Layers

A time for Hutch to do a little listening.

Starsky still tended to wake up in layers of sensation. That was how he had come to think of it. In the hospital, of course, it had been different. There it had been layers upon layers upon layers. In the beginning, powerful drugs had pulled him down, past pain, past dreams, to a layer of…absolutely nothing…which he had had to wait to float up from.

He never forgot the first time that he did, the first time he swam all the way back up through his senses, which were finally awake and feeding him his dreams, his pain, and eventually, his consciousness. Like a diver from the depths, he had broken the surface with a gasp – in truth, barely a whisper – into what had seemed at the time a harshly-lit and confusing world.

Ten days since his hospital release and he still awoke in layers – though not as many. The drugs were fewer, the dreams less hallucinatory and the pain far less brutal. Which was why, as he gradually came to, he realised there was a sensation of heaviness he was not leaving behind. It was staying with him.

Puzzled, he blinked slowly and took a moment to adjust. Reluctant to accept his healing body’s limitations, it annoyed Starsky intensely that he fell asleep several times a day – on his couch, in bed and in front of films he never saw the end of. Judging by the light waning out of the room, it was late afternoon and he had done it again.

Only this time, it was not annoyance or discomfort that he felt, but a sudden sense of rightness which caught in his throat. The weight at the lower end of his ribcage, which his diaphragm was gently lifting up and down, was the back of a blond head.

The last thing Starsky remembered was Hutch sprawled on the floor, back against the couch, surrounded by reports and notes from cases that Dobey had wryly decided to use as therapy for both. Well aware that Hutch would be of no real use to him until Starsky was stronger, Dobey had brought a carton of police work round the previous evening- together with the obligatory meal from Edith – and informed them that if they were going to leave him short-handed like that, the least they could do was get their damn paperwork up-to-date.

It had worked, too. Stretched on the couch, listening to Hutch muttering, sorting and scribbling, Starsky had felt engaged as a cop again. He had missed their verbal to and fro over cases, and even though he knew his contribution had been limited – he just got too damn tired – he knew from the sudden sparkle in Hutch that he had not been the only one.

As he lay there, watching the blond head slowly rise and fall, Starsky realised two things at once. One, Hutch was awake, and two, Hutch knew that he himself had woken up – but was still choosing to keep his head where it was.

Interesting, thought Starsky, amused. No self-conscious start, no move away.

“Ch’doin’, Hutch?” Husky and indistinct from sleep, he cleared his throat. “Hmm?”

In the pause which followed Starsky could almost hear the litany of smart remarks his partner was sifting through as Hutch sat there on the floor, his long legs curled, his eyes focused somewhere past the end of the couch. Trampolining, Starsk, what does it look like? Checking to see if there’s rain on the way, practising yoga...Starsky waited to see which it would be.

“Listening to you,” Hutch said.

A moment’s hesitation, then Starsky’s hand went to his partner’s hair.

“Yeah? How do I sound?” Starsky’s voice was husky again, but not from sleep.

He felt the smile stretch Hutch’s face before he heard it in his voice.

“Loud, partner. Very, very loud.” Hutch made as if to lift his head, but Starsky’s hand stayed him.

Hutch’s face was the first thing that made sense when he had turned panicked eyes away from the light and pain of that hospital room. It was Hutch he had remembered when his mind needed a reason to swim his body back up through the hurt. It was Hutch who suffered something unspeakable as he had flat-lined.

There in the quiet and late afternoon sun of his apartment, Starsky knew with absolute certainty that the weight of Hutch on his chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breathing, would heal them both.

The sequel to this story is Drenched.