Fate

In answer to a challenge on a group page, the story of how Starsky and Hutch fell in love.

They fell in love the moment Starsky backed his car into Hutch’s on the parking lot of the Police Academy. They just didn’t know it yet.

Hutch got out of his beat up car that Vanessa hated so much. “Why can’t we have a decent car, Ken?” had been said so frequently that he no longer heard her when she said it.

“Well at least I didn’t dent it,” Starsky said with a smile.

“What do you mean?” Hutch said. He pointed to a dent next to an even bigger dent. “This is new.”

Starsky looked at the man with the sky blue eyes and felt his stomach give a little flip flop that had nothing to do with the burrito he’d eaten for breakfast on his way to his first day of classes. He took everything in—the frown line between the eyes, the tall, straight body, the strong, large hands. “Name’s Dave,” he said. “Dave Starsky.”

Hutch looked at the man with eyes the color of the midnight sky and felt his stomach give a little flip flop that had nothing to do with Vanessa packing up all his belongings, throwing them in the back of his car, and telling him that if he insisted on being a cop, she didn’t need to insist on being a cop’s wife. He took everything in—the curly hair, the easy smile, the swagger in the way Starsky walked. “I’m Ken,” he said. “Hutchinson. Hutch.”

So they shook hands and walked through the Academy doors together—the start of their partnership even though they didn’t know it yet.

They spent the next seven years not ever truly admitting that love—at least not out loud. They showed it and lived it in a myriad of ways: Starsky holding Hutch as his body fought off the effects of Forest’s forced drugging, Hutch holding Starsky in the back room of an Italian restaurant, Starsky leaning over a dehydrated Hutch pinned under a car, Hutch holding Starsky’s hand in the squad room and never giving up searching for the antidote to a poison. So many ways, so many times– a touch, a pat on the tummy, a squeeze to a shoulder, a smile when things were rough, an “I’m here” when the world seemed too big and too horrible, more games played than they could count, more meals shared, more laughs laughed, more tears wept. But even though they loved each other, they didn’t realize how much until a sunny day in May and a hail of bullets that left Starsky fighting for his life and Hutch fighting for it just as much.

One day, one beautiful day, three months later, Starsky walked out of the hospital with Hutch by his side. He got in Hutch’s beat up car—not the one that he’d dented so long ago– and they drove to a small house with a yard and a garage. There was a porch with a swing and a creaky screen door, but it was home–the home they’d never known they’d needed until the chance that they might not have a home together was so nearly snatched away.

They knew they were in love and not just loving by then. Hutch had vowed he’d never let a day go by that he didn’t say I love you to Starsky. Starsky had vowed he’d never forget waking up to see Hutch’s smile—that incandescent joy lighting his entire being—and he’d make sure that every day he’d find a way to bring that smile forth.

There was only one bed in the bedroom—the one that faced the yard and the setting sun. Hutch held onto Starsky’s arm because even though he walked out of the hospital under his own steam, he was still unsteady enough to need support and at the moment, he needed to not use the cane, needed to remind himself that he was alive and he was getting better.

Starsky plopped onto the bed, leaning back against a mound of pillows Hutch had placed there earlier. He let Hutch remove his shoes and socks, and then lay his hand over Hutch’s hand.

“C’mere.”

Hutch looked at him, his eyes widened and he nodded. He took off his own shoes and socks, and propped himself up against pillows.

Starsky let his fingers trail along the fine hairs of Hutch’s forearm, stared at the skin there as if he’d never seen it before. Hutch traced his hand along Starsky’s jaw and over lips and up through those curls he’d wondered at so long ago.

“I love you,” he said to Starsky.

“Me too,” Starsky said and he tugged just the tiniest bit on the collar of Hutch’s t-shirt, pulled him in close, and breathed Hutch’s breath before he covered Hutch’s mouth with his own. There were no stirrings down below—the doctors had warned him it would take time before he was up to any strenuous activity but kissing Hutch was sweet and he took his time making sure Hutch was very thoroughly kissed.

Hutch knew at that moment that no matter how much time they would have together in the future, it would never be enough, because he would never be so wonderfully cherished, so wonderfully loved, and so totally blessed. He knew it would be months until they would be able to go further than kissing and hand jobs and for the time being, even hand jobs were out of the question. But it didn’t matter—Starsky’s kiss was like chocolate and champagne and sunshine and every moment they’d shared from that very first bang that had shuddered his car forward when a curly-haired, trivia-loving, street-smart bundle of energy named David Michael Starsky had backed his car into Hutch’s all those years ago.

Hutch smiled and Starsky looked at him as though he had hung the sun and the moon in the sky.

Fate can be cruel, fate can be fickle, but she can also be gloriously, abundantly kind.