Hour of Separation

399

The title (and concept of the story) comes from a line from a collection of poems by Kahlil Gibran called “The Prophet.” The line is as follows: “And ever has it been that loves knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” From there follows many, many pages of angst, grumpiness, insomnia all set against the stage of a lovely, hot L.A. summer.

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The third interrogation room was hot, the bars across the windows generating their own heat. Starsky could tell Hutch was snickering into his ice-tea anyway, that soundless laugh accompanied by only the smallest of smiles. And it wasn’t easy keeping a straight face when he did it either; Hutch’s smile pulled at the corners of Starsky’s mouth while he tried to remain stern as he faced their suspect. Suspect, hell. They knew he was involved in the drug racket; Hutch had caught him with his hands full of dope in the midst of flushing it down the john and inhaling it up his nose.

But he was only a little fish and the streets were full of them.

“Why don’t we just throw him in the slammer?” he’d demanded of Hutch earlier.

“We want the big one, Starsky, not this guppy.”

Of course Hutch was right, as he usually was. But there was still something hugely satisfying about snagging a guppy or two on the way up to the “big one” that kept getting away.

“So, you talk, an’ you walk. Follow me?” Starsky demanded, shoving his face close to Mike “The Blade” Rolo.

“Tough guy,” snarled Rolo. He really was quite big, even sitting his head was almost level with Starsky’s. The snarl came from somewhere in his chest, rumbling forth like a growl from a bear.

Starsky looked up at Hutch, exasperated, and Hutch raised his eyebrows with that slight, sideways jerk of his head, as if to say, Well, that’s the end of that.

“Tell him what he’s won, Starsky,” Hutch said aloud, casually tipping back a swallow of his tea.

“15 to 20 years for possession,” said Starsky, low, “plus 10 more for obstruction of justice, with no time off feh good behavior, unless you talk, NOW!”

“NOW?” Rolo bellowed, leaping to his feet. He picked Starsky up by the sides of his chest and slammed him against the door. Starsky’s head hit the wood and bounced off; if Rolo had been holding his throat, he knew it would have broken his neck.

In that second before Rolo pulled him away for another body slam, he saw Hutch toss away his drink, the glass shattering in the corner, and come after them. The laughter was gone, replaced by some blond heat, eyes exploding with angry darkness, hands digging into Rolo with no thought to standard procedure or even the Hutchinson decorum. Starsky had seen Hutch plenty mad before, furious even, but always going in the other direction, never aimed his way. And it was only a second before Hutch was gripping Rolo’s neck in a headlock, his teeth white in a silent grimace.

“Let me ooouuut!” howled Rolo, and he slammed Starsky again and the three of them, their weight and velocity, plowed through the oft slammed door, landing in splinters and shards of wood in the corridor. On Starsky.

“Oh, jeeze, oh jeeze,” Starsky moaned, his breath coming in gasps.

Instantly, Hutch was on his feet, kicking Rolo in his rather solid side. “Get off him, asshole, off, OFF!”

A pair of feet appeared in front of Starsky, spread far apart. It was Brown and he had his fists on his hips. Just like Dobey, whom Brown was replacing while Dobey took a long vacation. It had been either that or lose a month’s worth of accumulated leave, which Edith wouldn’t hear of.

“In my office, NOW!”

Starsky kept himself from giggling as Rolo was pulled off him by unseen hands and Brown stormed away down the hall. Usually it was himself that played “bad cop,” but it was nice to be rescued. Starsky ducked his head as Hutch wrapped his long arms around Starsky’s ribs and gently hauled him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” Hutch asked from behind. “Did he squish you?”

The arms didn’t quite release him as Starsky pivoted around, their bodies not quite disconnecting. Their eyes met for a second and Starsky grinned.

“Naw, he squashed me.”

Hutch let him go, pushing at him affectionately. “Squish, squash,” he said.

“I was takin’ a bath,” Starsky replied.

That earned him a silent, wide-mouthed laugh from Hutch, who slapped at his shoulders, shrugging with it and trying to hide it. He froze and Starsky turned.

Brown stood at the end of the hall, making a “come-here” gesture with the tips of his fingers, and Starsky knew that Brown didn’t find, or couldn’t find, the humor in the situation.

The two partners stood in the office with the door closed a full minute before Brown spoke. “Would either of you two gentlemen care to explain what that was all about?”

No need to explain what that was, Starsky could read in his eyes that he was thoroughly disgusted with both of them.

“It was an accident,” said Starsky quickly. “My fault.”

“An accident?” Brown’s eyes brightened dangerously. “You call Rolo tearing down the door an accident? The man almost got away! Do you realize the potential for disruption if this probable suspect had evaded recapture?”

“What he means, Starsky-”

“I know what he means. I can understand words of more than one syllable, you know.”

“Well, if you hadn’t gotten in the big lug’s way–”

“I woulda been okay if you hadn’t added your thick skull to his!”

“ENOUGH!” thundered Brown. Both detectives’ heads snapped to face him.

“I am hereby, as of this minute, assigning you to new partners. Hutchinson, you will be working with Jeff Batos, he’s the new guy with the desk near the window. Move your stuff so Starsky’s new partner Andrews, on loan from vice, can move in.”

Hutch felt the shock freeze his face. “What are you saying?”

Brown snorted. “I thought at the very least Dobey’s men understood plain English.” He paused as if deciding something. “You are far too excitable together.”

“I don’t think so. With all due respect, Captain Brown,” said Hutch attempting to be pleasant, “Dobey isn’t going to take well to someone rearranging his department while he’s gone.”

Starsky added his two cents. “Hutch ‘n me work together.” It didn’t help.

“Not any more, you don’t,” said Brown.

“I’ll be damned if I’m taking on a new partner when I’ve got this perfectly good one right here.” Hutch hoped some humor would alleviate the tension, but it only seemed to irritate Brown, who shook his head with an ugly frown.

“Now wait just a goddamn minute!” Hutch felt his face grow hot. He jabbed a finger in the air. “You can’t just waltz in here and separate us. Starsky and I have worked together for over five years.”

“Yeah,” said Starsky.

“Even if you did have the authority to separate us, which I don’t think you do–”

“Yeah,” interrupted Starsky.

“Hush. –which I don’t think you do, you don’t even have cause for this sort of thing. We aren’t on probation, you haven’t written us up–

“Yesterday, Hutchinson,” said Brown, as if Hutch had not been speaking, “I got complaints that you used unnecessary force on that gentleman from the candy store about his brother, who, I might add, is merely a suspect at this time and not actually under arrest.”

“But he’s guilty!” Hutch shot a look at Starsky to keep his mouth shut.

“Innocent until proven so, may I add.”

“Captain,” said Hutch, tipping his head to one side warningly, “I used the force which I thought was necessary to get the information which I knew that guy had, and–”

“My POINT, gentlemen, is that– and your total disregard of what I’ve just said is proof of this– is that you two act like you run this department. Like you two are the captains and whomever is sitting in this chair is just someone who runs MVR’s for you whenever you need them.”

“Tha’s not so!” sputtered Starsky.

“Captain Brown–”

“And it’s gone on long enough. I have full authority to separate you, which I am doing so as of this moment. I’ve heard plenty about you two from Dobey, and any more complaints or outright rebellion and I’ll put in the recommendation that this separation be permanent. Is that clear?”

Starsky was pulling himself taller, drawing all his bouncing and strutting together in one dark line. One more second and Brown would find himself swamped by a one-man tsunami. Hutch did not enjoy pulling bodies out of the aftermath.

“Just one second, Captain…”

He caught Starsky’s eye with a jerk of his head and urged him out into the hallway. “This will just take a second,” he added, not taking his eyes off his partner. One more breath and he would feel it, that release of tension from Starsky’s frame; one more ounce of his will and the other would give in without him ever having said a word.

But words were important to Starsky, as was the hand he lay on the other’s forearm when the door shut behind them.

“I’m gonna quit,” Starsky said under his breath.

“C’mon, Starsk, you don’t really want to do that, do you?”

Hutch’s hands, almost cupping the dark-haired man’s face, slid to his shoulders with a solid grip.

Starsky nodded seeming to agree. “But the Cap’n would never separate us!” he retorted anyway, slamming the wall beside Hutch’s head. Hutch didn’t blink.

“It’s only for a month,” replied Hutch quietly.

Starsky dipped his head. “One day is too long,” he mumbled.

Hutch leaned forward, tilting his head sideways. “What was that?”

Starsky smiled, knowing perfectly well the other had heard him. He lifted his head, a mock frown on his face. “One day is too long, ya lummox,” he growled through his teeth, “gotta keep an eye on you.”

Hutch’s hand came down to cuff lightly across the top of his head. “You’re the one that needs a keeper,” Hutch said. “Promise me you’ll keep your badge; don’t let some new broom drive you away.”

Starsky didn’t say anything for a moment, but Hutch knew there was nothing he could do but give in. Starsky nodded, swallowing, and Hutch squeezed the back of his neck briefly and sent him off towards his new partner.

Hutch stuck his head in back through the doorway. Brown didn’t even look up and Hutch felt his whole face narrow with dislike. “It’s all set, Captain,” he said.

Brown looked up then. “Get back to work,” was his reply.

~~~

It started off bad, but then Starsky had known it would. He shifted his feet across the pile of trash on the passenger side of Gary Andrews’ car. Starsky himself realized that he was a slob, but this was really bad. And he would never trash up his car this way. Beneath his feet were at least six months worth of hamburger boxes, empty pop cans, an assortment of candy wrappers (mostly containing coconut, he was disgusted to see), and a half eaten slice of pizza right next to his left heel. The windows were streaked inside and out, and if he moved any further away from an uncomfortable spring, he knew, just knew, that the seat cover would tear even further. At a direct contrast, Andrews himself looked like he was on his way to church or something, his tie only slightly loosened after several hours on stakeout. Every strand of his slightly grey hair was in place.

They were, at present, waiting for the light to go on in “Black” Jack Terry’s apartment window – a major dealer who had the quaint habit, according to the word on the street, of selling from his living room. But after four hours, well past midnight, there had not been a single flicker from the third floor.

“Otta be a law,” he mumbled.

“What was that?” Andrews asked, not taking his eyes from the building.

It was exasperating to think he’d have to explain; Hutch would have known what he was trying to say and even, most likely, have finished the sentence for him, even if only in his own head. Or he would have smiled and said, “Yeah, I know, daylight hours,” and that would have been that. Explaining it to Andrews was too much like real work.

He answered by grunting a negative and threw himself in the back seat only to land on a litter of old coats and a collection of pizza boxes.

Andrews jerked his head around, the first time, Starsky was sure, that he’d taken his eyes off the building all night. As if realizing what he was doing, he whipped his head back around and refocused his glittering eyes on his target.

“What are you doing?”

Starsky halted, his hands in mid-fold on a coat he was planning to use for a pillow, thinking that if pizza boxes were valuable, somebody would make a killing. “What?”

“What the hell are you doing back there?” This was asked through gritted teeth as if not looking at Starsky while he was talking to him was painful.

Feeling as though he were explaining things to a child, Starsky spoke very slowly. “I’m going to get some shut-eye, jeeze!”

Andrews whirled around again, and Starsky thought briefly that with his luck, this would be the precise moment that Terry came home. He flicked his eyes up to the window, but nothing was happening.

“Fer chrissakes, we’re on a stakeout! You can’t sleep now!”

Starsky’s face tightened at the outburst. It wasn’t enough to remind himself that Hutch would have let him catch twenty; Hutch wasn’t here.

“Just a coupla minutes, you c’n wake me if anything starts to happen.”

“Wake you, my ass! Get your butt up here.”

He told himself that Andrews was probably right, sleeping on a stakeout was probably not kosher. But Hutch, hell, even Dobey, understood that 1 am was not Starsky’s best time unless something exciting was happening. He was simply not disciplined enough to make it through an eight hour stakeout without a small catnap. And probably, even if Andrews did allow him some sleep, he would most definitely not wake his new partner up with fresh coffee and donuts, as Hutch often did. Or allow him to sleep with his head in a lap instead of wedged against the door frame.

Damn.

He crawled carefully to the front seat, realizing almost too late that Andrews would not be amused, even irritably so, if Starsky landed with his head in his lap.

“Keep your elbows to yourself,” snapped Andrews.

Starsky settled himself in the passenger seat and began the uncomfortable process of sleeping sitting up.

By 7 am their shift was over and they drove to a small breakfast place for some food to go. All was well until Starsky reached for some of Andrews’s orange juice, which he had forgotten to order for himself.

“Hey! Gimme that! Get your own.”

Of course, in his confusion regarding Andrews’ irate state, Starsky managed to dump the contents all over both of them and their breakfasts.

“Damnit, Starsky!”

It didn’t sound that way when Hutch said it; Andrews sounded really pissed.

~~~

The day shift will suit me, Hutch told himself. It gave him the opportunity to pretend he led a regular life: up at 6am, a quick jog and breakfast cooking on the stove to be eaten when the rest of the country was eating theirs, in the morning, when the sun was still low in the east. He wouldn’t let himself think about how weird it would be not to be working with Starsky every day.

The eggs were almost done, just a touch of butter and cheese; Hutch wiped his damp hands on the back of his jeans. The toast popped up, he buttered it and arranged it on the plate. He enjoyed eggs but usually only got them late at night. This was entirely too regular.

There had to be no better combination than a bite of eggs followed by a sip of fresh coffee. Hutch savored the flavors on his tongue and swallowed just as a knock came at the door. He sighed and took another bite, knowing who it must be.

“Door’s open,” he said over a mouthful of toast.

He waved a fork at Starsky as his partner came through the kitchen doorway, motioning for him to sit down. Starsky did this in his usual way, swinging a leg over the top of the chair, sneakered foot just missing the table. He landed like a cat.

Hutch returned his attention to his plate, then did a double take. As Starsky was reaching for some toast, hesitating slightly as his fingers closed around a slice, Hutch noticed that his shirt was damp.

“What is that?”

“Orange juice,” grunted Starsky around his toast.

After a harder look, Hutch realized that Starsky was pissed off, eyes slitted, mouth in a thin scowl. Except…

“What happened to your mouth?”

His erstwhile partner reached over and took a large swig of his coffee. “Andrews didn’t want to share, and I got clipped with his elbow.”

Hutch swallowed quickly, jerking his head up. “On purpose?”

“No.” The response came slowly. “I only wish he had. Woulda given me a reason to slug him.”

“Sounds like someone does not work well with others. Or at least that’s what Brown’s report is going to say.”

“Damnit, Hutch, I was just trying to be friendly!”

Hutch threw him a mild look. “I didn’t mean you,” he said quietly.

“Oh.”

“Babe, we have to do this. Otherwise it’ll be permanent.”

They looked at each other silently for a moment, and Hutch knew that Starsky understood that this was hard on him, too. But Starsky looked so tired that what he needed was a place to lay his head for an hour and something to eat when he woke up. It looked like he hadn’t gotten his midnight nap.

He looked at his watch. Damn.

“Look, Starsk,” he said standing, pushing back his chair, “I gotta go.” He did have to go. If he didn’t leave now he’d be late, and he didn’t think Mr. John fresh-from-the-Academy Batos would consider not reporting that fact. He looked at his watch again, telling himself he didn’t feel like he was abandoning Oliver Twist, that he wouldn’t much rather stay and watch over his partner while he slept, and putter quietly around the house. They were on different shifts now, and Starsky catching him at this time was pure luck. Night shift and day shift were like two different worlds.

He leaned forward and pushed the remains of his breakfast across the table. “There’s juice in the fridge,” he said, slipping on his jacket.

“I’ll lock up,” said Starsky, taking Hutch’s fork. “Go,” he said, putting on a long-suffering smile, “have fun. Don’t worry about me.”

As he closed the door behind him, Hutch decided that he hated the day shift.

~~~

“It’s a piece of crap and I won’t ride in it.”

“Fine,” Hutch said, not bristling, “then we’ll take your car.” He smiled– the not very nice one that Starsky would have recognized as oncoming trouble –and made a slight bow. It was funny that when Starsky told him his car was a piece of crap he never felt like killing something. He did now.

Batos’ vehicle was nice, it had power everything, including turbo air conditioning. Hutch felt the sweat freeze on him the second Batos pushed the little blue button. But with him sealed up inside and the rest of the world out there, he felt cut off.

“This isn’t a druggie’s car,” he said as they wheeled through an alleyway, slick with pools of melting oil and papered with ugly grey scraps of paper. Only New York had dirtier alleys than L.A.

“It’s a dealer’s car,” said Batos without a pause. “They’ll think we’ve got some, and come running.”

“Go running, more like,” muttered Hutch looking out the window. “Who would drive a nice car in an area like this?”

“Only a dealer,” chirped Batos.

“Or a fool.”

Batos smiled. “Brown told me about that temper of yours,” he said, turning up the air even harder.

“Yeah?” God, what an inane conversation this was. “What else did he tell you?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re well aware of Brown’s opinion of you. Pumping me won’t help you.”

“I wasn’t pumping.” Hutch tried breathing slowly, but felt like ice crystals were forming in his lungs. “I was merely– could you turn that damn thing down –merely trying to tell you that no real addict would trust a dealer who flashed too much.”

“The newest research proves that to the contrary, Hutchinson. They’ll see the car and then we can land some.”

“They’ll think they’re seeing a mirage in all of this heat,” he replied. “No self respecting addict, or dealer for that matter, works in daylight hours. Dobey usually just had us patrol the streets for trouble.”

“Your Captain Dobey is sorrowfully behind the times.”

What could a guy say to that? It was bouncing a ball off a rubber wall, too much spring, no resistance. There was nothing Batos said that was really irritating, Hutch told himself, just everything added altogether made for a mighty prickly relationship. Could I get another partner, he wondered, just for the duration? No, better not. If he had too many new partners, by the time Dobey came back, Starsky would be so far up the list that Hutch would never work with him again.

Hang in there, Hutch, Starsky had said in a recent, hurried conversation over the phone.

You too, buddy.

By six pm, LA was like a broiler oven, and Hutch felt like a frozen piece of bacon soon to be placed in the roasting pan.

“Let me out here,” he said.

“Beg your pardon?”

Hutch shook his head and unlocked the door. “Let me out here, I said.”

“But…” Looking truly confused, Batos surveyed the neighborhood. He was about to say, Hutch knew, that this was not a safe place to be, it was a bad area. Hutch knew that, Batos surely knew it too. Hutch was a cop; he knew where the bad neighborhoods were. But he was fed up with Batos and his car; didn’t think he could stand another four weeks of its atmospheric purity. Besides which, and what Batos didn’t know, Starsky’s place was a mere two miles from this very corner. Half an hour if he walked, quicker if he jogged, which he didn’t think he should do in this heat.

“What about your, I mean our, report?”

As Hutch slid out of the car, feeling the heat swirl around him like a wave of hot water, he smiled. “See you at the station, tomorrow. We’ll do it then.”

He slammed the door on Batos’ smiling, confused face, before the younger man could protest or remind him that Brown had decided that reports would be done directly after a shift and not right before the next one. The day Dobey returned was an eternity away, and thoughts of panic that he might really leave them this way were crowding in Hutch’s head.

He tried not to run, but his feet wouldn’t let him. The heat, however, was making his head swim, and Hutch knew he would be courting a heat stroke if he didn’t slow down. So he compromised. Walk one block, run one block. Walk, run. Walk, run. Run. Run. He finally turned onto Starsky’s street, cutting through the brown crackle that was the corner lot’s lawn and had to stop in the shade of a blessedly healthy sycamore tree to breathe. When he could do that, he made himself walk slowly to the apartment building. And asked himself why he was in such a hurry.

Sanity, my friend, sanity.

Hutch knocked and let himself in at Starsky’s door-muffled greeting. His partner sat with his bare feet on the table, dressed in minimal shorts and an unbuttoned shirt. Starsky tipped back his head to suck down a swallow of what was, most assuredly, ice-cold root beer and smiled at Hutch before returning his attention to his comic book. An elderly, black, spidery-looking fan sat in the open window, catching the non-existent breeze and turning it back and forth to cool the room. Another window was open on the other side of the room, creating a causeway where the air, certainly somewhat cooler than that standing still outside, brushed across Hutch’s skin almost tentatively. Drying the sweat on the side of his neck, and sweeping the damp hair away from his forehead.

No, not just sanity. Bliss.

“Help yourself to some root beer, my friend,” he heard Starsky say. “Whadja do, walk in this heat?”

Hutch lifted his head, taking in the man in the chair, wishing, knowing he’d give all the money in the world if he didn’t have to work with Batos tomorrow. “Yes,” he answered. He saw with new eyes a situation that was very familiar and was hit with the realization that it was going to be difficult for them to see each other as much as they were used to. Being with Starsky now, after Batos, was too damn easy. Just standing there, he was swimming in comfort.

“Jeezus,” said Starsky, “well, hop in the shower. Cool yourself off. Ya look kinda peaked.”

“I feel peaked,” Hutch confessed. “Batos has got an air conditioner like a deep freeze.” He peeled off his jacket as he walked towards the bathroom.

When he came out, dressed in some old cutoffs of Starsky’s that almost fit, he felt entirely better. On the table sat a bottle of root beer, just opened by the curl of carbonation rising from the opening, and a tall glass, no ice. Starsky apparently hadn’t forgotten that Hutch didn’t like ice with his root beer. Sacrilege, Hutch had once complained. Too damn easy, he thought again, being with you.

He poured out his beverage and took a huge swallow, tonguing the foam from his upper lip. “I feel almost cool now,” he said, tipping his head to look at Starsky, who looked like he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Sun’s gone down,” Starsky said, putting down his comic book and now empty bottle.

“Is that the latest?” he asked, nodding his head toward the comic.

“Nah, just an old one. I like it ’cause it’s the one where ole Spidey almost reveals himself to his aunt.” Starsky stood up, looking as glad as Hutch felt, to see him. “Ya hungry? We could order in and wait for a breeze to come in off the ocean. I’m not on until–”

Hutch cut him off. “I know what time you go on, dummy. Why don’t we pick up something and drive down to the ocean.” Starsky’s face brightened at this prospect, then Hutch remembered. “Only…”

“Only what?” asked Starsky, bending to get his laceless sneakers.

“Only, I don’t have my car, I walked remember?”

“So?”

Hutch crossed his arms and tried to look like it was very difficult for him to remain patient. “Only the beach is covered with sand, and with your devotion to that paint job on that car of yours…” He trailed off, frowning with seriousness.

Starsky must have seen the light in his eyes. “Only if we drive very, very slowly,” he replied gravely, “and if you promise to get out and push if we get stuck.”

~~~

Brown’s idea of good police operations during a crime wave that straddled a heat wave was to double up the shifts of his street and undercover cops. When the call came in for an officer assist, Hutch and Batos were officially on their break between shifts.

“Better call it in,” said Batos.

“Yes,” replied Hutch, his voice seeming over-sweet to his ears. He had been just reaching for the mike. “This is Zebra Seven, come in please.”

Neither he nor Starsky had wanted Zebra Three. He knew they were both saving it.

The reply came back, laced with heat static. It was a report regarding Lion Eight, Starsky’s new designation, ambulance requested. Hair started to stand up all over Hutch’s body, in places he didn’t even know he had hair.

“Corner of Larkspur and 98th, do you know the alleyway?” he demanded.

It only took Batos and his supercar 10 minutes to tear through rush hour traffic, but for Hutch it was too long. The call hadn’t been “officer down,” just “assist,” but even so, by the time they careened to a halt outside the ring of ambulances, sweat was pouring down his neck. Air conditioner or no.

He jumped out, narrowing his eyes against the whirl of lights in the early evening haze, orange with dust. Once in the shade of the tall, worn brick, he moved along the edge of the crowd, flashing his badge when necessary, scanning for a familiar head of hair.

He found it, leaning against an ambulance into which not one but three zippered-closed black body bags were being loaded. Starsky looked okay, at least from this distance, but it was the angle of his body, the slump of his shoulders that worried Hutch. Closer, he saw that Starsky’s eyes were half-lidded, arms across his chest. He stood perfectly still, seeming oblivious to the rush of equipment and personnel around him.

His hand reached out to touch before his mouth could form around a greeting. Ever the way between him and Starsky.

A rush of heat pushed up from the exhaust just as the back door slammed shut. Starsky stepped away from the vehicle and walked off, as if not realizing that Hutch was right behind him, though Hutch knew this was not so. He realized that Starsky had dust all over his back, and chips of plaster were in his hair. He looked like he’d been roughed up.

He waited while Starsky propped himself up against a brick wall. One glance told him that two more bodies littered the alley and that Andrews was practically snarling at them while he filled out some paperwork by himself. Hutch stretched to lean on one hand and propped himself against the wall, too.

“What’s up, Starsk?”

Starsky looked up, his eyes somehow deeper than they had been a day ago. He looked at Hutch as if just seeing him, just realizing that he was standing right there. His expression was flat, but he tried on a smile anyway as he patted Hutch’s arm.

“Are you hurt?” asked Hutch. “What happened?”

“There was a shoot-out,” said Starsky, low. “Those three guys and these two here.” He waved vaguely at the body bags, now full. “It was a drug bust, me an’ Andrews, an’ we got caught in the middle of the dealer and dealee right when the whole thing fell apart.”

Captain Brown appeared at the end of the alleyway and started walking toward them, the only two people standing absolutely still.

“But are you okay?” Hutch asked, knowing that Starsky would understand the difference between “hurt” and “okay.”

Starsky looked down again and Hutch stared at the back of his head as if willing him to look up. He even had to duck his head to listen to the response.

“You know…you know those rose-colored glasses you always accuse me of wearin’?”

Hutch nodded, staring, unfocused, at the brick wall. He didn’t think he was going to like what was coming. He took in the bodies and bags, EMT personnel moving, for them at least, in slow motion and shrugged. Another police report and that would be all; he wouldn’t have to notify a loved one, or even escort anyone down to the morgue.

But to Starsky, he knew, each body that went down added to his own personal list of failures; even the bad guys he’d killed went on it. And he knew that Starsky carried it with him everywhere, the exact number known and mourned for.

Hutch often imagined that his own object was to get the villains, to lay them low or lock them up – whatever would get them off the street. Starsky, on the other hand, was out to protect the innocent, to stand between them and the evil.

We meet somewhere in the middle, I suppose. Negative and positive, high and low.

“Well, they’re gone.” Starsky spoke quickly, realizing that they didn’t have the luxury of working through it as they always had. They weren’t going to be able to drive off together and discuss it along the way. “I saw these guys go down, the body bags come out and it was like this wall went up. I didn’t care. Ya know a wall like that?”

The face, earnest, turned towards him and Hutch nodded, feeling like a piece of crashing glass. “There are walls, and there are walls,” Hutch said. It was horribly ineffectual, like watching one of those films of a forest being uprooted. The walls Starsky had spoken of were familiar to Hutch instantly. They had always existed for him; he often wondered if that sense of objectivity made him a “good” cop. Emotional distance. But not for his partner.

“Aw, Starsk,” he whispered, leaning close, almost enough to touch, “Starsky.” The hand against the wall became a fist, and he longed to bring it down with softness, a protective curve. To clasp Starsky on his arm or somewhere, anywhere. Starsky himself seemed not overwhelmed by his own personal reaction, but instead dazed by his lack of it. But then Brown and Andrews appeared, somehow not noticing that Starsky was close to shock. Or if they did notice, decided not to care.

“Back to work, Hutchinson,” drawled Brown, “we’ll take care of Starsky here.”

Hutch thrust out his chin and narrowed his eyes. But just as he was about to take a step forward and Brown was, seemingly, willing to meet him halfway, he heard Starsky clearly, for the first time that night.

“It’s okay, Hutch, I’m okay.”

Of course that’s what Starsky would say, and Hutch could only stare at his partner, disbelieving. Brown stood on one side of him, Andrews on the other; they couldn’t very well discuss it more here. Hutch began to panic deep inside, and then Starsky did something: he lifted up his hand to chest level and clenched it into a fist. His face was calm, and in his eyes, light there. Like this, he’d once said to Huggy, Hutch and me’re like this. And then he’d made a fist.

Okay, Hutch nodded, silent. Okay. There was nothing more he could do but walk back to Batos’ car and ride off in the deep freeze.

Starsky watched him go. Swallowed. Of course Hutch knew about walls, his whole life was a series of them. Some were only for show, and served no practical purpose but to warn away strangers. Others were more permanent. You had to know how to get around them and very few did. At worst you didn’t build them up any higher with some foolishness, and they stayed the same. Brown, naturally, had come equipped with tools, even a ladder. Behind those walls, of course, Hutch was like butter in the sun, but each year, each crime wave, added layer after durable layer to the barrier.

And the last thing he wanted to do was to watch Hutch’s retreating back, watch him slip into someone else’s car and drive off into the smoky evening.

“Go to the station,” clipped Brown, “and I want to see some reports on what the hell went down out here.”

Naturally, thought Starsky, they can’t wait till morning.

Andrews drove in his usual grandmother fashion. He seemed to smile at Starsky’s irritation.

“Can’t this piece of crap go any faster?” If Hutch was going to the station and he was going to the station, then maybe their paths would cross at the station, maybe he could just stand next to Hutch and absorb some of his calm.

“That ex-partner of yours is quite a mother hen,” said Andrews.

Starsky tried closing his eyes to pretend he wasn’t angry, like Hutch sometimes did. It didn’t work.

“He’s not my ex-anything, moron. And he’s not a mother-hen, he’s good people.”

Andrews tipped back his head in a silent laugh. “He coddles you like you were his baby. Batos said it only took them ten minutes to arrive at the scene, but it wasn’t fast enough for Hutch; he practically got out and pushed!”

“He was worried,” snarled Starsky, wishing that someone would shut Andrews up. Maybe that somebody should be him.

“And what’s with him and that air conditioner? Batos said it was a hundred degrees and he still wanted it off.”

“It’s too cold, it reminds him of Minnesota in the winter.”

“Did he tell you this?”

“No.”

“Jeeze, what is with you two, anyway?”

“Will you shut up?”

“What, I mean–”

“Just SHUT UP!”

“Boy, aren’t we testy tonight.”

That was it. Last straw time. At the next stoplight, Starsky leaned over and with both hands on Andrews’ shirt, shoved him against the door of the car. Shoved his face in close till it was mere inches away from the shocked expression of the other man.

“Ken Hutchinson is the best partner, the best friend, I have ever had,” he ground out slowly. It was important that Andrews get this the first time. “He loves me like a brother, and any snide comments you might be considering makin’, just consider again.”

Andrews latched onto his hands and pried them from his clothes. “I see.”

“You think you see,” said Starsky. He let Andrews go, and ignored him for the rest of the drive.

~~~

A fellow had to sleep sometime. And eat. And go to work. By the time things had calmed down enough to where Hutch could claim a day, it was a week later. Double shifts did that to a person.

And it was almost impossible to get hold of Starsky: phone calls at his apartment went unanswered, messages at the station went haywire and were probably never even delivered. And he needed to make sure Starsky was all right, that the loss of his “spectacles” hadn’t ruined him, that the world hadn’t gotten to him completely.

At the end of his shift, Hutch ignored Batos’ offer of a ride and went over to the desk he and Starsky used to share. It was much neater than it used to be, which probably meant that Andrews hounded Starsky to death about it. That, or he enjoyed Hutch nagging him and he used to leave it messy on purpose. The problem was that now that it was tidy, Hutch couldn’t find anything.

He found a pencil, strangely enough, in the round container that was made for it. A little more shoving produced a clean, square pad of scratch paper, not even dog-eared at the edges. He sat down in Starsky’s chair to write the note.

As he pushed some files aside to give himself some more elbow room, he found himself staring at the glass desk-top protector. At the pictures that Starsky used to remind himself to be careful, the definitive reasons why he should make a Herculean effort to come home at night. There was, as there had been for as long as Hutch had known him, a picture of Starsky’s mom and dad, a more recent one of his mom, and one of him and Nick as kids.

But there was a new one. It was of Hutch himself, taken at a party some months ago that he only dimly remembered attending. He was standing slouched against the wall in a dark t-shirt, one leg propped up, arms across his chest, a long, tall cool one tucked in the crook of an elbow. By the relaxed expression, he knew it was fairly well along in the party, enough beer having been consumed so that no one he knew was trying to engage him in any real, meaningful conversation.

And there he stood, at the edge of things, watching. He thought he looked somewhat judgmental, and then remembered smirking at Starsky’s seduction of a tiny redhead. Starsky had just smiled at him to let him know what she meant (a one-nighter, as usual) and he’d thought about smiling, really smiling, but had restrained himself. It wouldn’t “do” to overtly encourage Starsky. So the camera man, an artistic friend of Huggy’s he remembered vaguely, had snapped him as he was: watching after Starsky, trying not to let on how he really felt, and thinking. Mostly the former and not too much of the latter. With the bluntness of his fingertips he touched the glass. There was a small tightness in his chest.

~~~

“Did you get my note?” Hutch said into the phone the next day when the mercury exploded. The receiver was so hot in his palm, slick with his own sweat that he had trouble holding it up to his ear. The couch seemed unusually lumpy beneath him.

“Of course I got it,” Starsky half-shouted, sounding absurdly normal to Hutch. “That’s why I’m callin’ you!”

Okay, thought Hutch. Okay. “Can you make it?”

There was a small heat-crackle of silence.

“Aw shit, aw shit,” muttered the other end. “Brown’s got my shift lined up for some dumb first-aid meeting.”

“First aid’s not dumb, Starsky.”

“Yeah, well you know what I mean. How ’bout tomorrow?”

“No.” Hutch sighed, wiping the moisture from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “I’m working.”

Their attempts to meet in the middle somewhere kept shifting as if to compensate for their intensity upon it.

After they hung up, Hutch found himself thinking about the picture. It wasn’t enough to understand why it existed or who had taken it, or what had been going on at the time. More, it was the issue of when it had been placed in that particular spot where it served that particular purpose. Hutch thought that what with the crime wave and the heat wave and this uncalled for separation by Brown, that it might just be a way for Starsky to hang on to a reality he preferred to exist in.

Hutch preferred to think it was because Starsky missed him.

He certainly missed Starsky, though he wasn’t sure if it was because the other man had become a habit or if he really was such a part of his life, his existence, that he couldn’t function without him.

It just wasn’t possible that he was spending so much time analyzing a single picture, was it?

Well, yes and no.

He readjusted his legs on the coffee table, the beer on his legs and his mouth around the beer. Re-wedged his free hand in between the cushions of the couch and continued to stare at the TV. Nothing was on but some old western, so black and white it was dusty. That didn’t surprise him. What did was how supremely bored he was. Why he continued to watch was some faraway comprehension that refused to allow him to turn the damn thing off.

Now, if Starsky were here…

Yeah, if Starsky were here and we were actually watching TV instead of talking the night away, we’d have munchies and beer, probably even a card game going and end up talking over the dialogue anyway.

And having a great time.

But Starsky was at work and he was not and if this was the way it was going to be, then he’d really like it if Dobey came back tomorrow. Which didn’t reassure him in the least, since Dobey could be quite unpredictable at the oddest of times and was just as likely to leave things as they were, insisting that Starsky and Hutch were so set in their ways that they needed a change. Just like Brown said.

Hutch shuddered.

Starsky would fight tooth and nail against that ever happening. It was a comfortable thought. When Starsky had threatened to quit, Hutch had stopped him, hoping that things would be okay, or at least not so bad. But things weren’t okay, they were horrible. Not for him personally, or for Starsky especially (though Hutch found himself somewhat uncomfortable not being able to worry about Starsky personally), but for the essence of them-ness, us-ness, we-ness, so secondary to his nature that he did not know how to operate without it.

And now the hope had turned into desperation, a secret silent plea to some higher, somehow merciful power to connect them back together again. Like Humpty-Dumpty, only there were two pieces, one light and one dark, a balanced fulcrum against the ravages and uncertainties of the real world.

Hutch squinted into the mouth of his beer bottle, realizing that if he was echoing such profundities in his own head, he was well on his way to an all-nighter. Tying one on and all by himself.

He frowned severely at the beer, at his hands, scowled at the TV. It didn’t work. The small flutter worked its way up from his chest to his mouth and he was glad at least that no one was there to see his jaw twitching with the effort to contain. He scrubbed at an eye with the heel of his hand, and leaped to his feet.

One more beer, he promised himself, knowing it was all the fridge contained.

~~~

Starsky crouched in the weeds alongside the tattered asphalt square that made up the basketball court closest to his place. It had minimal shade, an uneven surface that made the wackiest English on the ball, and cars whizzing by not a sidewalk away on two sides. But he felt comfortable there. It reminded him of the neighborhood back east where he’d grown up.

The last game was over and he sat on the regulation sized ball to wait for the next group that would somehow gather to get a game, humidity or no. It made him feel 10 again, having to ask, “Ya wanna play?” or “Can I get a game?” It would be different if Hutch were here.

There was a quarter floating in his pocket and he debated going home and fishing out some more change for a chocolate shake at the Dairy Queen two blocks in the other direction. Calling the game off altogether. Now, if Hutch were here he could scrounge some change from him, have time for that shake, and still get in another game.

It was really too hot to play anymore, regardless; his shirt was sticking to him in semi-circles and one more fall would tear open his elbow even further. There would have been Bactine and a huge band-aid, if Hutch were here, and the ice cream, even if he personally didn’t have enough money, would have been a foregone conclusion. And even if nobody showed up, like nobody was, they could have gone one on one, the hot sun slanting through the buildings, reflecting in dirty waves from the streets and sidewalks.

If Hutch were here, it would have been a perfect day.

Hutch’s presence was notable not only by his absence, but also for Starsky’s own insistence that this selfsame absence was unnatural. As if he were missing a spectacularly vital body part, like a pair of lungs, a cerebral cortex or a spine. Something like that. And it wasn’t like Hutch was dead or missing, in the hospital or even sick. He was fine and Starsky knew, for the most part, right where he was. Simply, and in direct opposition, was the fact that a huge chunk of himself was missing, like he didn’t know what to do with himself without Hutch around.

“Jeezus,” he muttered, working himself to a stand.

As he walked home, he realize how dull everything seemed. How dull the grass looked, brown in the wiltingly hot California summer. How dull he felt.

He was going on a stakeout with Andrews later, and that prospect of future dullness ground his teeth together, made his hands slam the ball that much harder as he dribbled his way home.

Stakeouts with Hutch could be tedious, or trying, or dangerous, but never that all encompassing, dust-filled lung feeling that Andrews brought with him.

Starsky cheered up somewhat as he entered his faintly cooler apartment, thinking of the cool shower he would take, the cold drink he would have. Wished he had a Hutch to talk to in between here and there.

The smile formed before he realized it was happening.

Everyone should have a Hutch to talk to.

After his shower, he pulled on some jeans and padded over to the water cooler, filled a glass with that and topped it off with ice. His teeth sang as he downed half of it, lips almost numb as he refilled it and went to stand in front of the sink and stare out the window.

Just what was it that made Hutch a spectacularly un-dull person to be around?

Starsky hadn’t a clue.

~~~

“You’ve been coming over here each day for the last three days. You lose something?”

Hutch straightened with a jerk as Batos’ smooth tones approached from behind him. The squadroom was fairly empty at midday as Hutch looked around, but he felt conspicuous anyway. He moved his hand and the papers under it to cover what he’d been looking at.

“Uh,” he shrugged in reply, “habit, I guess.”

But Batos was not fooled. He tapped Hutch’s wrist with his pencil and motioned for him to move. “Stand away from the desk, sir,” he intoned with mock seriousness, and looked down at what Hutch’s hand had been covering.

“What? A memo about a company picnic? Since when were you a joiner?” Batos dismissed it, tossing it aside. “You got a funny look on your face, Ken, what’s up?”

Hutch didn’t know what to say. Starsky had added a new picture to lay next to the one of a solitary Hutch. But he couldn’t quite describe what had happened to his insides when he’d first viewed the picture of him and Starsky from their early days on the force together. No way to coherently explain what it did to him: a black and white of him and Starsky, Starsky talking to someone off camera, and himself smiling goofily at the photographer. Where had Starsky dug this one up?

“Just, ah, just a creature of habit, I guess.”

“You said that.”

“Well, you should have listened the first time,” snarled Hutch, striding away. He stopped at the squadroom door, and turned. Batos’ eyebrows had shot up, but if he was reminded of he and Hutch’s first days together, when Hutch had been cold to him all the time, he didn’t say.

“I’m going to get some lunch,” Hutch said, staring at the floor.

Batos seemed to accept this as an apology. “Guess you miss him,” he replied, coming closer.

Miss Starsky?

Like the moon would miss the sun.

~~~

It was Andrews turn to drive Starsky home after the stakeout and he did so in utter silence, obeying the speed limit and allowing even the tourists out at midnight to pass them on the freeway. The agony of it pulled at Starsky till he tipped back his head and groaned.

There came an answering snort of exasperation. “Would you please quit doing that!”

It wasn’t a request or even a question, more a demand on Starsky’s whole body to go with the boredom, to blend in with the dead weight of the atmosphere until his backbone became fused with the cushion of the seat.

His whole body then rebelled, jerking to an upright position, toes curled, hand at the ready on the door handle and at the next interminable stoplight, he spoke. “I’ll get out here.”

Andrews expression said, excuse me?

“I’ll get a bus.”

The response was a pair of rolled eyes and lips that whispered, oh Jeezus.

“I can’t let you out here,” said Andrews with exaggerated politeness. “We’re in the middle of Beverly Hills and you don’t live anywhere near here.”

No one Starsky knew lived anywhere near here, but that wasn’t the point, and both he and Andrews knew it. His outfit and the late hour would have him spread-eagled on the ground before he had time to reach for his badge. And nobody, but nobody, walked in this part of L.A.

“I’ll take a cab.”

“I think I’ll take you home now,” said Andrews, as if they had been arguing and he had just decided to do it.

The light turned green and Andrews rolled with the traffic, his usual care and precision still in place, hands at 10 and 2. Starsky remained at the ready, teeth grit. Even straight-laced Hutch had a little flair to his steering, sometimes driving with his hands at 7 and 5, or if he was eating, drove Starsky style, with the heel of a palm doing the steering.

That was it. At the very next stoplight, and Andrews did manage to catch all of them, Starsky bolted from he car, ignoring the frantic shouts. He suddenly didn’t give a shit. Not about Andrews and his anal attitude, not about the Beverly Hills cops, and certainly not about how he was going to get home. He’d find a way. All he wanted was out.

His anger was enough to carry him to the frontage road of a major east-west freeway, which he followed westward. Even this late at night, cars whizzed along elevated concrete slabs, taxis passed with homeward-bound passengers, and sleek, dark, expensive sounding vehicles seemed to need to turn at every corner he came to.

But once out of Beverly Hills proper, he felt at a loss. This wasn’t his territory, nothing like his own neighborhood.

He could imagine what Hutch would say. Could even hear the even, cutting tones in his head.

Whadja go and do a dorky thing like that for?

No. That wasn’t right. Hutch would never say dorky, would never run his words together like that. It would probably go something like…

Starsky, do you have any idea what sort of picture you present to the police in that neighborhood?

Except for the tone, it was pretty much what Andrews had said. Why did he feel looked after when Hutch said it instead of harangued ?

None of it was making sense and he figured it was the late hour, and he was exhausted. He caught a bus going uptown and placed himself gloomily towards the back. Stared out the window and watched the night go by.

The fact was that when Andrews scolded, he was a bastard, and when Hutch did the selfsame thing, it was a whole different ballgame. And this in spite of the fact that Hutch could be some nag.

The things I put up with you, pard.

And not only put up with, like his nagging, or mother-henning, but defended, or covered for, like his needing to do any female thing he came across, even when it interfered with his professionalism. But Dobey, nor anyone in the department for that matter, was going to find out about that particular weakness of Hutch’s. At least not from him. And Hutch could get silly, too, and he would laugh with his whole body at Starsky’s antics. Knew the weirdest shit and could spout off whole passages of encyclopedia-like information, without even thinking it was anything special. But most of all he seemed to understand Starsky without Starsky ever having to explain every last damn thing. Yeah, Hutch got exasperated and complained, but he never left. He seemed to want to be around him.

Of course, the hardest part was having to explain Hutch to people who’d only met him once or twice, like his mother, or Aunt Rosie. “He’s not very personable,” his mother had told him after her visit to California. “He seemed, well, cold.”

Distant, his Aunt Rosie had said, agreeing. Detached.

Yeah, Hutch was detached all right. Distant enough to hand over to Starsky any spare change he might happen to have, simply because Starsky happened to want it. Cold enough to run his fingers through Starsky’s hair to help him relax. Uninvolved to the point where he would give Starsky a bite off his own fork, just because Starsky wanted to taste whatever it was he was eating. Detached enough to hold Starsky against his chest beneath a hail of bullets while a dark, damp river of blood from a shoulder wound soaked both their shirts.

And, yes, Hutch could be cold, and aloof, and superior. But very few people were patient enough to wait for the good stuff. Yeah, Ma, thought Starsky to himself as the bus jolted along, you didn’t see milk come out of his nose when he was laughing at a joke I told him. Or that time he grabbed me in a hug when he came out of the hospital. Or the time he cried when reading Terri’s letter till it almost melted in his hands. He’s like one of them geode things and only I get to peek inside.

All of a sudden, Starsky missed Hutch horribly.

~~~

“Seven days,” muttered Starsky to himself the next day, “seems more like seven months.”

It had been a week since the disastrous drug bust, the concept of “to protect and to serve” gone dreadfully awry. The hardest thing he’d had to do after that had been, not the reports or actually not pushing Andrews’ head through the window, but watching Hutch walk off without him. With someone else.

“I don’ wanna do this no more,” he said, almost aloud.

“What was that?” snapped Andrews.

Starsky merely shrugged. His still newish partner had come that close to getting his head smashed in, he deserved to be a mite snappish. And he’d always thought Hutch was the one with the temper, not him.

“Nothin’. Let’s just do these reports and go home.”

They entered the station which, air-conditioner-less, seemed like an imported food steamer. Starsky removed his jacket, thinking that at least outside there was a breeze, and bent to catch a mouthful of water at a cooler. It wasn’t working either.

“Damn!” He slapped the side of it and tried to keep a rein on things. It wouldn’t do–

“Starsky, would you come in here a minute, please?”

It was Brown and Starsky looked up, instantly wary. The Captain was being too nice. Andrews followed close at his heels, like a vulture. A damn, circling vulture.

“Sit down, Starsky.”

He thought a moment to make some vicious point and remain standing, but it was really too hot for that. He sat, laying his jacket on the arm, idly slouching down in the hard-backed seat.

“I won’t drag this out,” said Brown, “but I won’t suffer fools gladly.”

Starsky stared at him blankly, feeling the boredness oozing out of him. “What is it, Captain?”

Brown hesitated, then burst into it like a tiger through a flame. “Hutchinson’s been shot in the head, Starsky.”

He shot to his feet. Felt Andrews’ hand on his arm and shook it off.

“Now, hold on, hold on. It’s just a crease, he’ll live — but when he went down, he got himself a bad concuss–”

He was shaking badly by the time he reached the front door, the ends of him ice cold, the center of him sending out waves of heat. Patting himself wildly, he realized he had no keys to a car, no car since, in fact, Andrews had driven.

Shit. Andrews would never knock off early so he could go see Hutch.

See Hutch. It was his only thought.

Something surged through him, blending hot and cold together until it became the perfect fuel. He lunged into the street to hail a passing cab, but it whizzed by, thinking him gone mad with the heat, no doubt. Maybe he could run all the way…

A car pulled up to the curb and someone leaned over and told him to get in.

Get in.

He realized suddenly that Andrews was telling him to get in, that he was going to take Starsky to the hospital. Starsky got in and the flow of words continued like a verbal river going on and on until they managed to form themselves into something that made sense.

Hutch was all right, they were holding him overnight for observation only, and would release him the next morning.

“How do you know all that?” asked Starsky, his voice sharp.

Andrews pulled into traffic and slipped it into high gear. “Paged Batos at the hospital, he filled me in.”

Like I shoulda done, thought Starsky, stayed calm, like Hutch woulda.

“Too slow,” he muttered. He was not Hutch. “Too damn slow.”

“He’s gonna be okay,” said Andrews, clearly exasperated.

“Yeah, but I shoulda been there!”

“How? I mean, you’re not his partner anymore, there’s no way you could have.”

“Don’t say that,” growled Starsky, not taking his eyes off the traffic, as if by some means he could help them slip through the lattice work of cars faster.

“But I–”

“DON’T!” he bellowed. “Just DRIVE!”

Andrews poured on the gas and they reached the hospital. Before the car came to a halt in the visitor’s zone, Starsky was out and running, willing his feet to find purchase on the heat-melted tar. And heard Andrews behind him.

“Hey, HEY! Wait up!”

He slammed into the first nurse he saw, and she obligingly directed him to the information desk. But by the time he got there, Andrews had caught up, and slipped a hand around his upper arm.

“If you would have waited,” he whispered fiercely, “I could tell you: he’s on fourth floor. The elevator’s this way.”

Allowing Andrews to show him the way was very hard. And the whispered comments didn’t help.

“Would you calm down? You’re like a leaf!”

The two other occupants of the elevator eyed him with some pity, and Starsky knew he was acting like someone had died, for cryin’ out loud.

“Okay,” he said, taking a huge breath and shrugging to loosen his shoulders. “I’m okay.” He nodded at Andrews. “I’m okay.”

Andrews frowned. “Sure you are. Jeezus.”

Trying to remain calm, but knowing that he would have pushed Andrews if it would have helped, Starsky followed him down the hall. A uniformed officer pointed them towards the correct room and Starsky leaped past Andrews and fairly flew through the door.

~~~

Hutch had had about enough coddling and was ready to go home now. But of course they wouldn’t let him. Possible fractured skull, shit. It was the tiniest of headaches, really. Batos could drive him home now, and then he could sleep in his own bed. Ever since he’d had the plague, he despised hospital beds, and hated, HATED the fishbowl, let’s-poke-him-here-and-see-what-happens attitudes of the young interns. And then Starsk could drop by with something ice cold, or maybe, he felt suddenly inspired as the nurse finished up with the injection he was holding very still for, maybe Batos could drop him off at Starsky’s place. Yeah, that was it.

The door burst open with a whoosh of air, and Starsky himself flew in like he’d been shot from a cannon. His face was white, dripping with sweat, though he was jacketless. Andrews, behind him, stepped through the doorway and waited while it swung closed. Starsky had that look in his eyes, like his heart was pounding wildly. Three steps brought him to Hutch’s side, and Hutch felt better the second Starsky’s hand touched his.

“Man,” said Starsky, gulping, “it was like I couldn’t stop, ya know?”

Hutch nodded. He knew. It had been one of his comforts while the doctor had poked and prodded to imagine Starsky worried and on his way, another being the grateful thought that Starsky wouldn’t have anything to worry about once he got there. He hadn’t imagined him all worked up like this, though. Starsky was a control freak in a crisis, but he usually didn’t go ballistic until he got all the facts. He wondered how he’d been informed of Hutch’s “mishap.”

“They said you weren’t hurt bad, but why should I believe them? You all right, Hutch?”

Hutch nodded, closing his eyes briefly, and opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to tell Starsky how very glad he was that the other was here. To let him know that it was all right now, everything was going to be all right.

“I had to drive him,” interrupted Andrews, “doin’ society a favor, he coulda killed somebody.”

Starsky whirled around. “Yeah? Well, I guess even assholes can have their good days.”

Hutch jerked a little. “Starsky?”

Starsky turned back around, the pupils in his eyes consuming their irises. He seemed a little shocked himself. His grip on Hutch’s arm tightened and the space between their faces became insignificant. “Aw, Hutch, he could be anybody. This whole thing’s drivin’ me crazy. I’ve been doin’ this too long with you to start over wit’ someone else.”

“That’s it,” sputtered Andrews, “I’ll go wait outside, I think.”

Just as he opened the door, Batos came in and stood at the foot of the bed. And Andrews didn’t leave, fascinated, it seemed, in spite of himself, with Starsky’s dramatics. And dramatics they were, Hutch knew, though it felt good to know someone cared. Especially refreshing after the soothing “you’ll be fine” noises of the staff, was to have someone be really worried.

“How you doing, buddy?” Batos asked, smiling at Hutch.

Hutch was about to say, as pleasantly as he could, that he’d seen better days, when Starsky let go of him and lunged across the foot of the bed at Batos. Grabbed him by the shirt collar and sent them both flying into the free standing bed screen. Starsky jammed him and the screen against the wall, shaking Batos firmly with stiff jerks.

Hutch knew himself to have a temper. It came from trying to contain it for so long that it naturally spilled over with the intensity of a volcano. Starsky, on the other hand, was not known for his explosive tendencies. But when he got into a mood like this one, driven by the heat or by the new partner’s lack of sensitivity, he was just as likely to become a one-man flow of magma that lasted for days.

“Starsky,” Hutch said, knowing it would do no good.

Starsky, predictably, ignored him. Instead he knocked Batos head against the wall. “You NEVER, and I mean ever, EVER let your partner take a bullet like that!”

Batos seemed unfazed by either the snarl or the thump of emphasis that went with it. “What was I supposed to do? Throw my body in front of his?”

It was obvious that Starsky assumed the answer should be yes, because to him it would have been the only answer. The situation was now out of control, threatening to spill over into something larger and darker. Hutch had to stop it.

But Batos didn’t seem to understand, and Andrews, shaking his head, was either irritated or dismissed the whole thing as a further display of dramatics.

“Starsky,” said Hutch in almost a whisper, “Staaaarrrsky.”

With one final thump, the dark head whipped around, eyes blazing dark, breath fast.

“Starsk.”

It was one word, but it reached Starsky like a sudden dash of cold water in hot. He released Batos and let his feet rest on the hospital floor. Stood waiting, head bowed as if expecting a severe scolding.

“It was a shot gone wild, Starsk, Batos was ten feet away. There was nothing he could have done.” He kept his tone mild, gentle. “I’m okay, Starsky.”

Batos humphed in his throat.

“There was nothing anyone could have done,” he conceded.

A nurse, a doctor and an orderly entered the room and they all looked around as if expecting the place to have been torn apart.

“Everything alright here?” the doctor asked.

It was obvious that everything was; after all, nothing had been knocked down.

“Yes,” said Hutch, with his “pleasant” face.

“Looks like you’ve got too many visitors,” stated the nurse flatly.

“Batos,” said Hutch, wanting to reach out to touch Starsky but knowing that if he moved an inch, the nurse would be on him like a shot. “Thank you doctor, we’re fine here. Batos,” he said again. At least the two of them had a working relationship which was more than Starsky and Andrews had. “Would you do me a very big favor and take my partner home? See that he gets there?”

Batos paused, his hand half raised as if pointing to himself. “I’m…” The look on his face was clear: This guy just tried to break my head and you want me to drive him home?

“Please?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“But?” Batos motioned, confused, to Andrews, seeming in fear for his own life.

“Andrews, I’m sure, is in a terrible hurry to get back to the station to file his reports. You, on the other hand, are going out by where Starsky lives.”

There was another pause of silent confusion, but on no account would Hutch allow Starsky to endure another minute in Andrews’ presence. It was obviously driving him up a tree.

“Is there a problem?” Hutch looked evenly at Batos, who appeared to swallow his doubt.

“Okay,” Batos said. “Let’s go.”

The three of them turned to exit, Andrews in the lead, and Starsky, the last.

“I’ll stop by tomorrow, Starsky,” Hutch said to the retreating back, “after they release me.”

His partner nodded, one hand on the door.

“Starsk?”

At the sound of his voice, the dark head came up and Starsky looked at him.

Hutch made a fist in front of his chest.

~~~

Time never passed like this when he was with Starsky, did it? Like two whales humping in slow motion? He supposed he had probably been just as bored, but never had it seemed a waste of time when they were together.

After the release forms from the hospital had been signed the next day, a forever long process, Batos, who so far had not said one word about Starsky, had driven him to the station. There, he filled out more reports, and then was whisked to the police shrink to see, as the rather young looking psychologist put it, “if there were any kinks in his psyche.” The whole process was taking all day; all he wanted to do was scream. No, he said politely instead, no, he was fine. A little shaken perhaps, but well-balanced. Wiser. Remarkably stable. Could he go now?

She released him with a three day leave-of-absence, which Dobey himself would have scoffed at, though allowed. Batos was waiting for him outside.

“You look like she just committed you,” remarked Batos, following him down the hall. “Listen, can I take you someplace?”

Hutch stopped mid-hallway. He had no car, and very little cash.

“Take me to Starsky’s,” he said slowly. It was where he’d wanted to be all night, and it had been the only thing that had let him sleep.

Batos seemed to consider it as a warning, for he put up his hands. “Hey, far be it from me. I wouldn’t feel up to running there myself.”

They drove in silence for a moment, the air conditioner on very low.

“That partner of yours…” Batos started, and then trailed off. “Man, he was mad, like a killing rage.”

“Starsky wouldn’t hurt anyone,” replied Hutch, his eyes not moving from their unfocused spot on the dash.

“Yeah,” Batos waved his hand expansively. “But he would have me, had you been hurt worse.”

Hutch brought his hand down from where it had been propped under his chin. “You weren’t to blame, Batos.”

“Yeah, I know that. I think your Starsky knew that too; he was just blowin’ off some steam.”

Hutch nodded vaguely, hoping that Batos was close to finished. When they made the left turn onto Starsky’s street, Hutch felt the throb in his head start to build. He slipped a painkiller in his mouth and swallowed it dry.

“That partner of yours really, you know, he’s there, right? At your back, covering your ass.” His voice got quiet as he pulled into the driveway and set the vehicle in park. “I know you and I won’t be together at the end of this month; homicide just really isn’t my area.”

Hutch paused before unlocking the door at the seriousness in other man’s voice. Batos turned to him.

“I hope, well, someday, that’ll be there for me.”

The fair head dipped in acknowledgement as Hutch got out of the car. Only if you’re very, very lucky, he told Batos silently.

When he entered the apartment, Starsky was just adjusting the fan in the window.

“Took ya long enough,” he said.

“Let’s not argue, Starsky,” said Hutch, trying to ignore and hide the fact that the pills had not yet kicked in. “You know it wasn’t Batos’ fault.”

“Yeah?” demanded Starsky, whirling around. He was glowering and his eyes smoldered. “Then who told him to stand enough feet away so it wouldn’t be his fault?”

Control slipped. “I DID!” Hutch yelled, curving his hands to his chest. “I did, damnit, Starsk. It was the same spot I would have directed you to.”

The ensuing silence told Hutch everything he needed to know. The magma flow had stopped, at least momentarily, and they were left facing each other. The black fan spun cooling air slowly across the room.

“Got any more root beer?”

Starsky nodded and turned towards the kitchen. “Yeah.”

The first swallow attacked his head with a cold grip, biting before numbing the crease in his head. He swallowed the mouthful, frowning.

“You okay, Hutch?”

Hutch opened his eyes as Starsky stepped closer, lines etched in his forehead, hand frozen with its drink halfway to his mouth. There was such a tightness in Starsky’s stance, muscles all bunched through his shoulders that an unidentifiable wave swept through him.

“It’s just an ice headache, you know the ones I get.”

Starsky stepped even closer, his half smile responding to what he understood Hutch to have not said: didn’t mean to worry you, buddy, thanks for being there, thanks for caring.

“I wasn’t there to protect ya,” he said.

Hutch looked away, smiling.

“Hey! Don’t make fun of me, man!”

He swallowed his smile and tried to reassure. “I’m not, believe me, I’m not making fun of you.”

“Then why you smilin’?”

“I should have gotten a picture of you for my desk. I’m sorry.” He looked at his partner as he said it, felt it.

“You saw it?”

“Them,” Hutch corrected gently.

The dark-haired form came forward, head bowed, and bumped it against the hard bone of Hutch’s chest. Continued pressing as if he wanted to burrow his way through the wall of flesh, right down to the soul. As if he were sure there was one there, somewhere, accessible if one pressed hard enough; something Hutch didn’t quite believe himself.

He reached up with his free hand and curved his palm around the back of Starsky’s neck, his fingers lacing through the thick-silkened hair. Something he’d been waiting to do for days, ever since he found Starsky staring blankly, not caring, at a pile of in-use body bags. While his wound was visible, Starsky’s was not.

Which one of us needs more, at this moment, me or thee?

Starsky’s arm draped itself loosely around his waist, and the dark head came up, as if for air, to rest in the curve of his neck. There was soft, warm breath across his collarbone, and a rising and falling against his ribs.

“Starsky?” he said.

“Hmmmmm?”

“Thanks.”

In response, Starsky tilted his head back, mouth crooked in that half smile of his, eyes catching the light.

Hutch pressed his lips against Starsky’s forehead, catching the movement of dark lashes fanning closed, hearing the sigh.

“Thanks yourself,” the other man said.

Starsky’s head tilted back again in a rocking motion, eyes opening halfway. And Hutch found himself dipping down, pressing the ashen-rose lips with his own.

My Starsky.

A shiver ran through him, wanting to inhale more, to taste more, but he pulled back.

“Jeeze, I’m sorry, I–”

The second Hutch pulled away, Starsky felt like part of him had been hacked away. On the other man’s face was self-surprise, eyebrows raised, mouth open, almost in a frown.

Starsky put his hand on the back of the taller man’s head, slipping across its silky-fine hair and pulled Hutch close. Kissed him, his lips sensitive to the new feel of a part of Hutch he’d only ever looked at. Found the hand around Hutch’s waist stroking bare flesh where the shirt had loosened itself. Muscle-covered warmth, not starting at the contact but tightening. Hot.

“I’m touchin’ you,” he said, feeling the wonderment in his voice, breath shallow. It wasn’t new, this touching, simply a reverence which their separation had fleshed anew. The opportunity to actually give or receive a liberal pat or a fond, tightened grip was so rare that this touch, once so ordinary, seemed laced with wonderment.

They stared at each other, and Starsky felt the pull of the long moment. There were no words inside of him, no need for any really, only sweet surprise, to now be touching, feeling features he’d looked at and memorized long ago.

How we must seem to each other, he thought. They both pulled away at the same moment.

Hutch’s eyes, as if they’d gathered the heat to their blueness, had darkened. He seemed to be trying to say something, but turned away, shaking his head. Put his hand to the side of his temple.

It was an out and Starsky used it. “Listen,” he said, swallowing the shake in his voice, “let me take you home, you should get some sleep.”

Hutch nodded silently.

The drive there was a silent one, only the creak Hutch’s leather jacket making any conversation at all. Starsky felt acutely aware of the presence next to him, but there was nothing he could say.

What happened back there? he wanted to ask. It was not like him and his partner not to talk about everything together. Not like him to feel this wall of silence that he couldn’t barrel or badger his way past. Hutch himself seemed incapable of speech; when he caught Starsky’s glance one time, he looked away quickly. Not in anger, more in confusion.

Okay, buddy, he told Hutch silently. If you want it never to have happened, it didn’t. No questions asked.

But he wanted to ask them.

Just what happened back there?

He pulled up in front of Hutch’s place, the car in park like he always did, waiting for the unspoken invitation to come in. Hutch held up one hand, almost a warning to stop, then took Starsky’s hand from the steering wheel. Turned the wrist slowly and brought the palm up to his mouth. Kissed it, eyes closing.

Released it.

“Goodnight, Starsky.”

Starsky drove home, not seeing the road, not even realizing where he was until he pulled into his own drive.

Sleep was an instantaneous thing that swept him up the moment his fully clothed body hit the mattress.

~~~

Whenever Hutch was awake on his days off, Starsky seemed to be on duty.

When he slept, he imagined that Starsky had come by and been unable to wake him. The pain pills, once they took effect, were that good.

Not your fault, buddy.

Not anybody’s fault really.

Their paths, like parallel lines, did not cross for another week, and when Hutch went back on duty, he eyed the station for Starsky. No luck.

Batos allowed that it was easier to stand the heat if one did not keep suffering oneself to adjust to a super-cool car interior. Some days they even drove the LTD, circling around the city, looking for the right bust, waiting for the word on the street. Shifts went down to single eight-hour duty, and the heat dropped below three digits. Dobey was due back in 12 days.

Hutch went into the station on a poundingly humid Monday to check the schedule, to see if he could arrange some time where he and Starsky would be off at the same time. To see if they could talk about this thing between them. And saw him there, by some freak accident, their end and beginning of shift latching together like two puzzle pieces. As Hutch walked down the hall, he saw that the dark haired figure was staring at the cold drink machine, which needed to be re-filled twice a day, his hands slipped into his back pockets. Hutch thought for a second that his partner wasn’t really focusing on the machine, simply using it as an excuse to stand very still while the world passed him in the corridor. Not buying a drink, or waiting his turn. Just standing there, staring at the splotched wall behind it. Staring at nothing. Not something Hutch had often seen him do, probably didn’t even realize he was doing it.

He walked forward, steps soundless as he could make them. Reached out for a bare forearm, just as Starsky turned his head to look at him.

Fingers slid to grasp gently, he felt the hairs slide beneath his palm.

I’m touchin’ you, Hutch thought, gently.

“Buy you a cold one, mister?” he asked aloud, wishing he were one of those people who did funny voices.

Half-lidded, the eyes swung up to meet his, heat exhaustion framing them. Starsky’s shirt was sticking to him with sweat, jeans stained with black city dust. Andrews obviously wasn’t looking after his new partner as well as Hutch would have.

Doubt anyone could.

“You are on.”

Hutch slipped money in the machine and they settled back in the disgustingly stiff chairs in one of the interrogation rooms. Hutch closed the door and Starsky carefully landed his feet on top of the table, while Hutch slipped his beneath, stretching them out, chugging back a large swallow of soda.

A comfortable silence ensued, rare for its absence, new in its texture.

Didn’t we used to do this all the time? Hutch asked himself. Yes, when we weren’t yammering our fool heads off.

He felt a little shy at the idea of bringing up the kiss, uncertain as to its measure of importance. Starsky hadn’t seemed to mind it, had in fact reached for more. Which didn’t really surprise Hutch; Starsky was always reaching to touch his partner. As if to reassure himself of the other’s existence. Sometimes reaching past walls thick enough to stop an army.

Those walls can get pretty tense, partner.

The kiss had seemed so natural, such a right and proper consequence to the measure of closeness they shared. And of course, it was also only natural that something like that would only happen after they had been separated.

Love knows not its own intensity, quoted Hutch to himself, smiling.

Well, enough of that. He brought up his legs and turned to face Starsky to bring up the issue, as they always had. But Starsky was asleep, his hands folded across his chest, chin tucked down.

“Hey, partner,” he said, almost whispering, “hey, Starsky, hey.”

The dark head lifted slightly, the eyes opening even slower. “Is my shift ova?”

Hutch smiled, looking away. “Yeah, long over. Let me take you home.”

It took Starsky a full minute to get to his feet, but once there, was wide awake.

“Nothin’ doin’,” he said. “You gotta go to work and I gotta stick my feet in some ice.”

Which made Hutch very angry. It meant that Andrews had made Starsky walk beside the strolling car, a technique that should not be used in hot weather.

Starsky was halfway out the door before Hutch realized he was going.

Damnit.

“Later?” he asked, arching his brows.

“It’s okay, Hutch,” said Starsky, again responding to the unspoken words. “They can’t keep us apart for too much longer.”

~~~

When Starsky arrived home, he knew he should go straight to bed. After a double shift in 100 degree weather, that’s what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to have a light meal, a cool shower and slip between cool sheets. You weren’t supposed to sit on the couch in your sweat marked, dust-sifted clothes and brood about how you fell asleep on your partner the first time the two of you were alone together. You weren’t supposed to imagine the worst, that you and he would be apart forever. You weren’t supposed to let the heat fill your mind with unproductive thoughts.

When Hutch’s eyes, vividly sharp and focused, had met his, he knew that Hutch was worried about him. There had even been that little frown that would sometimes appear when Hutch knew there was nothing he could do to fix things. Starsky didn’t like for his partner to worry, but it was nice knowing someone cared. And Hutch had never actually said, I’ll always be there for you, but the words themselves were unnecessary. Unnecessary when everything could be communicated with a look or a touch or even one of Hutch’s annoyed sighs.

He’d told Andrews that Hutch loved him like a brother, and that was true. It was one of those givens in the world, the kind you depend upon without thinking, like tomorrow is another day, the earth is the third planet from the sun, and Hutch’s love.

Starsky shook his head and pulled himself from the couch ignoring the necessary shower in favor of a root beer. He drank it while standing in front of the open fridge, knowing that if he was doing his own version of “Hutch’s love is like…” then he was more tired than he thought.

That love was something he felt did not need to be defined, or so he’d always thought. Or was it just that he’d never analyzed it before?

Why was he thinking about it at all?

Because he was, and he knew Hutch was too.

Because Hutch had kissed him, and that from a man who loved to make love.

Because he’d kissed his partner back, and he who only kissed when he really meant it.

He blinked, realizing that the inside of the fridge was just about the same temperature as the kitchen, and that his root beer was all gone.

Better get some sleep.

He and Hutch were going to have to talk about this one. No damn doubt.

~~~

Starsky raced down the stairs, two at a time, then three, then jumped over the banister altogether. Upset the routine flow of the station as he raced up the middle of the corridor after Hutch’s tall, retreating form. But he couldn’t very well scream “Hutch, wait!” in this crowd; co-workers probably thought he was chasing a suspect as it was.

Both hands slammed on the swinging doors heading to the main hall; his sneakers screeched to a halt and he looked left, then…

“Jeezus.”

Hutch was just going out the side door and Starsky took off, slipping through a hooker and her pimp, who probably had come in to post bail for somebody.

“Bread and butter,” he muttered, hopping past them along the wall. And burst out the door, looking up just as Hutch did. Their eyes met, blue on blue, as Batos gunned the engine and the car pulled away.

As Starsky turned to go back inside, he felt like punching someone; not that he would have really known what to say to Hutch when he caught him. Last night when he’d gone to bed, it had seemed really, really important that they talk. Like they always did. And it wasn’t as if the kiss had upset him; the way he and Hutch hung around each other all the time, it was almost inevitable. Wasn’t it?

He’d called Hutch’s house that morning and let it ring and ring. Even called the station and left a message for Hutch to wait for him when he got off shift.

“Guess he couldn’t wait,” he said to himself.

“Who couldn’t?” said Andrews coming up to him with an ice cold pop in each hand. He handed one to Starsky who pulled the top open absently.

“Aw, I really needed to talk to Hutch; left a message for him to wait.”

There was a smirk in Andrews’ voice that he didn’t quite like. “That’s why Batos was so pissed.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“They got off at four-thirty and he was going to drive Hutch home, but Hutch said he had to wait around here. Wouldn’t say why.”

Starsky looked at his watch. Nearly six. Jeezus. He felt bad all over.

Andrews laughed silently into his pop. “Star-crossed lovers.”

Starsky closed his eyes and pretended that Hutch was standing right there, tipping his head to one side, warningly. It was the only way to keep from punching Andrews.

~~~

“Can you tell me now why we had to wait before I could take you home?”

“I told you. Starsky wanted me to wait for him.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Hutch merely looked at him.

“I wouldn’t wait that long for my mother.”

Hutch shook his head, laughing to himself. There was sarcasm in Batos’ voice, but it was tinted green and it gave him a perverse pleasure that he and Starsky shared what someone else might want. He’d never thought about it until he’d met Batos.

“So, you two are close, right?” persisted Batos.

Hutch made a fist and gently showed it to Batos. “Starsky tells me we’re like this.”

The other’s jaw dropped. “How…how does that make you feel?”

How did it? A personal question, that, but maybe Batos deserved an answer, maybe Hutch needed to give him one. But there wasn’t any, only another question: what didn’t it make him feel?

In the growing twilight, he said, “He is the only constant in my life.”

Batos did not reply to this, and dropped Hutch off at his place.

As he got inside, the phone was ringing, as if off the hook.

“I just missed you at the station. Why dincha tell me you were gettin’ off early?” It was Starsky.

“I didn’t know,” he replied quietly. “I waited.”

The voice at the other end sounded supremely tired. “I know. I saw you leaving; Andrews informed me how long you’d been waitin’.”

“With a certain amount of relish, no doubt.”

“Yeah, and mustard too. How long before Dobey gets back?”

“One week.”

“Listen, do ya think he’ll undo what Brown did or leave us the way we are now?”

Hutch winced all over at the prospect, and the thought, the very idea which had occurred to him before, began to needle at him anew. “Don’t ever think that, Starsky,” he warned.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be the pessimist, not me.”

I am, buddy, I am. And we’ve got to find you some new rose-colored glasses.

He heard the sound of Andrews’ voice in the background and then of Starsky’s voice muffled by what was probably a hand. It sounded like swearing.

He came back. “Hutch, I gotta go.”

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence, and Hutch felt like they were listening to each other breath.

How sentimental we are getting.

“Later,” said Starsky.

It was goodbye, but somehow it seemed to mean more than that.

 ~~~

Starsky and Andrews were returning from the end of their shift, and it had gone as badly as usual. Andrews was driving through the parking lot like his wife was in the passenger seat about to give birth, like Mario Andretti trying to cross the finish line, like someone in a bumper-car ring. Starsky thought he’d pissed Andrews off this time by breathing too loud.

Either that or he wants to send me through the windshield to pay me back for being right about that snitch.

Starsky had tightened his seatbelt about five miles back.

And when Andrews jumped on the brakes as a black and white pulled out of the garage, Starsky felt his neck snap forward but not back, heard the crack, and felt the white heat. But his head stayed intact.

Andrews slammed the steering wheel with his hand, swearing under his breath. He might have been whispering, but Starsky heard him very clearly. He’d never been actually hated like this. Well, maybe by I.A., but that was different.

And then Starsky discovered that he couldn’t move his arm. Really couldn’t even twitch it. When he did try, his whole upper chest burned, and he felt the sweat break anew on his face.

“If you’re going to puke, do it out the window,” snarled Andrews.

“I ain’t goan to throw up,” rasped Starsky, gulping, for he felt like doing just that. “I think you broke something…”

“Aw, shit, bullshit!”

“You don’t believe me?” Starsky was stunned. “Man, it hurts!”

“Well, here comes your nursemaid now.”

Starsky raised his head. Here he was all sweat and mustard stained (there had been a tussle at lunch, as usual), hurting like hell, and there came Hutch. Fresh and new, clean hair defying the hot breeze, pale cotton shirt, looking for all the world like he never sweated a day in his life. Like an angel from heaven, with the devil in his eye.

“Just what the hell is going on here?” Hutch demanded. Obviously he thought they were a couple of rookies or joyriders or something. But the second he caught sight of Starsky, a number of things happened. The storm came and went from his face as it would for a mother while deciding how to discipline a child who had narrowly escaped danger she had warned him countless times about.

“Glad to see you guys have your seatbelts on,” he said, his voice sounding neutral. The anger was still in his eyes, however.

“H-Hutch.”

Hutch leaned down. “What is it, are you okay?”

“I think I dislocated it,” gritted Starsky.

Indeed, the shoulder was pushing awkwardly forward.

“You gotta push it against something, Starsk. Then it’ll snap into place.”

Starsky looked up at him, brows drawing together, a slight twitch to his lips. “No, you do it.”

Hutch nodded. “‘kay, I’m at a better angle anyway.” He placed the warm heel of his hand against the pushing curve of bone.

“I’m gonna count to three, Starsk, and then push. I want you to count with me and try to relax.”

Starsky nodded.

“Okay…one…two…” Then he pushed before Starsky could stiffen, and Starsky could feel the nerves rubbing against each other as the pieces slid together with a click.

“HEY! You said onna counta three!”

“I lied.” He watched Starsky rubbing his shoulder, and Starsky swallowed, feeling the whiteness and sweat rolling over his face in agitated waves.

“You okay?” Hutch asked quietly, his hand on the shoulder again, almost in a caress.

“Awww, jeezus,” muttered Andrews, “quit babyin’ him, will ya? It’s not like he’s dyin’ or nothin’, jeeze!”

Hutch pushed through the window, forcing Starsky back with a solid, gentle elbow. “You just shut your mouth, Andrews, or I’ll show you how bad it feels to have a dislocated shoulder.”

Andrews blinked, his mouth falling open and shut almost in slow motion. Starsky could almost feel the blood that was boiling behind Hutch’s eyes cool a degree or two. Hutch shook his finger in Andrews’ face, ignoring the silent laughter he felt in Starsky’s chest. “When your partner is down, you help him; when he’s hurt, you help him. You don’t just sit there like a dumb cop, you HELP him. Understand?”

While Andrews nodded silently, Starsky whispered in Hutch’s ear, his voice, on the edge of a snort of laughter. “And that’s what partners are for.”

Hutch pulled back, tousling the dark hair, catching the deep eyes with a smile. “I gotta go on patrol, you gotta fill out reports, no doubt. See ya ’round.”

He turned to go, and Starsky waved faint-heartedly at him.

~~~

Hutch walked into Brown’s office to question him why, for the third time that week, he was being assigned to the docks when everyone down there knew him already. It was an oversight that Dobey wouldn’t have missed. But when he got there, he was surprised to see both Dobey and Brown.

“Captain Dobey, what’re you doing back?”

“I don’t have to apprise every damn worker of my every damn move!” blustered Dobey.

Hutch cheered up right away.

“There are a number of cases we have to get on, pronto. You and Starsky better start reviewing…” he thrust a number of manila files in Hutch’s hands, “…this one, this one…and this one. Get going, some of them need MVR’s.”

It was a moment to be relished. “I’m ‘fraid I can’t do that, Captain Dobey.” He made himself not look at Brown. Revenge was much sweeter when one didn’t gloat.

“Why not? WHY the HELL not?”

It was best said simply. “Starsky and I were assigned new partners.”

A loud pause filled the room.

“WHO decided that? WHICH FOOL?”

Hutch looked archly in Brown’s direction. Dobey followed his line of sight and his whole face turned into a frown. He motioned towards the door. “Hutchinson, you’re excused, take back your old partner.”

As soon as he shut the door, he could hear Dobey’s voice railing at poor Brown. It was horribly funny. He couldn’t wait to tell…

“Starsky, psssssst, Starsky!”

Starsky saw Hutch waving him to come closer, and never actually hearing the summons, only saw the mouth move around the words. He had not thought to find Hutch at the station in the middle of the day, though both their schedules were so screwed up he wasn’t sure whose shift was whose.

He tore down the hall only to be grabbed by Hutch before he could slam into Brown’s office to find out what had Hutch hovering around the doorway like a thief. An arm encircled him, and one broad hand came up to cover his mouth.

“Shhhhhh,” mimed Hutch and when Starsky nodded his understanding, the hand came away from his mouth. Hutch made listening motions towards the office and Starsky was surprised to actually hear Dobey’s voice.

“You did WHAT?”

“I assigned them new partners.”

“Did they go along with it?”

“Yes, but unwillingly, very uncoop–”

“I’m surprised they didn’t kill somebody, especially St–”

“They almost did.”

“Damnit man, you don’t go messing with the best team I’ve EVER SEEN!”

“Yes, but you were complaining about–”

“I know what I said – but that don’t give you the go ahead to mess with perfection in my DEPARTMENT!!”

“But Dobey!”

“But NOTHING!”

Of course, to celebrate Dobey’s return, they had to go to The Pits and demand that the first round of the evening be on the house.

“Don’t mesh with perficshon, you bet,” intoned Hutch, while Starsky giggled into his beer.

“The besh team,” he continued.

Starsky evidently agreed for he put down his beer and nodded slowly. “The besh.” He raised his glass and clinked it against Hutch’s.

Of course they both realized unspoken that they ought not to get too plastered, but it was only just shy of 11 pm when Hutch flung his arm across Starsky’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.

“Ya know I love ya, Starsk,” said Hutch quite clearly.

“Yes,” Starsky nodded, his expression serious upon hearing this profundity. “Yesh, I know.”

~~~

They were a team again! Driving through the streets in Hutch’s LTD, roaming the city looking for bad guys, protecting and serving the innocent, and Starsky’s hangover was pushing his brain through his eye sockets. His eyes felt like two dried raisins, and he swore he could hear his eyelashes growing.

“Will you quit grinding your teeth!” Hutch hurled as they drove through the back streets.

“I’m not,” defended Starsky. “What you’re hearin’ are the three out of four cylinders that are missin’ on this tub of yours.”

That seemed to shut Hutch up for a second, though Starsky knew they were both hurting bad. How many pitchers of beer could ten bucks buy anyway? All of his money was spent, even the spare five he kept stashed in his extra pocket in his jacket. Maybe Hutch still had some money.

“How ’bout some coffee, Hutch?” he suggested.

“No thanks,” Hutch returned sourly, “don’t care for any.”

“I meant for me,” Starsky clarified, realizing distantly that they were halfway to their first civilized conversation of the morning. “We could even get some of those sticky buns you say you never want but end up eatin’ anyway.”

Hutch was turning his head slowly to look at him, eyes incredulous. Don’t do this, Starsky, he seemed to be saying.

“Ya know, the kind with all that caramel stuff drippin’ off the sides; hey, we could even get extra butter.”

The LTD came screeching to a halt at a gas station. Hutch leaped from the car and went racing to the men’s room, his face white. Starsky followed at a more leisurely pace, knowing, with a smile, that Hutch’s hangover would be better once he’d thrown up a time or two. And by the time he got to the bathroom, Hutch was through, but now bent over the sink to wash his face and rinse his mouth out.

“How can you always get me to do that?” asked Hutch, through a sluice of water.

“Natural born talent, my friend,” Starsky replied, almost bringing his hand down to pound Hutch on the back. He froze an inch away and brought it down with softness. “And years of watching you try to get better without throwin’ up.”

Hutch snorted, patting his face dry with about a dozen too-small paper towels. Starsky jigged on his feet, wishing the other would hurry up. Public restrooms always gave him the creeps, with their sour who-knows-what combination of smells. But of course Hutch had to rinse his mouth out one last time and spit elegantly into the sink.

“Can we go now?”

Hutch caught his eye. “Why? Don’t you have to puke?”

Starsky smiled and cocked his head, patting his stomach. “Nope. Cast-iron stomach here. Come from a long line of non-pukers.”

Of course he was on the verge of throwing up, but he would never tell Hutch that, not in a million, zillion years.

“I’ll just bet,” Hutch snorted again.

They got back in the LTD, ostensibly to a stakeout, Martin’s Drug Emporium Starsky remembered vaguely, invariably to get caught up in something else along the way. That was the way it usually worked.

“Can we get some coffee now? Please?”

“Oh, all right,” returned Hutch, frowning while he obligingly turned into the first donut shop along the boulevard. “We’re going to be late for Martin’s,” he warned as they pulled up to the drive-through window.

“No, we won’t.”

“Yes we will if you don’t hurry up and tell me what you got your sugar-loving veins set on this morning.”

“Coupla bismarks, coupla chocolate raised, large coffee,” he told Hutch.

Hutch wiped his suddenly moist forehead with the heel of his hand. “Jeezus, Starsky, you’ll really bring on your diabetes with that.”

Starsky swallowed his grin. Hutch was going to throw up again. Any second now.

“Will you order it already? The girl’s waiting.”

The warm scent of just-baked goods came through the small, sliding glass window and hit Starsky’s stomach with a thump. He was starting to feel a little queasy himself when he realized that Hutch wasn’t ordering. In fact he wasn’t even talking to the cashier like he usually did, just sat and stared through the windshield, clenching and unclenching his jaw.

“Again?” Starsky squeaked.

Hutch shot him a look, those blue eyes so dark that Starsky was taken aback.

“Damnit, Starsky.”

“Hey! I’m not the one that made you have all that beer, not to mention those chili dogs that Huggy whipped up special.”

“Chili dogs?” Hutch whispered.

“Yes, chili dogs. An’ I still can’t believe you had two whole ones all by your selfish self.”

A voice came from above. “Hey, you guys goan order, or what?”

It was all over. Hutch opened his door hurriedly, but it banged against the building and there was no way even his slender frame could squeeze through. He turned in his seat, getting all the way on it, hands and knees.

“Outta my way, Starsky,” he growled.

Starsky tried to slide off the seat, but not fast enough as Hutch’s elbow jabbed him in the stomach.

“Awwwww, c’mon, Hutch!” Oh nooooooo.

But Hutch was beyond a reply, sprinting towards the finzer bushes at the edge of the adjacent dirt lot. Hutch was bent over the bushes and Starsky had half a mind to join him as his stomach rumbled a native tattoo. He swallowed the hot moisture that sprang to attention in his mouth, paused, swallowed it again.

He was not going to puke. He refused.

Maybe if he rinsed his face a little.

But by the time he found the facilities, he knew he’d passed the point of no return. And by the time he’d rejoined Hutch, in the car at the head of a long line of angry would-be customers, it was five minutes later.

Hutch greeted him with a smile, glee sparkling in his eyes.

“Old iron guts, eh?” Hutch was feeling better, alright.

“Shuddup.”

It was the nicest things they said to each other all day.

Hutch managed during the heat of the day to find some shade and had angled the car, windows down, to make full use of the tree-cooled breeze. As for Starsky, he was sleeping, head tilted back against the headrest as well as someone else would have been on the finest mattress and creamiest linen sheets. Faintly snoring away, sweat dappling his upper lip, one curl dancing madly over his left eyebrow. It, if the truth be known, wouldn’t take much to wake him, but while he was out, he was out. Hutch envied him. When Starsky sat, he sat. When he ran, his wind sprint was very difficult for Hutch to keep up with. And he never saw anyone go into a shooting crouch faster than Starsky. In fact, he whole self became whatever he was doing. And it wasn’t, Hutch decided, as if he had a one track mind, like some simpleton. No, that would be too easy. He instead had a one-thing-at-a-time mind, such a sense of concentration that whether he was eating or focusing down the barrel of his gun, he wasn’t at the same time worried about whether he’d watered his plants yet that day or if he had indeed forgotten to pick his laundry up again. As Hutch knew he himself was wont to do.

And Starsky could sleep off the remains of his hangover, but for Hutch time and time alone was the cure. Starsky could take a hair of the dog and feel better or three aspirins and a glass of juice and bounce right back. Or do as he was now, head to one side, mouth gently open, hands loosely laid in his lap. Hutch sighed, determined not to wake one of Metro’s finest, snoozing away the mid-day heat, until absolutely necessary.

He wondered why they had been so stiff with each other all day, hangover notwithstanding.

The same thought occurred to him later when he dropped his silent partner off at his apartment. As Starsky, maintaining his dignity, stomped off, Hutch realized that they had not discussed what had occurred at his place. The kiss. He had meant to; he knew Starsky had meant to, at least Hutch thought he did, but somehow their being together again had eliminated the desperate urges that had brought it about in the first place. Urges that had, for all the obvious reasons, been ignored. Gone unnoticed. And of course it… they …had only surfaced at a desperate moment, when both of them had feared they’d never be together again. A one-time thing.

Was there any more to it than that?

~~~

Starsky burrowed his nose deeper into the pillow, relishing the finest moment of the day, when he was just awake and totally relaxed. Then the phone rang. He hit the receiving end with the heel of his palm and it popped into his hand.

“Mmmmph?”

“Starsky, is that you?”

“Mmmm.”

“Where the HELL are you?”

It was at this point that he had to tighten all the muscles that didn’t want to move and remind himself why he never wanted to go on a drinking binge. Ever again. His hangover was still mildly with him.

“Hutch?” He squinted at the clock, but it was turned the other way.

“Damn straight, it’s Hutch! We were supposed to be in Dobey’s office half hour ago for a briefing, and we are late!”

“Why dincha call me?”

The tone at the other end of the line was positively superior. “Because, dummy, I ASSUMED that you were on your way and would arrive any second.”

“Feh half hour? It’s only ten minutes to your place.”

Silence met his reply.

“Besides which,” Starsky continued, “it’s your turn to drive.”

“It is NOT!” retorted Hutch hotly. “Besides which, you said you’d drive.”

Starsky rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hand and reminded himself that it was in his best interest to remain calm. “Actually, what I said was–”

“You said you’d DRIVE!”

Starsky winced and held the phone against the pillow. Obviously Hutch’s

hangover was lasting much longer, much harder than his own.

“Take it easy, blondie,” he said when there was silence. “What I actually said was that I couldn’t drive because the tomato needs a tune-up.”

“A TUNE-UP?” asked Hutch, overly loud. “But you’ve barely driven it in over a month!”

It was hard to be patient with a non-car freak, but Starsky did his best. “That’s precisely why it needs a tune-up, so it’ll be in top condition when I do drive it.”

There was nothing Hutch could do, he knew, but give up and give in. The tomato was one area Starsky was absolutely solid on and they both knew it.

“How long will it be at Merle’s?”

“Just today, maybe tomorrow.”

“Damnit, Starsky, I don’t have any gas in my car.”

There was no real reply to that. Hutch was notorious for putting a dollar’s worth of gas in at a time, some times less than that. And it did no good for Starsky to remind him of how bad that was for the engine. So he didn’t.

“I’ll be ready when you get here.”

“You’d better be,” came the growl.

“Oh, and don’t forget,” Starsky couldn’t help but add, “to call Dobey and tell him why we’re late.”

He hung up before Hutch could reply.

Of course Hutch never looked like he had a hangover, realized Starsky sourly when they arrived at the station, even if it tended to linger for days. One would never know by his coffee-brightened eyes and flash of teeth that the real reason he was moving so slow was because his bones felt like they were grinding together. No, after about three cups of straight black, he seemed as chipper and ready as an athlete in his prime.

Faker.

Only Starsky knew that even Hutch’s eyebrows still hurt and what it was costing him to remain in an upright position.

Which didn’t keep him from snapping back when Hutch growled “C’mon, dummy, move!” at him.

“You move,” he grumbled low so Dobey wouldn’t hear. “You’re in the way I go in.”

“Dobey is waiting,” Hutch grit at him with a fake smile.

Dobey was looking at them through his doorway. “You turkeys get your butts in here! I don’t care which one is first.”

“After you,” spat Hutch.

“No, after you,” snarled Starsky, bowing low and wishing he hadn’t. His head began to pound. He realized, too, that a number of the office personnel, detectives and Minnie, were staring at them. It probably was a sight: he and Hutch usually did their arguing in private. And why were they arguing, anyway?

Later, when Hutch stepped out into the hallway to bitch at a file clerk, and as Starsky waited for the right files to be pulled for them, he realized that Batos was sauntering slowly over to where he sat.

“Hey?” said Batos by way of greeting.

Starsky stared at him, thinking it was easier to relate to him since he wasn’t Hutch’s partner anymore. “‘Lo,” he replied.

“How’s it going, being together again?”

“Sucky,” replied Starsky without thought. Then he laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

Starsky looked at Batos’ concerned face, and knew what his question meant: if it’s so bad, why are you laughing?

‘Cause, my man, I’d rather be arguin’ with Hutch than anybody else.

Naturally he couldn’t tell Batos that, so he just shrugged, and mumbled something about it being better than crying.

Then he also wondered how he and Hutch were going to make it up if they only made each other angrier with everything they said and did.

That night, Hutch dropped him off at Merle’s to pick up his car. Silence surrounded them both and when he got out of the LTD, there was no goodbye, just a cloud of dust as Hutch spun out of the parking lot.

What the hell is wrong with us?

They drove into work the next day separately so Starsky could make sure everything worked on his car. By the time he arrived at the squad room, half an hour late because he’d taken the long way in to break in his new spark plugs, Hutch was already there.

Starsky looked casually over at his partner while getting a cup of coffee, but Hutch’s eyes remained fixed on his work. Starsky hoped he wasn’t going to be ignored all day.

Dobey came up and poked him in the chest with the edge of the file he was carrying. Starsky prepared himself to cringe obligingly at what was sure to be a severe scolding for being late.

“Your dedication to duty is admirable, Starsky,” snapped Dobey, “but you don’t need to check out a suspect on your own time. To relax means to relax and when you’re off duty, I want you relaxin’. Ya got me?”

Starsky nodded, head down, eyes flicking over to where Hutch sat, fluttering bits of paper around a dangerously piled desk, studiously, oh-so-carefully, ignoring the tableaux not two feet from him. Starsky could well imagine who’d fed Dobey that line of crap.

Still me and thee, huh? Even if we are fighting. It was something he knew, but it was nice to be reminded.

“Hutchinson didn’t want to tell me but I made him.”

I’ll just bet.

~~~

Hutch ran up the short steps to Starsky’s apartment with bags of food and drink, planning from the onset not to ask Starsky to pay him back, hoping it would make things better. And wondered how it was that two people who had wanted only to work together again could almost come to blows over whose turn it was to drive. He wanted it to be okay between them, and thought maybe he would refrain from trying to convince Starsky that it really had been his turn to drive, no matter what he’d agreed to over the phone.

And hopefully they could talk, really talk about what was wrong. Why they were at each other’s throats half and the time, and why…

Starsky had obviously seen him coming and held open the door, letting Hutch in with a shrug of his shoulders. There was still a stiffness between them, but Hutch hoped that would disappear when they ate; food usually improved Starsky’s mood. He sat in a chair at the table, pulled out his alfalfa sprout sandwich and began to eat.

The second Starsky opened his sandwich, there was sounds of a scraping chair, and Hutch looked up to see him hurling it, wrapper and all, into the sink.

“A TUNA BURGER?”

Hutch’s sandwich faltered on its way to his mouth.

“A tuna burger with MUSHROOMS? Why dincha get me something I really hated, if you wanted to be mean? Like desiccated liver, feh instance?”

“I-I wasn’t being mean; you didn’t say.” Hutch tried to remain calm. “You ate that tuna burger I bought you that one time; if you didn’t like it–”

“I was trying to be nice, ’cause you bought it for me!”

Hutch felt some anger of his own coming to the fore. “It’s good for you, lotsa vitamins.”

Starsky was not mollified. “What’s good for me is eating what I like to eat, not some slimy clam sandwich.”

“It’s not clam, it’s–”

“I don’t care if it’s a freakin’ shark san’which; if you ever thought, you’d get me somethin’ I liked instead of all this crap you’re forever tryin’ to shove at me!”

“Not thinking of you?” Hutch’s mouth opened and closed before he could come up with a retort. Starsky was all he’d thought about all day, but at the moment, it was hard to remember why. “I was thinking of your HEALTH, buddy, I guess that means nothing to you.” He threw down his sandwich, out of which he’d only been able to take one bite and stood, scraping his chair back loudly.

“Health, my ass!” Starsky tore the lid from the drink container and tossed that into the sink, too. Bright green liquid sloshed up to the window and dappled the sides of the cabinets. “Wheat-grass juice is not my idea of a nice, cold one, which you’d know if you ever asked me.” He stabbed a finger in Hutch’s direction over the table. “But you didn’t. All you can do is think of what you decide is best for me, what’s good for me, and never what I think is best for myself.”

He turned away from Hutch to stare out the window, hands gripping the sink. “Don’t know why I ever thought working with you again would be so wonderful.”

Something clicked in Hutch’s throat and he went around the table and grabbed one of Starsky’s arms and pulled him around. Stepped in close so they were only inches apart, could spit in each other’s eyes and back away snarling.

“Well, you’re no easy shakes to work with either, pal, cracking your ice and spreading potato chip crumbs all over my car!” He poked a finger against the hard bone in the center of Starsky’s chest. “All the things I do for you, and all you can do is complain!”

“Complain!” screeched Starsky, not cowering, “about a tuna burger I never wanted?”

“I’m talking about when I saved your butt with Dobey yesterday!”

“That was your decision, partner, babe, I coulda handled that one myself, without you!”

Something inside of Hutch began to hurt very badly, something he couldn’t identify, probably wouldn’t want to, if the truth were known. The sparks in Starsky’s eyes were angry, hateful, and he reached within himself for the most awful thing, the worst, the thing that would hurt the most.

“Why don’t you,” he whispered, “go and find yourself a new partner then?”

Hutch whirled away, wrapping his arms around himself. When he’d said it, he’d meant it, especially if Starsky didn’t need him like he said he didn’t. There were sounds of slamming from behind him, as Starsky threw all the food away, but he couldn’t look, stumbling to find a perch on the arm of the couch. One hand went to his head and he pushed away the hair that was in his face, then he realized the real reason he couldn’t see.

How were they going to fix this? It was a mess that had started the second Brown had taken over the station. It was all Brown’s fault. It had to be. But it had really only gotten very bad when Dobey had come back and they had been partnered again, just like they’d wanted. Dream come true. Their only desire.

It had actually been a nightmare. From that second on, their idealized friendship had fallen apart.

From across the room he could hear Starsky puffing away, and felt, with his arms around his chest, the echoing rise and fall of his own labored breathing.

This is it, he thought.

Starsky stared at the floor, hands on his hips, and realized that he was starving. It was his home and damnit, he wasn’t going to go hungry.

“M’gonna order a pizza,” he announced to the silence. There was no reply, but he didn’t really give a shit. He never could eat half the crap that Hutch called food, and even when he did, he usually had to go and inhale a sub sandwich on the sly to take away the hunger pangs. When Hutch wasn’t looking. He ordered a large with the works, and as he hung up the phone he knew that Hutch would inhale every bite of his share anyway, even if it was loaded with carcinogens, or whatever the hell it was that sausage was packed with. Well, anyway, Hutch’s new partner, whoever that fool might be, it would be his problem to figure out Hutch’s odd eating patterns. Health food one day, pastrami on rye the next. A guy could go crazy.

There was complete silence, so still that he thought that Hutch’d gone. He peered around the corner to find him on the arm of the couch, shoulders bowed forward. Starsky’s anger broke off like a sudden whirlwind dying in the absence of a breeze. He moved toward Hutch and stopped.

“Why’r we bein’ like this?”

Hutch shook his head, still looking away. Starsky moved till he was in his friend’s line of vision and then froze. But those eyes, still yet hidden, flicked away, restless. He wanted to make Hutch look at him but there was a stubbornness there that would resist all but the most subtle of methods.

“This isn’t about whose turn it was to drive, is it, or something I did?” Again he shifted closer while Hutch wasn’t looking.

A moment of silence, and a loose, seemingly disinterested roll of shoulders. Green light. He moved closer.

“And it’s not about all that stuff you try and make me eat, is it?”

A less definitive negative this time, Hutch’s eyes meeting his eyes for only a second, brows raised slightly in question, for confirmation. Red light.

Then Hutch looked away, green light again.

Mere inches away now, close enough to see the fine, pale hairs on the back of his hands as he planted them on his knees, the cords in his arms, the rolled up shirt sleeves, the uneasy shift of his hips as he sat on the arm of the chair. The tops of Hutch’s cheeks were damp, a slight sheen from his earlier yelling, an over-washed whiteness to his face.

Then Hutch looked up, eyes flicking open to belie the sleepy curve of their lids, circling over Starsky. Not surprised to seem him there, so close.

“Is it something about us?” It was going to be his last question, sometimes a guy just needed his space.

But he knew it had to be, they would normally never get so worked up over food or cars, and he knew that Hutch knew it too. But he didn’t want to be alone with this, didn’t want to try and make it okay between them by himself. There was something larger to all of this, something about them. Something they’d been struggling with ever since Brown had separated them, something they couldn’t make work in the same way even now that they were together.

“C’mon, babe,” he whispered, only realizing he was vocalizing the thought when he heard the words.

Hutch stood up, suddenly fluid and moving now, to the kitchen. Starsky caught the scent of body heat, detergent from his clothes, and the intangible essence that was Hutch. Oh, don’t leave.

“Where y’ goin’?” he asked aloud.

“Kitchen,” replied Hutch, equably.

Starsky followed, watching as Hutch pulled a root beer from the fridge. He opened it with one twist, tossed the cap on the counter, and took a long swig, leaning with one arm along the top of the open fridge door.

“Yeah, I know,” he said as if talking to himself, “we don’t own the electric company.” It was something he said to Starsky often.

Hutch sighed then and straightened, pulling Starsky closer with his eyes. He reminded himself to trust Starsky, to trust the process.

It was Starsky’s insistence that had brought him here, face to face with the dark-haired figure reflecting his own soul. It was Starsky’s way to pull this out of Hutch, gripping with two fists and planting his heels against the dead weight. And he really, really wouldn’t stop until Hutch spoke, said what Starsky probably already knew anyway, but which only awaited confirmation from him.

It was as if Starsky knew that when Hutch said “talk to me”, he meant “talk to me so I don’t have to talk to you,” where when Starsky said it, it meant “talk to me so I can hear you.”

And still those eyes beseeched him, as if afraid that he would not respond. Starsky stood, sentinel-like in the doorway, watching his every move.

“It’s alright, Starsky,” he said, catching the darker eyes with his own before flicking away to concentrate on a cupboard door. This seemed to reassure Starsky not at all and he moved all the way into the kitchen. Hutch reached into the fridge once more and tossed a root beer to Starsky.

He moved past his friend now, trying to remain relaxed, avoiding the questions in that face. Throwing himself back on the couch, he flung his legs across the coffee table. And like a puppy, Starsky landed on the cushion next to him, sideways, cross-legged, took a swallow of his soda, and looked at him with open-faced expectation.

Ah, Starsky.

It was a sigh from inside him.

“What I want to know,” he said slowly, acknowledging Starsky’s unspoken apology and meeting it with his own, “is when it all started to go bad.”

“When Brown separated us,” replied Starsky, nodding, his expression set and assured.

Hutch leaned his head back to rest it on the couch. “No,” he said slowly, sipping on the root beer. “We were still getting along.”

“When I got pissed about you getting shot and nearly…”

“No,” interrupted Hutch, suddenly looking his partner right in the eye. “I was never angry at you for that.”

Starsky met his gaze solidly and nodded. “When you kissed me,” he said softly.

Neither one of them looked away. “Or for that matter when you kissed me back.” Hutch finally turned away and sighed. “No, that wasn’t when it started to go bad, when we started to argue nonstop.”

He could see Starsky’s bent knees out of the corner of his eye, could feel the sock-covered toes moving against his thigh. How brave of Starsky to mention the kiss first, but he couldn’t somehow find the answering courage to continue with that particular subject.

“I think,” he began evenly, instead, staring straight ahead, “that after being put back together by Dobey after being so long apart, that we got on each other’s nerves.”

He sensed Starsky looking down to hide a sudden, wide smile. “And after we only just wanted to be partners again, right?”

Hutch dropped his chin to his chest, lengthened neck feeling dark eyes there before moving on. Nodded.

“Maybe being apart made us more aware of being together.” There, now that was said, he could look at Starsky directly, to meet that straightforward gaze. To see the awareness that took him in without blinking.

Hutch had often thought that, rose colored specs aside (and damn, they had to find him a new pair) Hutch was one thing which Starsky saw with absolute clarity. Or maybe it was that he felt that Starsky was the only one who never projected onto him what he should be or could be. The only hopes Starsky seemed to have for him were those he had for himself. It was a crystal clear mirror that Starsky held up for him. I see you, he always seemed to be saying, in one way or another, I see you, I love you.

“I don’t really want you to get a new partner,” Hutch said, knowing it needed to be said, knowing he needed to say it. At last he could look away.

Starsky was nodding, the small smile on his face somewhat mixed as if he already knew that Hutch had never meant it. Yet, at the same time, his shoulders relaxed, dark eyes blinking away a large measure of worry. Hutch had to look down. He fought the urge, then, to get up and move away; yet Starsky deserved something more. Almost of its own accord, his hand reached out to touch one of Starsky’s resting on a bent knee. There was an answering squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he said.

It was absolutely killing Starsky that Hutch wasn’t looking at him.

“C’mon, willya lookit me, huh?”

A swallow, slight flare to the nostrils, and a pause as the fair head dipped even lower.

C’mon, buddy, c’mon.

Slowly, Hutch turned to face him, head pivoting, eyes at the last flipping up. Hutch carried his softness on the inside, and here, through his shining eyes, Starsky saw it. And although Hutch had not continued with Starsky’s opening about the kiss, at least he had acknowledged it, had allowed for its existence.

“Guess we sorta romanticized some, huh?” said Starsky. “Like it was going to be perfect.”

An answering streak of color on Hutch’s fairness and Starsky went on. “All I wanted was to be with you, drivin’ around, workin’ and like that, you know?”

For once Hutch’s gaze did not waiver, a slight double breath showing that it was by force of will alone, and he was listening, really listening.

“I liked it better when I didn’t think about us, we just were. Brown showed me how much I had, but he also showed me how much I had to lose.”

He stopped. Something had caught in his chest, separating the upper half from the lower. He was treading on new ground here, but Hutch was nodding slowly, his mouth set in a thoughtful frown.

“You get it?” he asked, his voice squeaking in the middle. “I thought…”

“It’s not unknown, Starsky, just unspoken.”

With a whoosh, he let out his breath. “I was really pissed off at Brown, but he…”

“He showed us us, Starsk.”

Us. We. You. Me. Very, very short words, but dense with the capture of the idea of their friendship. The weight of it pulled him backwards until his head rested on the arm of the couch, legs uncrossing, feet tucking themselves beneath Hutch’s thighs. He rested his root beer in the space between his hips and the couch and he tilted his chin back.

“I love you, Hutch.” And the kiss be damned.

Hutch’s hand came to rest along the inside of his thigh, a firm caress that answered him. The palm was hot at first, then that eased to match his own temperature.

Abruptly the contact ended as the doorbell rang and Hutch rose to answer it, his hand pulling away from Starsky’s thigh.

“Pizza man,” announced Starsky unnecessarily, watching the long strides to the door.

When Hutch got there, he opened up and let the delivery boy partway in. He took the pizza box and rested it on top of the small shelf there and reached for his wallet. Which of course was not there. Starsky sat partway up, pulled his own out of his back pocket and threw it. Hutch caught it, looking backwards only briefly.

They set up the gin rummy and pizza on the mostly cool linoleum floor of the kitchen, candles in small bunches and ate in silence for a few minutes.

“Guess I had t’ go and spoil it all, huh?” Starsky muttered.

“Yeah,” agreed Hutch, “by saying something stupid.”

But Starsky knew what he meant because he was looking at him when he said it.

What Starsky said and what Hutch did were usually the same thing. Or at least they meant the same thing, carried the same weight.

I could look at you all night, Hutch found himself thinking unexpectedly, or fling my arm around you and you would know what I meant.

But even for Starsky’s enormous faith in him, it might not be enough. Shouldn’t have to be.

Starsky dealt out a hand of Gin Rummy and proceeded to beat him soundly. Hutch dutifully wrote down the points and then stared at his new hand. A mess. No chance, nothing matched up.

His partner was busy with his hand, obviously full of opportunity. He bent his dark head, an almost maddening gleam to his eyes as he hummed to himself. Cross-legged, he was stocking-footed, his sneakers only having been thrown in the corner.

Does he, I wonder, ever think about it? Hutch had used to wonder. Now he knew.

Hutch knew that others, Dobey and Huggy especially, thought that he was closemouthed, but sometimes he wondered if Starsky was even tighter than he. They had never discussed it, though he knew they eventually would. That was their way.

“C’mon, Hutch, out with it. Talk to me.”

Hutch started. Starsky had not even lifted his head or raised his voice. It was as if they had been talking all along.

“Out with what?”

Now Starsky looked at him, eyes deep and calm as a northwestern bay.

“The reason you’re lookin’ at me like I’m a specimen.”

Hutch had to look away and wondered if Starsky, as he did, ever thought beyond the boundaries of their friendship.

“Do you ever…” he trailed off, allowing his eyes to flick up once to meet Starsky’s, “do you ever think about that kiss?”

“Kiss?”

There was only one; they had just talked about it; Starsky could not possibly misunderstand him. “Yeah, you know…”

“Yes,” came the answer. “All the time.”

Hutch’s eyebrows shot up. All the time? “What do you think?”

There was a small, private smile playing around Starsky’s mouth. His concentration was seemingly on his cards, and he said, as if to himself, “I think of it as a covenant.”

“A covenant? But that’s a legal term, what lawyers use. It’s so…so formal!”

Almost tenderly, Starsky rearranged several of his cards. “No,” he said, “it’s a token of a promise of faith.”

A token? Hutch mouthed silently. “Promise of faith?”

“Yeah,” sighed Starsky, laying his cards down. “Gin.”

Starsky gathered the cards absently. “I liked to think of it as our promise to each other that nothin’ would separate us. Not Brown, not nothin’ for that matter.”

Okay. “Did it change anything?” Hutch had been wondering that.

Starsky continued, his hands busy shuffling and cutting the deck. “Here, you deal,” he said, handing the cards to Hutch. Then he took a swallow of root beer.

Hutch dealt the cards out absently, waiting for an answer. It seemed a long time coming, though he knew it was only till Starsky had arranged his cards to his liking.

“Naw, it didn’t change nothin’. Just sorta re– re–,” Starsky snapped his fingers, searching for the word.

“Reaffirmed?” asked Hutch, separating out three aces.

“Yeah, reaffirmed it. Nice.”

Hutch watched as his partner arranged and rearrange his hand, frowning, and slowly gathered the card from the top of the pile. How Starsky could concentrate on the game was beyond him; he found himself incredibly distracted by the questions in his head. He looked down at his hand after his hand, and realized that he’d just dumped a very important card.

Hutch nodded slowly, stealing a glance at his partner. Starsky looked at him and didn’t look away. “It was nice,” said Hutch.

“Gin, gin, gin,” said Starsky, planting his arrangement of cards on the floor. “You lose.”

“What do I owe you?” he asked, expecting that Starsky would want dinner at Pasquini’s, one of the many Italian restaurants which reminded him of the one his grandparents lived over when he was a kid.

There was a pause. “A covenant.”

“What?”

Starsky turned his head to one side and as Hutch followed his line of vision, he saw that Starsky’s hand was brushing the tops of the candles. All but one went out, the smoke curling upwards to the ceiling in a single grey veil. He remained that way, the tips of his eyelashes curling away in a silhouette.

“A covenant,” he repeated, moving back to face Hutch, his eyes still downcast.

Starsky was a fidgiter by nature, constantly shifting and fluid. But now he sat with his hands, one on each knee, statue-like, sock-footed toes not wiggling.

“Okay,” said Hutch, wondering if they’d started something they shouldn’t have.

He saw the dark head lean forward slightly, the expression on Starsky’s face determined, as if he would make Hutch meet him halfway by force of will alone. It was impossible to resist, this will of Starsky’s, as if, by its absence and rarity, it compounded till it matched and exceeded Hutch’s own. So he leaned forward, tipping his head to one side and their lips met briefly over a pile of cards, half-eaten pizza, and tender candle smoke.

Starsky sat back, hesitating before his eyes met Hutch’s, looking like he expected to be reprimanded or at least have Hutch laugh at him. Hutch never felt less like laughing at Starsky than he did at this moment.

I wish I were as brave as you, Hutch thought.

He took his partner’s hand and gently kissed the palm as he had the other night. Felt the quiver of tendons beneath the skin on the inside of his wrist. And allowed himself a small glance at Starsky’s face. His eyes were dark and deep, open with some surprise, mouth in a small circle. Almost as if he hadn’t been expecting that, which was good, Hutch decided, since he hadn’t known he was going to do it.

With a twist of his hand, he curled Starsky’s arm so the wrist was only that far from his mouth. Laid his lips upon it, tracing the pounding veins with his tongue. Followed them up the inside, to the softness that was the beginning of Starsky’s tricep.

Suddenly, Starsky jerked his hand away, and Hutch was left with an open palm, as if in supplication. His heart suddenly hurt.

Then Starsky stuck out his left hand, and Hutch understood. That was the hand he wrote with, drove with, shot with. That was his hand, just as Hutch’s was his right. Hutch repeated the motions, lingering along the crease of the inner elbow, resting on the curve of muscle.

Starsky was unprepared for Hutch to suddenly stop, pull his hands back and look away. “I think I better go,” said Hutch and his eyes beseeched Starsky with a sudden confusion.

Yeah, thought Starsky, okay.

It was suddenly important to remain very calm so that Hutch wouldn’t get spooked. He was pretty spooked himself, but he just nodded and watched Hutch walk out the door.

He listened for the car engine and there was none. A second later and Hutch was back, staring at the floor, coming in no further than the doorway.

“M’car won’t start,” Hutch said.

Starsky kept his mouth shut and walked out to sit behind the wheel of the LTD, feeling the slight warmth of the presence of Hutch’s hands on the plastic. He turned the key, but though everything lit up okay, nothing happened.

He leaned back in the seat and looked up at Hutch, who was standing beside the car and looking away.

“How long has this orange stick been on the left side of this big ‘E’ here?”

Hutch’s whole face blinked. “Most of the afternoon.”

Starsky resisted the urge to lecture, about smart practices of car maintenance. He’d done it a thousand times before, but now, with Hutch’s shoulders slumped the way they were, was not an occasion for the one-thousandth-and-one lecture.

“Let me take you home,” he said instead.

Dipperfuls of milky fog were pocketed in the lumps and folds of the valley below as Starsky drove along. Topanga Canyon was steep and windy, but every now and then there was a flat spot where the dark, light-speckled valley would stretch away to the ocean.

He looked over. Hutch was leaning as far out the window as he could go and still be at least halfway in the car. Starsky could hear him taking in lungfulls of cool-edged night air, could see the tips of his pale hair flying crazily around his head.

It was like that other night when he had taken Hutch home after a single kiss, except that this time, Hutch did not have a headache (and he wondered if that meant what he thought it did) and he was taking the long way home for no reason at all. And there was nothing between them and the night sky but the roof of his car, the sea breeze having somehow, mysteriously, pushed the brunt of the smog away to somewhere else. And it was at times like this, when the air was an angel’s wing against his face that he wished he had a convertible. Then Hutch could sit beside him and smile as the wind whipped around their heads.

‘Stead of being halfway out a car window, where a guy couldn’t tell what he was thinkin’.

Starsky stopped momentarily at the overlook near the top of the ride. Spread below them the city lights, and above them, the stars, swirling in the freshet of after-rain air. Finally, Hutch slipped back in the car with a thump and a sigh. He ran his hands alongside his head but his hair seemed untamable. He looked slightly demented as he smiled to himself.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” Another sigh. “Yeah, I’m beat.”

There was no animosity in the silence. We are here, it said, and that seemed to be enough.

Starsky pulled up in front of Venice Place, and some of the heat retained in the city sidewalk thrust itself into the car.

“Coming in?” asked Hutch.

Hutch’s place was an oven, the windows closed solid against the clean air and Starsky shouldered his way past his suddenly frozen friend, opening them all. Immediately, the hot air began rushing out, creating small sub-currents that whispered past Starsky’s ears.

Neither one of them had turned on any lights and the half-darkness made Hutch look like something out of a shadowy painting. Starsky moved to the door as if to push past and go into the night once again. But at the last second before his hand reached the doorknob, Hutch placed the tips of his fingers on Starsky’s forearm.

“Stay?”

A firmer grasp could not have frozen him more effectively. “Okay.”

What were they going to do now? Hutch’s hand was trembling like fine silk, his grip so light as to be almost non-existent. Starsky found himself turning away from the door and towards the tall, still figure. The half-light opened Hutch’s face in a way that the broad sun never could have. Open, the eyes burning with the crystal light of a slow dawn, the bow of his mouth tilted downwards. One closer step and he realized that Hutch was shivering all over.

So was he.

“Hutch?”

Heartbeat. Arms enfolding him the solidness of that chest against his own. Hands locked into his ribs.

“Jeezus,” muttered Hutch. “Jeezus.”

Like a departing tide, Hutch suddenly pulled back, light hands on Starsky’s jaw. Their eyes met then, Hutch’s piercing through him like an arrow, flicking up, whites sparkling in the dark. One kiss landed somewhere on the side of his face.

“Is this all right?” A question, Hutch’s voice soft in the night. “Is this okay?”

So gentle, thought Starsky. “S’wonderful,” he replied out of the side of his mouth that wasn’t being kissed.

“S’marvelous,” Hutch said, his voice low.

Hutch kissed him full on the mouth, like he had before, and pulled back, one hand on Starsky’s chest, the tips of his fingers moth’s wings on his collar bone.

“I dare you to do that again,” said Starsky, gravely.

A spark appeared in those light blue eyes.

“And I double-dare you!”

Proper school-yard etiquette. And that was fair wasn’t it?

“I double-dog dare you,” returned Starsky.

Hutch racked his brain, trying to remember the proper response. It was like Starsky to bring the texture of the street to lace their night-covered words. So like him to ease the way for Hutch so that Hutch could lead. Or was he?

It was Starsky’s way to follow Hutch, through doorways, in patterns of thought, major decisions. Part of his makeup to try whatever health shake Hutch would foster on him, this vitamin, that camping trip; whatever Hutch laid forth Starsky would go along with. But even though it had been Hutch who had, oh so long ago it seemed, planted the first kiss, it was Starsky who had returned it, Starsky who had demanded they discuss it, Starsky who had held out his other hand for Hutch to kiss, Starsky who had driven them the long way home. And it was Starsky who now had dared him to continue. So, just who was in control here?

Did it matter?

Starsky was watching him, eyes frank and blue with expectation. What the hell came after double-dog?

“I-I triple dare you.” There, that had to be right.

The smile Hutch received was a kiss in itself.

“I triple-dog dare you,” Starsky said, carefully.

Now what the HELL came after that? Hutch suddenly felt confused and irritated because Starsky was playing some kid’s game that Hutch didn’t know the rules of. And what were they doing standing hip to hip with their arms linked around each other’s waists anyway?

“Damnit, Starsky–”

“Don’t get mad,” Starsky admonished softly, a twinkle in his eye, “get even.”

There came that melting feeling again, like sugar in water, and he swung Starsky up in a fireman’s carry, marched into the bedroom and dumped him on the big brass bed. The bed creaked under the strain of both their bodies as Starsky shrieked his indignation and pulled Hutch down on top of him. Hutch found that he liked the sensation of having Starsky beneath him, and planted an elbow on either side of the dark head.

“You will behave,” he growled. “And you will submit.”

“Make me.”

A different kind of dare then.

Hutch knew he was pushing the edge, but instead of a barrier, it was more like a marker on the way to someplace new. Before he realized it, he was undoing Starsky’s jeans, pushing open the fly and placing his hand there. He straightened Starsky with one tender pull.

“How did you know?”

“How could I not know?”

How could he not press Starsky’s body into the mattress, enfolding the dark head in his arms? How could he not force Starsky’s chin up and inhale the fragrance of his neck? How could he not smother the grunts of protest with a series of kisses guaranteed to make even the most experienced stewardess crumble?

But Starsky was not a stewardess, nor any other kind of floozy or one night stand. He was a man, and his legs entangled with Hutch’s in an effort to flip him over.

“Uh-uh,” Hutch warned, drawing back for a second. It took both of his hands to pin Starsky’s forearms and the leverage of his hips to keep the other man’s body on the mattress. And rising within him was some new lightning, its distant roar coming closer as Starsky struggled beneath him.

And any sounds Starsky was making only incensed him further, and the ability to use his full strength and have it almost not be enough was sending him flying over the edge. He was rock hard, the space between their bodies non-existent. The friction created as Starsky moved to free himself was anything but soothing.

With a growl, Starsky shot his knee to the outside of Hutch’s thigh, and twitched his shoulders, sending Hutch off balance. In another second Hutch was entombed in pillows and blanket, thunder covering him with dark kisses.

“Damnit, Starsky,” hissed Hutch.

“Oh, man,” whispered Starsky in return, his mouth finding the soft flesh behind Hutch’s ear.

Hutch shuddered. “Don’t do this to me,” he said, voice low. “Don’t Starsky, don’t.”

Though Starsky was shorter, his muscles made up for what he lacked in leverage, and Hutch felt him using all of that and more, the tendons standing on the dusky neck. Hutch could not move. And Starsky’s mouth, finding him, boldly making hot paths down his front. Even through his t-shirt he could feel the fire. Several inches lower and Starsky let go for only a second, and as he was reaching for Hutch’s zipper, Hutch grabbed him. Flipped him back over. Reached for the extra handcuffs he kept in his nightstand. One end went around Starsky’s wrist and the other laced through the brass headboard before either one of them could breath.

“Not fair, Hutch,” snarled Starsky, and Hutch suddenly felt like he’d only half-caged a wild beast. Starsky reached forward and grabbed with his free hand a mass of Hutch’s shirt, tearing the cotton fabric and he pulled Hutch close to him. Hutch let it tear, the sound of ripping cloth doing mad things to his brain, his insides, his groin.

He could easily control Starsky’s one free hand, he decided, proceeded to lean against it as he undid Starsky’s zipper the rest of the way. His hand found the hard heat to match his own, could feel Starsky’s double-time heartbeat as he grabbed that heat. Managed a quick kiss on Starsky’s protesting mouth as he slid his body down, pressing the other’s free arm into the mattress with an outstretched hand.

“Oooooh, jeezus, Hutch, you’re not gonna…”

“Be quiet,” Hutch warned, “be very, very quiet”

Starsky’s scent was not new to him, but that of his sex, the warmth between his legs, had a different power to it. He moved his hand in to shift the underwear away and cup the soft flesh in his palm. Starsky lifted briefly as he pulled the blue jeans down, and Hutch rested the whole of his hand the length of Starsky’s hardness. It was like fire beneath his fingers.

He looked up. Starsky had ceased to struggle, his one hand lax beneath Hutch’s, the other hanging loosely in the cuff. The dark curls were tucked against his shoulder, eyes closed, mouth moving over sharp breaths.

Hutch bent his head. He would do this first and then let Starsky go.

He took Starsky in his mouth. Simply that and Starsky’s whole body jerked beneath his grasp. He cupped the base of the hard sex in his palm, his mouth sucking along the ridge of the underside. He’d never felt Starsky move beneath him in a way that suggested he was going out of his mind. And the taste of Starsky, dark salt and man sweat. Tenderly Hutch nipped at the base with his lips.

“Huuuuuutch…” Starsky’s voice was very ragged.

“Mmmmmm?” said Hutch, not pausing. He lowered his mouth till he could feel Starsky’s hardness at the back of his throat. Moved very slowly up and down. Lingered over the crown, swirling his tongue in the indent there, and moved back to its base again.

“Don’t…”

“I thought I told you to stay quiet,” scolded Hutch, stopping for a moment.

“Please don’t…”

Hutch planted a kiss beneath Starsky’s belly button. “Don’t what?”

“Stop.”

He let go of Starsky’s uncuffed hand, and found it instantly entwined in his hair. The other was tending the locks with his fingers, over and over, pulling at them gently.

“Hang on, buddy,” he said, whispering.

Hutch lowered his mouth on Starsky again, vowing not to come up for air until the other man came. Vowing not to lift his head until Starsky was screaming. He wrapped one arm around Starsky’s hips to bring the other closer to him, his other hand pressing on the flesh between the jean-tangled legs. And as he pressed, he moved, unceasing, until he heard Starsky’s breath catch in his throat. He paused as he tightened his hand around the base of Starsky’s sex.

Starsky’s head was pressed back into the pillows, his throat arching away, his chest rising and falling fast. Something rose in Hutch’s throat.

“Love,” he whispered, not thinking Starsky would hear.

Then he bent his head, feeling the sigh of Starsky’s body as he did so. Eased his hand up and down in time with his mouth, and thought fleetingly of how many women had done this exact same thing to him. And how Starsky had once, drunkenly, told him how he liked it done. As he felt Starsky move, he went faster, as Starsky’s body stilled, he moved slower. Faster and slower. Harder and softer.

Felt the scream building in the other man and tightened his hand, the circle of his mouth.

When Starsky came, it was like a storm from inside his soul. Hutch heard it low at first, then it sounded, issuing forth like a growl. Louder. Hutch swallowed, tasting the bitter salt, swallowed again, wondering how he was going to take it all. He almost couldn’t manage it, felt his throat closing up in reflex, but forced himself, as if Starsky’s semen were a needed medicine.

When it was done, and Starsky’s body had almost stilled its quivering, Hutch laid his head on the other’s belly. Felt the sweat collecting there, and moved his head to mark Starsky with it. Then he realized he was shivering all over himself.

“Hutch, Hutch, Hutch,” whispered Starsky.

Hutch shifted his body till he was lying alongside the other man, felt their heat meet and double, and reached over Starsky for the key he kept in the nightstand.

“Hope I didn’t accidentally throw it away when I cleaned last week,” he muttered, feeling in the drawer for it.

He felt Starsky’s arm looping around his throat. “Not very funny, damnit,” said Starsky against his neck. “You’d better find it.”

When Hutch’s fingers closed around the cool metal, he ducked his head to escape Starsky’s grip. Bent to kiss a hair-tangled nipple and felt Starsky’s chest rising against him. “Here you go,” he said politely, unlocking the cuff.

Starsky ripped it off his hand and tossed it to the floor. Hutch knew that Starsky was worked up but he hardly expected the onslaught of kisses that pressed him into the cocoon of bedclothes till he was almost smothering. He struggled against it, but Starsky wouldn’t let him up. Two hands pressed him back and he felt the full of Starsky’s body on top of his own.

“W-what, what–” he managed briefly, pulling his mouth away.

It was captured at once, Starsky’s lips moving against his. “Oh, you’re gonna get it, babe, but good.”

Starsky was playing with him now, moving his hands up and down Hutch’s ribcage, pushing away the remains of his t-shirt, and pushing impatiently at the catch of Hutch’s jeans.

“Damn this thing,” snarled Starsky. In another second he’d pulled so hard that the brass rivets popped and the copper-plated button went pinging across the floor. The zipper soon followed, never to work properly again, and Starsky’s hand was between his legs.

And when Hutch moved to regain the top position, his legs wrapping easily around Starsky’s, Starsky easily looped Hutch’s arms behind his back, and gripped several blond hairs.

“Don’t,” he breathed, “move.”

Hutch froze, his breath pushing against Starsky’s chest. And Starsky’s face, inches from his own, somehow stern, somehow more formidable than he’d ever seen it. He obeyed at once.

And yet there was a tenderness there, in Starsky’s eyes as they swept over Hutch, taking in his features as if absorbing them. A soft kiss brushed across his forehead. Hutch closed his eyes to it, and felt the feather-light touch on his cheek.

“Love,” Starsky whispered.

Hutch’s breath caught in his throat.

Starsky’s mouth engulfed his breath, and he breathed in as if to absorb Hutch’s essence. And Hutch felt himself swept up, somehow uncontrollably out of control as, with one arm still locking Hutch’s arms behind his back, Starsky began to move his hand on Hutch’s sex. Up and down, ever so gentle, as if he were stroking a cat. Or merely patting Hutch’s arm. It was too light, so light, and Hutch raised his hips to force the action into more firmness.

“Oh, no,” Starsky scolded, his voice raising the hairs along Hutch’s neck. “You wait your turn, young man.”

It seemed as if Starsky were about to stop altogether and Hutch, feeling rather than hearing his own involuntary sighs, resisted the urge to undulate in time with Starsky’s hand. After a bit, the force of the strokes became harder and Hutch promised himself that he would remain very, very still and not beg.

But Starsky’s hands, the pressure of his stomach against Hutch’s hip, the magic he was working, as they breathed in time together…

“P-please, oh jeezus…”

“Mmmmmm,” said Starsky in reply. “Like this?”

As Starsky finally applied the pressure, all Hutch could do was moan. His world suddenly became quite small, and all of it contained in the circle of Starsky’s hand. He felt Starsky’s mouth on his own and he pulled his head away.

“Don’t do that–I can’t breath.”

“Oh?”

Starsky proceed to move harder, faster, his hand an increasing rhythm, a hotter friction on his hardness. A focus on a single point of light that suddenly exploded inside his head and he heard the shattering cry that he realized was his own. The friction stopped, buildup ceased and then followed the beautiful blankness. He felt Starsky breathing in his ear.

“That was fast,” came the voice, only slightly teasing.

“‘t’s been awhile,” Hutch replied between breaths.

“Aw, Hutch.”

Another kiss, slowly, almost casually on his temple. “We’ll have to get you in the saddle more often.”

Hutch could only nod his head against Starsky’s chest, feeling the rough hairs, and reached out to kiss and taste the salty flesh.

Starsky sighed, his body shuddering the bed. “Look at this mess, will ya? Must be about two gallons here.” He made no move to clean anything up however, remaining absolutely still, holding Hutch to his chest. Hutch felt like he might fall asleep just as he was.

“I think my jaw is broken,” he murmured.

“Wha’s that?”

“Don’t know how the weaker sex does it.”

“What, you mean swallow?”

Hutch smiled in spite of his sudden bone-melting tiredness. “Hold the position, swallow, all of it.”

“Well, you managed,” Starsky whispered, and Hutch could hear him smile.

“Liked that, did you?”

“Well,” came the overly casual reply, “let’s just hope your jaw is better soon. Like tomorrow.”

“In that case,” replied Hutch around a yawn, “you better get yours warmed up.”

He felt himself drifting off and realized how marvelous it was not to have to remain awake to make sure his partner was alright. Starsky would let him know if he needed anything, unlike his previous female bedmates who always seemed to expect Hutch to stay awake to talk to them or cuddle them. Starsky held him secure in arms that somehow still contained strength, though he could sense the other’s weariness. But words were unnecessary.

“When you finally let go,” he muttered, “just make sure my head doesn’t hit anything harder than the mattress.”

Through fast-approaching sleep, he heard Starsky’s reply. “I’m never letting go.”

 ~~~

Starsky rolled out from under the covers before he was awake, realizing where he was but not quite remembering why. Then he felt the coldness of the handcuffs beneath his feet. He smiled, looking over at Hutch, and gently lifted one of Hutch’s hands. It was limp in his grasp, like spaghetti. In fact, Hutch’s whole body, what could be seen through the gaps in the tumble of covers, looked like some noodle that had been cooked at high boil for a good half an hour. It had been a long while since he’d seen his friend that relaxed. Not since…well, not since Gillian.

Glad I could help, buddy.

He popped himself in the shower, then popped out again, throwing on his only too-wrinkled clothes. Once in the kitchen, he made himself a cup of instant and browsed over yesterday’s paper that he found neatly folded on top of the fridge.

Presently, over the comics page, he heard the shower running and then bare feet padding across the carpet. A hand ruffled his hair and then Hutch was there, tightening the sash on his orange robe, hair askew from the towel, turning on the burner and pulling ingredients out of the fridge. Starsky thought the other was making a health shake until a glass of juice was placed in front of him. He looked up.

“What, no run this morning?”

“For you,” replied Hutch with his back to Starsky, cracking eggs into a bowl with one hand, “I break training.”

Starsky felt his mouth drop open, and vocalize, of its own accord, a sputter of surprise, thinking of all the women he knew that Hutch had never done this for. But Hutch ignored him, the way he always had, in that way that meant he wasn’t ignoring him at all. And felt at a loss for words as he watched Hutch turning bacon, buttering toast and beating the eggs until they were a lather. He wanted to say something or wrap his arms around Hutch but thought that would be as intrusive as if Hutch would try the same thing to him when he was working on his car.

So he remained seated, watching with silent eyes, and within minutes, Hutch turned away from the stove and put a plate loaded with eggs and bacon and toast all buttered up in front of him.

“I,” he managed, “I could get used to this.”

A terry-clothed arm went around his shoulders and a soft kiss brushed his forehead. “Do.”

~~~

The friendship, much to Starsky’s profound pleasure, remained essentially as it always had. With very few alterations. Hutch still acted on what he thought was his right to take whatever food he wanted from Starsky’s plate. He continued to believe in his own mental superiority, digging at Starsky whenever the opportunity presented itself. He still liked to lead the way on the job and continued to complain about Starsky’s driving. His pockets were, on the flip side, still full of money for candy or whatever Starsky’s sweet tooth claimed it couldn’t live without, and his unswerving loyalty to Starsky had not changed.

What, then, was different?

Over the next few weeks, Starsky’s own dating of women had come to a shrieking halt. He had not informed Hutch of this, figuring the pressure might be too much for his partner. He did not want to force Hutch into a monogamous relationship. On the other hand, it was usually Hutch, after they were off duty and when they usually just sat around shooting the breeze, who would suddenly pounce on him and drag Starsky to the floor, or the couch, or whatever horizontal platform happened to be available. Once Hutch had even gotten him off against the kitchen counter. He’d never known flour stains to be difficult before.

And in fact, they tended to trade off attacking each other. It got pretty rough; just last week Hutch had accidentally opened Starsky’s lower lip during one of their tumbles. There had been an ice-cloth and soft kisses afterwards, and Starsky had enjoyed the attention. Hutch had whispered that he would try not to be so rough, but Starsky figured that both of them were working through some male macho shit. It would be awhile before they both felt they could be gentle with each other. Hopefully not too much longer. There were a few sweet nothings Starsky could hardly wait to see Hutch react to.

It was the end of a long shift and Starsky sighed as he threw the last folder in the out tray. He stood and stretched, hands over his head, and yawned till his ears popped. Then he looked around the room for Hutch. The blond was leaning against the wall next to the water cooler, arms across his chest, one leg bent to press against the wall. He was waiting, not for anything in particular, it seemed, just passing time, just waiting. His eyes were unfocused, tired at the corners, mouth tilted downward.

Starsky approached him, trying to sneak up on him, but when he was still a yard away, Hutch’s head snapped towards him. And in his eyes was the look, that look, the triple-dog dare. It was a breach of etiquette, as far as dares were concerned, but it would have been worse to ignore it. So Starsky walked as close as he dared, and stole a glance around the squadroom. Everyone was extremely busy, though Hutch would hardly have dared him had they not been.

The blond’s jaw moved and Starsky realized that even Hutch was not totally without fear. It made him feel a little braver.

Starsky raised himself to his tiptoes, titling his head to one side. Hutch remained perfectly still, as if unaware of Starsky’s intent, until the last second. Then he too tipped his head to the side, at a mirror angle to Starsky’s, to the exact correct angle for their lips to meet.

~~~End~~~

---

Chapter End Notes:

This is a slash story about two men who love each other, and who, as David Soul once said, “just happened to be cops.” It’s pure romance from start to finish.

Part of the fun is that the boys don’t understand just how close they’ve become over the years, and what exactly it is that they like about each other. Of course, there’s a happy ending, with no torture, at least not the regular kind, heh-heh-heh. The story was a joy to write, and I really got into the whole L.A. atmosphere, and the heat, and just how mean the boys could be to each other, even when they were trying like anything to get along.

If Sky Blue and Black was harder to write and not very well received, then Hour of Separation was, in comparison, an easy to raise and well-loved child. First and foremost, this is a slash story about two men who love each other, and who, as David Soul once said, “just happened to be cops.” It’s pure romance from start to finish.

The title, as some have speculated, comes from a line from a collection of poems by Kahlil Gibran called “The Prophet.” The line is as follows:

“And ever has it been that loves knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

I had long thought that this idea deserved a story. Because it’s true, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone; it’s hard to see what you have until someone takes it away from you.

On the show, Starsky and Hutch, the boys are always together, and in fact, Hutch, in one episode, Death in a Different Place, breaks down the percentage of time that they spend together (in hours) and then complains that in spite of that, Starsky is not even a good kisser. (Ah, the madness of the seventies, when characters could joke about men kissing men without having to chop down a tree to prove their manhood afterwards.) Given that they spend so much time together, how would the boys react to being separated?

And indeed, how should I separate them? I didn’t want either of the boys out of their element, I didn’t want them not being cops. I didn’t want either of them in the hospital (at least not for very long), because I seriously wanted them to be apart. If your very best pal in the whole world is in the hospital, and you are, say, Starsky, you would visit your pal every day, so that’s not much of a separation, although it could involve a whole lot of worry. Same goes for Hutch.

So I brought in the new boss, Brown, who is the same as the old boss except in that he simply does not get the boys. He doesn’t understand their closeness and feels that their lack of respect for authority (his) indicates shoddy workmanship on their parts and separates them to teach them a lesson about something. Dobey, for his part, feels the same way Brown does, but understands that who the boys are and what they feel about each other only enhances their performance. On the street, that is. I’m sure it never occurs to him to ask them how their performance is when they’re not on the street.

Exit Dobey, for an extended vacation, and enter Brown. Brown separates them and gives them each new partners who are, for the most part, totally unsuitable to each boy’s temperaments. (I refer to these grown men as boys simply because that’s what they seem to me to be, and also because of the song, “They Boys Are Back,” which TNT used one year to promote reruns of the show.) The clash in ego and personality leads to fights, misunderstandings, and an astonishing clarity of vision for the boys, because not only do we get to see them through their new partners’ eyes, we get to see them missing each other. And figuring out why they miss each other so much.

The story was a joy to write, and I really got into the whole L.A. atmosphere, and the heat, and just how mean the boys could be to each other, even when they were trying like anything to get along.

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Hey there, thanks for reading my fan fiction! Because I love writing so much, I’ve turned my attention to writing m/m historical romances. My goal is to make a living by my writing, so if you’d like to give my books a try, you can click the link to visit my website and find out more.