Ready, Set, Go!

Hutch is in the hospital recovering from botulism toxin and Starsky is by his side.

Watching him sleep now. His breathing is labored but they said he didn’t need a respirator. He’s probably more exhausted than anything else.

I haven’t slept in what feels like forever. But that’s okay. I’ll sleep in this chair, beside him. Listen to the sound of his breathing. I wasn’t sure the doctors would even let me stay in here. But Dobey pulled some strings with the hospital administration. He always has our backs.

Hutch keeps drifting in and out of consciousness. Opens his eyes briefly, looks at me, then closes them again. The muscle weakness makes it hard to keep them open.

I so desperately want to crawl into that bed beside him and hold him. Caress his hair, even with that cheap brown hair dye in it. I’m haunted by thoughts of him suffering alone in that decrepit house, probably being taunted by Pardee. Scared, knowing he was dying but not knowing how or why. Probably feeling guilt too, thinking about me finding him too late.

When I finally did find him, he just looked at me, looked into my eyes, and conceded that I won. I wanted to cry right then and there.

The doctors say he’ll be okay. Said we were lucky. Said if we had brought him to the hospital any later than…..

There’s a short timeframe when you’re dealing with botulism, they told me. It’s not the bacteria itself, but the toxin it produces which causes all the problems. It can paralyze the muscles involved in breathing and lead to respiratory failure.

I saw Hutch go through that once before with the plague; I sure as hell couldn’t take seeing him go through that again.

The symptoms of botulism can include double or blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, muscle weakness. And nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and paralysis.

It kills me to know that Hutch was out on the streets like that, feeling sick and probably scared and not knowing what was wrong with him. Being at Pardee’s mercy. Alone.

Probably wondering what was taking me so long. I told him on the phone I would have him nailed by lunchtime. I don’t know if he picked up on what I meant or not. Maybe when he wakes up, I’ll tell him.

They cleared out his digestive system by inducing vomiting and then injected him with the antitoxin. They said you have to do that before the toxin causes permanent damage. See, the toxin attacks the body’s nerves, and the antitoxin prevents it from causing any more harm. But it doesn’t heal the damage the toxin has already done. So depending on how severe a person’s symptoms are, they may need to stay in the hospital for weeks or even months.

They said that for every 100 people with botulism, 50 will die.

We dodged a bullet with Hutch.

Was it really just the day before yesterday that I lay in a hospital bed in this very same place, with fake tubes coming out of my nose, trying to lure him here? The bed I had was larger, because I wasn’t in the ICU, just a regular room. I wonder if that’s how he knew I wasn’t really shot?

I was feeling pretty despondent when Dobey said “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have more than just tubes coming out of our noses.” So I replied, “If this doesn’t work, I don’t give a damn.”

I meant it, too. If we had lost Hutch, if I had lost him, my life going forward would be meaningless.

I wish I could tell him that right now. If he would wake up. I want to tell him that he is everything to me. Everything.

———————————————————–

I’m too weak to open my eyes and in too much discomfort to sleep. My muscles are still weak and it’s a challenge for me to get out even a few words. I can hear him sitting beside me in his chair, breathing softly. I think he’s finally asleep. Good. He probably stayed up for 48 hours straight looking for me.

I’m such an asshole. What he must have gone through, I can’t even imagine. Actually, I can. Because I’ve gone through it myself with him. And I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

That feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach, when you know you’re up against a wall and it feels like the entire universe is conspiring to keep you from finding him in time. And you hear the ticking of the clock and the swift passage of time in your ears. And it gets louder and louder until you can’t think straight.

Hutchinson, what the hell did you get yourself into this time? What did you get HIM into? All for the sake of the thrill of being pursued by the man you love. All because you’re so fucking competitive, you had to win at all costs. You had to get Pardee alone. You had to prove you could do it. You had to win the game. And maybe, just maybe, you had to make Starsky PROVE to you that he loves you, as if he hasn’t already proven it a thousand times over.

You even cheated, you rotten bastard.

When Ernie told me that Starsky had been shot; God, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. But I knew Starsky wanted to win just as badly as I did, so I didn’t totally believe it was real. At least, I didn’t want to believe it.

But what if it had been? What if by the time I got to the hospital, it was too late? I would have never forgiven myself.

All because of a dumb kids’ game.

Why did I do it? Why did I come up with the game in the first place? I read to him from Antony and Cleopatra, and called him at 6:09 in the morning while he was still asleep, almost two hours before our agreed-upon start time. We discussed our plans and he groggily said “I hope that includes getting nailed by lunchtime.”

So why did I still need reassurance that he loves me and would go to the ends of the earth to find me? Haven’t I been assured of that many times over already? He said he wanted to nail me!

Or did the thought of being pursued excite me?

So I could hear his sleepy voice at the other end of the phone, and imagine him lying in bed? Thinking about what he was (or wasn’t) wearing? When I found him on the floor after Bellamy got to him, he was wearing nothing but blue pajama pants, which had somehow gone missing at the hospital. And I never knew if he was wearing anything under those pajamas. At the time, that was the last thing I was thinking of.

But two years ago is a long time.

And how could I be so dumb, anyway? Maybe he got Simmons and Babcock to go along with it by promising he’d split his winnings with them, but I should have realized something was up when Dobey was there too. There’s no way in hell that Dobey would have gone along with Starsky’s scheme to lure me in, if it was just a game. He would have reamed us out six ways ’til Sunday. Also, Starsky knows I was never gonna pay up if I lost.

———————————————————–

We were idiots. Dobey was right. His kids stopped playing hide-and-seek when they were seven. But then I think about how me and my friends played this game, a type of hide-and-seek called Ringolevio, even into our teens. It’s a game that’s been played on the streets of New York for as long as anyone can remember. The rules are simple. There are two sides, each with the same number of players. There are no time limits, no intermissions, no substitutes and no weapons allowed. Someone would yell “Ready, set, go!” and one team would go off and hide. The game ended when one team caught all the members of the other team. If our moms called us in for dinner before everyone was caught, we would suspend play for that night, but resume the next day. Sometimes, games could go on for days or even weeks, if the teams were really big.

Hutch and I were sensible enough to set a time limit, but a lot of good that did us.

At the very least, we should have come up with a safe word or a distress signal if something went wrong.

But why would we think anything would go wrong? It was just going to be for 48 hours. Just driving around the same city we drive around in every day. I mean, sure, we’ve gotten bloodied and shot and poisoned, but those things weren’t always out on the street.

My book of statistics says that 81.5% of injuries occur in people’s own homes or other familiar places. So that’s less than 20% out on the street. Not bad odds, really.

I assume my book is correct. Because why would they print something like that if it wasn’t true?

I mean, think about it. Forest’s men grabbed Hutch from inside his cottage. Bellamy injected me with poison while I slept in my own bed, for chrissakes.

I was shot in an Italian restaurant, mindin’ my own business. A little family-owned place, where they make their own wine and the beer is on tap and an old man who speaks old-country Italian cooks in the kitchen. I almost bled to death in there.

And now, restaurants that used to remind me of the apartment my grandmother lived over when I was a kid, I can’t even eat in them anymore.

So it certainly didn’t seem like we’d be less safe playing a game out on the streets of the city, as so many children do every day.

Every……

———————————————————–

I manage to open my eyes briefly and see him sitting beside me, dozing in the chair. My hand feels weird, heavy, like something warm is touching it, pressing against it. I panic at first, but then I manage to look down and see that it’s Starsky’s hand. Holding mine while he sleeps.

Smiling, I drift down into unconsciousness.

———————————————————–

I think it was the thrill of the chase. Like he was playing hard-to-get. What would have happened if I had caught him before the deadline, if he hadn’t gotten sick? What would have REALLY happened? Would I have kissed him? Would I have nailed him like I said? Would he have wanted me to? I know one thing for sure, he never would have conceded that he lost OR paid me the two weeks salary.

And I KNOW I would have won, even with him cheating like he did.

Blondie, that rat bastard, he always tries to get out of paying a bet when he loses. It’s what he does. I don’t make bets with him because I expect him to pay up. That’s not why I make bets with him.

I’d wager that, if given the chance, he would even try to get out of buying me a nice dinner. I’d wager that, if I said he had to buy me, say, a nice 3-course dinner if he lost the bet, he would try to squirm out of his obligations by suggesting we go at 5 in the morning. It would be so typical of him.

I warned him I knew everything about him.

And I know everything about me, too, because I’d let him get away with it. Because it’s what we do.

Because that’s how much I love him. I wish I could tell him that right now, right here. I would even kiss him, too.

I don’t remember at what point I reached for his hand, but when I woke up, I was still holding it.

———————————————————–

Antony and Cleopatra is a love story. I’m not sure if Starsky knows that, though.

They are separated by distance, while Antony is torn between his love for Cleopatra and his duty to Rome.

Eventually, Antony starts to have doubts about Cleopatra’s loyalty to him. So Cleopatra hatches a plan to fake her own death, in order to lure Antony to come to her burial mound in Egypt. She sends word to Rome that she’s taken her own life.

Antony is so distraught at the news that he tries to kill himself. But he doesn’t die immediately. Instead, he is taken to her monument, where Cleopatra is waiting for him. They spend his final moments together. And then she’s left all alone; bereft and despondent.

Probably thinking about what a dumbass plan she hatched.

Just why in the hell did I read that book to him?

———————————————————–

I am an idiot. I DID win after all, didn’t I? I found him before the 48 hours was up. But by that point, I didn’t give a rat’s ass if I lost the game or not. As long as I didn’t lose him.

———————————————————–

When he smiled at me in the locker room the other day (was it three days ago?), I knew how much he loved me. I could see it in his eyes, in his smile, in his heart. And he wasn’t just smiling. He was positively BEAMING.

I hope he could see I felt the same way about him, when I tipped my head to him and smiled back. I want to tell him that I do. But I can’t speak, can’t move my lips.

———————————————————–

Somehow he figured out that I faked being shot, but he never thought to wonder why. He should have known I would never cheat in order to win. He should have known I would never put him through worrying about me like that, not even for a minute.

It wasn’t like him to be so dense, the big blond dumbo. Normally he picks up on things quickly. His mind is sharp, like his wit. But maybe he was already starting to feel sick. Wasn’t operating at the top of his game.

Can you believe that? In a hospital, feeling sick. Coulda died from botulism. And then the big dumb lummox just up and leaves.

He left me a note, though. He signed it, “Love, Hutch.” I’ve kept it in my pocket ever since, next to my heart.

———————————————————–

I almost disappeared from his life forever. If I had died, I would never have the chance to tell him how I really feel.

When I can finally stay awake long enough to have a coherent conversation, when I get the strength back to move my lips, I’m going to tell him everything. About what I was thinking when I roused him from his sleep. About how much I love him. About how sorry I am for putting him through this. And also, I will kiss him.

———————————————————–

When I told him “I know how, where, when you eat, walk, sleep, talk, I know who you know, what you know, and how you know it, and there ain’t no hiding behind that,” I was smiling the whole time and he was smiling back at me. Then he tipped his head and walked out the door.

I felt such a rush of emotion blast through my heart. Like I never felt for anyone else in my entire life. That rush, like kissin’ your first crush. Only he’s not a crush. I truly do love that blond beauty. I love him so much that it’s almost unbearable sometimes.

The doctors say it will be a while before Hutch starts feeling better. They say he’ll sleep a lot over the next few days.

So I’m just gonna sit here in this chair and watch him sleep while I read the book that Huggy dropped off. I told him to bring me a pencil, too, so I could mark the relevant passages.

A pencil. I almost lost him because I was too damn stingy to buy a pencil from an old man. Hutch woulda bought a pencil if the tables were turned. Probably woulda given me an extra dollar, too.

It’s the book that Hutch read to me in the squad room the other day, Antony and Cleopatra. I’ve never been one to read Shakespeare. I don’t go for flowery language. But I’m gonna try to read it. To see if I can make sense of it. To understand why Hutch wanted to read it to me.

And when he can stay awake long enough to speak, and to listen, I’m gonna tell him everything. And I’m gonna kiss him, too. No more games this time. I almost lost my chance before. I’m not gonna do that again.

Life is too effin’ short.

Chapter End Notes:

Ready, Set, Go, Kiss!