Reactions: Hutch

“The voice hadn’t been the one that he was expecting, and he couldn’t pretend to himself that he’d misdialed the number, not after all this time.”

“Uh, Hutch – ”

Before Starsky could even complete his thought – and without even looking away from the case file he was reading, Hutch reached into his pocket, retrieved a handful of change, and put it into Starsky’s outstretched hand. He knew the smile he received without seeing it, although some need inside made him glance up, a small, highly affectionate look of disapproval on his face.

Starsky grinned at him. “Thanks, Blintz. You want – ”

Hutch shook his head. “Not in the mood for a sugar rush, thanks.”

Starsky shrugged, and walked out of the squad room, headed for the candy machine around the corner. Hutch waited until he was gone to let loose a soft chuckle. He’d actually sat down one day last week, when Starsky was typing out his half of the report and Dobey wasn’t looking, and tried to calculate out exactly how much change Starsky had managed to wheedle out of him over the years that they’d been partnered – for phone calls, for coffee, for candy from the machine. The resulting total was astronomical, and he even calculated out the interest at a modest rate, figuring that Starsky basically owed him half his salary for the rest of his natural life.

Not that he was looking for payback, and the thought that even doing such a thing, even in jest, nagged at him. It made him seem petty, or like Starsky was a leech, or something. No, it wasn’t that at all, although an outside observer might make that mistake. It didn’t have anything to do with the money, it was the principle of the thing. It was part of their routine, what they did; when Starsky needed change for a Zagnut or an extra-large black coffee, he gave it. And when he needed anything, Starsky gave it to him, would give it to him, without question, from half of whatever indigestible thing he happened to be eating for lunch to a kidney he wasn’t overly attached to.

And – Hutch had a need to do these things, too, something inside him that spoke not of reciprocity but of – of something he couldn’t quite name. Starsky brought out something almost motherly in him – despite their long-standing jokes about who was actually older and Starsky’s insistence that the last thing he needed in his life was another Jewish mother, that was what Hutch had somehow become. He needed to take care of Starsky, had staked out his right to that title and vigorously defended it against all comers. Luckily, there weren’t too many of those – no serious threats, anyway, nothing that he had to worry about.

Starsky, for all of his expertise on the job and his legendary (in his own mind, if nowhere else) ways with women, was a big kid in a grown-up’s body – a bouncy, excitable, irritating, humorous, sugar-filled, over-caffeinated kid, and Hutch loved him more than his own life.

The big kid came back into the room with his candy bar, and brought the coffee pot back with him on the way by, automatically filling Hutch’s mug and his own before swinging back to rest the half-empty pot down. He slid into his seat and put his feet up – all one broad, fluid motion, and retrieved his report, sipping coffee around melted chocolate in his mouth. Hutch read and re-read the same paragraph about a dozen times without retaining a word, distracted by a surreptitious study of his partner over the top of his folder.

There was something – something different about him, although Hutch couldn’t put his finger on it. Starsky looked the same – same button-down shirt, half-undone, same jacket slung over the back of his chair, same sneakers propped up on the desk, same oxygen-depriving denim jeans that seemed on the verge of giving up the ghost. And, yet –

It wasn’t until Starsky leaned forward slightly to grab his coffee cup that Hutch saw it – or, rather, saw it again. The collar of Starsky’s shirt gaped open, and he was able to see the skin that had been hidden behind that cloth, low on his neck, just above the collarbone.

There was a bruise there.

It might, upon closer inspection, have been a bite, but Hutch wasn’t about to walk over and get a better look. He grinned to himself, secretly; he hadn’t thought that whatshername – Lisa – he hadn’t thought that Lisa was the biting type. She seemed too small, too meek, too utterly feminine a willowy little redhead to be hiding a tigress inside. Of course, that was one of the tantalizing fascinations about women, what they hid. It made him love them even more, but it also made him grateful for the stability of his relationship with Starsky. He knew the guy, inside and out, and that certainty that he had grounded him and made him feel very, very glad.

“You planning on staying here all night?” he asked, finally.

“Hmm?” Starsky was startled out of his notes. “What’d you say, blintz?”

“Just wondered if you were going for some brownie points, Starsk.” Hutch nodded over at the gaping door. “Cap’n left ten minutes ago.”

Starsky frowned at him. “What time is it?”

Hutch rolled his eyes, reached over, and grabbed Starsky’s arm. “Five-fifteen,” he read off the shiny new watch there.

Starsky grinned, and jumped up. “Guess it’s time to hit the road, eh?”

“Yeah,” Hutch agreed. “You got big plans with Lisa tonight?” he asked, as he put on his jacket.

“Nah,” Starsky said. “We kinda decided to cool things a while.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. She’s young, you know, not looking for anything too serious. I think she wants to play the field some more.” Starsky shrugged. “We decided to break it off before things got ugly, ya know? It was for the best. It wasn’t like I was in love with her, or anythin’.”

“When did all this happen?”

“On the weekend,” Starsky said, and immediately added, “I didn’t mention it just because it wasn’t a big deal, okay? I’m not keepin’ anything from ya.”

Hutch nodded, on automatic. ‘On the weekend,’ echoed in his mind. It was Wednesday. He wasn’t surprised that Starsky hadn’t said anything about Lisa before now – Hutch had only met her twice, and then only because they’d doubled somewhere with one – two – of his own dates. He knew that Starsky wasn’t serious enough about her for this to be considered a real break-up.

But this was Wednesday. Three days after they’d called it quits, apparently. “You meet someone else?” he asked, abruptly.

“After the week we’ve had?” Starsky asked, surprised. It had been just as busy as usual, and neither of them had so much as stopped off at Huggy’s after work. “Nah,” he shook his head. “Thought maybe you’d want to go out Friday night, help me drown my sorrows.” He grinned, taking the sting out of his own words.

“Yeah, sure,” Hutch said. “That would be good.”

“You want a ride home?”

“Uh, no,” Hutch shook his head. “Think I’m gonna go grab something to eat before I crash. You want to come?” he asked, half-heartedly.

Starsky didn’t seem to notice. “I’m beat. Gonna go home and see if I can make it all the way to the bed before I fall down. See you in the morning, Hutch.”

“‘Night.”

He told himself he was being ridiculous – there were lots of perfectly rational and completely harmless explanations for the mysterious hickey – maybe a woman that Starsky just didn’t want to discuss with him, for whatever reason. They didn’t tell each other everything, after all. Maybe she was just too new, and Starsky was still feeling her out – maybe she was – married? Hutch grappled with the thought, but dismissed it. No way would David Michael Starsky cross that line. Maybe it was someone he wasn’t comfortable discussing with Hutch – an ex? One of his exes? He tried to picture that, but dismissed it as equally implausible.

It nagged at him all the way home, until he was mentally kicking himself in the ass for not just coming out and _asking_ Starsky about it at the station. But that seemed too – too personal, somehow. It wasn’t that they didn’t talk about sex, because they did – as much locker-room bluster as any other red-blooded male, combined with the occasional romantic disclosure that accompanied what felt like love. But telling was one thing, asking something quite different.

He picked up and put down the phone half-a-dozen times over the next several hours, telling himself he was being silly and that whatever was going on, it could most certainly wait until the next morning, when he was face-to-face with the guy. Finally, resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to think of anything else, much less do anything, much less sleep, until he heard his partner’s voice, he dialed the number.

“Hello?”

He carefully re-cradled the phone without saying a word. The voice hadn’t been the one that he was expecting, and he couldn’t pretend to himself that he’d misdialed the number, not after all this time. His mind whirled with even more questions than answers, and an echoing of that single word, “hello?”

A man’s voice. Not Starsky’s

The end.