It was exactly what Starsky had been working for and it was as dangerous as a loaded gun in the hands of a child. They were working, and Hutch wouldn’t notice if an atom bomb went off beside him. They were always careful about drinking on duty, but Starsky had just deliberately fed Hutch an intoxicant he knew his friend no longer seemed to have the will to resist. In the name of love, his own and the emotion he was praying was coming to fruition in Hutch, Starsky was taking the risk of destroying everything they were.

With urgent determination, Starsky sought Hutch’s eyes, locked onto the unfocused gaze and held it with his own until he saw it start to clear. Then, slowly, deliberately, eyes narrowed to the lasers of a cop scanning a crowd for that one lone insurgent who could turn it into a mob, he tracked the room. Sought out the shadows in every dark nook and cranny, gathered details of every body that moved within them.

When the arc of his visual patrol finally brought him back to Hutch, Starsky was relieved to see that his partner was moving. Tall and broad shouldered, Hutch was prowling the room in that ridiculous get-up that failed to hide, if you have the sense and the vision to see, the fine, slim strength it sought to disguise. The cop again, Starsky saw. Alert and attentive. One of the finest of Bay City’s finest.

Never again, Starsky promised himself as he drew warm, female flesh closer to him and bent her to his dancing will. He had made that promise before and he had broken it. He wouldn’t again. He would continue to play the game he had been encouraging for months, but never again would he allow it to eclipse his or Hutch’s sense of duty. He wanted Hutch’s love, but he could damned well court it on his own time. What was the sense of gaining what he had wanted for so long, if it cost him, and worse, the man he loved, everything, including their respect for themselves and each other?

Never again on the company’s dime.

~*~*~

Hide and seek.

Hutch had played the game often as a child. With his cousins when they could slip away from disapproving parental supervision, or the maid’s son during the long days of summer break. He had loved the challenge of ferreting out the hider’s secret lair, using his knowledge of his playmates and the clues his hearing fed him while he counted. He had been less enchanted with the role of hidee. The anticipation of discovery had never given him the excited thrill it seemed to give the other children; it had made him sick to his stomach. Driving the highway toward Venice at the end of a long and frustrating afternoon shift, Hutch finally understood the thrill of being the quarry.

For three days, Hutch was to hide and Starsky seek. That was the bet, hemmed in by as many rules as their last Friday nights. But Hutch had no intention of eluding capture until Monday. Saturday night should be sufficient for his purpose. Two weeks’ wages weren’t the stakes of this game as far as he was concerned, and he was just as certain that the money was of only secondary importance to Starsky as well. After the near disaster at Fever, they had cooled it on the job, but they had both been chafing beneath the restriction. This game was being played on their own time, and hide and seek was only a euphemism. The game he and Starsky would play out until Starsky caught him was, in reality, seduction’s age old catch me if you can. All Hutch had to do, he was certain, to ensure that a few of the rules that governed the angel and the dancer would be broken on Saturday night, was remain elusive long enough to excite them both into a fever pitch of lust.

How to do that was the problem. The two of them were damned near equal in their skills, and their usual modis operandi was to compliment each other’s natural strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses. Starsky wasn’t blowing hot air when he bragged how well he knew Hutch. The reverse was just as true, but Hutch knew he was going to need an edge. A possibility for gaining that advantage occurred to him as he was about to make the right turn onto Ocean Boulevard and made him hit the brakes halfway into the turn. He checked his watch and found it wasn’t quite midnight, sloughed the car back onto Beach Avenue and continued for a mile further down the road.

Hutch had been an occasional volunteer in the past year with a local amateur acting group. Pulling into the parking lot behind the small theater where that group put on their productions, Hutch was relieved to see several people still hanging around the backstage door. He parked the car and hurried to the door when he saw the manager of the small company appear.

“Sam,” Hutch hailed the man before he could lock the door. “Is Margie still here?”

“Hello, Kenneth. We haven’t been graced with your company in too long,” Sam greeted him.

The manager of the Venice Beach Players was a pompous ass in Hutch’s opinion, and the main reason he didn’t have much to do with the company anymore. Samuel R. Bottomsworth insisted on trying to talk Hutch into a leading role in every production they put on, but one experience of acting outside his undercover personas had been more than enough humiliation for Hutch. He would rather paint scenery.

“Hi, Sam. Is Margie still here?” Hutch repeated.

For a second time, Bottomsworth ignored the question. “We are just closing our production of Macbeth, Kenneth, and are about to try our thespian hands at the Bard’s great romantic tragedy. You really should audition for the lead.”

“Romeo and Juliet?” Hutch guessed. “Two dumb kids who couldn’t wait fifteen minutes for good information,” he dismissed the star-crossed lovers. “Is Margie still here?” he asked for the third time, determined that the manager would answer this time if Hutch had to shake it out of him.

Bottomsworth sketched a bow, waving dramatically toward the door. “My greatest hopes dashed again. She’s inside finishing up in the dressing rooms.” He straightened and offered the key to Hutch. “Lock up when you leave and give the key to Margie, please.”

Hutch snatched up the key with a muttered thank you and let himself into the labyrinth of backstage. “Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?” he muttered as he made his way along the cluttered, poorly lighted corridor leading to the row of dressing rooms. “Down here, stupid. The ladder broke.”

Hutch found the lady he sought, the company’s combination dresser, make-up artist and everybody’s go-for, in the dressing room with the star on the door. She was half bent over the table, packing away the tools of her cosmetic art.

Hutch rapped on the door frame. “Margie, my dearest, I have come to ask you a favor,” he announced from the door.

The older woman turned to face him and offered a disapproving frown. “Of course you have. Whenever else do we see you nowadays than when you want a favor?”

Hutch moved into the small room, caught her hand and bestowed a gentlemanly kiss upon the worn back of it. “Now, darling, you know it’s only the demands of the job that keep me away from you,” he protested. It wasn’t only his partner who knew how to turn on the charm with a lady whose age and experience really ought to have made her immune.

“Bull,” Margie pronounced and took her hand away. But she gave him a fond pat on the cheek before returning to transferring the multitude of pots, bottles and jars on the table into her large case. “It’s Bottomsworth, that old smoked ham, who keeps you away from us.”

Hutch laughed, leaning over to investigate some of the labels on her concoctions. This wasn’t the first time he had come to Margie Cooke for help with a disguise, and the tools of her trade fascinated him.

“I suppose you’re going undercover again,” Margie sighed.

Under the covers with Starsky was certainly where Hutch hoped to end up, although they did have a tendency, within the first few minutes of scrambling into bed together, to kick the covers clear off the end of the mattress.

“Uh, huh,” Hutch agreed nevertheless, a few ideas of possible disguises already forming in his brain.

“What’s it to be this time, Ken? Another rhinestone cowboy?” Margie asked.

Starsky would be looking for his partner, Hutch thought. No, he amended his own assumption. Starsky would be looking for his beautiful blond angel. What if, Hutch thought, moving over to the chair and picking up a long grey wig, he hid the angel’s light under a bushel of spirit gum and wigs, colored contacts and shabby clothes, until the right moment to reveal himself came?

“Actually,” Hutch said as he turned with the wig in his hands, catching a glimpse of his wicked smile in the mirror above the dressing table. “I was thinking more along the lines of Quasimodo or Father Time.”

“You want me to make you ugly?” Margie asked, her discontent with that idea apparent on her face.

“Three or four different kinds of ugly,” Hutch clarified, his excitement growing as he realized that, if he disguised himself sufficiently, he would actually be able to show himself to Starsky, get close enough to touch perhaps, and then taunt his partner with it during his two-hour check-ins. It would drive Starsky into a frenzy.

“But you’ll have to show me how to do it. The g—the case doesn’t begin until tomorrow morning and I won’t be able to run to you every time I need to change my costume,” Hutch explained.

Margie held Hutch in suspense for a moment as she considered, then pulled out the chair in front of the mirror. “Sit down,” she commanded. “Making you ugly is going to take a while. Even for me.”

Hutch sat down, settling gently on the chair, careful of the anxious erection that was imprisoned in his jeans. He was going to have to be sure to pick very loose pants for his disguises because he knew that hard-on was going to be a constant reminder of the real prize he was playing for.

~*~*~

“Well, you remember when I was holding your new Buddy Holly album in my left hand and the pizza in my right hand?” Starsky asked, feeling sick as the line of bullshit he had been feeding Hutch disappeared from his mind, superseded by the memory of his actions of only a few moments ago.

“Right,” Hutch agreed, seeming very serious in his zeal to free whatever old specter his word association had dredged up from Starsky’s childhood.

“Or was it the pizza in my right hand?” Starsky continued, not wanting to look at Hutch while the connection was made that was going to short circuit their pleasant evening. “One of them’s in the oven.”

“Doesn’t smell like the pizza, does it,” Hutch muttered.

“Oh, Christ, Hutch, I’m sorry,” Starsky babbled, almost blurting out that it was Hutch’s own fault. Starsky usually knew his left hand from his right hand, but not when Hutch was sitting there in those damned white pajamas with all his delicious assets displayed. Fortunately, he still had the presence of mind to hold the accusation back. Starsky risked a peek at Hutch to see how his partner was handling the accidental destruction of his latest prize possession. There wasn’t smoke coming out of his ears yet, but his expression wasn’t promising.

Starsky scrambled up and hustled to the stove, hoping to salvage something. Maybe it was only the cover smoking, he hoped, despite the fact that he could smell the stench of melting vinyl. Even the cover was precious, autographed by a long dead artist, so Starsky knew he was sunk whatever he found.

Nonetheless, hope springs eternal, especially when you were desperate. Starsky yanked the oven door open, reached in and pulled out the smoking album, dropping it on the door with a yelp when it burned his fingers. He cringed as he felt Hutch come up beside him but didn’t look his way. Watching your best friend implode wasn’t a pretty sight.

“I’m sorry, Hutch. I’m so damned sorry,” Starsky babbled, hoping to put the pin back in the grenade. “I’ll buy you another one. You said there were eight. I’ll find you one. I’ll find you two,” he promised recklessly. “I’m so damned sorry.”

“I know you are, Starsk. It’s okay,” Hutch soothed in a gentle tone foil of understanding and sweet forgiveness.

Starsky shut his mouth and dared a look at his partner. What he saw made his mouth drop back open. Hutch filled with the tolerance of a saint. A sexy angel Starsky had been able to buy from the first time he laid eyes on Hutch. But a saint? Never in a hundred years.

“It’s just a thing, babe,” Hutch said, still gentle and kind. “And there’s no thing in this world as important to me as you are.” He reached out and carefully took Starsky’s stinging hand into the cradle of his big palm. “Did you burn your fingers?”

For the first time in his life, Starsky was struck utterly, completely, and totally speechless as he watched Hutch kiss the smarting tips of each one of his fingers in turn. Even as stunned as he was, however, Starsky noted how careful Hutch was not to let the stiff bristles of his mustache even so much as brush the minor burns.

“Who are you? And what have you done with Hutch?” Starsky asked when he finally cobbled together the wit to speak.

Hutch smiled into his eyes, gave an easy, gentle laugh that rang back so far into the past Starsky almost didn’t recognize its carefree sound. His free hand came up to lightly stroke the loose curls beside Starsky’s cheek.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Hutch purred.

Excitement, hot and urgent, charged through Starsky, tossing his equilibrium to the winds for a second time in less than a minute. This possession was familiar, however, and he could struggle free of it. If he wanted to. And want he did. But not freedom. To deny himself this now, when only a few days before he had feared he would be robbed of Hutch forever, was impossible. Watching Hutch being wheeled away from him at the emergency room doors had plunged him into an all too familiar pit of fear and despair. At least while Hutch had been missing, Starsky had been able to do something, if only chase his own tail all over Bay City in his fruitless search. The hours of waiting that passed before Starsky was finally permitted in to see his partner had evoked the memories of all the other helpless hours when fate had tried to steal away the man he loved.

Those specters made it impossible now to resist the tenderness of Hutch’s caress. Impossible to offer anything but complete surrender to the pale blue eyes that begged it of him.

Impossible. Impossible. But still he tried.

“Hutch, it’s only…” Starsky began to protest, but had to stop because he couldn’t remember what day of the week it was. Surely it must be Christmas, Easter and his birthday all rolled into one. And Valentine’s Day, he added as Hutch’s fingers slipped from his hair and softly stroked his cheek. If he had had the breath, Starsky knew he would be purring.

“Only Wednesday. I know,” Hutch agreed. “And nowhere near the end of the month.” His stroking fingers took up a delicate exploration of Starsky’s features. Brows, nose, and lips each came in for their share of tender caresses. “But I don’t think I want to wait that long. Don’t think I can.”

Starsky opened his mouth, whether to protest or to sing a hallelujah chorus hadn’t yet made it from his brain to his tongue, but Hutch’s stroking finger across his lips silenced him.

A shy smile with just a bit of guilty chagrin in it was offered with the next confession. “That’s why I picked the word closet. I was hoping we could talk about…” Endearing uncertainty and hopeful expectancy made an enchanting portrait of Hutch’s fine features, “…amending our rules. One day in thirty just isn’t enough anymore for me, sweetheart.”

If Starsky had had any will to resist left, it was melting now. Melting, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West and not even leaving the pointed hat of a glimmer of doubt behind. His heart stopped. Starsky knew it did. And when it re-started hammering in his chest again, Starsky knew it no longer belonged to him. Not even the barest comer of it. It was all Hutch’s now.

“Please, Starsk. Tonight. And any other night that we both want to,” Hutch pleaded.

Any night. Any month. Any year. The rest of his life. But because Starsky was in love, he could protest one last time for that loved one’s sake. “It’s not just that mortal/immortal thing again, is it, babe?”

Hutch’s face froze a moment, then resolved itself into the wounded pout of a child. His hands released their tender imprisonment of Starsky’s soul. “If you don’t want….”

Starsky snatched at the retreating hands, holding them fast while he swallowed down panic. “Oh, I want. I want,” he reassured his love, holding fast to this chance for happiness that had so very nearly slipped through his fingers.

Hutch kissed him then, and if Starsky had harbored some long-held fantasy that if Hutch ever kissed him in love instead of lust it would be different, he found out now he was wrong. Hutch’s mouth was the same tender demand for surrender it had always been, his tongue the same offer of victory it had always conceded. Maybe, Starsky thought fuzzily, as Hutch lifted away and smiled into his eyes, it was because they had been making love all along and been too stupid or stubborn to know it.

And it didn’t matter a damn in any case, Starsky knew, as Hutch led him by the hands to the alcove, released his fingers to strip away the barriers he wore and allow Starsky to do the same. It was love now, and this was Hutch. Starsky was more than willing to be eased down onto the bed, to be drawn into strong arms and give himself up to this man’s loving.

“I’ll make it good, Starsk. I promise,” Hutch murmured as he laid a trail of moist, tender kisses from Starsky’s earlobe to his collarbone.

“You always do,” Starsky moaned, finding Hutch’s long hair, pressing the cherishing lips closer. He wanted Hutch to mark him. Suck hard, bite. Brand him, but he received languorous licking instead. He would take it. Take anything. Everything. They had been so right that first night ten years ago, and they were only getting it now. Better late than never. Better late than too late. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. The decades stretched out in front of Starsky’s unfocused eyes like a ribbon of blacktop to heaven.

“You won’t regret it,” Hutch reassured him, the busy tongue scribbling its way across Starsky’s chest until it found his nipple.

“Never. Never,” Starsky agreed breathlessly as his nipple was suckled all too briefly, abandoned for its neglected twin that was then deserted in its turn as Hutch moved downward once again. His breath caught in his throat as Hutch neared his hard, aching cock, anticipating the glide of silky inner lip and the prickle of mustache upon his flesh.

He gasped a protest when Hutch gave him neither, gathering him up instead in a palm filled with slick, warm gel. Starsky half sat up, looked down his own body into Hutch’s teasing eyes as the knowing fist striped him upward from base to tip.

“Damn sea scout. Where did you have the lube?” Starsky demanded in a growl of mock ferocity.

“Under the pillow, of course,” Hutch confessed, ten years falling away beneath the delighted smile of Starsky’s Friday night angel.

Still his angel, Starsky thought, and now Hutch would belong to him every night. ‘I love you’ was forming on his lips, but Hutch’s next words held it back, convinced Starsky to save it for the perfect moment that Hutch asked him to create.

“I need you to take me, Starsk,” Hutch asked.

Take me. Had Hutch ever once in the past ten years said ‘take me’ not ‘fuck me’? Starsky couldn’t remember. Didn’t think so. It didn’t matter. It came down to the same thing. Hutch wanted him inside.

“Do I look like I’m arguing?” Starsky quipped because if he didn’t give them just a moment of humor, he would have no hope of lasting. And he needed to last, needed the control to wait until he was deep inside his love’s body to give Hutch his all-consuming truth.

“On my back. Want to see you,” Hutch purred, beginning the transfer that, with two full-size men on a double mattress should have been an awkward tangle of misplaced elbows and knees, but was, instead, only opportunities to tease and caress each other. “Want to look into your eyes when you open me up with your cock.”

“Shhhh,” Starsky cautioned as he settled between the wide-spread thighs; leaned in to seal Hutch’s silence with a kiss as he led his cock to that vulnerable, yielding opening.

“Slow, babe. Please. So slow,” Hutch begged.

If it killed him, burst his heart in his chest or his brain in his skull, Starsky knew he was going to give Hutch, this first time in love, whatever he needed. Arms trembling, spine taut with strain, Starsky offered everything he had to give and took everything that was offered in return. He advanced by centimeters into the warm, buttery haven of Hutch’s body, withdrew in smaller increments still. Breath trapped in his lungs, held there by the determination to give Hutch everything he wanted; Starsky was robbed of the declaration of love he wanted to make. But he knew it was there in his face, written plainly for the blue eyes that never left his to read.

“Ahhh,” Hutch moaned aloud when the impalement was done, when Starsky had no more to give, except, if Hutch needed it, the same sweet, torturously slow possession again and again.

But slow was over, Starsky understood when Hutch’s hands clamped onto his hips and that strong body heaved beneath him.

“Now fuck me,” Hutch demanded.

Starsky fucked. Hard, hilt-deep plunges into the sheath open and eager for him and fast, tip-free withdrawals, slamming back into his lover with all the strength of his own body and Hutch’s hands combined. Hutch arched and writhed beneath him, panting the moans and groans and tender obscenities that fueled Starsky’s fire until he hung on the edge. He scrabbled at it with figurative bloody fingertips until he could bring Hutch with him. His own breath a burning rasp in his throat, Starsky twisted clear of the bruising grip that directed him, pulled his cock nearly free and canted his hips, then plunged back in. He found his goal, knew he’d nailed Hutch’s prostate when Hutch yelped and the big cock trapped between them spewed the warm silky proof of Hutch’s joy. Freed at last to seek his own release, Starsky claimed parted lips, thrust once, twice, then offered the evidence of his own commitment deep inside the man he loved.

They were sobbing as Starsky collapsed into Hutch’s arms. Soul deep emotion, shattering pleasure, or the simple demand of overworked lungs for oxygen? Aftermath didn’t care, and afterglow could do little to temper it in those first few moments when consciousness was held onto by a single fraying thread. He couldn’t move. Not even to remove his weight from his crushed lover, not even to ease the suffering Hutch had to be feeling in his back.

“Help,” Starsky managed to gasp into Hutch’s ear and after a moment felt those big, capable hands lay claim to his body, and the strength that he had always counted on eased him clear and settled him into a cradling embrace.

“Hutch. Oh, God, Hutch. I…” No more breath. No more words. Starsky had to gather just a few more lungful’s worth of oxygen.

“Shhh, babe. Shhh,” Hutch soothed. “Easy. Easy.”

Starsky had to say it. Needed to say it. Now, before another moment was lost. But the little death that so often claimed him in Hutch’s arms was creeping in, belated, disguised as sleep, to steal it away. Sleep. Yes, he would sleep. Cradled safe and cherished. And it wouldn’t even matter tonight if he slept until the sun crept its way into the room and kissed them awake.

~*~*~

“Starsky?”

Hutch’s voice. Muffled by something, but definitely Hutch’s voice.

“Starsk? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The childish invocation chanted in Hutch’s deep voice brought a smile to Starsky’s face before he was even fully awake. Hide and seek. A nearly tragic, fatal game of hide and seek. Remembered terror eclipsed immediately. No more games. Never ever again. The arms around him tightened and he felt teasing lips tug at his hair. His secret leapt onto his tongue, and Starsky gave himself one more moment to anticipate giving it away, to savor the way it tasted in his mouth this very first time.

“Come on, Starsk. Time to go home,” Hutch whispered.

A chill wind, the harbinger of the storm to come, swept Starsky. “Home?” he echoed, hearing how stupid he sounded, only beginning to realize the true magnitude of his stupidity.

Hutch’s voice was gentle but implacable as he confirmed Starsky’s fears. “Just because we’re going to amend one rule so we can be together a little more often, doesn’t mean we’re going to throw away the whole book. It works for us. Right?”

For one horrifying moment, Starsky thought he was going to puke. Without even the time or the wit to scramble from the bed or even lean over the side. He swallowed hard. Forced himself to lay completely still despite the urgent need to flee, while deep breaths quelled the nausea. It eased in a few moments, but Starsky immediately mourned its passing. It was better than the emptiness that took its place. He felt hollow inside.

“Starsk?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m goin’.” Was that really his voice, Starsky wondered? Sounding no more shell-shocked than any pre-dawn last Saturday morning.

Starsky made it to the side of the bed without having to look at Hutch. Concentrated on seeking out and finding groggy, fucked-out normality to pin on his face as he leaned over and scrabbled together the clothes Hutch had stripped from him the night before.

Hutch was talking. Starsky could hear his voice, but he couldn’t spare the attention needed to understand the words, from the concentration necessary to put both legs in his pants and pull on his shirt. Feet into shoes next. What did it matter if they were tied? Maybe he would step on a lace, fall down Hutch’s steps, and break his damned fool neck.

Starsky stood up, pulled jeans up over naked hips and fumbled the snap and zipper closed. Keys? Wallet? On the table by the door where he always put them when he came to Hutch’s. He started to go for them. Hutch’s hand catching his held him back.

“Hey. Are you okay, Starsk? Is something wrong?” Hutch asked.

Starsky looked into the so familiar face. Saw affection, caring, concern, even love of a sort. But not the kind that Starsky knew had been in his own face last night. He wondered how Hutch could have missed it. Couldn’t see or didn’t want to see? It was a difference that made no difference. The painful truth was Hutch wasn’t in love with him and, if he wasn’t by now, he never would be. Last night, Hutch hadn’t been asking for Starsky’s love, just the freedom to exercise their lust a little more often.

“No, Hutch. Nothin’ wrong,” Starsky lied. What else could he do? Rant and rave and stomp his feet? You couldn’t make someone love you, and even if you could, what would forced love be worth? “I just…assumed somethin’, and I should’ve known better,” Starsky added, trying to find a smile but discovering that he didn’t seem to have any left inside him right now. “Night.”

Again, Hutch held him back. “What? No goodnight kiss?”

The kiss that had once been so scrupulously avoided had now become a tradition.

Starsky freed his hand, leaned over to cup both sides of Hutch’s puzzled face with his palms, fingertips memorizing the slant of the strong jaw and curve of the smooth cheek. Slowly, eyes open, Starsky leaned in and laid claim to Hutch’s mouth, gave him a kiss into which all his heart and soul and hopeless love was poured, and then released him. Just before he turned away, he saw a glimmer of dawning… something on Hutch’s face. Too late. Too little.

“Good-bye, sweetheart,” he whispered and, ignoring Hutch’s questioning calling of his name, collected keys and wallet and eased through the door. He turned to lock it, rested his aching head against it for just a moment, and squeezed his eyes shut.

It was time, Starsky knew. Time to stop being in love alone. Time to stop yearning for something he was never going to have.

Starsky was always going to love Hutch. But it was well past time he went back to looking for someone who could love him back.

 

Don’t It Always Seem To Go

Editor’s Note: For the purpose of this story, the author has assumed the events in “Starsky vs. Hutch” took place immediately following the events in “Ballad For A Blue Lady.”

“See you around,” Starsky invited an end to the conversation.

Hutch loved to dance with Starsky. They couldn’t do it in public, of course, unless it could be passed off as a joke. But this delicate minuet of avoidance they had performed for the past three minutes wasn’t what he had in mind. Tired of chasing Starsky all over his apartment, Hutch stayed where he was beside the room divider, trying to control his frustration at the lack of any real communication between them.

“Oh, come on, Starsk. Don’t do this to yourself. I love ya. I understand what you’re goin’ through. I love your caring, but I just think it’s a…” Hutch paused in his impassioned plea, seeking something, anything that would strip away the neon touch-me-not sign Starsky had been wearing for nearly a week even before Emily Harris had been shot. He looked away from Starsky’s closed face, found no inspiration in the familiar furnishings, and brought his gaze back to the far less familiar coldness of Starsky’s. “.. .bum rap to wash your life away on a guilt trip.”

“The fact of the matter is that I made that girl blind,” Starsky countered, the look in his eyes making Hutch wish that Starsky had continued to avoid his gaze. “That’s not guilt, that’s fact. And as far as the line of duty goes, doesn’t a cop have to show some responsibility for what he does in the line of duty?”

Hutch hesitated, feeling the double-edged barb sink into his own conscience. He didn’t for one minute think Starsky wasn’t genuine in his concern for Emily Harris. But this withdrawal from Hutch, this failure to communicate, had its roots in other soil. Starsky had been well within acceptable operating procedures when fickle fate had placed the young artist within his line of fire, but Hutch sensed this retreat had more to do with breaking the rules, than the results of following them. Hutch was sure of it, but had to accept that Starsky was, for once, the one blind to his own ulterior motives.

It was time Hutch left before he lost his temper and worsened an already uncomfortable situation. He couldn’t hope to get through to Starsky now while his partner had this distraction to hide behind.

“See you around,” Hutch echoed Starsky’s dismissal, offered a mocking little salute, and left before he said something he would regret.

Standing on the wooden landing outside Starsky’s door, Hutch hesitated again, debating the wisdom of going back inside and making one last effort to draw Starsky out of himself. To talk him, somehow, into at least, working the case. He could probably do it if he pulled out all the stops, but Hutch knew that would be unfair. How many times over the years had their positions been reversed? The same number of times Starsky had found the patience to stand back, ready to help when Hutch could accept it, and let him work through it on his own. It wouldn’t kill Hutch to work the case alone and let Starsky wallow around in his puddle of guilt for a while. Starsky was a realist and Hutch had no real doubts that eventually Starsky could accept that he couldn’t give the pretty stranger back her sight. No more than he could give Lonny Craig back his life, or alter the actions he had taken that had led Prudholm to put a bullet in Terry’s head.

There was an echo trying to catch Hutch’s attention as he skirted the pile of boxes at the top of the stairs and started down them. Something to do with angel, but he ignored it in favor of yet another review of the facts of the case. The quicker it was solved and the Whiticomb brothers in jail where they belonged, the faster he and Starsky could get back to normal.

Starsky would come around, personally and professionally. He always did.

~*~*~

It was his eyes that were disabled, not his ears, so Hutch heard the difference immediately when his booted feet went from carpet to wooden landing, and he caught the sound of the door closing behind him. He froze and whipped off the blindfold.

“Ha, ha, Starsk,” he muttered. He had to admit he was being just a bit insensitive, and he could admire the quick wit it had taken for Starsky to come up with a way to set him up.

“Good joke,” he added as he half turned to go back into the apartment and give his partner the opportunity to laugh at him. As he pivoted, however, he caught sight of a chance to turn the joke back on Starsky. It was seldom that the means for reprisal presented itself so immediately, and Hutch seized the moment.

Placing his foot against the bottom-most of the stack of boxes piled at the top of Starsky’s stairs, Hutch gave it a push. He leaned back against the railing, listening to the awful sounds of tumbling, adding pained grunts to the sound effects, and waited for Starsky to come charging out the door.

And waited and waited. His eyes never left the two small glass panels, so he knew that Starsky hadn’t peeked out and seen him. Maybe, after closing the door, Starsky had gone back to his vacuuming. Hutch tiptoed back across the landing and pressed his ear to the door. He could hear sounds coming from inside the apartment, but the Hoover’s deafening whine wasn’t one of them.

Starsky was even smarter than Hutch thought. He had anticipated the counter joke and he wasn’t falling for it. Hutch put his hand on the doorknob, righteous indignation and grudging admiration vying for dominance. Locked.

It dawned on Hutch, slowly, reluctantly, but relentlessly, that it hadn’t been a joke. Starsky had been telling him to go away. Starsky didn’t care if he fell down that long flight of stairs and broke every bone in his body, including his neck. He just wanted Hutch gone.

This had nothing to do with the job. Emily Harris had her sight back and had turned out to be less the innocent than Starsky had assumed, in any case. This, Hutch knew without the shadow of a single doubt, went back to a Wednesday night when Hutch had taken advantage of a weak moment.

Hutch reached for the key in his pocket, then let his hand drop back down to his side. He stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the mess of broken cartons and spilled contents his joking retaliation had caused, and accepted, finally, that he had made a big mistake. He had thought Starsky was just as ready to adjust their rules as he was, but it was pretty obvious he had been wrong, or that after the fact, Starsky just couldn’t deal with it.

For the first time, Hutch allowed himself to remember the frozen neutrality of Starsky’s expression the last time Starsky had left his bed, to recall the echo of ‘goodnight, Angel.’ As he made his way around the debris of Starsky’s discarded possessions scattered down the stairs, Hutch was determined not to join their ranks.

Starsky would come around. He always did. All Hutch had to do was make him understand how sorry he was for the damage he had done to their relationship with his selfish seduction, make it clear that they could go back to the way it was, and then Hutch had to prove it.

~*~*~

Starsky stared at the telephone for a good fifteen minutes, reaching out and pulling back his hand every couple of minutes before he finally picked it up and dialed Hutch’s number. He let it ring ten times before he accepted the fact that Hutch wasn’t there to answer it. That Hutch was probably on the road from Venice on the way over here expecting to get laid.

Starsky picked up his keys and wallet, stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket, started for the door, and then went back and sat down on the couch. No, he just couldn’t do it. Letting Hutch get the message Starsky had been trying to send for weeks by walking into an empty apartment on the last Friday of September, was more cruel than Starsky was prepared to be to the man he loved.

“It’s not my fault you’ve suddenly developed a case of the terminally stupids,” Starsky told the corner of the couch Hutch usually occupied, as if his partner was there to hear what Starsky hadn’t been able to say. Brutally blunt, Hutch often accused him of being, but Starsky couldn’t find a way to say ‘I don’t want you anymore’ to Hutch’s face.

Because it wasn’t true. Starsky knew if Hutch showed up here tonight and laid one hand on him, they would be fucking ten seconds later. Starsky knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He didn’t love Hutch any less because he had accepted that his friend wasn’t in love with him; he just couldn’t bear to go back to giving Hutch only lust, after that one night of giving Hutch all of his love. He had no hope of hiding it anymore. Starsky knew his limitations and usually pushed past them. Not this time.

Starsky made it all the way to the door before he hesitated one last time. It was already a little later than Hutch would normally arrive on a last Friday, so maybe Hutch had understood after all and was even now heading to some bar or disco to hunt a woman to take to his bed. Maybe even the future Mrs. Hutchinson. Anything was possible, and Hutch was far from stupid. Except when he wanted to be.

Locking the door behind him, Starsky clattered down the stairs two at a time in an ironic precursor of the way he knew Hutch would be going up them. Behind the wheel of the Torino, he barely waited for the engine to catch before he threw the car into gear and squealed away. A disco was a good idea. Starsky certainly needed something to take his mind off Hutch’s probable reaction when he walked into that empty apartment. Maybe he could find someone to distract him. Maybe this would even be the night he would discover the future Mrs. Starsky who had eluded him for so many years. He just had to keep reminding himself that anything was possible.

~*~*~

Hutch had received Starsky’s message, but his stubborn brain had refused to decipher the code of avoided touches, unanswered innuendo, and evasive eyes that Starsky sent it in. Even pulling in beside the space where the Torino ought to be parked didn’t crack the code. Starsky had been talking about taking the tomato in to Merle for a tune up.

It wasn’t until his knock went unanswered and he opened the door on an apartment that he knew immediately was empty of Starsky’s energetic presence, that Hutch accepted. The alphabet rearranged itself in his brain and he finally allowed himself to remember. ‘Goodbye, Angel,’ Starsky had whispered; Hutch just hadn’t heard the finality of it. The dancer had retired from the field, and Hutch had no one to blame but himself.

~*~*~

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
They paved paradise,
Put up a parking lot.

This was the third time somebody had played that stupid song since Hutch had slid his butt onto the bench of the booth in the darkest corner of the Pits. Anita had brought him two beers already, and he was just about ready to signal her for a third. He was also just about ready, if one more person selected that stupid song, to pull out his Magnum and empty the clip into the jukebox. Opening the door to Starsky’s empty apartment had convinced him he had blown it; he didn’t need a whining reminder from Joni Mitchell every five minutes.

As if he had sensed the threat to his property, Huggy Bear suddenly appeared beside Hutch’s table. He set the beer Hutch had not as yet requested on the table in front of him, and then slid onto the opposite bench, making himself comfortable with his back against the wall and long, skinny legs stretched out along the length of the bench.

“When Anita told me we had a blond thunderhead brooding away in the back booth, I had to see it for myself,” Huggy greeted him. “She’s right. You look like a bad day in tornado territory, my man.”

Hutch wanted to offer a ‘fuck off’ to go with the glare he gave his long-time friend, but settled for a bad-tempered grunt. It wasn’t Huggy’s fault that Hutch was so big a fool he ought to have ‘asshole’ stamped on his forehead. Hopefully, Huggy would accept the glare and the grunt for the distant thunder they were and seek cover instead of, with every good intention, provoking the storm to unleash itself.

But Huggy was more fearless than that, perhaps believing himself immune after weathering so many temper showers. “I can’t believe Starsky let you out on your own lookin’ like that.” A comical twist of mobile features was supposed to provide a lightning rod. “Where is the not so boyish wonder, Batman?”

“I don’t know,” Hutch growled and hated the way the admission tasted in his mouth, realizing only then how familiar the flavor had become in recent weeks. Once, he had always had more than a fair idea of where Starsky was at any given time. Now, Hutch couldn’t even answer that question with any certainty when Starsky was sitting beside him in the Torino.

“Slipped the leash, did he?” Huggy asked.

“Fuck off,” Hutch told him, no longer willing to hold back his anger or play straight man to Huggy’s questionable comic.

As if he had just received a news flash from the weatherman, Huggy’s face settled into far more serious lines. “Hutch, my friend, it is obvious that you have a troubled mind. Think it’s about time you told your friendly barkeep all about it.”

For one insane moment, Hutch was tempted to pour out his heart. To tell this unshockable friend how fickle fate had brought the angel and the dancer together one night in the past and how they had continued to come together through all the years that followed. To confess how two men had made an impossible agreement and explain the rules that made it work. To reveal, as a warning to the unwary, perhaps, how breaking the rules could cost you what you most prized.

The secret, however, had never been Hutch’s possession alone. He and Starsky had always held joint title to it. And even though it seemed as if there was no longer a secret life to protect, the existence of it was still not Hutch’s alone to share.

But Huggy was a very good friend and possessed far more wisdom than his flamboyant taste and behavior often indicated. Even if he couldn’t help, perhaps just the admission of being to blame would help purge some of the grief inside Hutch. At the very worst, he could feel no lower than he did now.

“What do you do, Huggy…” Hutch asked, gaze on his beer and working hard to give Huggy only a small part of the pain inside him. He didn’t want to blast his friend right off his seat, “…when you’ve totally fucked up your life?”

“Change your name and move to another state?” Huggy suggested, making Hutch realize he had disguised his pain too well. He looked up and saw Huggy take in the seriousness of the situation from the expression on his face.

Huggy reached for Hutch’s beer and took a long swallow. Hutch knew Huggy understood now. It wasn’t often that Huggy imbibed his own libation and certainly never from a customer’s glass.

“Shit, Hutch. I don’t know,” Huggy admitted, the cockiness that was Huggy’s first line of defense disappearing so completely that for once he looked as thin and frail as he truly was. “I guess all you can do is salvage what’s left, fix what you can, and learn to live with the rest of it.”

“Huggy!”

Huggy didn’t even look Anita’s way, but continued, much to Hutch’s discomfort, to delve into Hutch’s shame with velvet dark eyes.

“In a minute,” Huggy dismissed the call for his attention.

“Okay. But don’t blame me when the fire department arrives to clean up the mess,” Anita challenged with her usual sassy attitude. “Your number one draft tap is stuck.”

Huggy jumped out of the end of the booth, then hesitated. Hutch waved him on, and Huggy dashed away.

Hutch retrieved his beer and sipped at it. He had always known Huggy was deeper than he ever wanted anybody to know. Salvage, fix and live with it. Good advice. If Hutch could make himself accept it. If he could learn to live with the fact that a part time sexual outlet was no longer available, maybe he could salvage the partnership and fix the friendship that were still so vital to him.

It would mean sealing the angel away forever and letting him suffocate in his box. Ten years hadn’t shown Hutch a single man who could arouse his sensual alter-ego except Starsky. He had no illusions that one would suddenly come along at this late date.

Could he amputate one part of what he and Starsky were in order to save the rest of it? A fair trade? It would have to be, Hutch accepted, because Starsky had already made the decision for them.

Draining his glass, Hutch put it back on the table, gently, the way he lured the angel into his box and carefully padlocked the door. He caught Anita’s eye and signaled her for yet another glass of liquid forgetfulness, thumb and forefinger an inch apart so she would know he was ready to switch to the hard stuff. Starsky always tried to prevent Hutch from doing his grieving in the arms of a hundred-proof companion, but Starsky wasn’t here to stop him this time. Hutch figured the end of an era deserved to be mourned. Even if it had to be a one-man wake.

~*~*~

Hutch’s intentions were the purest when, only a hundred yards or so down the road from the honky-tonk bar, he stopped the Torino and put it into park. It was impossible to drive with Starsky’s head in his lap, and an accident could easily see his partner badly injured. The car, that Hutch still took pains to drive as seldom as possible, was hard enough to handle on its own without distractions and handicaps.

The road to hell was paved with pure intentions, Hutch thought, as he looked down into Starsky’s open, drunkenly happy face. He hadn’t seen this carefree Starsky in a long time. How sad that it took the better part of a jug of white lightning hooch to blast through the emotional armor Starsky now wore as regularly as he wore his blue Adidas. But the Adidas were sitting at home now, and the barriers were down….

Aware that he had forfeited the right to such intimacy, but unable to resist, Hutch slid his fingers into Starsky’s tangled curls and gently massaged the scalp beneath. His heart leapt, along with a couple of other wayward organs, when his partner purred in pleasure and the head that snuggled into his lap pressed harder into Hutch’s hand. Starsky always had been as sensual as a cat, responding with abandon to being stroked and fondled and petted.

It lasted for fifteen seconds, maybe twenty, during which Hutch’s angel, who he had thought must surely have expired from neglect, began pounding on the door of his prison demanding freedom.

“Sweetheart?” he whispered, and realized he had made a fatal mistake when he saw Starsky’s eyes harden.

Even drunk as seven lords, Starsky’s guard snapped back up. In a moment, despite the lack of coordination that had seen him stumbling and staggering under the bright sunlight, Starsky pulled his dangling feet in the window and righted himself in the seat.

“Just drive the car, Hutch,” Starsky muttered clearly enough for a man who probably couldn’t feel his lips.

Anger. Resentment. Despair. Hutch took one single minute to battle them all down, then put the car back in drive and laid his foot none to gently on the gas.

“Just do me a favor, Starsk, will you?” he said as he threw them back onto the dusty road. He didn’t look to see the expression that went with Starsky’s groan as the car rocked. “And lean out the window when you puke.”

~*~*~

Despite the tendency of his surroundings to blur in and out of focus and suddenly take it into their inanimate heads to dance a jig, Starsky didn’t want Hutch to follow him up to his apartment. The doctor had assured him the sedative Monique had slipped into his tea, so she could slice him up like a Thanksgiving turkey, wasn’t dangerous. He would be back to normal by morning. At least as normal as he ever felt these days.

But Hutch had rescued him, and Starsky knew exactly the hard place Hutch was wedged into right now. He had visited it often enough himself, been surrounded, cut and jabbed by the possibility of Hutch’s death more times than he wanted to remember. He knew, and that was why he wanted Hutch to just stay in the car.

“I’m okay on my own,” Starsky said when they pulled up in front of his place and Hutch shut down the engine. He hoped that, after weeks of delivering hints the size of watermelons, Hutch would just go along. His partner was getting better at that, much to Starsky’s relief. It was hard to always be on his guard, so much easier to be able to just tune into the friendship and partnership and have Hutch apparently do the same.

Tonight was dangerous. Hutch had almost lost Starsky, and Starsky had almost died. An explosion of emotional reaction that they could no longer separate from the sex, was just waiting to erupt. Starsky wasn’t prepared to deal with another morning after when Hutch’s needs were satisfied and his had to go begging.

“You’ll fall down the stairs and break your neck,” Hutch declared, and, before Starsky could offer another protest, left the car and came around to open the passenger door.

Better a broken neck than another piece of his heart snapped off, Starsky thought, as he looked up into the barely concealed need on Hutch’s face. He didn’t want to deal with this now, didn’t know if he had the strength, but if he just sat in the car, Hutch might take it as an indication that Starsky wanted to go home to Venice Place with him. At least at the top of that endless-looking staircase, Starsky had the advantage of home ground.

“Yeah. Okay,” Starsky conceded as he struggled out of the car on his own. “Play the gentleman and see me to my door.”

He made it up the stairs under his own steam, endangering his uncertain balance once, halfway up, to look back over his shoulder and growl a wordless warning at Hutch to remove the hand on his ass. Hutch hadn’t needed to grope his ass to steady him.

“Sorry,” Hutch muttered, took the keys from his hand, and opened the door. A mocking little bow and a wave toward the interior invited Starsky into his own home. “After you.”

Starsky braced himself against the door jam and held out his hand for the keys. “I got it from here.”

Hutch ignored him, grabbed his shoulder and propelled him through the door. Starsky stood swaying. Heard the door close and the keys drop on the table before Hutch laid hands on him again. Both of them, flat-palmed on his shoulders, fingers splaying forward to lay claim to his clavicles and thumbs securing a firm grip on the muscles in his back.

“Let go,” Starsky demanded, balancing on the edge of panic. Hutch’s hands were so damned warm and their possessive grip meant safety and…want.

“I just want to make sure—”

“Let go,” Starsky demanded again, pulling free because if he didn’t, he was going to turn and throw himself into Hutch’s arms and stay there for however many hours their mutual panic allowed. And then he would hate himself, and maybe even his friend, when he lay in his bed and watched Hutch walk out into the pre-dawn gloom.

Starsky staggered when Hutch released him, but made it as far as the couch, half sprawled on it, making sure he took up every inch of it he could. He closed his eyes and hoped that Hutch would just go away, or, failing that, that the drug would finally knock him out cold. Hutch wasn’t into necrophilia. He had told Starsky that once. It seemed like a hundred years ago now.

Hutch wasn’t leaving. Starsky tracked him by the sounds he made. Jacket on the end of the couch. Beer from the refrigerator. Long frame folded onto the—Starsky cracked open one eye to check—coffee table directly in front of him. Go home, he pleaded silently, but knew most of their private lines of communication were no longer operating.

“Starsk, I want to talk to you,” Hutch admitted. “I’ve been waiting for the right time, hoping for an opportunity….”

You can’t seduce me now, Starsky commanded silently, hoping for one small clearing of the line. Just long enough for the message to get through. Hutch had to believe that Starsky didn’t want him anymore, or he would just keep on trying.

“When I’m so juiced up I’m almost asleep is a good time?” Starsky asked, borrowing the sarcasm that so often gave Hutch’s tongue its edge, and discovering it could hone his equally as sharp when Hutch winced.

“The only good time,” Hutch said, only the slightest edge to his reasonable tone.

Maybe if he let Hutch have his say, if he could gather the wit to make his own position clear without revealing the reasons behind it, Starsky could put an end to this once and for all. Deliver them to the side of the scale where only the friendship and partnership existed. With Monique’s magic potion in his veins, Starsky wasn’t sure he could keep the love off his face, and that was dangerous. If Hutch saw it, recognized it for what it was, then Hutch would try to make himself return it. And what the hell good was forced love to anybody? But, if Hutch hadn’t seen it when Starsky had been making love to him, what were the odds that the blinders were about to fall from his eyes now?

Sighing, Starsky accepted defeat and struggled to sit upright on the couch until he and Hutch were face to face, so close their knees almost touched. “Okay, Hutch,” he invited. “Spit it out before you choke on it.”

“I want to tell you I’m sorry,” Hutch began. “I’m not such a jerk that I don’t know what’s been wrong all these weeks. We’ve tap danced around it, but the truth is, I took advantage of you when you had a… weak moment,” he admitted, a rueful tip of his lips beneath the concealing mustache acknowledging the irony. “The same weak moment I’m having right now.”

Starsky saw Hutch reach out and prepared to evade the hand even if he had to fall on his face to do it. He wasn’t the only one reading faces tonight, he saw, when Hutch withdrew the hand long before it connected. He followed the appendage that had given him so much pleasure with his eyes as it wiped a strip of condensation from the beer bottle Hutch held, then wiped the cold wet on the leg of Hutch’s jeans.

“I know how much the rules have always meant to you,” Hutch continued his confession. “I may have suggested most of them, but I’ve always known that you took each of them to heart.”

“To protect—”

Hutch held up a hand, and Starsky allowed the rest of his protest to die unspoken.

“To protect us both, I know,” Hutch agreed. “And you kept me strong when I couldn’t do it on my own.”

“But?” Starsky prompted. He could see it on Hutch’s lips and knew the justification was coming. Starsky couldn’t deny his partner the right, not when he had claimed the right to make unilateral decisions for both of them. Decisions he could barely justify to himself and could not, honestly, explain to his partner.

“But, when you started playing the games, too, I thought…” Hutch trailed off, his expression defensive and hopeful at the same time. “Whatever I thought,” he continued when Starsky didn’t slide into the pause, “I was wrong. Okay. I can deal with that. But, Starsk, can’t we go back to the way it was?”

“No.” Starsky made the denial as strong as he could, with no attempt to soften the blow. Going back meant crawling back into Hutch’s bed, prostituting the love he felt for Hutch into lust. The resentment he felt made his next statement more brutal than it needed to be, but he could see in a second that it drove the point home. Finally, at last, Hutch got it.

“Getting into the angel’s ass was never as important to me as having Hutch for my partner and my friend.” It came out strong because it was, after all, the truth. Even after he had fallen in love with Hutch, Starsky had never been prepared to trade one for the other, until he had no other choice. Hutch had been watching his back for him for so many years, and now Starsky had to do it for himself. He suspected he was making a mess of it, but his options were damned limited.

“But…” Hutch began, then bit his lip, apparently bereft of further argument.

Tempting fate, Starsky gathered up one of Hutch’s hands between his, reminded himself and Hutch with the firm grip that this was a gesture from one friend to another. “I’m getting older, babe, and I think it’s time I took my mother’s advice. I guess I’ve finally decided that I wanna leave somethin’ behind me besides a tree,” he confessed, telling himself it was only half a lie.

“Golden retrievers just won’t cut it, huh?” Hutch asked, resignation and a sorrowful acceptance in his eyes now, that only a moment before had been filled with hope.

“They make you sneeze,” Starsky murmured sadly, evoking memories at once painful and full of joy.

“Yeah. Forgot about that,” Hutch agreed.

Starsky let him take his hand back, watched as Hutch stood up, looked around absently, as if he didn’t quite know what he was looking for, then take two decisive steps away.

“You’ll be okay?” Hutch asked, picking up his jacket off the end of the couch. The end closest to the door that Starsky knew his partner was going to bolt for any second.

“Doc said I’ll sleep it off. Be right as rain by morning,” Starsky reassured him.

Keys were rooted out of the jacket pocket and jangled between Hutch’s restless fingers. “Then I guess I’ll just….”

“Don’t forget to pick me up in the morning, partner,” Starsky reminded him gently, understanding Hutch’s need for some space, but wanting him to know that what they shared as friends and partners was still of priceless value to Starsky. “My car’s still at Monique’s.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Hutch agreed, gave an abrupt little nod of his head, and then he was gone.

Slowly, Starsky stretched back out on the couch. He wasn’t going to try for the bedroom. He was just going to lie here and see if he could figure out how a man could feel so rotten when he got what he wanted.

~*~*~

“Hutch?”

Hutch tried to pretend he was asleep when Starsky poked his head around the door to his hospital room, but he knew he hadn’t been quick enough to close his eyes and compose his face.

“Hey, Hutch. How you doin’? The doc said he had to stick a couple of new stitches in that shoulder,” Starsky said as he sauntered into the room, threw his jacket on the chair and made himself at home on the side of the bed beside Hutch’s waist.

Starsky, Hutch noted, hadn’t escaped his captivity unscathed, mostly because he hadn’t accepted it passively. There were stark white bandages under the bloodstained cuffs of his shirt, covering the rope burns that Starsky had rubbed into his bound wrists.

“Would you mind sitting on the chair. You’re hurting me,” Hutch pointed out coldly. It wasn’t true. His shoulder was still numb from the local anesthetic the doctor had injected to re-stitch the wound in his shoulder. It was Starsky’s closeness that was hurting him. So near and so fucking far away.

Guilt and remorse in equal portions appeared on Starsky’s face before he transferred himself to the chair. The scrape of the metal legs on the tile floor made Hutch wince as the chair was dragged closer to the bed.

“You okay, babe?”

There was genuine concern in Starsky’s blue eyes. There always was when Hutch was hurt, even now. It was one of the reasons Hutch was still hanging on. Still Starsky’s partner, still his friend, still a cop. And it wasn’t because he expected that someday Starsky would see the error of his ways, repent and reinstate their sinful enjoyment of each other’s passions. It was because, as truly awful as it was becoming to be a cop who was also Starsky’s friend and partner, there were moments, often catching Hutch completely unaware, that were very fine indeed. When me and thee was alive and well and living in Bay City.

Today hadn’t been one of those moments.

“I’ll survive,” Hutch allowed grudgingly.

“Come on, sourpuss. It all turned out okay. You’ll be outta that sling before you know it. A little time flirting with a pretty physical terrorist, and you’ll be back in the saddle.”

“As long as I don’t have to drag myself out of my sick bed to save your bacon again, hot shot,” Hutch pointed out sourly.

Starsky seemed about to protest, then shrugged. “I’ll try to make sure me and my partner stay out of trouble ’til you’re back in action,” he promised.

Partner. That simple word, coming out of Starsky’s mouth and applied to someone else, sounded like the foulest sort of expletive to Hutch. The kind that desperate low-lifes threw at you as you snapped the cuffs on and marched them away to their just rewards. The kind you tried to ignore coming out of such filthy mouths, but they smarted nonetheless.

He was Starsky’s partner. Not cute little Meredith with her sassy attitude and arrogant self-confidence. The bitch hadn’t even had the manners to say thank you for her life. If he had it to do over again, he would leave the pair of them to rescue themselves. Hutch closed his eyes in shame. He couldn’t believe he had let such a thought into his mind. As far as Starsky was concerned. Hutch might not be his partner anymore, but Starsky was still his.

“Hutch? You tired, babe? Want me to go and let you rest?” Starsky asked.

Starsky sounded concerned again, and he didn’t sound particularly anxious to be gone. Hutch opened his eyes to check. No, Starsky wasn’t perched on the edge of the chair, jacket in hand, bunched muscles forewarning a leap to his feet.

“Sorry,” Hutch muttered. He wasn’t, but he needed to start making amends for his unvoiced disloyalty immediately.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, babe,” Starsky reassured him gently. “If it wasn’t for you, me and my partner’d be laid out on a couple of slabs—”

“That’s it!” Hutch roared. He shot upright in the bed, smacking his head on the light above it. He hardly even felt the pain. “Partner. Partner,” he echoed the man who was supposed to only ever call him partner. “That dumb bitch almost got you killed and you’re calling her partner!”

“Jesus Christ, Hutch, settle down,” Starsky commanded, jumping to his feet while reaching out both hands.

Hutch reared back to avoid the touch, almost toppled over and caught himself on the rail with his left hand hurriedly pulled from the sling. Even half-frozen, Hutch felt something give beneath the bandages that swathed his chest, but he didn’t care.

“Come on, Hutch. You’re gonna hurt yourself,” Starsky pleaded.

“What do you care? You have a new partner already settled in, don’t you? I thought I was the only partner you ever wanted.” Hutch felt the sneer growing on his face, knew how ugly it made him, knew as the words formed in his brain, that when he said them, Starsky would finally see how truly ugly he was. “It’s just like sweetheart, isn’t it, Starsk? I was sweetheart until perfect, saintly Terry came along and then it was hit the road, Hutch.”

Starsky had turned white under his tan and the color wasn’t coming back as shock gave way to fury to animate that pasty gray face.

Hutch had never believed in out of body experiences, until now as he looked down on the man in possession of his mouth, who seemed determined to drive away the only thing that made his life worthwhile. He saw Starsky’s fists double up at his sides and his sole purpose became to goad those fists into smashing into him. To prove to himself, to both of them, that Starsky was every bit as flawed as he was.

“You bastard….”

“So, I’m not your sweetheart anymore. As you so politely pointed out, you’ve lost your taste for my ass,” Hutch reminded him of the statement that, he suspected, Starsky had meant to soothe but which had, instead, landed like an oiled whip on Hutch’s vulnerable pride.

“Shut up, Hutch, before—”

“Before what, Starsk? Now it looks like I’m not your partner of choice anymore, either,” Hutch cut in.

“Enough, Hutch. Before you say so much I can’t even call you friend anymore,” Starsky pleaded.

If it had been a command, another demand issued out of rage, Hutch wouldn’t have been able to take back possession of his mouth. But Starsky was begging him to stop before it was too late. Hutch battled past his own hurt fury to force his lips together before one more damning word slipped free.

“I called Meredith my partner because she’s a good cop. I’m ashamed to admit she had to teach me that the hard way, but my skull isn’t so thick I couldn’t learn it. But she’s just fillin’ the hole at my back until my real partner can be there again. You’re my partner, Hutch,” Starsky swore, the anger and cutting edge cleansed from his voice if not his eyes. “And you’ll be my partner until you tell me you’re not.”

The last word was still an echo when the door hissed shut behind Starsky. Stunned by what he had said, by the ferocity of the emotions that had swept through him and out to poison the space between them without warning, Hutch slowly sank back to the bed.

“Ouch,” he muttered as he hit that lamp again on the way down. He didn’t even bother to lift a hand to rub at the small ache.

What in the name of insanity had possessed him? He had felt and acted like a raving maniac. He had even turned the cutting edge of his tongue on Terry, who he had truly loved as dearly as he loved Starsky. As dearly, he wondered in one of those moments of clarity that so often followed in the exhausted wake of an emotional storm. As dearly? Never. Hutch had never loved anyone as much as he loved Starsky. In all the ways there were, in every way he was capable of, Hutch loved Starsky.

And the blind man shall see, Hutch thought with bitter irony. When it was too fucking late—

The door swung open again, making Hutch’s heart leap with the hope that, only a few steps down the corridor, Starsky had come to his senses just as abruptly and returned. But it wasn’t his partner. It was the pretty nurse who had shaved him and flirted with him and made clear that ‘lights out’ around here could have more than one meaning, while Hutch had lapped it up. For the sole purpose of making Starsky jealous, he realized now.

“Oh, God. And I keep telling him I’m the brains of this outfit.”

“I beg your pardon, Officer Hutchinson,” the nurse said as she came up to the side of the bed and began her useless primping disguised as professional concern. The coy flirtatiousness left her face when she came close enough to see his shoulder. “Oh, no. What have you done now?”

Hutch looked down at himself, saw the bright red that soaked his pajama top and became aware of the warm wet that extended well beyond what he could see. He could feel it now, creeping along under his arm and soaking the bedding beneath him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and tried to struggle up.

The nurse laid hands on him and there was nothing coy about the way she flattened him to the bed. The lady meant business as she ripped open the pajama top and gaped a moment at what was revealed.

“You’re determined to kill yourself, aren’t you, Officer,” she accused as she reached for the call bell. “Well, I really wish you wouldn’t do it on my shift. I’d be a week filling out the paperwork.”

So much for the compassion of the nursing profession, not to mention flirtatious brunettes.

Another nurse answered the bell and was given brisk orders, and soon Hutch found himself the subject of his doctor’s increasingly ungentle ministrations. He hardly noticed the sting of the needle when the area was re-frozen to set his stitches once again. What was a pinprick and a near stranger’s irritation when Hutch had an amazing discovery to contemplate?

He was in love with Starsky. Since when, he wondered? A search back through his memory as the doctor muttered and picked at him reminded Hutch that he had recognized the emotion once, and had believed it had somehow been miraculously mutated by a year’s worth of fooling himself. After all, he had believed himself in love with Vanessa once, Gillian, and maybe even poor, weak, frightened Jeannie. Those emotions had certainly transformed themselves. Hatred, disgust, and pity, respectively. He could see now that what he had felt for those significant women in his life was little more than teenage infatuation. What he felt for Starsky was the emotion that drove men to dream beyond their capabilities; to achieve, for that loved one’s sake, the impossible.

“Never mind blind. I’ve been deaf, dumb and certifiably brain dead for years,” Hutch muttered, and found he couldn’t care less that the professionals working over him were looking at him as if he had lost his mind. He had, and was only getting it back now.

Too late. Starsky hardly even liked him anymore. There had been a time when Starsky, too, had believed himself to be falling in love with Hutch. Hutch had seen it happening and had waited in some trepidation for the emotion to resolve itself, as he had believed his had, into something more manageable. What might have lingered, Hutch was sure, had been battered into bloody non-existence by Hutch’s behavior this past year. Never mind the year. If this afternoon’s scene hadn’t stomped out whatever was left, then Starsky had to have a secret yearning to be Hutch’s personal doormat, and Hutch knew that would never be true.

“There,” the doctor pronounced as he snapped off surgical gloves. “If I have to set those stitches again, Officer Hutchinson, I’m going to do it with a staple gun and I won’t use anesthetic,” he threatened.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hutch promised, anxious for all the white clad bodies in the room to leave him alone to think.

“Do that,” the doctor ordered, then his commandant demeanor eased a little. “Every time you re-open the wound, you increase your chances of ending up with a permanent disability.”

A burned-out cop on a disability pension in love with his partner. Former partner, Hutch added just to drive the point home because, quite obviously, the last person he ever listened to was himself.

The doctor left him to the tender mercies of the brunette nurse, who re-bandaged his shoulder without her previous fluttering. He was assisted to a chair while fresh sheets were put on the bed, and a clean pajama top carefully maneuvered onto his damaged arm. The call bell was placed pointedly in his hand when he was settled back on the bed.

“Stay in that bed,” the nurse commanded. “If you need anything, ring the bell.”

“What if?” Hutch asked, nodding toward the bathroom.

Annoyed dark eyes flashed dire warnings. “I’ll bring you a bed pan,” she promised and left.

Hutch forgot her before the door closed, and returned his attention to his startling discovery. But no matter how he looked at it, the information was as useless as a gun without its firing pin. Even if he could somehow erase the erosion the past year had inflicted on their relationship and find some way to make Starsky fall in love with him too, or again, what did Hutch have to offer him? Years of hiding what he felt, of lying to the world? Protecting a sexy little secret was one thing, denying your heart another. Besides, Starsky had already made his choice clear. Birch trees and puppies weren’t enough, and Hutch had nothing else to offer.

Hutch knew he could still have Starsky’s friendship and the partnership that worked so well. But only if he could put aside the jealousy, the dissatisfaction with the job and work at stretching those perfect moments of connection with Starsky back into endless days when they had thought themselves invincible.

Hutch wanted to. The problem was, he didn’t think he had the emotional strength or the selflessness left anymore to do it. The best he could hope for was that he could find what it took to try.

~*~*~

Starsky let himself in the unlocked door of Hutch’s apartment, hoping Hutch would be ready to go, but a quick glance around failed to reveal his partner.

“Hutch?”

“Starsky?” Hutch’s voice came from the bathroom. “What are you doing here?” he asked as he appeared at the door and stood there rubbing his face.

The sting of aftershave, Starsky guessed, taking in his friend’s appearance. Beige ought to be a rotten color on a blond, but combined with a chocolate turtleneck, the matching dress slacks and jacket looked mighty fine in Starsky’s opinion. But he wasn’t supposed to notice such things anymore. In any case, the outfit wasn’t fine enough for where they were going.

“Don’t get me wrong, partner, but don’t you think that’s just a little casual for this swanky-dank celebration?” Starsky asked. He spread his arms and turned, showing off the tux he had been forced into buying after it was damaged. He thought Mrs. Ramos had done an amazing repair job. There wasn’t a trace left of the rip down the back, and it had come in handy to own it tonight rather than having to rent one.

“We?” Hutch echoed, picking up his watch and strapping it onto his wrist. “I don’t know about you, but Kate and I are going to dinner at Chez Pierre’s.”

“But what about the awards ceremony tonight?” Starsky protested. “We told Dobey—”

“You told Dobey,” Hutch corrected him. “I told you I wasn’t going. You just weren’t listening. As usual.”

Starsky didn’t even wince at the sarcasm of the last two words. He was used to that tone, almost immune to it. The accusation was true, in any case. Once Kate Laraby, the super model with the brains of a squirrel, had been mentioned, Starsky tuned out. Hutch used to complain about the low IQs of some of the women Starsky dated. In Starsky’s opinion, you just couldn’t get dumber than a woman who asked someone to kill her and then paid him to do it. Starsky suspected Hutch’s continuing interest was only the ghost of that white knight Hutch used to be, but he wasn’t about to suggest that to Hutch. Keep the peace and hang in there for the good times—however few and far between they might be—was now the credo by which Starsky lived.

“What’s it gonna look like,” Starsky protested, because he didn’t want to go to the damned dinner either, but he had promised Dobey, “if none of the guys from his own department show up?”

“I don’t care what it looks like,” Hutch countered. “I am not going to sit through a bad dinner and boring speeches to honor that—”

“Come on, Hutch,” Starsky cut in before Hutch could really get going, but he suspected he was already too late. This one really rubbed Hutch the wrong way. “Conner did save the Mayor’s daughter—”

“Conner fell into a pile of shit and came out smelling like a rose.” Hutch took his turn at interruption, his tone and expression so vicious that Starsky instinctively took a step back, even though he knew it wasn’t meant for him. “He’s a bigoted, incompetent asshole who just proves that God really must protect fools and little children. In this case, it just happened to be both.”

Starsky threw up his hands in surrender. Why argue? Especially when every word Hutch said was true. There were some things you did, just because you had to, however, especially when you made a promise to your boss. Starsky was stuck, and if Hutch wanted to listen to one of Dobey’s lectures tomorrow, who was Starsky to interfere?

“Okay,” Starsky said, heading for the door. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He paused in the doorway, looked back over his shoulder and grinned. “Think of me eating rubber chicken while you’re stuffing yourself at Chez Pierre’s.”

Hutch laughed, that carefree laugh that was one of those good times Starsky had learned to savor. “Oh, I will, Starsk. I will.”

Guiding the Torino with only a fraction of his attention, Starsky spent the trip to the banquet hall resigning himself to a boring evening. At least he and Hutch hadn’t ended up in a fight over a man they both detested equally. It could have come to that, Starsky knew, if he had let it. The easy give and take of friendship that had once come so naturally to them had to be worked at now. So, Starsky worked at it, and, he had to give his partner credit, Hutch did too, most of the time. But their friendship no longer ran along like a fine-tuned engine. So what? You didn’t junk a car just because it picked up a few knocks. You fixed it if you could, and, if you couldn’t, you nursed it along the way he had nursed his old blue bomb. It might not be as smooth a ride, but it got you there. Starsky tried not to remember how that old car had eventually given up the ghost at a critical moment.

Starsky felt like a fish out of water without his partner as soon as he walked into the banquet hall. This kind of scene just wasn’t his bag. It was Hutch who wore a tux like the damned things were invented just for him, and glided smoothly through an elegant crowd. Starsky suspected that he always looked a little rumpled in the penguin suit, as if he had been thrown together at the last minute, and he knew his habitual strut was out of place here.

Looking for a donut to go with the hole in his confidence, Starsky scanned the crowd until his gaze found the Dobeys. Edith was matronly elegant in crimson satin, but the captain… Starsky grinned, self-image repaired somewhat by the sight of his superior’s clearly unhappy visage above his over-stuffed tuxedo. Starsky knew he looked like a prince of the realm compared to that.

Circling the room with feigned nonchalance, Starsky was relieved to see that only the tables at the very front had place cards. Good. That meant he could sit at the back where it wasn’t as likely to be noticed if he used the wrong fork, drank out of the wrong glass, or forgot to keep his elbows off the table. Besides, it would be a whole lot easier to slip out unnoticed if the glory about to be showered down on Conner’s undeserving head made Starsky as sick to his stomach as he thought it might.

Sliding into a chair at an, as yet unoccupied table for eight as close to the door as possible, Starsky reminded himself he wasn’t here to have a good time. It was sort of like an all-night stakeout. A dirty job that somebody had to do and, tonight, he had drawn the short straw. Hopefully, the food wouldn’t be too bad or the speeches too long and boring. Hope springs eternal, Starsky thought cynically.

He had been sitting at the table alone for five minutes and was beginning to wonder if he might get away with slipping out now since Dobey had already seen him, when Starsky’s prospects for the evening took a sudden turn for the better.

“Is this seat taken?”

The low, sultry voice drew Starsky’s eyes from their contemplation of his empty plate, to the hand that rested on the chair beside him, up the long stretch of smooth, naked arm to an equally naked shoulder, and on to a beautiful face framed by an elegant arrangement of golden blonde hair. Starsky’s brain might have been a beat behind, but his body knew its business as he scrambled to his feet and held out the chair for this vision of loveliness.

“It is now,” Starsky assured her. “I’m Dave Starsky,” he introduced himself.

“Yes, I know. And I was hoping you’d say that,” the woman admitted as she settled, with, in Starsky’s totally biased opinion, the grace of a butterfly on the chair.

“Do we know each other?” Starsky asked as he sat down next to her, hitching his chair around just a little. A warning to every other single guy in the room that he was already marking this lovely feminine real estate out as his territory.

“No. But I’ve seen you around the station.” A pause while the woman offered Starsky a coy glance from her brown eyes. “You have quite the reputation, Detective Starsky.”

Which reputation, Starsky wondered? The one in bed that had been flagging over the past few years, or the reputation of Starsky and Hutch?

“You and your partner—Hutchinson, isn’t it? Super cops who can’t be bought,” the woman elaborated. She offered her hand. “I’m Sergeant Kira Price and I’m hoping someday to have a reputation as well respected as yours.”

~*~*~

Hutch was feeling pretty damned good. Except for a little niggle of guilt because he knew he should be feeling a lot worse on Starsky’s behalf. On the whole, Hutch felt he had had a very good week. Starsky had not. But all was well that ended well, and, if Starsky’s demeanor as he prowled around the pool table looking for his next shot was any indication, his partner was putting it behind him as well.

Hutch was proud of himself. Even though Nick Starsky had proven every one of Hutch’s instinctive reactions to be right on the money, between them, he and Starsky had pulled the dumb bastard’s nuts out of the fire. That wasn’t the source of Hutch’s pride. For the first time in so long he could hardly recall the last time, Hutch hadn’t had to consciously do what was necessary to watch Starsky’s back for him. On and off the job, every single action he had taken to protect his partner’s reputation and his heart had come as naturally as breathing. He hadn’t even had to think about being Starsky’s friend first and a cop second.

“Hey, Starsk,” Hutch called, just as Starsky was about to take his shot. Blue eyes glared at him, even though Starsky had recovered in time, but Hutch smiled into them anyway. “Sorry,” he offered in feigned innocence.

“Distract me all you want, Blintz. You are toast,” Starsky bragged.

Hutch hitched his butt up onto a stool at the bar. He might as well because Starsky’s prediction was nothing but the truth. He and Huggy didn’t stand a chance. The Starsky brothers had hustled them. He didn’t care. He would make sure his twenty bucks went into the elder Starsky’s pocket. He was just so damned content to be here tonight.

When Starsky had first announced his brother’s impending visit, Hutch had foreseen himself slipping down yet another place on Starsky’s dance card. He was already running a poor third behind Starsky’s new girlfriend, Kira Price, and the job, and he had assumed that what little time he and Starsky did spend together would now be devoted to Starsky’s beloved little brother. He had been surprised to be invited along to the disco, and, even though the evening had turned out to be one long textbook display of sibling rivalry, Hutch had enjoyed watching Starsky best his brother time after time.

“Hutch, my man, I am going to get that conniving, hustling partner of yours,” Huggy, who had come to lean against the bar, threatened.

“Be sure to let me know when,” Hutch muttered back, keeping the smile on his face as Starsky sank the eight ball to end the game. “I want to watch.”

“Pay up, suckers,” Starsky demanded as he sauntered up to them.

Hutch was quick to dig for the bills so he could hand them over to his partner, leaving Huggy to grudgingly pay up his gambling debt to Nicky.

“Winners buy the next round,” Huggy reminded the self-satisfied victors.

Hutch had to bite his lip to halt the protest when he saw Nick stuff his money in his pocket and look at his big brother expectantly. Starsky had seen his sibling’s true colors now, and if he still chose to be a patsy, it was really none of Hutch’s business.

Starsky, however, seemed to have discarded his rose-colored glasses permanently. He took a swat at Nicky’s curls, then gave him a shove to the shoulder toward where Anita waited to fill their orders. “Get over there, hot shot, or I’ll take it out of your allowance,” he growled.

“Nice game,” Hutch complimented Starsky after Huggy also moved away.

Starsky shrugged. “That’s how we spend our time in New York when I visit,” he admitted, a shrug and a rueful expression acknowledging how blind he could be when it came to someone he loved. “I just never noticed that that was all we have in common.”

Hutch put a hand on Starsky’s shoulder and their eyes met in a moment of silent communication that were now so rare each and every one of them had become precious. “Starsk, I….”

“Hey, Dave. What you havin’? ‘Nother beer?” Nick called from the end of the bar.

Starsky moved out from under his hand and Hutch let it fall to his side, the little flitter of guilt on Starsky’s face bringing with it a cool breeze of foreboding. Hutch had the feeling he was about to be reminded of his place.

“Nothin’,” Starsky replied with a wriggle of his eyebrows. “Gotta make like a herd of turtles.” The blue eyes shifted to Hutch. “Got a date with Kira as soon as she gets off shift.” A nod of the dark head indicated his brother. “Keep an eye on the kid for me, willya, Hutch? Don’t know if I trust him out on his own.”

Fourth place and babysitter to boot. Hutch didn’t know why he just didn’t walk away from the whole mess. Job. Starsky. Everything. Maybe he had become a masochist. No. Hutch didn’t enjoy the pain; he just endured it because walking away from Starsky still wasn’t something he could do. “Yeah, sure. I’ll make sure he keeps his nose clean,” he promised.

“And if he doesn’t, feel free to kick his ass,” Starsky invited. “See ya later,” he promised, then sauntered away, a cocky good-bye for his brother and friends trailing behind him.

“Jesus, Hutch, tell me the truth. Does he ever strike out?” Nick asked as he handed over Hutch’s beer.

“Only when he wants to,” Hutch replied bitterly, then swallowed the acid down with a beer chaser. “Come on, kid. You can give me a few lessons. Show me how to take that brother of yours down a peg or two.”

~*~*~

“I’m sorry,” Hutch murmured because there just wasn’t anything else he could say. Dobey had really blown it when he put Hutch on this case. Hutch might know more about jazz music, but, when it came to seduction, Starsky was the one with the never-fail reputation. That hadn’t always been true, but it was now, and Hutch knew it was because he no longer believed that even a small portion of the lies he told were worth it.

It hadn’t exactly been difficult for Hutch to get Marianne Owens into bed, even though he felt like a whore—a cheap one—doing it. It was once he had her here, stripped them both and applied all the expertise at his disposal, that Hutch had failed. No matter what he did, hands, mouth, or cock, he couldn’t make her come. Couldn’t give her that one sweet moment of forgetfulness, and, God knew, she needed it.

“I’d kill for a cigarette,” Marianne said, ignoring his apology. Maybe because she had heard those inadequate words far too often, from every man in her life, for them to have any meaning.

“Go ahead,” Hutch invited, and she rolled away from him, dragging a corner of the sheet with her to cover herself. She seemed so small and frail and boyish. Hutch had seen her that way on the stage, but, here, stripped of her dark clothes, her fragility was even more glaring.

“Thanks,” Marianne husked on the out-rush of pungent smoke.

Hutch rolled up behind her, reached across her body and plucked the cigarette from her hand. He brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply, felt the rush hit his lungs and his brain as he held it. He hadn’t had a cigarette since—Hutch groped back through time—since the night Vanessa left him. He exhaled the dangerous chemicals and the memory. He couldn’t believe he was doing something so self-destructive, but took another drag nonetheless before he let Marianne reclaim the cigarette. He lay back and let the slight dizziness take the sharp edges off his self-disgust.

“It isn’t your fault anyway. It’s me,” Marianne reassured him, then inhaled on her little tube of slow death so long Hutch thought she had forgotten how to stop. But she was a singer and control of her breathing was part of her art. Hit one of those sad, sobbing notes as clear as a bell and then hold it until the audience felt it in their own chests, was a talent that kept her on a stage.

The exhale, before she offered him the rest of her despair, went on even longer, the smoke rising toward the ceiling to form their personal little cloud of depression.

“There’s one advantage to being only half alive, Ken.” She revealed what might be the only reason she bothered to continue inhaling and exhaling day after day. “You only feel half the pain.”

Then he must be more alive than he knew, Hutch thought, because he felt every particle of the pain of his and Starsky’s relationship as it ripped from the moorings of his life. Without the bulwark of me and thee to fall back on, each new blow to Hutch’s belief in himself and the value of the work he did had the power to drive him to his knees. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep staggering back up to his feet. How much longer he would want to.

“Harry says…” Marianne began and then bit her lip as she butted out the cigarette. “I have to go. Rehearsal at the club in the morning.”

Reminded of his duty, even if it felt more like prostitution than law enforcement, Hutch rolled, nuzzled into the bare skin at her waist while encircling her hips with his arm. His fingers sought the warm, dark place between her legs where he had already tried and failed to please her.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Stay.” He slid his fingers over her labia and felt the slick slide of his own semen and saliva. “Let me try to bring the other half of you back to life. For just a little while.”

Drawing her back down to him, Hutch reminded himself that this was just another assignment. Do it well, and a little bit of the scum might be scraped off the streets of Bay City. It was so hard to remember that he was any better than that scum, or to care that more would come to take its place.

What happened to white knights when their shining armor tarnished, Hutch wondered as he kissed his way down her body, feeling it begin to tremble beneath him. When all the shine was gone, would he become the evil black knight?

~*~*~

“That’s all of it, Captain?” Hutch asked. “Two dead dancers from the Golden Lady Ballroom. Not even a partial description of a possible perp? Nothing?”

Starsky finished filling the little paper cup at Dobey’s water cooler and came back to his seat beside Hutch. His partner looked a little brighter today, Starsky was glad to see. At least he was wearing a proper shirt and jacket, not one of those damned ugly bowling shirts. Starsky couldn’t figure out where Hutch got them. It wasn’t as if he had ever bowled on a team.

“That’s why they pay us the big bucks, partner,” Starsky quipped bitterly. “So they can dump all the impossible cases in our laps and expect us to work miracles. Right, Cap?”

“If you don’t want the case,” Dobey began, leaning over his desk to reach for the file. “I can give it to Babcock and Simmons.”

Starsky put his hand, flat palmed, on the folder and looked at Hutch for his decision. Hutch shrugged disinterestedly. That lack of interest almost made Starsky lift his hand, but he gathered the file up after a moment on an impulse. Hutch wasn’t interested in much nowadays, and Starsky could only guess he was still feeling the failure of his last undercover assignment. No one else thought he had failed, but Hutch did, and Starsky hadn’t been able to convince him that the death of Harry Owens wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t seem to find the right words to say good morning to Hutch anymore, let alone offer the support that had once come so naturally to them.

Tucking his partner worries away for the time being, Starsky flipped open the file. “Anything in common?” he asked Dobey. “Besides the dance hall, I mean.”

“Just that they were both blondes,” Dobey reported. “Up until this morning, there were three blondes left. One quit after the body was discovered. Madame Bouvet says the one named Susan is too stupid to quit. The last one says she’ll wear a dark wig. She can’t afford to quit.”

“She can afford to be dead?” Hutch asked sarcastically.

Dobey replied with a shrug.

“Any ideas?” Starsky asked Hutch.

“I guess we go in,” Hutch said, beginning to show a little more animation.

That’s better, Starsky thought. “As customers, I assume. Try not to step all over the ladies’ feet,” he added. That earned him a glare, but there was the hint of a smile hiding under the mustache. It was one of those golden moments that were almost extinct now.

“You worry about your own feet. When was the last time you did the fox trot?” Hutch shot back. “But with only one blonde left in the place, I doubt there’s going to be much of anything for either one of us to see. If our guy really is into only the fairest of the fairer sex, we’re going to need more bait.” He tapped the eraser from the pencil he held against his lips. “I wonder what Linda Baylor would look like in a blonde wig. She’s smart and savvy and not afraid to play tethered goat.”

“Like a brunette wearing a blonde wig,” Dobey vetoed. “Besides, she’s already involved in a long-term sting with vice.”

“What about Kira Price?” Starsky suggested and collected another glare from Hutch, this one undiluted by even a trace of a smile. “What’s the matter with Kira?” he asked, hearing the belligerence in his own voice that he knew was only going to get Hutch’s back up even more.

“Yes, Hutchinson. What’s the matter with Sergeant Price?” Dobey echoed. “She’s experienced enough. Blonde.”

“Starsky’s dating her,” Hutch revealed. “Fraternization.”

“Immaterial,” Dobey decreed. “This isn’t a permanent assignment.” He turned his attention to Starsky. “Will she do it?”

“I think so,” Starsky replied. “She isn’t playing at being a cop. She’s serious…” He paused at Hutch’s snort of disbelief. “What do you know about her? You’ve never even met her,” he pointed out, feeling only a small twinge of guilt. He hadn’t exactly been avoiding an introduction between the woman he was trying so hard to fall in love with and his partner, he just hadn’t gone out of his way to make it happen either.

“I’ve noticed,” Hutch said, stood up and plucked the file from Starsky’s hand. “But I guess I’m going to meet her now. Let’s go, partner. I want to be in place before the dancing starts tonight. We’ll keep you informed, Captain,” he added to Dobey as he left the room.

Starsky took a minute to control his temper before he followed, meeting Dobey’s sympathetic eyes.

“Do you know what’s eating him?” Dobey asked quietly.

He had a couple of theories, a few guesses, but, no, Starsky didn’t know what was wrong with Hutch. Not really. Because he and Hutch didn’t talk anymore, silently or aloud. They still exchanged words, but they didn’t talk.

“Needs a vacation,” Starsky said, still covering for his partner. Hutch might be acting like a bear with a sore ass, but he was Starsky’s bear. The grace period was coming to an end, however. When this case was over, Starsky decided, Hutch was going to start talking. And if it precipitated the last explosion that finally split them up, so be it. They certainly couldn’t go on like this much longer before they made a mistake that might cost one or both of them their lives or their careers.

Sick at heart, Starsky climbed to his feet, offered Dobey a mocking salute, and followed his partner.

~*~*~

Hutch hadn’t actually met Kira, but he had seen her around the station. There was no question that she was beautiful, and on a purely objective basis, Hutch could understand Starsky’s attraction to her. When it came to Starsky, however, Hutch was anything but objective no matter how hard he tried. He didn’t much like that about himself. It made him wonder what had happened to the man he used to be who could say, and truly mean, that all he wanted for Starsky was to be happy.

There was plenty about himself that Hutch didn’t much like anymore. The empathy for the victims they dealt with that used to be such a struggle for him to overcome was no longer a problem. He had problems enough of his own and found he no longer cared to shoulder the troubles of others or to try to pretend any interest in the state of the world. It was all he could do to keep an uncertain rein on the simmering bad temper inside that could sour the best and brightest of days. What he hated most, however, at the moment, was the way his cock rose to the bait as Kira leaned over his table to flirt and tease.

“Come on, sailor. Your dance card is looking awfully lonely. Not even a minute punched on it and you’ve been here a whole hour. Come dance with me,” Kira coaxed.

“You’re supposed to be bait for the killer, Sergeant Price. We’re pretty sure I’m not him,” Hutch chastised her in a whisper, but he couldn’t seem to raise his eyes from her cleavage.

Kira laughed and leaned closer, ostensibly to continue the official discussion. Whatever her reason, the result was that Hutch found himself with an even better view of her charms.

“And I’m supposed to be visible,” Kira reminded him. “Part of your job is to make sure I am.”

“What about Starsky?” Hutch asked, because he knew his partner was already, less than an hour into their masquerade, doing a slow burn. It had to be griping him to watch his woman waltzed around the floor in the arms of so many men. Starsky could be so territorial.

“He’s doing his mean and moody Attila the Hun impersonation,” Kira complained, prompting Hutch to finally lift his gaze to confirm the pout in her voice. “Besides, we make such a lovely couple.”

“Bull,” Hutch muttered. There was nothing lovely about him right now. He had chosen his costume for exactly that purpose. He seemed to try to ugly himself up whenever he had the opportunity lately. To reveal the inner man, he wondered?

“Besides, you know how Dave loves to dance. If he gets out on the floor with me, he’ll forget why he’s here,” Kira teased. Her hand lifted, fingers brushing at the bit of Hutch’s hair visible beneath the cap. “You’ll keep your wits about you.”

Abruptly, Hutch picked up the dance card and, with insulting deliberation, tucked it between the mounds of her breasts. “Be careful who you play games with,” he growled.

“Oh, I love to play games,” Kira assured him as she led the way to the dance floor.

That was all this was, Hutch told himself, as he took his partner’s girlfriend into his arms. A game played by professionals to catch a killer. Kira was only snuggling up to him, flirting with him, to attract the murderer’s attention. His cock was only getting hard because that’s what happened when it was pressed into the warm, shifting belly of a beautiful woman. And everybody better start carrying heavy duty umbrellas because herds of pigs were going to be flying over Bay City any minute now.

Even if Starsky wasn’t fucking Kira, Hutch would want her. It sounded good in theory, but it was a lie nonetheless. Hutch found one more thing he didn’t like about himself.

~*~*~

Starsky’s smell. It was the first thing Hutch noticed when he and Kira, stripped down to matching golden skin, fell into her bed together. Traces of cologne, hints of shampoo, that arousing personal aroma Hutch breathed in every day on the job, and that had been missing from his bed for so long. Any decent friend, any civilized man, would have gone limp as the scent enveloped him. Hutch got harder. There was very little civilized about him now.

Just enough of the modern man to buy into Kira’s free love clap-trap. Only enough to keep his hands gentle as they tested the firmness of her breasts and the succulent heat of her cunt. Would he find an iron/salt, familiar taste when he completed his oral journey down her writhing body and lapped at the juices flowing so freely from her? Had Starsky fucked her recently enough that Hutch could feed on his friend’s seed? If he got any harder, Hutch feared his cock would burst.

“Oh, you’re good,” Kira purred when Hutch, the fantasy of Starsky’s possession of her playing havoc with his controls, had to leave off his feasting and move up to hover above her.

Kira brushed her thumb over his damp mustache. “Never had a man with a mustache go down on me before.” She grinned her approval, lifted up to kiss him. “Definite kick.”

Okay, so maybe I can get used to the cookie duster after all.

Hutch kissed her to shut her up, tried to block the sound of Starsky’s voice from his ears. He was so close to coming all over the sheets.

“You gonna return the favor, liberated lady?” Hutch asked when he released her mouth.

He let her push him over onto his back and lay, without protest, as she made a quick passage down his body. A cursory kiss for his nipple, a brief lick at his navel. Why didn’t women ever seem to understand that a man liked to be savored as much as they did? The only woman Hutch had ever had who seemed to know that was Gillian, and that was her job. Only another man, only Starsky, had ever….

“Oh, look what you’ve got for me.”

The memory/fantasy shattered on Kira’s approval as she gathered up his cock with both hands. She stropped her cheek against it, then kissed the exposed glans.

“Are you sure this is legal, Officer Hutchinson?” she taunted, fingers busy and eyes promising. She licked her lips. “Bet you’ve never had anybody who could take it all.”

Hutch smirked the challenge at her, wondering how this I-love-who-I-please woman would take it if he told her that the lover she had so recently—a few hours ago?—fucked had been giving Hutch the pleasure of his throat for years. It would probably make her cream all over the sheets. Then, in the morning, the ambitious, rung-climbing little bitch would make an appointment with IA.

“Give it your best shot, baby,” Hutch invited, closed his eyes and let the memory of a far more talented mouth claim him as Kira tried to make good on her boasting.

Her inadequacy only spoiled the fantasy. After a few minutes, Hutch fisted a handful of her hair to lift her away from his groin, then used the grip to bring her over onto her back, tightening it when he saw how much the slight pain aroused her.

He reached for the condom on the bedside table, and placed the slippery packet in her hands. “Put it on me, baby,” he invited.

The small square of common sense was flipped between two fingers before Kira issued her own challenge. “What do you need this for? I’m on the pill.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless there’s something you know about Dave you want to tell me.”

She saw it in his face then. Hutch knew it. Recognized how the mention of his partner’s name while his cock hovered so close to where Starsky had sunk his, kicked him as hard as a well-aimed thrust to his prostate.

“Never shared a woman with your partner before, Ken?”

Kathy. Inside the woman while he looked deep into Starsky’s eyes.

Hutch plunged into her, heard Starsky’s shout of surrender in his ears, and came. Remembered pleasure ripped through him as his cock spewed, even as his heart cried out for the man he loved.

“Sorry,” he mumbled when he could form words again; gather the strength to withdraw from her unsatisfied body and flop at her side.

“I’m flattered,” Kira dismissed the apology and wrapped herself around him. Wanting nothing more than to be free of her, it felt to Hutch as if she had more clinging limbs than an octopus.

“Never hurts to take the edge off,” she purred, flaunting her experience. “Just makes the rest of the night more… interesting.”

The rest of the night. Hutch knew he was going to stay. Take her again and again. As many times as he could. And every time she brought Starsky into bed with them, Hutch knew he would do it again.

Lying entwined with a frightened woman whose trust he had courted and then betrayed, Hutch had thought that the white knight had sunk as low as he could go. He knew now that that guilt-ridden man had had no conception of the true, tarnished depths of his own soul.

~*~*~

Starsky didn’t shut the Torino’s engine down when he pulled up in front of Venice Place. Didn’t even put it in park. He just waited silently for his former lover, former friend, and soon to be former partner, to climb out of his car for the last time.

“Starsky?”

He should have known. Hutch couldn’t just make this simple. Civilized, if a little brutal. They had been picking away at the emotional glue that held them together for months now. A man as hirsute as Starsky knew that the only way to remove a bandage was in one fast rip. Maybe it was all of Hutch’s smooth skin that wouldn’t let him understand that, too.

“Good-bye,” Starsky said, breaking it up into two distinct syllables, taking particular care not to mumble.

“Starsk? What about all your stuff?” Hutch asked, his tone begging Starsky to look at him.

Starsky ignored the appeal. Clothes. Records. Books. The Monopoly game. There weren’t as many pieces of his life at Hutch’s now as there used to be. Just great big chunks of his soul. He couldn’t stuff those in a suitcase and carry them home.

Starsky dragged his hand back through his hair, hissed in pain as a piece of glass from the explosion at the Golden Lady Ballroom, that was tangled up fast in his curls, cut into his palm. Hutch caught his wrist and, as much as he wanted to, Starsky couldn’t make himself pull free of the grip. He had savored all of their first times, and now he was held immobile as he mourned their last touch.

“You’re covered in glass. Come up and take a shower,” Hutch suggested. “You’ll be hamburger before you get home if you don’t.”

The concern in the hushed voice was genuine, the fingers that traced the barely bleeding stripe down Starsky’s palm, gentle. Starsky didn’t understand how he could hate someone so much, and still love him, too. A tangled web of conflicting emotions had always defeated him.

“We need to talk,” Hutch added in a whisper that sounded as if he expected another grenade to go off in his face. One capable of inflicting far more pain than the mere metal shards that had taken out the wall at the ballroom.

“What do we need a post mortem for, Hutch?” Starsky asked tiredly. If he had any forgiveness left in him, he knew Hutch could find it, and Starsky didn’t want it to be found. It was time he cut his losses, picked up the chips of his heart he still had left, and walked away. “It’s dead. What does it matter if it died of slow poison or a bullet to the brain?”

“Then at least let’s give it a decent burial,” Hutch pleaded. “If we’re going to end it, let’s end it here between the two of us. Not in Dobey’s office for the whole department to get their jollies out of.”

Starsky couldn’t think of what more Hutch might have to say to him that he had not already said loud and clear with his actions. But he knew Hutch would find a way to say it anyway. Maybe Hutch was right after all. Once the ME was done with a body, cut in that obscene Y incision and popped the top off the skull, there was never any doubt that the cadaver was dead. Maybe both of them needed to see the corpse of what they had once been to each other laid out on a slab.

Starsky eased the shift into park, turned the key and pulled it from the ignition. “All right, Hutch. Let’s get this over with.”

~*~*~

Under the hot spray of the shower, Hutch discovered he had a few little hurts of his own from the explosion. They stung, and he welcomed it, grateful for the distraction from the pain inside.

Even above the pounding of the water, Hutch could hear the small sounds Starsky, already showered and dressed, was making. Hutch couldn’t tell what he was doing, packing probably, but he knew Starsky was still there. It wouldn’t matter how silently Starsky closed the door behind him, Hutch knew he would feel it when his friend walked out of his life for the last time.

He should have left well enough alone. Let Starsky go home and calm down. If he had, would he and Starsky have been able to stagger on a little longer? Amputate the friendship and continue limping along on the bleeding stump of their partnership? No. It was better this way. There was no way for him to make amends, all Hutch hoped for now was to somehow find the right words to let both of them move on with as little bitterness as possible.

The water was turning cold now and Hutch shut it off. He dried and dressed while he listened to Starsky moving around in the apartment. His robe hung on the back of the door, and he would much rather snuggle into its old, comfortable folds. Totally inappropriate, he thought, as he pulled on a shirt that he left hanging open, ran an uncaring hand back through his hair, and braced himself to begin the autopsy.

Starsky was sitting in the chair with his back to the bathroom when Hutch came out. His partner’s elbows-on-knees, head-in-hands figure was the second thing he noticed. The first was the suitcase by the door. He had known it would be there, prepared himself to see the tangible proof of Starsky’s leaving. It still kicked him in the gut.

“I borrowed a suitcase,” Starsky said, even though he couldn’t possibly know how that sight was riveting Hutch in the bathroom doorway. “I’ll give it back tomorrow at the station before….”

Before they asked Dobey to make it official, Hutch completed the sentence for him. “Fine,” he agreed and started for the couch before his knees gave out, began to sit and then straightened. He couldn’t do this stone cold sober. “Do you want a beer?” he asked.

Starsky looked up at him then, disbelieving, questioning his sanity.

“Come on. They drink at wakes, don’t they?” Hutch reminded him. “Toast the body and lay it to rest.”

Starsky winced, shrugged, then eased back in the chair. “Yeah. Okay. Make it a cold one.”

Retrieving the bottles from the refrigerator gave Hutch a two-minute reprieve. He stretched it to four by finding a couple of glasses in the cupboard and rinsing them. No more stays of execution, he thought as he carried bottles and glasses into the living room, gave Starsky his and took up an uncomfortable perch in the corner of the couch that had always been Starsky’s.

It seemed so damned strange to have Starsky way over there, familiar sprawl revealed as a sham by the white knuckled grip he had on the arms of the chair. How strange it felt to have Starsky here at all. They had seen so little of each other lately, off the job, and Hutch realized only now that he had been swallowing the shreds of what little they had left like painkillers to deaden the pain of what was being torn away.

Hutch knew it was up to him to make the first cut. He didn’t know how to do it. He should start with an apology, but ‘I’m sorry’ was such a pitiful offering for betraying a sacred trust.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Starsky said, gesturing toward the bruising revealed by Hutch’s open shirt. “Wasn’t very civilized.”

Hutch pulled the edges of his shirt together and fumbled a few of the buttons closed, wondering, with cynical self-hatred, if he had left it hanging open on purpose. To let Starsky see the damage he had inflicted, to, perhaps, garner sympathy. That he wasn’t sure of his own motives—carelessness or deliberate manipulation—only made Hutch hate himself more.

“I wasn’t behaving particularly civilized myself,” he replied, dismissing any small blame Starsky might be accountable for.

“Why’d you fuck her?”

Bald, crude and to the point. Hutch should have remembered that Starsky loved to dance, but only beneath the flash of strobe lights to the driving beat of a disco tune.

There was nothing in the hard eyes and harder face to make Hutch believe anything he said would make a difference to Starsky. Even Starsky could only forgive so much, and exercises in futility had never been Hutch’s scene. And Hutch no longer wanted to fool himself that the white knight wasn’t depraved beyond redemption. Let Starsky have the truth, believe it, and then they could both walk away.

“Because you were,” Hutch admitted, his voice calm because he forced it to be.

Sneers were ugly things, especially on the face of someone who used to look at you like you hung the moon. “So, you were thinkin’ with your dick again, huh?” Starsky accused.

Hutch knew he could leave it at that. Starsky, who could be led around by a flood of testosterone, would accept that. Hutch couldn’t do it. However much it would hurt them both, Starsky deserved the truth. Deserved to know that nothing of the man he once knew still lived inside Hutch.

“Because you were,” Hutch repeated. “I couldn’t have you anymore. That was as close as I could get.” He offered a rueful shrug into the dawning comprehension in Starsky’s eyes before the other man abruptly dropped his gaze to the coffee table. “Your angel has turned into one sick son of a bitch.”

Awkward silences only fell between two people when there was nothing else to fill up the space. There was plenty vibrating in the air between him and Starsky now, all of it painful. On the whole, Hutch decided, he preferred the awkward silence.

He waited for Starsky to react, say something, anything, that would cut through the pain, even if it worsened it. But Starsky wasn’t giving him anything. No words. Not his eyes that seemed mesmerized by the sight of the beer glugging into his glass. Even his face, usually so damned expressive, was so shuttered Hutch couldn’t begin to read it. How sad, when once he could read the mind behind it.

Starsky had made the first cut after all. Now it was Hutch’s turn. Continue the slice down the torso, or slash upward for the heart, Hutch wondered? Why let Starsky be the only one to wield a blunt blade? Hutch was more than willing to accept the lion’s share of the blame for this final sundering of their relationship, but he hadn’t authored this final chapter alone.

“Why’d you tell me you were in love with her?” Hutch asked, because, although it was no excuse for the inexcusable, he had never believed it. He had seen Starsky in love. Diane, Terry, once upon a time, maybe even with him. And even though it wouldn’t have mattered to him if he had believed it, that he still would have wanted Kira and acted on that desire simply because she had what he wanted and could no longer have, Hutch still wanted to know the truth.

TV, kitchen, the nap of the carpet. They all received a fleeting moment of scrutiny before Starsky put aside his beer and let Hutch lay claim to his restless eyes. The pain in them tore at Hutch’s heart.

“Because I needed it to be true,” Starsky confessed. “She was…fun, and I could…pretend. It felt like she was my last chance,” he admitted softly.

Last chance. The way Hutch, ten years ago, had been Starsky’s last chance. Trying to struggle past his guilt and understand his partner one last time, Hutch studied the open face, saw that Starsky’s mask was gone now and that he sat with his chest cut open and his heart laid bare. Hutch couldn’t take it in. Had the love and longing in Starsky’s face been there all along and Hutch too blind to see?

“Last chance for what?” Hutch whispered because he knew he had to be wrong, must only be seeing what his own aching heart wanted to be there. “What do you want?”

The passive acceptance of pain left Starsky then, and he shot off the chair, jet propelled by the fury that suddenly twisted his face. Hutch braced himself for his partner to start swinging again, sink doubled fists into him the way he had at Kira’s front door. But the fist swept past him, opening at the last moment to catch the full beer bottle, the empty glass, the edge of the lamp on the table beside Hutch. The crash and clatter they made as they connected with walls and floor and shattered were almost enough to drown out Starsky’s truth.

“Last chance to stop loving you, you asshole,” Starsky bellowed, then abruptly shut his mouth, the startled look on his face revealing that only anger had let him show now what he had guarded so carefully.

Too late, too late, chanted in Hutch’s brain. The realization that Starsky, for whatever his reasons, had been hiding his love as well slowly dawned as he watched Starsky try to collect himself, to back away from the charged confession he had made. As Starsky’s fury died, Hutch felt his being born. Too fucking late. Why couldn’t Starsky have spoken sooner and saved Hutch from his corrosive jealousy and the hopelessness of his own love? Given them both at least a fighting chance. Hadn’t they always succeeded at anything they tried together? But both of them had been so busy lying to themselves and each other, they had ended up crippled at the gate before the race even began.

Hutch didn’t realize that his fury had possession of him until he was on his feet, advancing on Starsky who, at first retreated and then, dangerously, stood his ground. Hutch felt the hard muscles of Starsky’s chest flinch beneath his stabbing finger.

“Love me?” Hutch spat it out like the foulest of curses. “What is it you want, Starsk? What imbecilic white cottage dreams are you still harboring?” he demanded. He dropped his hand, the contact with Starsky seeming to burn him.

“What did you see in the future, Starsk?” he continued his verbal assault. “You and me standing under a bower of flowers on the beach? Dressed in matching tuxedos? What would we do? How would it be in this fantasy of yours? Would we exchange vows and rings? One of us pretend to be the bride for the traditional kiss, while all our friends say how wonderful it is?”

The questions were snarled, fueled by the helpless despair inside Hutch and by the recognition in Starsky’s eyes that, even flung at him in anger, the scenario appealed to a part of the man. A part Hutch wanted to murder now, because he had remained in hiding far too long.

“Except we won’t have any fucking friends,” Hutch reminded that dreamer viciously. “We won’t even have a partnership,” he reminded, though that was what they were here to mourn in any case. “Dobey’ll have to split us up. Not even straight cops are allowed to fraternize.”

Hutch saw calm settle over Starsky then, the kind of calm that claims you when you look down the barrel of a loaded gun and know you have no options left but to take the bullet. Hutch could pull the trigger, but he couldn’t look his friend in the eye while he did it. He spun away, took two stumbling steps, then forced himself to stop running.

“While we’re facing reality here,” Hutch said, his back to Starsky, feeling that resigned calm creeping up on him as well and welcoming it for the numbing relief it offered. “We might as well face the fact that neither one of us will survive the first time we need back up, and not one of our ‘brother’ officers will put down his coffee and donuts long enough to even acknowledge the call.”

Hutch took the last few steps and sank back down into the corner he had fled, wishing it was large enough to envelope him completely. He had pulled the trigger, but the gun had misfired, exploding back into his face to slaughter the dreams he hadn’t even known he, too, was clinging to. Nothing so fanciful as the scenario he had painted for Starsky, just a lingering belief that had allowed itself to be silenced but had refused to die, that if he loved Starsky, then Starsky must love him, too. As if it were the natural order of the universe.

“Oh, my God,” Starsky whispered, bringing Hutch’s eyes up to find they were now in so familiar, if reversed positions. Starsky at his end of the couch; he in Starsky’s. Hutch could only imagine that the way Starsky looked now was how a man, blind all his life, would look after suddenly being given a glimpse of the beauty he had been missing.

“You big, dumb blond. You’re in love with me too,” Starsky whispered softly as if a louder tone might tempt Hutch to deny the accusation.

“What if I am,” Hutch agreed tiredly, weary as he had never before been until it seemed that this exhaustion had invaded his body like some virulent cancer and sucked the life from him. “That doesn’t change anything I’ve done. Doesn’t change a fucking thing about the world we have to live in.”

“No, Hutch, it doesn’t,” Starsky agreed, the despair and resentment gone from his face now, replaced by the look of the optimist who had just been handed a whole box of donuts. A look Hutch had seen on his friend’s face hundreds of times, under circumstances that should have drained even Starsky of his ability to always find a silver lining. But never a situation that, even ten minutes ago, Hutch had believed so hopeless as the possibility of them salvaging even a few scraps of their once unique caring.

“But I don’t really give a damn anymore what the world wants,” Starsky confessed with a shrug that dismissed the millions upon millions of people who made up that possibly disapproving horde. “All I want is to love you. Just you. As long as you know and I know, the world can go fuck itself. I don’t want to keep on trying to fall in love with some woman when all the love I have is already given to you.”

Hutch felt as if he was suspended, hanging between what was, and what was right there within his reach. That feeling wouldn’t let him believe he could just stretch out his hand and grasp it. “Lying? Sneaking around. Living a lie every day of our lives?” he reminded Starsky, trying to make that eternal optimist understand that pessimists weren’t pessimists because they liked to fear the worst. They were realists who braced themselves for the inevitable slap in the face the way of things was bound to deliver.

“I don’t care if I have to spend the next fifty years lyin’ to the world, I just don’t want to lie to myself anymore. Or to you,” Starsky said, the earnestness which no one else in the world seemed to be able to capture the way he did, slowly giving way to an invitation to share the irony. “Besides, been doin’ it for ten years now. At least we’d have somethin’ more to show for it than a once-a-month fuck.”

If it was true that fools rushed in where angels feared to tread, did it follow that angels rushed in when fools had the sense to run for cover? And what about dancers? Where did they fit into this prophetic scheme? Why didn’t Starsky reach out to him? Maybe, Hutch thought, it was because even Starsky’s boundless optimism had been ground down by sorrow. And yet, Hutch could see the willingness in his partner’s eyes to take the risk if Hutch would too. Hesitantly, Hutch stretched his hand across the cushions that separated them, felt the jolt flash through him as Starsky’s met it and their fingers entwined. For a moment, they held on so hard that bones should have been breaking.

“What about Kira?” Hutch whispered, because he never could leave well enough alone, and because whatever was coming into being right now had to be cleansed of past wrongs and sorrows. “What I did….”

An echo of fury sketched itself over the hope in Starsky’s face, lingered a moment and then was banished. “Kira was as much my fault as yours. More, maybe, because I was too big a coward to tell you how I felt. When I first realized it, or even that night we broke the rules,” Starsky confessed. “Coulda saved us a whole lot of misery, but I got it into my head you couldn’t ever feel the same, and, well…” An expressive shrug of his shoulders and a scapegrace grin was offered to acknowledge his bullheadedness. “…hell, you know what I’m like when I get an idea.”

Hutch did know how tenacious his partner could be, especially when he felt backed into an emotional corner. Perhaps they did both have to share the blame, but Hutch found he could contemplate forgiving Starsky far easier than he could ever forgive himself. He shook his head, partly in denial of the amnesty Starsky offered, and partly in disgust with himself that he could not simply accept it.

“Hey. You think I don’t know what’s goin’ on in your head?” Starsky accused. “You think you ought to be doin’ penance or somethin’. The punishment fitting the crime and all that. But I hafta forgive us both, Hutch. ‘Cause if I don’t, I’m a bigger fool than I’ve already been. But if you really feel like you hafta do your time,” he bargained with a smile that invited Hutch to let the humor that had seen them through so much ease their passage onto this next page of their lives together. “You can promise to spend the next fifty years makin’ it up to me.”

“Oh, I will, Starsk. I will,” Hutch promised, refusing the opening to draw that humor into this just yet. “Every day.”

Starsky’s crooked grin and the tenderness in his eyes demanded Hutch leave guilt behind and offer him something that could sustain them both for the rest of their lives. “So what do you think? We gonna kiss and make up?”

Hutch felt nearly overcome by the need for that kiss, for the promises it would imply, the bargain it would seal. But still he hesitated. “It’ll surprise the hell out of Dobey.”

Starsky laughed. “You know there’s a pool, don’t you? Down at the station. Two bucks to pick the day the perfect partnership will end.” Starsky tilted his head as if he was debating revealing the rest of the knowledge he must have gleaned from the grapevine that Hutch never had made the effort to plug into. “From what I hear, Conner must be into it for a hundred bucks by now.”

Weddings, births and now the death throes of a partnership. Was there nothing their depraved colleagues wouldn’t bet on? “Anybody rooting for us?” Hutch asked.

Starsky’s smile became sheepish before he admitted, “Just me.”

It was so goddamned sad, Hutch admitted, that if he had known about it, as resigned as he had become to the fact that he and Starsky were only marking time until the inevitable end, even he would have forked over his two bucks.

Hutch felt Starsky’s hand squeeze his. “Babe,” Starsky prompted.

“It can’t really be this easy, can it?” Hutch asked, appalled that it really might be and they had wasted so damn much time, suffered so much misery needlessly.

“Easy?” Starsky echoed. “Hell, no. Who said it’s gonna be easy. Just keepin’ our jobs is gonna be a helluva trick.”

“Then it’s still worth it to you, Starsk? The damned job?” Hutch asked as he had asked months ago and had received an answer that had become more diametrically opposed to his own truth as the months passed. Or had his discontent with his work only been a symptom of his frustrated love for his partner?

“For now,” Starsky confirmed. “It’s gonna mean carrying on a lot like we have for the past ten years, only now, when we double date, we drop the girls off and go home together. Competing with you is fun, especially if I know it’s always gonna be me who walks away with the best prize.”

“What if I’m tempted?” Hutch asked, feeling a little giddy from dissipating shock, but also because he needed this spelled out between them, just as clearly and carefully as the rules that had governed the angel and the dancer had been spelled out.

“Temptation’s fine, Hutch. But if you act on it, I’ll cut off your dick,” Starsky threatened. It was said with a smile, but there was no humor in the eyes above the quirking lips. They were the eyes that Vic Humphries had looked into, the same deadly menace Ben Forest had known. The eyes of a predator ready to protect its territory.

It was both thrilling and terrifying for a man as insecure as Hutch. Thrilling to know he was loved so fiercely; terrifying to fear that he might never live up to it. “What if you are?” he asked, seeking the reassurance that they were both flawed human beings who were determined that, if only in this one precious instance, they would rise above their imperfect human condition.

Starsky’s eyes softened then, promises written there for Hutch to take to the bank and plan his retirement on. “Then we’ll both be a couple of dickless wonders.”

“Then we keep on playing the game for the world. Only you and I know that all the rules have changed,” Hutch summed up what all the promises meant in the reality of their lives.

“Unless that isn’t what you want,” Starsky reassured him. “Gotta be mutual, babe. All that stuff you were talking about earlier—cottages and stuff. You wanna just chuck the job and—”

“No,” Hutch interrupted hastily. “Don’t know how much longer I can take the shit, Starsk, but I do want a chance to be your partner again. Really your partner. The way it used to be.”

That earned Hutch the tender expression in Starsky’s eyes that could usually cause a meltdown in his own chest.

The silent communion lasted only a moment before Starsky’s features took on the fierce determination of a man who had been pushed as far as he intends to go. “Like I said, I don’t care what lies we gotta tell to the rest of the world, but, if I ever gotta make the choice, Hutch, they can have the badge and the gun.”

Hutch felt the echo of uncertainty that had plagued him after John Blaine’s death, but it was only an echo. If he were presented now with the choice of Starsky or the job, Hutch knew there would be no contest.

“Come on, sweetheart. Quit analyzing it to death,” Starsky coaxed.

The ‘sweetheart’ that he hadn’t heard for so long and the sweeter knowledge that Starsky still knew him so well nearly melted Hutch into the cushion. “The odds are against us,” he warned. It was a last moment of reason that Hutch didn’t even want to buy into himself.

Starsky leaned out of his corner. “Since when have you and me worried about the odds?”

Starsky had crossed half the space now, and Hutch knew it was up to him to bridge the rest. This was no time for the white knight to be faint hearted. Eyes open, watching love come closer, he leaned forward and met the mouth that waited for him. It was a kiss that began with apology and regret. Hutch tasted it on Starsky’s tongue when it slipped into his mouth to coax his into defeating the bitter dregs, to help banish them into the past, to let the sweetness of forgiveness bloom, be shared and swallowed into both of them.

“What do you want, Starsk?” Hutch asked when their lips parted, thinking of how he had thrown that question at Starsky only a short time ago. It was an offer now. The sun, the moon and the stars, even if Hutch had to build his own rocket to retrieve them.

Starsky’s fingers brushed over his mustache, then at the bangs that, uncombed, had fallen forward into his eyes. There was so much love in his face, Hutch felt as if he could be blinded by the light.

“I want to make love with you, Hutch,” Starsky confessed, and Hutch could see the way the next words were savored before Starsky gave them to him. “In the morning.”

“In the morning?” Hutch echoed, the idea appealing to his admittedly romantic nature. His baser needs, the ones that had been longing for Starsky’s touch, however, weren’t quite so enchanted. He tried his best to hide his disappointment, but Starsky’s laughter revealed his failure.

“Come on, babe. What’s a few hours?” Starsky appealed. “I’m not at my best after a fourteen-hour shift and a trip through the emotional wringer like we’ve been through tonight.” A touch of his fingers on Hutch’s mouth sealed a protest inside. “Don’t want nothin’ but the best for you.”

“Damnit, Starsk, when you decide to turn into a puddle of sentimental mush, you don’t do it halfway, do you?” Hutch complained, wondering if he was arguing simply from habit, because, as their relationship had fallen apart, argument had become the only way for them to communicate at all.

“You wanna argue some more, Hutch?” Starsky asked, the long-lost telepathy apparently returning. “Don’t you think we’ve argued enough about fucking?”

“No, I don’t want to argue,” Hutch reassured Starsky and himself that they had better ways to connect again now than to make an issue out of something that was no issue at all. He was barely aroused. His body exhausted, and he was still more than a little shaken by the unexpected turn of events that found him holding Starsky in his arms instead of watching him walk out of his life. “I guess it just seems like we should.”

“Okay, babe,” Starsky agreed, his voice taking on the sing-song melody of a smarmy used car salesman as he stood and pulled Hutch up to his feet. “I tell ya what I’m gonna do.” He turned Hutch away from him, guided him around the coffee table to where they had a clear path to the bed. “What say, you and me get naked,” he suggested, busy fingers slipping the buttons open on Hutch’s shirt and then pushing it off his shoulders. “Get into that big, brass bed of yours,” he added.

“And?” Hutch prompted, turning as they reached the bed to pull Starsky’s t-shirt off as well, letting it drop from his fingers as Starsky reached to kiss him. There was still no passion in the kiss. Just love and laughter that Hutch was beginning to agree might be enough for tonight after all.

In the morning, he thought, freeing Starsky so that snap and zipper could be worked on his jeans and then his lover’s. In the morning when the California sun came up and Starsky was still in his bed, wrapped around him and ready for whatever their first morning would bring. In the morning and every morning, noon and night for all the days they had left to them.

“And sleep together,” Starsky completed his proposition. “In all the years me and you been together, how many times have we slept together?”

“Twice,” Hutch replied immediately, realizing only when Starsky cocked his head to the side to prompt him to continue that his partner didn’t know. Maybe Starsky wasn’t the only romantic in this partnership. “Twice,” he elaborated. “Once after Forest when you held me all night long and kept the nightmares away, and once at Pine Lake. Fresh air and sunshine,” he reminded with a rueful smile.

“I remember,” Starsky murmured, his eyes so soft Hutch thought he could pull them around him like the folds of his ratty old robe. Find the same comfort and security there as could be found in that well-worn favorite.

“We better get into bed before we both end up a couple of puddles on the floor,” Hutch cautioned, and gave Starsky a little push toward the end of the bed.

The rest of their clothes met the carpet in seconds and they came together on the bed. Hutch responded to the lips that claimed his, content now that sweet kisses would be enough for tonight. Anticipation, they had discovered over the years, could be a fine aphrodisiac. By the morning, Hutch had no doubts that the angel and the dancer would be more than ready to insist on joining the fun.

“There’s somethin’ I’ve always wanted to do with you, babe,” Starsky confessed when sleep had crept as close as it could without taking them into its arms.

“Mmmm. Can’t hardly think of a thing we haven’t done at least once,” Hutch murmured. “In the morning?”

“Uh, uh. Now,” Starsky insisted.

In the mood to indulge, Hutch allowed himself to be manipulated onto his side, more than content with the illustration of Starsky’s secret desire when he felt the warm weight of his partner settle behind him, one long arm encircling his waist.

“Still think we hafta fuck to prove something to each other?” Starsky asked, the brush of his lips on the nape of Hutch’s neck as warm and comforting as the strength that held him.

“Guess if we spent ten years fucking without love, we can spare one night to love without fucking,” Hutch conceded, although he knew it wasn’t, in the strictest sense, true. One night, they had fucked without caring. It hadn’t always been this kind of love, or they had refused to recognize it, but it had always been love.

“Admit it, Blintz,” Starsky coaxed. “Once in a while, I get a good idea.”

Hutch found Starsky’s hand, entwined their fingers and pressed them solidly into his belly. “Once in a while, Starsk, you’re brilliant.” He lay quietly for a moment, feeling the strangeness of it, anticipating when this would be as familiar as his old robe. “I love you, Starsk. But I still can’t believe this is true,” he murmured, releasing Starsky’s hand and reaching back to settle his hand on his lover’s hip, completing the embrace and feeling as if that completion could somehow draw a charmed circle around them that would hold the rest of the world at bay.

Starsky’s arm tightened. “I love you, too, Hutch. And you don’t gotta believe yet. ‘Member that fifty years I said you could spend makin’ it up to me?” A yawn, the warm wash of breath that tickled his ear, punctuated what Hutch knew would be Starsky’s last words of the night. “Well, I’m gonna spend those same fifty years makin’ you believe this is forever.”

Leaving the Straight Life Behind

The hardest thing to get used to, Hutch decided, was the stillness. When you knew someone for ten years, going on eleven, especially as well as he and Starsky knew each other, you became used to their habits. You knew their natures. It was about as natural for Starsky to sit still, completely still, no toe tapping, finger drumming, or restless shifting, as it was for a giraffe to take up yodeling.

Hutch leaned out of his corner of the couch and rested his hand on Starsky’s where it lay limp in his lap. “Starsk. If you’re tired, why don’t you go to bed. You’ll rest better there,” he suggested.

The blue eyes opened and some of the strangeness slipped away. That high octane energy was still alive and well and living in Starsky’s eyes. The shell of the man might be struggling, but, inside, Starsky was unchanged.

“Rest?” Starsky echoed. “All I’ve done is rest since I came home from the hospital. I’ve been hurt before, you know, Hutch.”

Of course Hutch knew. He had been there for every single one of those hurts the job had inflicted on his partner, just as Starsky had been with him. “This isn’t a broken ankle or even a slug in the shoulder,” Hutch reminded him. “And you’re—”

“If you’re gonna remind me I’m older now, don’t bother,” Starsky growled in mock warning. “I’d wanna knock you on your sexy ass, and I don’t have the energy right now. Give me a couple of weeks. Okay?”

Weeks, months, years or never. Hutch didn’t care. He was still completely enthralled by the miraculous fact that Starsky lived. The ordeal had lasted three months—from the moment he had raced around the Torino to find his wounded partner on the ground, to when he had helped Starsky up that endlessly long staircase yesterday. He had been at his partner’s bedside for every hour of those months that he could manage. Except for those endless moments when Starsky’s heart had stopped and been re-started. For that, Hutch would be eternally grateful. The crisis might only have lasted a few minutes, but he knew he never would have survived it. He had been too certain then that Starsky was going to die.

“Hey, Hutch. Come back.”

Hutch returned to the present to find that Starsky had turned the hand beneath his and was squeezing it. There was only a little strength in that hand now, but Hutch knew that was because of the pain Starsky was enduring. Two steps outside the doors of County Hospital, Starsky had made it clear he wasn’t taking any more painkillers. He could bear the pain, he had insisted, better than the feeling of dislocation the drugs imposed upon his mind.

“Hutch, you gotta stop going there,” Starsky advised gently. “It didn’t happen. I’m here and by the time you’re finished with Gunther, he won’t see daylight through a window without bars until he’s a hundred and ninety-nine.”

“You and your fucking donuts,” Hutch growled, but the laughing eyes helped him pull himself out of the past. He needed to be an optimist now, too. Starsky was alive and that was all that mattered. What form that life might take was still a big fat question mark, but Starsky lived.

And he was tired even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“Nice set of tonsils you’ve got there,” Hutch teased.

“Okay. So maybe I am tired,” Starsky admitted. A sly expression, tinged with the seductive promise he was nowhere near ready to make good on, crept over his face. “I’ll go to bed if you will,” he bargained.

“Starsk…” Hutch cautioned.

“Hey. I’m not trying to rob you of your virtue, Sergeant Hutchinson.” Starsky laughed a little, a sound full of irony and rueful self-honesty. “The only thing my dick is good for right now is pissin’ through. Just want you to sleep with me.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Starsk,” Hutch admitted. He was a big man and often restless at night now, plagued by nightmares in which there had been no miracle, no end to Starsky’s coma, no precious life to celebrate. Starsky seemed too damned fragile to him now.

“Then quit sleeping on the couch, sweetheart,” Starsky requested, those eyes that had always been the windows through which only Hutch was privileged to gaze, begging for understanding. “An elbow in the ribs or a kick in the shins isn’t gonna kill me. Layin’ there alone every night, knowin’ how close you are but not bein’ able to touch, just might.”

“Damn you, Starsky,” Hutch murmured, good sense utterly seduced by the love he had almost allowed to slip through his fingers. But that was another place he no longer had to visit; a nightmare that no longer need plague him.

Starsky just grinned at him. The old grin in a face far too thin. Then he held out his left hand.

Defeated, Hutch surrendered with good grace, climbing to his feet and accepting the offered hand to ease Starsky to his.

“One thing we gotta thank Gunther for,” Starsky pointed out as they moved slowly into the bedroom. “Nobody batted an eye when you said you were movin’ in here to take care of me.”

“I’ll remember to add a thank-you note to the indictment,” Hutch agreed.

They reached the bed and Hutch turned his lover toward him to begin unbuttoning his shirt. Starsky was right about the non-event their new living arrangements had been, Hutch had to agree. No one had given him so much as an odd look, and he planned on taking full advantage of it. It was going to take a crowbar to pry him out of this place now. He had every intention of staying put until Starsky was completely recovered. And, maybe, even ever after.

“Hey, I can undress myself, you know,” Starsky reminded him.

“Indulge me. Okay?” Hutch requested. It was selfishness, pure and simple. Starsky didn’t need help to undress; Hutch needed to do it. It satisfied a need in him to do, to offer care, and to cherish Starsky that had been frustrated far too long. Endless months during which other hands had been more capable to do, more skilled in the care Starsky needed to survive and heal. When Hutch’s yearning to cherish had to be content with surreptitious touches beneath the eyes of the ever-watchful nursing staff.

“Soon as I can,” Starsky promised.

Hutch noticed the hand Starsky put on his shoulder to steady himself when Hutch knelt to help him step out of his jeans was trembling. Over tired. Hutch was going to have to watch out for that. If left to himself, Starsky would overdo it and probably earn himself a trip right back to the hospital. “You idiot,” he complained fondly as he stood and reached for the hem of Starsky’s t-shirt.

“No, leave it,” Starsky protested. “I’m cold.”

It was August in California. It was anything but cold. Hutch didn’t point that out. He knew the thin t-shirt’s purpose wasn’t to provide warmth. It was a place to hide. Hutch almost reminded his lover that he had plenty of scars of his own, but held the words inside. Hutch had seen the horrendous scars that pockmarked and crisscrossed Starsky’s torso while they were still wounds only beginning to heal, before Starsky was fully aware of the world around him. To Hutch, they were badges of honor, but they were a disfigurement to Starsky. Scars on Starsky’s self-image as much as on his body. Hopefully, as time and love healed the outer man, they would also heal the inner one.

“I’ll keep you warm, Starsk,” Hutch promised, starting on his own clothes as he watched Starsky climb into bed. And safe, he added silently. If he had to wrap this beloved man up in cotton wool, Hutch was never going to let him be hurt again.

Turning out the light, Hutch slid under the sheet and carefully drew Starsky into his arms.

“Ah. That’s better,” Starsky sighed.

“Reading my mind again, huh?” Hutch murmured. It was only nine o’clock, but Hutch knew he would have no trouble sleeping. It was easy to sleep when you held everything you wanted in the world in your arms. Here, where he belonged, he knew there would be no more night terrors of specters that could have all too easily been real, to bring him wide awake and sobbing. He would sleep as safe here in Starsky’s arms as he intended to keep his partner safe from future harm.

“Love ya, babe,” Starsky murmured.

Hutch tightened his arms. “Love you, too, miracle man.”

~*~*~

“Huh. Pay me sucker,” Starsky crowed when Hutch landed on Park Place. He was winning. He couldn’t remember the last time he won. It was fun.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to put two hotels on one property,” Hutch complained as he counted out the play money.

“Quit your whining,” Starsky said with great relish. How many times over the years had Hutch dismissed his poor loser complaints? Thinking about it, he suddenly remembered the last time he had won. A long time ago, when Hutch had thought he needed cheering up. He slanted a suspicious glare at his opponent. “Hey! You’re not letting me win, are you?”

He was offered Hutch’s most patently false innocence. “Who, me?”

“You’re going to have to shave off the mustache if you want anybody to buy that act,” Starsky advised him, though if Hutch tried, Starsky suspected he might try to wrestle the razor away. He might not be up to much in the way of bedroom fun and games. Okay, so he wasn’t up to anything except a few tender kisses that he usually fell asleep in the middle of. But he remembered.

Starsky felt a whisper of a stirring. Nothing as specific as in the crotch of the jeans that were now so baggy they hung off his hips. Just an overall flush. Soon, maybe. Especially if Hutch continued lounging around in nothing but his running shorts and acres of smooth, golden skin. Was it kind of warm in here for September?

“Think I’ll get a soda,” Starsky announced, wincing as he began to uncurl for the laborious struggle to his feet. He should have listened to Hutch and sat on the couch. But sitting on the floor when they played Monopoly was almost a tradition, and he liked the feeling of normality it gave him.

“I’ll get it,” Hutch said, on his feet before Starsky had even had a chance to uncross his legs.

“Hutch, I can get my own soda,” Starsky protested.

“Indulge me,” Hutch requested.

Starsky gave it up. He had no hope of arguing believably when Hutch looked at him like that and asked to be indulged. Starsky had been on the wrong side of the glass often enough and knew what Hutch had suffered for his sake. Indulging him, easing his fear, was all Starsky wanted to do for the rest of his life. It was certainly just about the only thing he was capable of now. Three weeks home from the hospital and he didn’t seem to be getting any stronger.

“Ah, Hutch. I’m not hungry,” Starsky complained when Hutch returned with sodas for both of them and a plate for Starsky. Half a sandwich, half a banana, and… something green.

“You know what the doctor said. Three meals and three snacks,” Hutch said, folding his tall body down to sit cross-legged on the other side of the board. “You have twenty-five pounds to gain.”

“It’ll be twenty-five pounds of lard if I keep eating like this and sitting on my ass,” Starsky insisted. “Maybe it’s about time I started the physio.” Despite his grousing, he picked up the sandwich and bit into it. Peanut butter and honey. At least Hutch wasn’t trying to make him eat a completely healthy diet, even if the peanut butter was all-natural and the honey organic.

“It’s too soon,” Hutch protested immediately. “The one drainage site still breaks open if you stretch too far.”

Dr. Walker didn’t necessarily agree. The surgeon wasn’t exactly pushing the idea yet, and Starsky hated the boring physio enough that it hadn’t taken Hutch much to talk him out of it. But still….

“When you’re completely healed up is soon enough to let the physical terrorists at you,” Hutch advised.

Just the thought of what those professional sadists would put him through was enough to make Starsky wince. The woman at the hospital had been pretty gentle, and Starsky had even been able to cautiously lift his arms over his head when he was still incarcerated there. He couldn’t do it now, but there was a perfectly logical explanation for that, he reassured himself. In the hospital, he had been pumped so full of drugs that his brain and his body were barely even on speaking terms. He had refused to take so much as an aspirin since he had left County Hospital behind him. Pain was nature’s way of reminding you to pay attention. Starsky hadn’t always heeded that warning in the past, but the lady was coming through loud and clear now.

“Your turn,” Hutch reminded him.

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky said, and leaned forward to gather up the dice. He stopped short of his goal, grunting in pain as Mother Nature paid him a twinging visit in his chest.

“Here. Let me,” Hutch said, the big hand collecting the red dotted squares and placing them in Starsky’s hand. “And finish your snack.”

~*~*~

Starsky could remember, dimly, vaguely, when he used to enjoy a hot shower. Seemed about a hundred years ago now. All the bending to undress and the twisting to wash and the stretching to dry were making him seriously consider giving up cleanliness in favor of slob-hood. If it weren’t for the fact that Hutch would probably refuse to sleep with him if he got too ripe, Starsky would be content to stink.

His hair was the worst. His lover spent at least an hour every day trying to talk Starsky into showering together so Hutch could do it. Wash his back, too, which was another one of those impossibly painful cleansing rituals. But showering meant being completely naked, and Starsky wasn’t ready to give up his t-shirt around Hutch. He had always been so damned proud of his body; now he hated to look at it in the mirror. Skinny. Scarred. Starsky didn’t want the man who had always looked at him with such unbridled desire to see him now. Hutch would be nice about it, cover up his horror and revulsion, but Starsky would know. Maybe he would be able to relax when his chest hair grew back in completely to cover some of the mess.

Resigned to the inevitable, Starsky tipped back his head and let the spray soak his hair, then reached for the shampoo. He poured a handful into his palm, stuck the bottle back on the shelf and reluctantly began the painful process of lifting his arms over his head. A startled yelp was torn out of him and he jerked, splashing the soap into his face, as he half-bent around the sudden stab of agony that ripped through his body from back to chest.

“Goddamnit,” he whispered, breath stolen from him as he pressed his right arm hard against the fire in his chest.

The curtain rattled back as Starsky hung helpless, barely on his feet while the spasm consumed him. At the moment, he didn’t even have the ability to wipe the stinging shampoo from his eyes.

“Starsk. Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Hutch asked, panic all over his face and in the hands that fluttered around Starsky, looking for a way to help.

“Goddamn you, Hutch. Get out of here,” Starsky panted, pressing his arm tighter against his chest, hoping it concealed the worst of his disfigurement. He should have ignored Hutch and locked the door. “Can’t I have any privacy,” he ranted in the whisper that was all he was capable of right now. “Next thing, you’re gonna wanna wipe my ass for me.”

“Starsk, don’t do this,” Hutch begged, and Starsky could hear tears in the frightened voice. “Don’t let your pride take you away from me. Please, I can’t stand to know you’re hurting.”

The spasm was passing, the pain gearing down from overdrive into drive and finally neutral, but Starsky knew he was already defeated. He couldn’t let his pride hurt Hutch. He closed his eyes, straightened, and dropped the arm that tried to shield his scars.

“Yeah. Okay,” he agreed, whispering in shame now. “Guess I can’t seem to do my hair today.”

~*~*~

The sound of breaking glass propelled Hutch up the last three stairs and through the front door, terror dogging his heels. He stopped two steps into the apartment when he saw Starsky, apparently unharmed, standing in the kitchen. The source of the noise he had heard was scattered around Starsky’s feet and splashed up the legs of his partner’s jeans.

“Starsk. What happened?” he asked, hurrying across the living room. He was relieved to see that Starsky was wearing shoes. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about how he was going to get his partner out of the middle of the mess.

“I wanted to make some breakfast for when you got back from your run,” Starsky explained sheepishly.

“But you know the milk bottle is too heavy—”

“Everything is too somethin’ for me now, isn’t it?” Starsky cut in, and Hutch could see that, rather than subdued embarrassment, it had been frustrated fury that was holding Starsky silent when he first came through the door. The dark head shook back and forth, hard, as if Starsky was trying to dislodge a tormenting insect. “It would have been better if they had just let me die.”

“Don’t say that,” Hutch whispered, horrified, praying that fickle fate wasn’t listening and deciding the gift of Starsky’s life wasn’t being properly appreciated.

“It’s true,” Starsky shouted, face full of rage, eyes flashing self-hatred. “Look at me. I’m fucking useless.” Glass crunched beneath his feet as he took a step forward and looked down in surprise as if he had forgotten what he had done. “No. Scratch that. I’m not even good for fucking anymore.”

“Starsk. I know….”

The inner fury turned outward, washing over Hutch like an acid bath on Starsky’s words.

“You don’t know nothin’, so just shut your mouth, Hutchinson,” Starsky demanded. He flung an arm out in a gesture so typical of him that now twisted his face in pain. “I’m useless. Good for nothing anymore. Can’t run. Can’t hardly walk. Useless. Useless. Couldn’t fight a kitten and win. Couldn’t hold a gun without shaking. Haven’t even got the strength to pull the fuckin’ trigger.”

The tirade continued, but Hutch didn’t hear his partner’s voice anymore, although his eyes never left the angry face. He was listening to an inner voice. Hutch knew he had a tendency to assume the burdens of the world. Starsky always said he could find a reason to feel guilty for breathing. But he knew the voice of conscience whispering to him now wasn’t lashing him with underserved responsibility. Starsky was weaker. He was, essentially, useless. And it was Hutch’s fault. In his efforts to protect, for Starsky’s sake and his own, Hutch was smothering his once vital lover to death.

The realization immobilized Hutch while conflicting emotions vied for dominance inside him. Remorse for the unwitting harm he had caused, joined forces with the guilt he already carried from the shooting itself. That he had remained unharmed while failing to protect Starsky, still festered within Hutch, and, to some extent, likely always would. Combined, it was almost enough to swamp the more analytical side of him that, even as he absorbed the reality of the harm his well-intended actions had caused, was forcing him to look at the problem, assess it, and determine some way to solve it. Unforgivable mistakes only remained unforgivable if you failed to correct them once they were recognized.

Hutch knew he could fix this. Even as he stood silently while Starsky continued to heap disparagement on his own head, Hutch’s brain had already given birth to the solution. But it was going to break their hearts. Short term pain for long term gain didn’t hurt any less just because it wouldn’t last a lifetime.

The eruption was winding down now. Starsky didn’t even have the strength to indulge in a good, old- fashioned temper tantrum. A minute more of self-abuse, delivered at ever decreasing volume, and then Starsky slumped in exhaustion against the refrigerator.

Hutch waited a moment to be sure it was over before he spoke. “Starsk. Come here.”

Starsky partly lifted his head, looked at him and then let it drop. He muttered something too low and too garbled for Hutch to understand.

“Come on, mushbrain.” Hutch repeated, and this time held out his arms.

Starsky came to him then, amid the crunch of broken glass, still muttering under his breath. The only word Hutch could make out was ‘useless.’ He didn’t take his lover into his arms, but settled his hands on Starsky’s shoulders for a moment and felt bone. He moved them on down the once powerful biceps and found even less muscle mass than when Starsky had been released from the hospital. Under the care of impartial nurses and doctors while he was confined to the hospital, Starsky had made slow, but steady progress toward regaining what Gunther had robbed him of. Six weeks at home under Hutch’s hovering, protective care and all of that progress had been reversed, more ground lost. Hutch was killing his friend with kindness.

“Starsk,” Hutch said, but Starsky wasn’t listening, still muttering, caught up in self-loathing. “David Michael Starsky,” Hutch snapped in his best ‘authority on the street’ voice.

That brought Starsky’s head up and closed his mouth.

“I love you,” Hutch told him, wanting Starsky to be very clear on that.

“Don’t patronize me,” Starsky growled.

Hutch laughed a little. How typically Starsky. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard being told I love you called patronizing.”

Starsky’s mouth tightened, then relaxed, lips half-puckering in a rueful pout. The thin, bowed shoulders rose and fell in silent apology.

“David Michael Starsky,” Hutch began again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Starsky gave the reply to this second declaration that, under any other circumstances, he would have given to the first.

Hutch hesitated to mourn the hurt he was about to cause. It took him another moment, during which his hand moved to the over-long curls, then sketched a delicate caress on the thin cheek, to work up the strength to do what he had to. For Starsky. For himself. For any kind of normal life they might ever hope to share together.

“And that’s why I’m leaving,” Hutch whispered. “Right now.”

The wound in Starsky’s eyes, then, went far deeper than any mere pellets of steel and lead could ever hope to inflict. “You’re leavin’ me?” he echoed. There was no doubt, only resignation, in his voice. “Because I’m so useless. I…I’ll try….”

Hutch placed a silencing finger over the soft lips. “No, babe. Because I’m making you useless. You need to start taking care of yourself, and I… I can’t be here and watch it.”

“But…but, Hutch. What if I can’t…?”

“There’s nothing around here that needs doing that you can’t do as well as I can,” Hutch insisted, steeling himself to ignore the dumb misery in Starsky’s eyes. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind, even when it tore the heart out of your chest. But his heart hadn’t been beating behind his own rib cage for quite some time now. Hutch still had moments when it terrified him to know that loving Starsky the way he did meant he would spend the rest of his life with his heart walking around outside his body. But the alternative of not loving this man, even were it possible, was simply unthinkable.

Hutch saw Starsky’s pride take over then, felt the muscles beneath his hands tighten as Starsky pulled himself up and stood up straighter than he had in weeks. It had to be tearing at the damaged, barely healed flesh in his chest and back, but Starsky was doing it. Starsky was taking the first real step on his road to recovery since leaving the hospital, and he was doing it under his own steam.

Hutch dipped his head, caught the grim set of Starsky’s lips with his own and delivered his most loving kiss, hoping Starsky would understand.

“I love you, too, Hutch,” Starsky said when his mouth was released, proving that there was no message Hutch could send that Starsky would not receive. “Now get out of here before you start blubbering.”

Hutch released his lover and turned away, hurrying into the bedroom before Starsky’s prediction came true. He went straight to the closet and dragged out his empty suitcases, trying not to think of how happy he had been the last time he had packed these cases at home and unpacked them here. He had thought it would take an earthquake to shake him loose when he had moved in, and, in a way it had. An earthquake in the form of realizing that you really could pave a road to Hell with good intentions.

He swung the suitcases up onto the bed, unsnapped the locks and flipped them open. He wouldn’t pack everything. He would be back, he silently promised both himself and the man he loved. A few days, maybe a week or two, and he would be able to come back. All he had to do was give Starsky a running start at taking care of himself, and then Hutch could start coming around again… Who was he trying to kid? The problem wasn’t really Starsky being willing to heal, it was Hutch being able to let him. At this moment, Hutch really didn’t know how long that would take. Not when every time he closed his eyes, he relived the moment when he truly believed Starsky was lost to him forever.

As if he had been summoned by Hutch’s thoughts, Starsky came into the bedroom and sat on the bed beside the opened suitcases. “Can I help?” he asked.

“No. I’m good,” Hutch mumbled, turning away to paw through the shirts and jeans that hung in the closet, blindly selecting a few and carrying them back to the bed. He kept his head down, pulling the items off the hangers and haphazardly folding them before dropping them into the cases. If he looked at Starsky, took in once again the damage he had caused, he knew he was going to cry.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Just fine,” Hutch reassured him and turned his attention to the dresser drawers, scooping out handfuls of t-shirts and underwear and returning to stuff them into the case.

“Hutch?’

“Uh, huh,” Hutch grunted because he was beyond words now, his throat so tight it was hard to swallow, never mind actually forcing words past the spasming muscles.

“You don’t wear bikini briefs.”

Hutch had to look at Starsky then, simply because what he had said made absolutely no sense. “Huh?”

Starsky indicated the half-filled suitcase with a wave of his hand. “You just packed all my underwear. And you’re just about to throw my red socks in there, too.”

Hutch looked helplessly from Starsky to the briefs in the case to the socks in his hand, unable to quite sort out exactly what the problem was and what he should do about it. His heart was breaking and Starsky was talking about underwear?

Starsky held out his hand. “Com’ere you big, blond Blintz,” he commanded.

Meekly, Hutch moved to sit on the side of the bed. He allowed his hand to be encompassed within the haven of Starsky’s, grieving all over again for how little strength was in the reassuring squeeze Starsky offered, and brought to tears once more by the knowledge that it was all his fault.

“It’s not your fault,” Starsky said it very quietly, but with steel in every word of it.

Hutch took refuge in sarcasm. “You mean there’s been some other guy here turning you into an invalid?” he asked bitterly.

Starsky squeezed again, harder this time, although Hutch could see what it cost him in the grimace of pain on his face. “Gunther turned me into an invalid. You were just lovin’ me the best way you knew how. And now you know better, you’re doin’ somethin’ about it.”

“But—”

“Don’t give me any buts,” Starsky commanded. “Unless it’s that gorgeous one you’re sitting on. You weren’t the only guy hangin’ around here, you know. I let it happen.”

Hutch opened his mouth to try to interrupt, but Starsky laid first a finger and then cherishing lips over his mouth to silence him.

“Do you remember what I was like after Forest?” Starsky asked when he allowed Hutch to withdraw from the kiss. “After Humphries? After the plague, especially? Hell, you were lucky if I let you go to the john on your own.”

“But,” Hutch paused, unable despite himself to withhold an answering grin when Starsky’s hand slid down his hip and groped his ass. “But,” he insisted more firmly, determined to make his point. “You didn’t do me more harm than good.”

“Mostly ’cause you wouldn’t let me. I’ve been lapping it up,” Starsky reminded him. “‘Cause lettin’ you love me all you wanted to was what I needed, too. If there’s blame here, we have to share it equally.”

It took Hutch a few minutes longer to accept Starsky’s logic, but he had wasted enough time in useless guilt, and he had learned how precious time could be. It offered no guarantees that your allotment of it would continue to march on endlessly into the future. You had to seize the moment with both hands and make the most of it. He could think of no better use of this moment than to reach out and draw Starsky into his arms. But there was such a long stretch of moments before his eyes while they each found that place where they could take the step back from the total dependency they had fallen into.

“What am I gonna do with myself?” Hutch wondered, only realizing he had spoken aloud when Starsky freed himself from their embrace.

“You’re gonna nail Gunther’s miserable ass to the wall—for both of us,” Starsky told him. “While I work on getting better—for both of us.”

“Balance,” Hutch murmured softly.

“It’s what we’ve always been about,” Starsky agreed.

Hutch allowed himself one more lingering caress to Starsky’s far too thin cheek, then rose to return to his packing.

“Just one more thing, Hutch,” Starsky requested.

“Name it.”

“Leave me my underwear, will ya. I hate boxer shorts.”

~*~*~

Starsky tucked in the last corner of the sheet on his bed and flipped the edge of the bedspread back down. He had to sit down on it to rest when he was finished, but the bed was made. The dishes were done, too, and his clothes from yesterday stowed in the laundry bag. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to get the heavy bag down to the laundry room, but he would figure that out when he needed to. This was only the third day on his own, and he was trying to be patient with himself. It wasn’t easy. And he missed Hutch. Talking on the telephone, even a dozen times a day, wasn’t even close to the same as having his friend here all the time.

As soon as he caught his breath, Starsky decided, he was going to call Dr. Walker. They might be miserable sadists who Starsky believed enjoyed their work far too much, but he knew if he ever wanted to run, jump, and fuck his beautiful angel again, it was time for him to put himself in the hands of the physical terrorists.

Starsky had just decided to give himself one more minute when the sound of his door opening and Hutch’s voice calling his name, made those sixty seconds seem like a sinful waste of time.

“Hutch,” he greeted his lover from the bedroom door, thrilled all out of proportion, considering the hundreds of times he had seen Hutch come through his front door. When Hutch had left three days ago, Starsky had expected that it might well be weeks before he saw his partner again, while the two of them struggled to overcome the mutual and destructive dependency Gunther’s hit had inflicted on them.

“Hey. I never said I wasn’t going to visit,” Hutch excused his presence. He half-lifted the three bags of groceries in his arms. “Besides, I figured you’d be running kind of low on supplies by now.”

Starsky moved to him then, offered a hello kiss that tried to linger because of the days they had been apart, then attempted to take one of the bags out of his arms. Hutch twisted, moving the bags out of reach.

“Hutch,” Starsky growled warningly.

A sheepish smile and a shrug were offered. “Sorry,” Hutch acknowledged. “But the light one, okay? In the middle.”

Compromise. They had been practicing the art since day one and were usually pretty damned good at it. Starsky accepted the bag full of cartons of cereal and such, and carried it to the kitchen.

“So, how are you doing?” Hutch asked casually as they unpacked the groceries.

Starsky wasn’t fooled. He had noted the minute scrutiny Hutch had been giving him and wondered if his friend had noticed that he was standing up straight now. It hurt a lot less to half-bend, but Starsky refused to continue shuffling around like an octogenarian when he was only thirty-five years old.

“Good. I made the bed today,” Starsky reported, feeling only a little ridiculous to be so proud of such a simple accomplishment.

“You didn’t…?”

Starsky grinned as his partner bit his lip and struggled with whatever over-protective caution was trying to sneak out of him.

“So. You have plans for the day?” Hutch finally asked.

Starsky shrugged. It was a little hard to make plans when you couldn’t go any place on your own. At least he didn’t think he could. He hadn’t since he left the hospital.

Hutch closed the cupboard after stashing away the last box of cereal—Froot Loops, Starsky had noticed much to his delight—and leaned back against the counter, ankles crossed, and arms folded casually across his chest. There was something about him that made Starsky suddenly feel cautious. It took him a minute to realize it was poorly concealed mischief setting off his Hutch alarm.

“Brace yourself, Starsk, I’ve got some bad news for you,” Hutch reported. “It’s the Torino.”

Instinctively, Starsky made a move toward the front door. The Torino was parked outside, just where it had been, except for the weekly drives around the block Hutch had reluctantly given it, since Merle had delivered it. There was a whole new plaque of spent bullets on Merle’s garage wall now, but the Torino was repaired and good as new. Then Starsky remembered the mischief. He settled back on both feet and mirrored Hutch’s arms crossed over his chest stance.

“Oh, yeah?” he asked. “What’s up with my car?”

Hutch accepted having his game turned around on him with a grin. “There’s the biggest goddamned splat of seagull shit you ever saw right in the middle of the hood.” He shook his head with the rueful air of a man whose advice the less wise refused to heed. “I keep telling you, it’s that red paint. Attracts their attention. Do you ever see bird shit on my car?”

“How could you tell?” Starsky dismissed Hutch’s most current old car.

It hadn’t taken long for Hutch to trade in his impractical Belle for something a little less conspicuous. One member of the team owning a car that stuck out like a sore thumb was enough, he had declared virtuously, but Starsky suspected that Belle had only been bought on a whim in the first place and regretted soon after its purchase.

“Would you take it to the carwash for me, Hutch? Please,” Starsky pleaded. “If it sits on there too long, it’ll ruin the paintjob.”

Hutch shrugged. “I suppose… ” he began, his expression clearly stating that he felt himself thoroughly put upon. “No. You know what. I’m tired of driving around in that tomato. I think you better take it yourself.”

“But, Hutch…” Starsky paused, took in his partner’s expectant expression and felt excitement claim him. “Jesus,” he murmured. He had to stop thinking of himself as a helpless invalid or he was never going to be anything but a helpless invalid. “Let’s go.”

The stairs didn’t seem anywhere near as steep as they had when Hutch had taken him to the doctor’s last week. Not with the Torino’s keys in his pocket and the prospect of once again holding her power in his hands in front of him. Starsky unlocked Hutch’s door first, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stretch across the front seat to pop the lock, and then circled the long hood. He trailed his fingers over the red paint, feeling the slight film of dust that tried to diminish its shine, and eyed the bird droppings balefully.

“Fucking nervy bird,” Starsky muttered. “I oughta get my Beretta back from Dobey and stand watch. I’d teach the seagulls around here to be more careful where they take a dump.”

Hutch had already unlocked the door by the time Starsky reached it and he slid into the driver’s seat. He laid both hands on the steering wheel, closed his eyes, and just let the pleasure of the moment move through him. After a minute or two, he opened his eyes and glanced at Hutch, found his partner wearing a smirk of amused tolerance.

“Thanks,” he said, for the suggestion and for the patience to wait while he communed with his prize possession.

Hutch shrugged. “Hey, who knows better than I do how you feel about this over-sized Coke can.” A rueful shake of the blond head. “Makes me jealous as hell sometimes. You looked like you were almost making love to her there, babe.”

“If I could, Hutch…” Starsky offered, feeling unmanned even though he knew reminding him of his present inability to perform hadn’t been Hutch’s intention.

“Oh, I know,” Hutch purred, and there wasn’t a trace of impatience in his expression. “And when you can, I know you will. Nobody knows how to savor a moment like you do.”

“Soon,” Starsky promised, hoping he wasn’t telling fibs, almost certain he wasn’t. He had always said his angel was sexy enough to wake the dead, and, in Starsky’s opinion, his cock had been dead long enough.

~*~*~

“So, that’s it then,” Dobey pronounced with quiet satisfaction as he closed the cover over Hutch’s final report on the Gunther Industries empire.

Hutch watched the last of six solid months of work disappear with some regret. For six months, almost since the sinister black and white had crunched its door and Hutch had shouted his futile warning to Starsky, Hutch had worked to bring that empire and the evil man who headed it, tumbling down. Gunther Industries was in a shambles now, its emperor and his criminal minions in jails all over the country. The investigation had consumed Hutch’s every duty moment, and he had no idea what he was going to do now.

“What are your plans now, Hutch?” Dobey asked as if he had plucked the thought from Hutch’s mind.

Hutch shrugged. “Don’t know. Just…please don’t put me with Conner. I’ll kill the son of a bitch in a week. Pardon my French.”

Dobey laughed ruefully. “You and every other officer in this precinct,” he confirmed what Hutch already suspected. “I’m sticking the rookies with him now.”

“Cruel and unusual punishment for the crime of being inexperienced,” Hutch observed.

“Hmmm,” Dobey agreed. He looked down at the file, flipped open the cover and seemed to study the meticulous report. After a minute, he slowly lifted the cover back into place. “Both you and Starsky have been assigned temporary partners in the past when the other one has been hurt,” he began, his lips quirking into an ironic twist. “It never worked out very well.”

Hutch acknowledged the truth of that with a grunt.

“How’s Starsky?” Dobey asked in an apparent change of subject.

Hutch, however, knew there was nothing random about the topic switch. “Better. Getting a little stronger every day,” he reported nonetheless. “Does his physio with a dedication I never expected from him.”

“Then he’s trying to come back from the hit?” Dobey pounced on the information. “All the way back? Have the doctors given any indication…?”

“Guarded optimism, still,” Hutch cut in. He knew where Dobey was going with this and Hutch wasn’t anxious to follow. So far, he and Starsky had been able to avoid the topic, but only because Starsky was still too far from recovered to even consider going back to the streets.

“Do you know if he’s even considering coming back to work?” Dobey asked bluntly.

“Let’s just say I don’t think he’s ruled it out,” Hutch answered cautiously. If he had his way, Hutch knew what the decision would be. But it wasn’t his choice to make. At least not entirely, and Hutch was doing his best to keep his opinion to himself. He couldn’t let his love for Starsky, or his fear for him, rule their lives.

“That leaves you in limbo,” Dobey pointed out. The big man obviously had something on his mind and, as was typical of him, was gathering the information he needed before revealing it.

Hutch shrugged a second time, waiting. He didn’t want to commit himself to anything when Starsky’s future with the department was still up in the air. He couldn’t imagine working with anyone but Starsky on a permanent basis, and his own commitment to the force had been weakening every day.

“You did some exceptional investigative work on this case,” Dobey complimented, not, Hutch was sure, without ulterior motive. “This kind of illegal corporate empire….”

Hutch held up his hand as he leapt ahead to the suggestion he knew Dobey was about to make. “No way, Captain. I’m not willing to do anything that’s going to put Starsky in the line of fire while he’s still in no condition to defend himself.”

Dobey nodded as if a long-held theory had been confirmed. If he was disappointed by Hutch’s position, he wasn’t revealing it. “All right. I have one more suggestion. If you don’t like it, then it’s up to you to tell me what I’m going to do with you to justify paying you every week.”

Hutch spread his hands, inviting Dobey to take his best shot.

“A couple of years ago,” Dobey began. “You and Starsky were involved in a child abuse case. As I recall, at the time, you were both pretty outspoken about the disgrace of having only ten officers assigned to that department when the case load was so staggering.”

“We filed an official complaint, for all the good it did,” Hutch recalled bitterly.

“The wheels of bureaucracy may turn slowly, but they do turn,” Dobey reminded him. “As of next week, the compliment of officers to the child abuse section is being doubled. You can be one of those officers. If you want. And on a temporary basis until Starsky decides whether he’s coming back.”

Hutch felt a glimmer of interest. Their work on the case of young Guy Mayer had been frustrating and heartbreaking, and Hutch didn’t know if he had the emotional armor to work such cases for long. But it would keep him off the streets, give him a worthwhile way to spend his working hours until his partner decided if to serve and protect was still what he wanted to do with his life. And it might even be an opportunity for Hutch to feel like he made a difference again.

“Temporary?” he asked, just to be sure he wasn’t committing himself to a path Starsky might not want to follow. Hutch didn’t think Starsky could ever do that kind of work; Guy Mayer’s case had had too devastating an effect on his partner.

“Temporary,” Dobey confirmed. “If I can have my two best detectives back in homicide, that’s where I want them.”

“All right,” Hutch decided. “I’ll make up the transfer request and have it on your desk in the morning.” He stood up, started for the door and then glanced back over his shoulder. “Two best, huh?” he asked.

Dobey’s mouth tightened in irritation. “Get out of here, Hutchinson, before I partner you with Conner.”

~*~*~

Starsky tipped his head to let the shower spray rinse the shampoo from his hair, both hands slicking the wet curls back from his forehead. Six months, one week and three days after he had been gunned down in Metro’s parking garage, Starsky could finally lift his arms above his head without pain. Almost without pain, honesty forced him to amend. The new scar tissue still burned when he stretched, but the muscles beneath were healed and beginning to strengthen. The team of physiotherapists assigned to him were amazing, and Starsky knew he would never think of the dedicated professionals as sadistic terrorists again.

The heavy suds from his hair slid down Starsky’s back on its cushion of hot water, and tickled into the crevice between the cheeks of his ass. Starsky shivered and stepped clear of the spray. His libido had come back to life in the past week or so. He woke to a familiar hardness in his briefs in the morning again, and his beautiful blond angel had begun causing more than vague stirrings in his blood. Starsky knew he was ready to resume the sexual part of their relationship. Physically.

Turning off the water, Starsky dried haphazardly, then let his hard cock lead him to stand in front of the full-length mirror hung on the back of the bathroom door. He watched the reflected potency slowly deflate as he surveyed himself. What a mess, he thought. His chest hair had grown back in as he had hoped, but where the slugs had torn into his flesh, followed by the surgeon’s blade, the hair follicles had been killed. The symmetrical pattern of hair that had once adorned his torso, was now broken up by a crisscrossing of purple scars that resembled nothing so much as a mishmash of intersecting lanes on a poorly planned highway.

And he was so damned skinny. He had managed to gain ten of the twenty-five pounds the surgeon recommended, but his ribs still stood out in sharp relief along with his hipbones. Where once his body had resembled the twists and curves of a coastal highway, now he looked like a straight stretch of tarmac from his shoulders to his knees. Well, not quite, he admitted, turning his back to the mirror and looking back over his shoulder. His ass was still nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe if he just laid on his belly and offered Hutch his ass…? Starsky’s gaze rose to the blackened pockmarks that marched across his back.

It was hopeless, Starsky admitted, as he stepped into his briefs and pulled on his t-shirt. Hutch was never going to want him the same way again. How could he possibly feel the same desire for the body Starsky now hated so much?

Hutch had begun sleeping over most nights again, and it had been a challenge for Starsky to hide his early morning erection from him, but he just couldn’t bring himself to think of his flawed body entwined with Hutch’s golden one. They had always been perfect foils for each other, and still were. But, where once they had been the fair prince and the dark, now they were beauty and the beast.

Hutch was already in bed when Starsky exited the bathroom, reading a book that rested on his propped-up knees. “Hi,” he offered in greeting and put the book aside.

When Hutch lowered his legs to the bed, Starsky couldn’t help but notice the prominent protrusion at his groin. He ignored it, climbing into bed and snapping off the light on his side. He closed his eyes to block out the glow from the lamp on Hutch’s side, but he couldn’t block out Hutch’s puzzled hurt.

“Starsk?”

“Night, Hutch,” Starsky said, hoping he would take the hint. He didn’t even want to offer a goodnight kiss. It didn’t seem fair somehow, when that was all he was willing to offer. He heard and felt Hutch turn toward him and knew his grace period was over. Hutch would never demand sex from him, but he was going to ask. He would want to know why Starsky said no.

“Starsk, are you still in love with me?”

Don’t sneak up on the subject or anything, Starsky thought, but he had to smile. If Hutch had developed a tendency to drive for the heart of the matter, then it was Starsky who had taught him how to do it.

“With all my heart,” Starsky answered because their one iron clad rule was that Starsky didn’t lie to Hutch and vice versa. Not about the things that mattered, and this mattered.

“But you don’t want me anymore,” Hutch stated. “I know you’ve had an erection the past couple of mornings.”

Not want Hutch? Of course he wanted Hutch. Starsky would still be wanting Hutch when they laid him six feet under. He just wanted a new body with which to worship him.

“I want you,” Starsky said, again because only the truth was good enough. “Oh, God, Hutch. I want you.”

Starsky didn’t realize he had given permission, hadn’t even realized Hutch was asking for it, until Hutch kissed him. The familiar kiss of tender devotion that had been given to him every day since the moment he had truly awakened from his coma. But devotion was no longer alone; passion had once again come to dwell within the lips that moved against his and the tongue that gently invaded his mouth. Invaded and sought to conquer all his fears as the blood rushed from Starsky’s head to his groin.

Starsky let Hutch draw him onto his side, but kept his eyes closed as Hutch left his lips and moved on to his throat. He couldn’t bear to look, compare and judge himself wanting yet again when Hutch’s kisses were reminding him of what he had been missing for so long.

The lips came to the collar of his t-shirt, nudged below an inch, and then retreated. He felt Hutch’s hand beneath the sheet, groping for the hem of his t-shirt.

“No!” he protested, catching at the sturdy wrist and squeezing with all his new strength, forcing himself to meet Hutch’s eyes when they rose to question the denial. “Please don’t,” he asked instead of refusing.

The hand broke free of his grip, not as readily as it could have a month ago, but still with an ease that reminded Starsky he had a long way to go yet before they would be evenly matched. He knew, however, that he never need fear Hutch’s strength. It was Hutch’s tenderness that was going to defeat him, Starsky accepted, as Hutch lifted up and their eyes met. The big hand rested on his chest, spread wide to cover the worst of the scarring that cowered beneath thin cloth.

“I don’t want you to look at the scars,” Starsky explained, feeling petty that pride could make him refuse Hutch anything.

Hutch’s hand left his chest, found Starsky’s and led it to the similar scar that marred the smooth golden skin of his shoulder. “Anything and everything, Starsk. We figured that much out the first time we ever laid eyes on each other. But those two words aren’t just about what we do, sweetheart, it’s about who we are,” he whispered. “Your scars are beautiful to me because they mean we won through again. We’re alive and we’re together. However battered, bruised, scarred…” An ironic quirk of his lips preceded the last, “…or bald. Alive and together.”

“Ah, Hutch. You really should’ve been a lawyer.” Starsky conceded defeat, lifted his arms and allowed the t- shirt, the last line of defense for his self-doubts, to be drawn away.

With a reverence that humbled Starsky, Hutch touched him, traced each and every obscene hole and slash with the gentlest of caresses. Then his head dipped to Starsky’s chest, lips cherishing every purple mark until, in Starsky’s mind, they could no longer symbolize the desecrations of tragedy, but became the proof of blessing. Alive and together.

Teasing fingers skipping around the waistband of his briefs forewarned Starsky of the next request. He arched his ass off the bed. “Nothin’ in there I’ve ever been ashamed of,” he declared with the immodesty he knew had always delighted Hutch.

“And so you shouldn’t,” Hutch agreed, slipping the scrap of blue free. “Simple and gentle?” he asked, stroking Starsky’s cock only once from base to tip before taking his hand away.

“Simple and gentle,” Starsky agreed, but he didn’t allow Hutch to pull them together. “In a minute. Maybe a few minutes. Got a few things here I’d like to get reacquainted with. If you don’t mind,” he teased while his fingers reached for the smooth satin of Hutch’s chest.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Hutch purred, back arching slightly to increase the contact.

From the swell of the right pectoral into the deep, hard depression of the breastbone and up again over the curve of the muscular arc on the other side, Starsky’s fingers relearned the soft texture of skin and the unyielding strength of the muscle it shielded.

“Ya know what I love about you?” he murmured. “This,” he answered his own question, letting just one finger climb the plateau again until it could circle the rougher texture of the crinkled aureole. He offered a repeated brushing of the hard peak of Hutch’s nipple, bowing Hutch’s back as he sought to firm the pressure.

Hutch gasped. His hand lifted for a moment as if he might bring a halt to the teasing, then settled behind his back, giving Starsky freer access. All the access he wanted and needed to re-discover familiar territory in any way he saw fit.

“Ya know what else I love about you, babe?” Starsky continued. “This,” he once again answered his own breathless inquiry while his hand moved, flat-palmed, over the taut expectancy of Hutch’s abdominal muscles and paused to dip a gentle probe into the shallow cup of the navel. He circled the indentation gently, knowing exactly the sensations that would be flooding from the caress into Hutch’s balls.

“But ya know what I love the most, the very best of all about you, sweetheart?” he asked, his hand finding the thick, warm strength of Hutch’s cock and laying claim to it with fingers that knew every inch of it so well. He didn’t answer himself this time, but waited until the silence brought Hutch out of the well of sensation he wallowed in to prompt him.

“What?” Hutch gasped, his fumbling fingers finding a grip on Starsky’s hip that drew their bodies together.

“Everything.” Starsky breathed the promise into Hutch’s mouth and found a mirroring grip on Hutch’s hip.

They moved together, bodies restless but patient. Their lips met and Starsky opened his mouth eagerly to the tongue that had conquered his fear. He gloried in its possession and in the strong hands that caressed him with love, the thick hard heat of Hutch’s cock that stroked his and sparked fire from it that chased itself in flashing embers through his nerve endings.

“Come with me,” Hutch whispered a commanding plea.

More than willing to comply, Starsky loosed what pitiful controls he was capable of, held fast to the man he loved, and let the sweet, sweet rush of climax over-take him.

Alive and together.

Evil had tried to sunder them. Evil had failed.

~*~*~

Hutch laid one last kiss on the tip of Starsky’s slowly softening cock and, licking traces of warm iron salt from his lips, eased up the bed and into his lover’s arms.

“God, I love it when you do that,” Starsky groaned.

Hutch tipped his head back against Starsky’s shoulder, lifted his eyebrows and offered a lecherous grin. “I know.”

“Not that,” Starsky amended, running a finger over Hutch’s lips, making them tingle. “The way you lick your lips after you’ve sucked me. As if you don’t want to waste any of my come.”

“I don’t,” Hutch agreed, and tucked his face back into the curve where Starsky’s neck met his shoulder. He was lying on Starsky’s left side, so it would be okay for him to stay here a few minutes. “Besides,” he added. “You do it, too.”

“I do?” Starsky asked, a small chuckle lifting and lowering the chest that cushioned Hutch. “I didn’t know that.”

“Learn something new every day,” Hutch reminded him. He slid his hand up Starsky’s chest, stroking the scars that were gradually fading. His lover no longer flinched away from this caress, and Hutch was proud to have given him back his faith in his own beauty. Leaving the scars behind, Hutch’s hand moved on to cup the familiar swell of the pectoral muscle. It wasn’t quite as prominent as it once was, but, nine months after being shot, the muscle mass was returning to Starsky’s body. All of Starsky’s body. Arms, legs, abdomen were all beginning to take on their previous definition. Starsky was still five pounds short of optimum weight, but the last ten he had packed on was solid muscle.

Tonight was a celebration, mutual pleasure eagerly given and received to mark the occasion of Starsky’s final day of physiotherapy. Of course, it was a somewhat dubious designation, since very few nights went by that didn’t see them indulging in the mutual desire that had once been held at bay, except for that one magical night a month.

“Hutch?”

He had almost fallen asleep, Hutch realized, as Starsky’s voice drew him back from the edge. “I’m goin’,” he muttered. Those words didn’t mean what they once had. Where once they had meant the end of too few hours and a long wait until the next last Friday, now they were only the promise that Hutch would shift his weight before Starsky’s arm went to sleep.

But the arm around him tightened, signaling him to stay and Starsky’s fingers came to press his face deeper into his sanctuary. Uh, oh, Hutch thought. “Shoot from the hip, Starsk,” he encouraged, already knowing that Starsky wouldn’t try to beat around the bush.

“I think I want to go for it. The re-qualification trials, I mean,” Starsky confessed.

If it had been possible to squeeze any deeper into his warm haven, Hutch would have. In fact, if he could, he would crawl right inside Starsky, make his way up to his brain and try to change his mind from within. Because he couldn’t do it from without. If being a police officer was still the best use Starsky could think to make of his second chance at life, then Hutch had no right to let fear for his safety rob him of it.

“You want to go back then?” Hutch asked. He didn’t want to know, but he could feel Starsky waiting for the question.

“Don’t know about that, babe,” Starsky admitted, his fingers carding through Hutch’s hair, seeking to soothe and succeeding. “Hell, I still jump a foot when the heap backfires. I just don’t want Gunther to be able to make that decision for me.”

“When?” Hutch asked. How the hell could he agree and disagree so strongly at the same time? One step at a time, he reminded himself. First his partner had to qualify.

Starsky chuckled a little. “Called and checked the schedule today. They’ve got an opening on May fifteenth. I think that’s kind of appropriate. Don’t you?”

Exactly one year, Hutch thought ironically. If Starsky passed, then he could thumb his nose at the old bastard who had tried to take it all away from him on the first anniversary of the attempt. It was appropriate. But to Hutch, it meant a three-month reprieve. Three months of watching Starsky drive himself, push the limits every day and grow stronger with every push-up he did and every step he ran. Three months free of immediate fear for his lover’s life.

“So, what do you think?” Starsky asked.

Hutch took a moment to tuck away his terrors, waited until Starsky’s partner, friend and lover could lift up, look him in the eye, and back him up one hundred and ten percent.

“I think you ought to go for it.”

~*~*~

Hutch stood it as long as he could, trying to keep his attention on the television and off his lover. It wasn’t easy when Starsky was sprawled on the floor between Hutch and the television, his head and torso popping in and out of Hutch’s field of vision as he performed sit-ups. Hutch had tried not to count, but he couldn’t help it when each lift was accompanied by a painful sounding grunt of effort.

“Come on, Starsky. Enough is enough,” he appealed when the strained, sweaty face next appeared above the coffee table.

“Ten more,” Starsky gasped before he disappeared again.

Eight. Nine. “Ten,” Hutch counted the last slow rise aloud. “Give it a rest, Starsk, before you give yourself a hernia or something.”

When Starsky’s head didn’t appear in yet another sit-up, Hutch shifted until he could look down at him, his hands braced on the coffee table as he leaned over it. Starsky lay star-fished on the carpet, gasping for breath. As Hutch watched, one hand slowly drew in to rub at the scars on his chest, fingers digging in as if he could force the mended flesh to stretch the way it once had.

“You’re pushing too hard,” Hutch cautioned as mildly as he could.

Driving himself back into peak condition had become an obsession for Starsky since he had decided to take the re-qualification exams. That obsession scared the hell out of Hutch because he feared it signaled that, whether he was conscious of it or not, Starsky had decided that he still wanted to be a cop. If that was true, then Hutch knew they would be hitting the streets together in the near future. There were other ways they could remain with the force, but Hutch knew that, if they remained police officers, neither he nor Starsky would be content behind a desk for long.

“Not even a month to go,” Starsky panted. “I’m barely makin’ the standards, Hutch. Can’t go into it the way I am now, or I’ll never pass.”

Hutch flopped back onto the couch and bit his lip to cut off the resounding “good” that wanted to leap off his tongue. He did not want Starsky to fail. It meant too much to Starsky and he was working far too hard, had made such giant leaps forward that he was causing the doctors to shake their heads in wonder. What Hutch wanted was for victory to mean something other than what it did.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Starsky asked.

“Nowhere,” Hutch muttered.

“Well, come on down here for a minute. I’m too fucking tired to get up,” Starsky complained.

“I’m watching TV, Starsk. What do you want?” Hutch asked, because he knew he couldn’t sit eye to eye with Starsky right now. His fear was bubbling too close to the surface. He would start babbling questions Starsky couldn’t answer, seeking reassurances Starsky couldn’t give him.

“Oh, yeah?” Starsky challenged. “What’s on?”

Hutch glanced at the television and grimaced. There was a commercial playing right now and Hutch didn’t have clue one what program it might be interrupting.

“That’s what I thought. Come on, Blintz,” Starsky coaxed. “Get down here and tell me what’s on your so-called mind.”

Even when he couldn’t see him, Starsky could read his mind. Hutch sighed and surrendered, moving to sit on the floor where Starsky immediately claimed his lap for a pillow.

“That’s better,” Starsky said, reaching up to slide his hand under the back of Hutch’s hair. “Now, how about you tell me why it is you don’t know that Barnaby Jones is about to reveal the murderer’s identity?”

For a man who was claiming exhaustion, there seemed to be an awful lot of strength in the fingers that were kneading the knots out of the nape of his neck. Hutch laughed softly. Starsky had just wanted him down here, lounging in comfort and connected, rather than up on that couch in retreat. He slid his hand into Starsky’s sweat-soaked hair and watched as his fingers were devoured by the thick curls, noting absently that a few strands of silver had crept into the dark mass since the shooting. Only a few, but they were yet another reminder of Starsky’s mortality.

“Talk to me, Hutch,” Starsky coaxed. “The only place you and me ever get when we don’t talk is to hell in a hand basket. Truth time, sweetheart.”

“You’ve decided, haven’t you?” Hutch blurted, hoping he was ready to hear the answer, but fearing he never would be.

“About goin’ back, you mean?” Starsky clarified. “It scares the shit outta you, doesn’t it?” he asked, but didn’t wait for Hutch to find the words to deny or admit the accusation. “You think I don’t know that?”

“I’m sorry. I…” Hutch paused when the fingers on his neck moved to his hair and tugged hard enough to get his attention.

“Hey. You think I want you to apologize for lovin’ me this much?” Starsky asked incredulously. “I know you’re scared, Hutch. And you ain’t the only one.”

“But we can’t let fear rule our lives,” Hutch murmured in resignation. He had been chanting the mantra to himself for months now. He still didn’t believe it any more than he had ever believed Simon Marcus’ dream-driven rhetoric.

“I just don’t wanna see you keep crossin’ your bridges before you come to them, Hutch,” Starsky said earnestly. “You’ll go broke payin’ the tolls. Grow an ulcer or something.”

Hutch took his turn at focusing Starsky’s attention with tugging fingers. He smiled a little when Starsky grimaced and ouched in response. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Remember that when you’re pulling my hair.” He accepted the silent apology offered and gave his own with gentler fingers.

“I don’t know what I want to do, Hutch,” Starsky reassured him. “I swear. Right now, I can’t think one minute past May fifteenth.”

“I know,” Hutch soothed, because most of him did know and accept that Starsky, at the moment, was focused not on what waited at the end of his highway of effort, but only on each new curve that the road threw at him. It was only the man who had spent days living in terror that the soft rise and fall of the chest swathed in thick bandages might stop, who cowered in fear of the future.

“It’s like the first time they got me outta bed in the hospital,” Starsky tried to explain. “When the nurse came in and said I had to walk from the bed to the chair, shit, that chair looked like it was a hundred miles away. I knew there was no way I could get my butt from here to there under my own steam.”

“But you did,” Hutch reminded him gently, because the blue eyes weren’t seeing him anymore. Starsky was back in that chamber of pain and suffering, locked into the belief that life, as he knew it, had been stolen away forever.

“Yeah, Hutch, I did,” Starsky agreed, his eyes clearing of hopeless memories. “But the only way I could do it was to think about just one step. Do what I had to do to lift my foot and take one step. I couldn’t think about the one after that or the one after that all the way to the chair. I would have fallen on my face. Or maybe I wouldn’t have had the guts to even get outta the bed.”

“And qualifying is the step you have to think about now,” Hutch concluded, understanding the logic, awed by the courage, and terrified by the endless possibilities. Because, no matter how hard he tried to blind himself to it, he could see the end of the road.

“That’s right. There’s one thing I can tell you, though, babe. That day in the hospital, when I made it to the chair, I found out it was hard and cold and I didn’t really wanna be there anyway,” Starsky confessed.

Hutch allowed himself to be pulled down, automatically reaching under Starsky’s back to offer support as his lover lifted to meet him halfway.

“But I had to get there to find that out,” Starsky whispered and then he kissed him.

~*~*~

Starsky was surprised when Hutch pushed him away after only one kiss. “You tired?” he asked, solicitous because Hutch had had a particularly trying day. He had had to go with the woman from the state as she removed four neglected children from a home. While one child cried piteously in his arms for her mother, another one had bitten him on the leg. Hutch, Starsky sensed, was growing weary of the emotionally draining assignment.

“I just thought you’d want to save your strength for the trials tomorrow,” Hutch explained his hesitation.

“Hey, if I can’t make love with you at night and still work a shift on the streets, I shouldn’t be out there,” Starsky declared virtuously, then spoiled it by wriggling his eyebrows and reaching under Hutch to give one firm ass cheek a promising squeeze. “And if I have to make a choice, believe me, there ain’t no tape to break,” he teased.

Hutch, obviously, was no more in the mood to laugh than he was to play. “So, you’ve decided then, have you, that you want to go back to the streets?” he asked, his expression so neutral he could have been a mannequin.

Starsky sighed. Hutch was trying so hard not to influence his decision. Couldn’t he see that it was no longer only Starsky’s decision to make?

“I haven’t decided anything,” Starsky repeated for maybe the fiftieth time in the past three months. Hutch hadn’t asked him every day, but they had talked about it often. Starsky knew how his partner felt, but he didn’t know how he felt about the prospect of putting himself and the man he loved back into the line of fire. Terrified one moment, and determined to somehow step back in time the next. “Might have it decided for me tomorrow,” he reminded Hutch.

Hutch snorted and flopped onto his back. “Come on, Starsky. You know you’re going to make it. You’re in as good shape as you’ve ever been.”

“No, I’m not,” Starsky corrected him, more than aware of his shortcomings. “Three slugs in the chest just can’t be denied.” He propped himself on his right elbow, feeling the scars pull, knowing he was going to live with that tangible reminder of his mortality every day for the rest of his life. “I don’t know nothin’ ’til the examiner puts his John Henry on my score card.”

Thinned out lips beneath blond bristles and the deep crease that appeared between Hutch’s even fairer brows revealed his tension. “But you do want to go back,” he repeated, but without the question mark.

“I don’t know nothin’ yet,” Starsky repeated.

Tired of the almost argument, Starsky leaned in, took possession of those held taut lips and coaxed them into parting, while his hand traveled the smooth skin of Hutch’s chest. When he felt Hutch beginning to warm to his touch, he lifted away once more.

“I lied,” he revealed. “I do know one thing for sure.”

“What’s that?” Hutch asked.

“Whatever I do, sweetheart. I wanna do it with you,” Starsky promised.

“Whither thou goest, Starsk?” Hutch asked with the irony Starsky knew was meant to shield his troubled heart.

“That’s right, partner,” Starsky agreed. “Whither thou goest, I got you covered.”

~*~*~

Hutch watched from the bleachers as the examiner put Starsky through his paces, every obvious success tearing him between pride and terror. Starsky wasn’t setting any records out there this morning, but he was certainly meeting and, in some cases, surpassing all the minimum standards. Starsky was going to pass, and Hutch was going to have to learn to live with his fear every day.

“I never would have believed this a year ago,” Dobey admitted. He sat beside Hutch in the third row up, his ample frame spilling over the narrow bench. “He’s made an amazing recovery.”

“He’s worked his ass off,” Hutch snapped. “Sorry,” he apologized immediately.

“I understand, Hutch,” Dobey commiserated. “You can’t decide if you want him to pass or fail.”

Oh, no. Hutch didn’t want Starsky to fail. He would never wish failure on his partner in anything he tried. Starsky had worked too hard for this. Hutch wanted him to pass with flying colors. Then he wanted Starsky to walk away.

“That’s it,” Dobey announced as Starsky crossed the finish line of the last sprint, then jogged toward the examiner.

Hutch leapt up off the bench, then made a determined effort to control himself. He would not go charging down onto the field like some victory crazed sports nut determined to mob his favorite player. He wasn’t feeling particularly victorious. He waited for Dobey to heave to his feet, then followed the captain down the steep stairs.

By the time they arrived on the field, Starsky was more than halfway to meeting them. He traveled the last few steps in that swaggering strut that was so achingly familiar to Hutch, and thrust the results of his efforts into Dobey’s hands.

“So, you passed, huh?” Hutch asked.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Starsky asked, and Hutch could see that he was totally pumped. As high on his own adrenaline and success as he had ever been on painkillers.

“Well, there’s never been any doubt about your ego,” Hutch quipped, taking the sting out of it with a smile.

“Congratulations, Starsky,” Dobey said, offering his right hand to be shaken, while, Hutch saw, the left hand held Starsky’s Beretta and the worn leather folder that contained his badge.

Hutch commanded himself not to throw up while he watched Starsky take the captain’s hand, the echo of year-old gunfire ringing in his ears. He saw Dobey offer the gun and badge and forced himself to focus on Starsky, here and now, not the memory of him crumpled in his own blood with his head in the wheel well of his beloved tomato.

“Thanks, Cap,” Starsky said, throwing a wink Hutch’s way. “But I don’t think I have any use for those anymore.”

Hutch’s world rocked and then, for the first time in a year, settled back on its proper axis.

“That’s what I thought,” Dobey admitted, tucking the rejected symbols of authority away in his pocket. He turned to Hutch, held out his hand and laughed a little at the surprise Hutch was unable to keep off his face. “I knew the first time I saw you two that if I ever lost one, I’d lose the other.” The graying head turned from Hutch to Starsky and back again, a smile that was only slightly regretful warming his face. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that it’s this way.”

Hutch fumbled badge and gun from pocket and holster and handed them over. He accepted the handshake Dobey offered him, murmured, he was almost certain, the appropriate words, and then stood shoulder to shoulder with Starsky as they watched their past walk to his car, get in it and drive away.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Hutch muttered.

“Nah, you won’t,” Starsky declared, and Hutch felt a strong arm slip around his waist and find a grip on his jacket. “You’re one of God’s beautiful angels.”

Starsky’s delighted laughter invaded Hutch’s brain like champagne bubbles, as Hutch dropped his arm over Starsky’s shoulder to complete the embrace.

“God, I love it that you can still blush,” Starsky teased.

Hutch gave a gentle little punch to the muscles under his hand, took a stride forward and felt Starsky fall into step with him.

“Well, partner, looks like it’s gonna be that used car lot after all,” Starsky observed as they walked toward the Torino.

Walked toward the future, Hutch thought.

“There’s always banks in Bolivia or villas in Rio,” he reminded his former partner and forever friend. He inhaled deeply of the scents of sweat and strain that rose from Starsky and anticipated the moment when he would be the cause of them.

They passed beneath the arc of the Academy gate and Hutch felt Starsky’s grip tighten. “Are you sure about this, babe?” he asked, tempting fate one last time.

“Whither thou goest,” Starsky echoed Hutch’s ironic question from the night before.

They reached the Torino and Hutch began to draw away, finding himself held fast as Starsky turned to face him. Then, standing in broad daylight in the place where it had all begun, Starsky pulled Hutch into a kiss that celebrated, for all the world to see, their joyful freedom to love.

“May not know where we’re goin’ yet, partner…” Starsky began, laughing blue eyes asking Hutch to complete the promise.

“But we’re going together, partner,” Hutch agreed.