Reprieve

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Hutch glanced up and down the hall. “This isn’t exactly a public restroom, partner. What if the butler realizes we’re in here together? What would he think? You want to explain things to Dobey when we become grist for the household staff gossip mill?”

 

First published in 2008 in Venice Place Chronicles volume VIII.

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Twice, Hutch had refused medical treatment.

Starsky could’ve throttled him for stoicism above and beyond the call of duty, if they hadn’t had Joanna to worry about. Under the pressure of the moment, he probably would’ve enjoyed throttling Hutch more than he wanted a cold cream soda and a box fan after his dirt bike stunt work.

The first time, desperation to find Joanna against the odds, before the dwindling sands in the hourglass of her young life passed through the funnel out of reach, had pushed Hutch to snarl at the uniformed officers when they offered to call paramedics to the scene of his bleeding slump behind the shattered plate-glass door. Hyped up somewhere between an adrenaline high, a towering rage over the stunt the kidnapper-murderers had dared to pull on his partner, and giddy disbelief that Hutch still lived, Starsky didn’t argue. He extricated that truly irreplaceable person in his life from the wreck of the door, and spared only a couple of minutes using the hem of his blue cotton jersey to dab at the bloody forehead scrapes before he hustled Hutch to the Torino and back to Collandra’s.

En route, Hutch had quickly shed his plaid flannel and green t-shirt in order to remove the ruined, lifesaving vest, gasping and cursing with each movement, and generally making Starsky want to resurrect the bastards and blow them to smithereens all over again. Not a train of thought becoming an officer of the law, but by God, this was Hutch–those fuckers had left him thinking Hutch was dead.

Gone.

No last-minute pardon.

No reprieve.

The sons-of-bitches had had the easy way out compared to what they’d have suffered if Starsky could’ve gotten his bare hands on them.

For the time being, though, with Joanna’s survival hanging in the balance, he’d had to carefully tune out Hutch’s deep pulls for air and pained coughs, and ignore all the times Hutch reached for his side and winced.

Hutch got more of a fuss out of him the second time he waved away medical help.

They’d found Joanna–struggling to breathe, in pain and shock, and frightened out of her mind, but alive–and the paramedics were already conveniently on hand to see to her immediate first aid. But Joanna threw a monkey wrench into Starsky’s plans to get on-scene treatment for his hurting partner. Panicked over her mother’s heart condition, Joanna balked at riding in the ambulance to Memorial to wait for her parents there. She wanted to go home. At eighteen-years old, conscious and alert, and decidedly vocal without the filthy gag in her mouth, she could legally refuse transport.

Starsky inwardly applauded her moxie, certain that feisty spirit had probably kept her sane through the ordeal. Out loud he grumbled, concerned. His grumbling escalated to protest when Hutch sent the ambulance away after co-signing Joanna’s refusal of transport document. With one eye on Joanna, Hutch glared him into disgruntled silence. Once again, Starsky had to concentrate on the civilian at Hutch’s expense.

They’d learned on placing the good-news radio call to the Haymes’s estate that Mrs. Haymes’s cardiologist remained in attendance. For that, Starsky heartily blessed the idle rich. Not everyone could afford to have a specialist on stand-by to monitor a sedated patient. Fine, then. He’d quit fighting the inevitable and let Hutch have his way. The specialist could see to Joanna’s basic needs, and damn well see to Hutch while he was at it, Starsky promised himself.

He had one more radio call to make–one only right for him to make, considering his treatment of the person in question. While Hutch helped Joanna practice walking under her own power, one careful hand at her elbow to guide and bolster her if she buckled, Starsky jogged over to the Torino and demanded a patch-through to the J.C. Café.

Collandra still had a hint of tears in his voice, his accent even gruffer. “J.C. Café.”

“Collandra, it’s Starsky. We found her. Alive, man. She’s alive, she’s in one piece, and she’s about fifteen minutes from a reunion with her folks. Wanted you to know.”

He heard a gasp, a few seconds of muffled sobbing, and then a harsh-voiced, “Thank you. Christ, I was so sure you’d find her de–!” His voice broke again, and Starsky clutched the mike in a tighter fist, haunted by what-ifs and could-have-beens. “Thank you,” Collandra said finally, quieter now.

“Welcome. Look, I–”

“No, you don’t,” the psychic cut in sharply. “No apologies. You and me, we don’t have the kind of relationship for apologies. You’ve done enough, calling to let me know. Didn’t expect to hear this soon.”

“We wouldn’t have found her anywhere near this soon without your help.” Or found her alive, Starsky didn’t say. Collandra didn’t need the reminder that his reluctance to get involved could have cost Joanna her life. Instead Starsky offered the same gift of truth Hutch had already given a little while ago: “You’re no phony, Joe.”

“Don’t you be telling anyone that!” Collandra shouted. Starsky could visualize a frantic expression on the man’s stubbled face. “Not even her parents, especially not them. You gotta promise me.”

“Joe–”

“You wanna make things up to me, Starsky; you promise me no one has to know. I can’t have my quiet life invaded by the limelight again. Not like before. I don’t need crowds of reporters, crackpots, grieving relatives thinking a psychic’s the same thing as a medium, or the religious fanatics picketing outside my place, telling me I’m gonna fry in their Hell for being born like this. No one can know.”

“You got my word.”

The relieved exhalation of a pent-in breath sounded loud over the mike. Then a different, more alarming noise reached Starsky’s ears. It was the shuddering moan of a man in pain. “My chest,” Collandra wheezed. “Hurts. Hurts…to…breathe. Feel…dizzy…got to…pull myself together…can’t worry Starsk.”

Starsky nearly dropped the mike. He boggled the clutch, grasping with both hands. “Collandra! Joe, snap out of it, hear me?! You tripping on something about Hutch?”

This had the terrifying urgency of more than just a vision. This was direct insight into another person’s feelings and thoughts, much the same as he’d seen Collandra demonstrate while clutching Joanna’s scarf.

“Watch your partner,” Collandra said suddenly with only a minimal quaver in his strong voice. “Don’t let him out of your sight. Not for a second. Gotta go. I got customers.” With that the radio connection broke, and Starsky had to catch his breath.

Jumping to half a dozen conclusions at once, each more hideous than the last, Starsky slapped the mike back in its cradle and bolted out of the car, the door left swinging open and forgotten behind him. He stomped over to Hutch and Joanna and for once ignored the abduction victim.

“Hutch!” he barked, demanding his partner’s immediate attention.

Startled no doubt by a tone in Starsky’s voice rarely heard, even rarer for it to be directed at him, Hutch let his grip on Joanna’s elbow briefly falter. “Starsky, what–?”

“You having any trouble breathing? Chest pain?”

Hutch’s wide-eyed, slack-jawed gape clearly questioned when Starsky had changed from police detective into a walk-on audition for TV medical man. “Of course my chest hurts, Starsky, and you know why.” He looked significantly at Joanna, who could do without hearing that one of her rescuers had taken high-powered rifle shots to a vested chest on her behalf. So far she had been too shaken by her own trauma to even remark on Hutch’s disheveled appearance and bloody arm visible through the torn plaid shirt sleeve.

Yes, Starsky knew why. A man didn’t take direct hits to a vest without nasty after-effects. In the car earlier, he’d had to concentrate on driving and hadn’t seen much of the vest removal, but he knew from past and unpleasant personal experience that Hutch likely had a nifty bruise across the bulk of his chest, if not a bruised rib or two. All the more reason the stubborn ass should’ve been checked out by the medics already, for God’s sake.

He fought to control both his temper and his voice. “I’m asking if you’re breathing okay.”

He didn’t want to alarm Joanna either, but, damn it, if the girl was tough enough to turn down an ambulance ride, she could handle him asking Hutch a few pointed questions. And if she couldn’t, then her parents could pick up the emotional pieces. Found alive and relatively uninjured–although they wouldn’t know until later whether her denial of any sexual assault was accurate–the young rescuee slipped another rung back down from Hutch on Starsky’s ladder of priorities.

“I’m fine, Starsk,” Hutch answered calmly. Too calmly. “I’m sore, but I’ll mend.”

Knowing Hutch would bite his head off if asked about dizziness, Starsky tried to phrase the question in a way that wouldn’t offend. “So, steady on your feet and everything?”

Hutch just gawked at him, those intense eyes boring right into Starsky’s. “Doesn’t it look like I’m steady on my feet? Starsky, I think Joanna would like to go home now, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?” He smiled down at her upturned face, and she nodded, biting her lip.

“Right.” Starsky slid his arm around Joanna’s trembling shoulders and led her away from Hutch toward the Torino. “The chariot’s this way, little lady.”

Shaking his head with an exaggerated “what’s gotten into you, crazy guy?” look at Starsky above Joanna’s line of sight, Hutch fell into step beside them.

~*~*~

The Haymes’s front drive and paved “courtyard” had already fallen victim to media invasion. Muttering obscenities under his breath at the news vans and horde of eager reporters, Starsky braked about ten feet from the entrance gate, hopeful no one had spotted them, and shifted into reverse. He backed up carefully, turning his head to the backseat where Joanna sat with Hutch’s arm around her.

“Joanna, which road back there do I take to get to your place’s rear entrance?”

She blinked as if she hadn’t heard the question, but then she licked her chapped lips and said, “Cardinal, I think. Yes. Cardinal.” She made a little whimpery noise. “Thank you for bringing me home like this.”

“You’re welcome,” Hutch told her in that baby-soft voice. “But you need to be prepared that your mother’s doctor will want you to go into the hospital for a full examination.”

“I know.” The childlike pitch had left her voice. She sounded more like a young woman. “But at least I’ll get to see Mom first this way.”

A beaming, wet-eyed Joe Haymes and a dark-haired man in a three-piece suit met them at the rear door. Behind the two men a buxom older lady wrung her hands in front of her broad, aproned waist. Presumably the housekeeper, she took hold of Joanna immediately after Mr. Haymes released his shaken daughter from a lengthy hug. The three-piece suit gentleman whisked Joanna away next, looking her over in a way that identified him as the doctor, Mr. Haymes following close behind.

Hutch gently tapped the sniffling woman on the shoulder, and she turned her ruddy, tear-streaked face to him. “Could you point me toward the guest bathroom, please?”

“Oh! Oh, yes.” She dabbed at her puffy eyes with a handkerchief, then fluttered the damp cloth at the entrance to a small hallway just a few feet from where they stood. “Nearest one’s down that hall, second door on the right. Oh, and thank you, both of you, God bless you!” Dabbing furiously at her eyes again, she hurried away in the direction Mr. Haymes and the cardiologist had taken Joanna.

Hutch took another deep breath, winced, and reached back to rub at the nape of his neck. “I’ll be right back, and then between the two of us maybe we can find Mr. Haymes’s office from here. That’s probably where Dobey’s waiting on us.” Without a word, Starsky followed Hutch into the narrow hall. A few paces from the bathroom door, Hutch shot him a backward glance over the shoulder. “You, too, huh? I’ll try to make it snappy.”

Starsky shrugged and kept walking. If Hutch thought he was going into that bathroom alone, he had another think coming. Watch your partner, Collandra had said. Don’t let him out of your sight, not for a second. Hutch could pee with an audience.

Hutch apparently hadn’t tuned in to that brainwave. He nearly shut the bathroom door on his would-be helpful partner. “What the–?” Hutch stared at him. “You need to go first?”

“Go on in there,” Starsky ordered, an edge in his voice. In the back of his mind, he wondered when his voice would return to normal. Even before Hutch had played delivery boy to ruthless kidnappers, Starsky had gone around in a growling, shitty mood; since that morning, really, when he’d been preoccupied with anger at himself for dreams he couldn’t shake–No! No time to think about all that now. “I’m goin’ in with you.”

“You’re–?” Hutch seemed to have lost the ability to complete sentences. He stood there in the open doorway, his hand opening and closing around the shiny gold-plated doorknob. “Starsky, I can manage this on my own. In fact, I’ve been able to take a piss on my own since I was a very, very small child.”

“And nobody says you can’t now, but I’ll be in the room when you do.”

“Starsky,” Hutch was starting to sound annoyed. He looked behind him at the small, square half-bath, with its tiny mirrored sink and the toilet scrunched in the opposite corner. “There’s barely room in here for one person!”

“We won’t be in there long enough to get cramped.” At Hutch’s warning headshake and finger pointing, Starsky squared his shoulders and nodded at the toilet. “I’m not playin’, Hutch. Until you’ve had somebody with medical know-how give you a once-over–that doctor, a paramedic; hell, right now, I’d settle for a hospital orderly–I’m not letting you outta my sight. You wanna take a whizz, I go with, or you can just hold it. Your choice.”

“I’m fine, Starsk,” Hutch used his reasoning tone now. “Don’t you trust me when I say I’m a little uncomfortable with the vest bruising, but basically all right?”

“I trust you believe you’re all right, and you’re not deliberately snowin’ me. I don’t trust your body to always send a message to your brain that you’re really not doin’ so hot.”

Hutch glanced up and down the hall. “This isn’t exactly a public restroom, partner. What if the butler realizes we’re in here together? What would he think? You want to explain things to Dobey when we become grist for the household staff gossip mill?”

“Right now? I could care less. Besides, butlers don’t think. They’re like fancy-dressed, people-shaped robots with perfect manners.”

“How many butlers have you actually met, Starsky?”

“Shaddup,” Starsky snapped, “and get in there so I can get in before somebody sees us.”

Safely behind the closed door, Starsky tried to play small and inconspicuous by the sink while Hutch turned away and fiddled with his belt. “I hope you know how humiliating this is. On a number of levels.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can come up with some horrible revenge later, when you haven’t almost–” Starsky bit his tongue. “Look, we got Joanna here in one piece. She’s with her dad and the doctor. She’s safe. She’s no longer my responsibility. You, on the other hand, are my responsibility twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred’n sixty-five days a year. Got that?”

Hutch turned around then, letting his unbuckled belt ends dangle below the hem of his plaid shirt, and his face softened. “Ah, Starsk. I’m okay. I won’t up and disappear on you. You can actually blink your eyes, and I’ll still be here, not behind that shattered door. It’s over, buddy; we made it. All that’s left is the mop-up.”

With one half-stride Hutch was inside Starsky’s personal space, clasping his shoulders and tugging him forward an eighth of an inch at a time in seemingly slow motion, the gentlest smile on that understanding face. For the first time in recent memory, perhaps ever, Starsky pulled back from a Hutchinson hug before it happened. He wanted to feel that strong chest tight against his, feel Hutch’s comforting arms around him, but with all of the day’s emotions riding high in him he couldn’t afford the closeness he usually thought no more about than taking his next breath. He had things to say before he could surrender to his need for closeness to Hutch, and his words had no place in a phone-booth-sized guest bathroom with designer lighting and bright cherry blossom wallpaper.

He snickered to cover his confusion. “Uh, Hutch, standing around in here hugging each other is probably the kinda thing we don’t want the butler to think we’re in here doing. Let’s take care of business and track Dobey down before they send that housekeeper lady on a search-n-rescue mission?”

Hutch gave him the oddest knowing look with a touch of amused exasperation, but he turned his back and took care of business, flushed, and elbowed Starsky over so he could wash up at the sink. Taking two of the paper hand-towels from their dainty braided-reed basket, he glanced at Starsky. “You don’t need to take care of business? I would’ve thought your gnat-sized bladder would be screaming by now.”

Truthfully, since the last time they’d left the estate, Starsky hadn’t had the chance or inclination to think about anything so mundane. The neglected organ pinged at him now, but Hutch’s warm grasp on his shoulders had roused a different organ in a way that platonic touch never had before, and Starsky had no intention of trying to piss with a semi hard-on while Hutch stood by admiring the sink’s antique faucet.

“Nah. I’m good. You all done? Let’s get out of here, huh, before I’m counting cherry blossoms in my sleep tonight.”

But when Hutch started to ease past him to the door, Starsky caught him by the arm and tongue-clucked his disapproval of the untreated scratches beginning to seep blood on Hutch’s grimy forehead and cheeks. “Can’t have you going in Haymes’s office like that. Gotta make you decent.” He wet his fingers under a light stream of cool water at the sink and combed through the sweat-sticky hair that wanted to stand out on both sides. Hutch stood surprisingly still during the grooming; he didn’t let out a single peep of protest when Starsky dampened hand towels and went to work on the lacerations.

“Good enough?” Hutch asked, his voice throatier than usual, when Starsky’s solicitous hand lingered a moment longer than necessary on his scraped left cheek.

“I don’t think Dobey’ll kick you out. Come on.”

They wandered up and down two staircases and four halls before they crossed paths with a young woman in jeans and a sweater whose feather duster and cleaning cloths tucked in her back pockets equaled a crisply starched apron and lace-ruffled cap. The maid was good with directions, and they found Haymes’s office five minutes and one side hallway later.

Dobey was there as expected in his gray tweed-check blazer, but he’d discarded the matching hat, loosened his tie, and looked too rumpled to hide his real anxiety for his detective team. “Damn good police work,” he said to both of them with claps on the shoulder, “what tipped you to the scrap yard?”

Starsky’s stomach dropped like a runaway elevator at the simple question as he remembered his promise to Joe. So far, the case progressing at a speed that didn’t allow for many radio updates, Dobey hadn’t even heard about Hutch’s brush with death, at least not directly from the horse’s mouth. The captain was certainly in the dark about Joe Collandra. But with that one pertinent query, Starsky realized keeping the psychic’s name out of the police report would take the same ingenuity as writing a Clyde Tolson biography without mentioning J. Edgar Hoover in a dress.

Shit! Why the hell had that popped into his head at a time like this?

All he needed was another instance of cross-dressing slicing into his psyche.

Where were his self-assured locker room comebacks to the empty-headed bigmouths? Why couldn’t he laugh at himself? What the hell was wrong with him if one internal reference to good old J. Edna had him shivering inside his jacket in a mansion with the thermostat cranked to something like seventy-five degrees?

He caught Hutch’s eye. His partner mouthed, “Joe?” and raised both eyebrows. Starsky shook his head. Hutch lifted his chin, widening his eyes. Starsky cut one hand across his chest in an “ix-nay” gesture. Hutch said “The Korean?” and moved his shoulders in the smallest of shrugs. Starsky cocked his head to the side, then winced, and Hutch frowned and muttered, “Julio.” Starsky scratched his right eyebrow. “Huggy.” Hutch nodded.

Dobey’s sigh was audible in the silence that followed. They turned in unison to face the captain, who fixed them with a no-bullshit stare. “Try that on someone who doesn’t know you. That was a ten-minute debate condensed into a few words and gestures. What’s so complicated about my question? Who tipped you off to the scrap yard?”

“Well, Captain,” Hutch started, “Huggy had a source that put us on to the DB at the Seaside Amusement Park–”

Dobey waved his fingers in hurry-up fashion. “That turned out to be Julio Guiterrez.”

“Right, and Julio’s boss at the carwash gave us a lead on Julio’s girlfriend–”

“Who tipped us to a backroom gambling operation Julio was into for a hefty chunk of change,” Starsky said. “The top dog, Su Long, knew about Julio’s ‘big score.'”

“The deal Guitterez had with Moo Moo Caifano and Earl Pola,” Dobey clarified.

“Yeah. Once we searched their hole-up spot out by the airport–”

“And finally got a call-back from Philadelphia PD with the rest of their previous case details,” Hutch interjected.

“–It was just a process of elimination based on their MO.”

Dobey grunted, hitching his pants higher underneath his girth. “Why do I have the feeling there’s a big, gaping hole somewhere in all that?”

“You’re a thorough man, Captain,” Hutch appeased with a smile that turned into a grimace of discomfort as he reflexively patted his left ribcage. “Our official reports will be just as thorough. All the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.”

A sudden thought sideswiped Starsky with queasiness. Constructing a police report that kept Joe Collandra in anonymity would incidentally help Starsky’s weapons discharge case with IA. Fargo and his whipping boys were likely to come down easier on him if they believed he hadn’t blown up the only connections to the victim, leaving a psychic to pluck him and Hutch out of the fire.

Yeah, and you didn’t even think about that when you promised Joe to keep mum on his involvement. You might be an “accessory after the fact” in the ethics department, but–

Lost in his struggle of conscience, Starsky’s first awareness of Joe Haymes’s arrival in the study came with Hutch’s stifled cry and sharp intake of ragged breath. The grateful, teary-eyed father had turned shaking Hutch’s hand into a hard, ex-football-player backslapping embrace. Knowing how that had to feel to Hutch’s sore chest and ribs, Starsky cursed himself while accepting his thankful handshake and hug from the Turbos’ owner. If he’d been paying attention instead of wasting valuable head space on the said and done, he could’ve deflected the man’s exuberant gratitude from Hutch.

“She’s with her mother,” Haymes said. “Dr. Vintner wants her to go in for a complete exam, and I’ll go in with her, but the doc’s pleased with how well she’s doing under the circumstances. He doubts the exam will turn up anything serious. Detectives, I can’t thank you enough. Joanna, she’s her mother’s whole life. Mine, too, and I–” Choked up again, Joe cradled his brow in hand and shook his head, jaw tensed. Then his gaze lighted on Hutch’s torn, bloody shirt sleeve, and his eyes widened. “My God, you’re injured.”

Starsky valiantly resisted the urge to express aloud his wish that Haymes had noticed Hutch’s injuries before crushing him in an upright tackle of thanks. Haymes was already leading a protesting Hutch over to the red leather wing chair by the fireplace. Starsky stepped forward to join them, unwilling to let someone outdo him in the caretaking of Hutch, but Dobey stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

“What happened out there, Starsky? How bad is it?”

Watching Haymes pour Hutch a glass of ice water from the silver pitcher on its fancy silver tray atop Haymes’s fancy desk, Starsky focused on fine detail–Hutch’s embarrassed smile of acceptance when Haymes handed him the glass, the working of Hutch’s throat as he swallowed a few sips of water. Anything to ward off images of Hutch taking bullets in the chest and crashing through glass.

“Starsky!”

He didn’t take his eyes off Hutch. Bark all you want, Captain, I’m not letting him out of my sight again until he has a clean bill of health from someone with MD after their name.

“You know Hutch. To hear him talk, he slipped on a banana peel and skinned his knee.”

“Yes, I know that’s exactly what I’d get out of Hutch. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“Okay. Near as I can figure, he’s got one hell of a bruise across his chest and possibly a coupla broken ribs. I say ‘near as I can figure’ ’cause I haven’t been able to get him to sit still around a medical professional as of yet.”

Dobey made a noise of commiseration. “The reports I’ve gotten are sketchy. I know the suspects are dead, but it’s best I hear the rest now before you sit down in front of a weapons discharge form.”

“They pulled the same stunt they did in Philly,” he told the captain with a side glance that let him keep Hutch in his peripheral vision. “Tried to take out the ‘delivery boy.’ Hutch took several rifle shots to his vested chest. Hit and run. I went in pursuit. They damn near ran me down, but I had one shot, and I took it. Car went up like it had nitro strapped to the gas tank. I hightailed it back to where I’d seen Hutch go down. Found out from the uniforms that the suspects were dead on scene.”

Dobey didn’t comment on the clipped recital of facts or Starsky’s refusal to look away from Hutch’s tired slump in the wing chair, Haymes standing solicitously by his side, ready to refill Hutch’s water glass the instant it was empty.

“If I had to present this to IA,” Dobey’s voice was unusually soft, and Starsky doubted the low volume was meant to keep the conversation out of Hutch and Haymes’s earshot, “I’d say that the suspects were fleeing the scene of the attempted murder of two police officers. You used extreme force to prevent their escape, and in doing so prevented further harm to the victim or civilian bystanders. Is that about right?”

Starsky balled his fists and brought them up to pound his knuckles together in a light rhythm that didn’t drown out the nagging voices in his head. “Don’t know that all that was running through my mind at the time, Cap’n.”

“I’d guess not. Lay it out for me, then. Better me than Lieutenant Fargo. What was on your mind that’s eating at you now?”

“When I went in pursuit, I thought Hutch–” Starsky shuddered. “I forgot about the vest. I saw him take it right in the chest and crash through a plate-glass door. I thought…”

“You thought he was dead,” Dobey said with the clinically neutral tone of a police psychologist, but there was tightness to his words that hinted at a lump in his throat.

“Yeah.”

“Well, which is it that’s hounding you? Are you worried that you used deadly force on the suspects because Hutch was dead, or second guessing whether you would’ve gone in pursuit at all if you’d thought Hutch was alive and salvageable? Maybe you’re thinking you would’ve let the kidnappers go their merry way while you stayed on scene with Hutch, even if it meant they might get back to Joanna and finish their work?”

“Half a dozen of one, six of the other,” Starsky snarled.

“Motivation isn’t the province of IA in a case like this, Starsky. Motivation is between you and your Maker. I hear you questioning yourself, and that tells me you’re a solid cop and I don’t have to worry about a vigilante in my squadroom. Leave your emotions outside Fargo’s door. Go into IA with your head up and focus on the facts: what happened, what you did, the positive result of your actions. You made the right call.”

Starsky wondered if Dobey would say the same if he knew those actions had left Joanna’s life in the hands of someone with a special talent most people believe exists only in sci-fi shows or comic books. Yeah, well, that was his burden to carry, not Dobey’s, not Hutch’s.

Harder for him to ignore the other nagging voice in his head that sounded a lot like a scruffy-faced café owner, warning him that someday he’d make the wrong call in a choice between a civilian’s safety and Hutch’s. Wrong for the civilian, anyway. Never wrong for Hutch. It was some kind of biological imperative that he keep Hutch safe.

Damn. I really need to stop reading those nature books late at night.

A change in Hutch’s expression pushed Starsky from casual observation to high alert. Still clutching occasionally at his left side, Hutch lifted his re-filled glass of water to his forehead, rolling the glass along his furrowed brow, and seemed to sway in the wing chair. Haymes, talking to him in low tones, probably regaling him with a Joanna anecdote, or a day in the life of a football team owner, remained oblivious to Hutch’s distress. Hutch looked up, met Starsky’s eyes, and quickly looked away again. Starsky could hear the thoughts in his partner’s mind, and this time they sounded like Hutch, not Collandra.

“Hurts. Hurts to breathe. Feel dizzy. Got to pull myself together. Can’t worry Starsk.”

“Captain,” Starsky said sharply. “Tell Mr. Haymes to get that doctor.”

Dobey didn’t ask for explanations, solid gold man that he was. He went to one side of the wing chair, pulling Haymes away for a quiet word, and Starsky went to the other, kneeling down in front of his hurting partner.

“Having trouble breathing, buddy? Dizzy?”

Hutch gasped, his breath a funny crackling sound that turned Starsky’s heart to frozen meat. “Yeah, I…how’d you…know? My chest…tight…feels like…I’ll…burst.”

Hutch dangled the water glass by its rim and looked unconcerned about dropping it on the genuine Persian rug at his feet. That told Starsky in no uncertain terms the state of his partner’s health. Haymes hurried from the room, and Dobey stood by, looking troubled but ready to jump at the next suggestion.

“Come ‘ere, lean on me,” Starsky offered, half-rising in a crouch and opening his arms to Hutch. “Cap’n, wanna grab that glass?”

Dobey freed the crystal from Hutch’s grasp and placed it on the tray. When Hutch made no move to use the support offered, Starsky slipped his arms around the teetering Hutch, careful to avoid the painfully sore chest. The lightest pressure of his arms against Hutch’s midsection brought out a harsh, wheezy cry from Hutch, and Starsky jumped back as though yanked by invisible, superhumanly strong arms.

“Wha’? What’d I do?” Starsky demanded in the first onrush of panic.

Pounding footsteps in the hall preceded a stern, breathless voice from the doorway. “Don’t! Don’t put any pressure on his chest or abdomen! You need to ease him to the floor in a supine position.”

Starsky looked over his shoulder. Haymes, huffing and puffing, and the three-piece suit man, also dragging in deep breaths, and lugging a large black leather satchel, crowded the doorway. Eyes closed, slipping unconscious, Hutch tilted forward; Starsky clasped his shoulders to shore him up.

“Supine?” Starsky asked the stranger. “You mean flat on his back? He can’t breathe!”

“Detective, your partner has a life-threatening injury. I suggest you do as I say now and practice amateur medicine later.” The doctor prodded Haymes forward with a hand on his back. “Go call for an ambulance, Joe.”

Life-threatening? Wasn’t there usually a “potentially” in front of those words? Starsky didn’t know whether to wish this guy was a quack who didn’t know what he was talking about, or a brilliant sawbones who knew exactly what he was talking about. If he was a quack, maybe Hutch wasn’t really in danger. But if he was brilliant, then he’d know what to do to pull Hutch out of danger. Yeah. Better hope for brilliant.

Starsky’s head was throbbing, spinning as he eased Hutch forward then edged behind him to slide his arms between Hutch’s and underarm hoist him while Dobey lifted his legs. They made quick work of settling Hutch on his back on the rug-softened floor.

“Life-threatening?” Starsky barked at the doctor who was rummaging in the satchel. “How the hell do you know that? You haven’t even examined him!”

“I was a doctor in a M*A*S*H unit in Korea. I’ve seen every combat injury known to mankind, blunt force chest trauma included. Joe tells me your partner had a vested chest gunshot injury, and now he’s having trouble breathing and complaining of tightness in his chest, with the sensation he might burst. My first thought is spontaneous tension pneumothorax. That’s a nasty customer, nastier even than it sounds, and he will die if he’s not properly treated.”

In the suddenly airless, overheated room, Starsky had the irrational thought that Joe Collandra must have a hotline to everybody on God’s green earth. Then he wanted to smack himself. He means Joe Haymes. Jesus, I gotta get a grip. Gotta focus on Hutch. What does Hutch need from me right now? Not a panicky idiot. That he don’t need!

Starsky positioned himself on his knees at Hutch’s shoulder level and stroked through mussed hair, feeling the stickiness of sweat and the coarser, brittle strands stuck together with dried blood from the higher forehead scrapes. The doctor was a blur of motion with his stethoscope, listening to Hutch’s chest, feeling along his neck and throat, timing Hutch’s pulse everywhere but at the tip of his nose, and muttering words that were terrifying in their unfamiliarity.

Pulsus para-something. JVD. Hyperexpansion of the chest wall. Adventurous lung sounds? What the hell did that mean?! Oh, not adventurous. Adventitious. That sounded worse than adventurous.

“When he removed the vest after the shooting, were you present? Did you notice if he had any penetrative wounds on his chest?” the doctor asked Starsky.

“I was there but I was driving. Keeping one eye on him, one on the road. He didn’t say anything about a chest wound. I’ve taken hits with a vest and I remember bruising, soreness, that kinda thing, but no bullet holes. That’s the point of the vest. Why?”

“Because if the tension pneumo is caused by a penetrative wound, his clothes might be serving as a one-way valve and removing them could too rapidly decompress his chest.” Vintner carefully unbuttoned Hutch’s shirt and examined the dirty green tee. “I see no evidence of blood, no tears in the cloth. Good enough for me at this point.”

When the doctor sliced through the t-shirt with his super-sharp scissors, Hutch stirred, gasping, the light blue of his eyes stark against his pale, pale face.

“Hey, there, sleepyhead,” Starsky greeted him. “It’s your lucky day, Hutch, you got a regular Hawkeye Pierce lookin’ after you here.”

“I was more of a young Frank Burns, I’m afraid,” the doctor said in all seriousness. “But twice as competent.”

With his very short, fine dark hair, thin face, and needle-like nose, the guy certainly bore a resemblance to the fictional bumbling army surgeon, but the smile he aimed at Hutch was kind and confident.

“Detective Hutchinson, I’m Dr. Vintner. Yes, I’ve heard all the wine jokes. You saved my patient’s life when you brought her little girl safely home. I’m going to do my very best to return the favor.” Vintner glanced at Starsky. “I need you to move to his other side.”

Starsky knee-walked over to squeeze in between the wing chair and Hutch. Vintner promptly stretched out flat on his back alongside Hutch. Starsky stared. “What the hell kinda treatment is that?!”

“Starsky!” Dobey’s command tone improved with a hint of worry. “Let the man work!”

“It’s all right, Captain,” Vintner said, intently watching Hutch’s chest from his supine position. “People respond to shock in different ways. Mr. Starsky is falling back on what he likely knows best: protecting his partner. Detective, I don’t have time to get your partner to the hospital for a chest x-ray. I’m doing the next best thing, visualizing his thorax from his level and looking for differences in thoracic mobility and size.”

Hutch turned his head slightly in search of Starsky, who moved directly into his line of sight and offered his best, confident, we’re-gonna-make-it smile. “Hey.”

Hutch moved his blue-tinged lips in an approximation of the word “Hey” but didn’t try to smile. Starsky kept their eye contact, reaching out to flutter his fingertips over Hutch’s bare shoulder, any little point of contact.

“Joe? Will that phone reach over here?” Vintner was sitting up again on Hutch’s other side, drawing his open satchel closer. Haymes said something about making the phone reach and seconds later Vintner had the apparatus in hand. “Ambulance service here probably responds first to Memorial, but I prefer the respiratory unit at Lincoln.” He cradled the receiver between shoulder and ear, dialed with one hand, and used the other to monitor Hutch’s left wrist pulse.

“Dr. Carver, please.”

Carver? Geez, what’s it with the funky doctor names? Starsky wanted to grab Hutch up and run. Maybe he was in shock, because he really didn’t like the thought of some guy named Carver getting his hands on Hutch, good doctor or not.  

“Martin? It’s Ray Vintner. I’ve got a patient here with likely tension pneumothorax status post blunt chest trauma. Left side’s affected, right lung compressed. Listen, the ambulance isn’t here yet, so I’m going ahead with needle decompression before hypotension has a chance to set in. Right. Well, I have the large-bore Angiocath and a one-way valve in my bag, but I need you to be set up and ready to go with chest tube and Pleur-Evac, and we have to hope like hell we’re not dealing with a hemopneumo here, too. Okay. Thanks, Martin. I’ll be in touch from the ambulance during transport.”

Hutch moved his gaze away from Starsky’s for the first time during the phone consultation. Turning his face toward Vintner, he said through a wheeze, “You…want to…put a needle…into my chest…draw out…the pent-in…air.”

“He’s gonna what?!” Starsky blared.

“And where did you come by your medical knowledge?” Vintner asked Hutch with that same kind, calm, competent smile.

“National Guard,” Hutch whispered. “Was…a…medic.”

“Ah. The noble means of avoiding the Da Nang express flight. Good for you.” Vintner nodded. “And you’re right. I’m going to swab you down with Betadine and some topical anesthesia and insert an Angiocath.” A faint siren wail interrupted him. “And now’s the time to do it, so we can load you up and get you to Lincoln Hospital for a chest tube.”

Dobey cleared his throat. “I’m going outside to make a statement to the press about Joanna’s safe return, try to distract them from the ambulance.” He smiled down at Hutch. “You’re in good hands, Hutch; you’ll be up to typing me a report in no time.”

Vintner looked at Starsky. “Detective, normally I’d do this with the patient supine, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to turn you into an upright hospital bed for your partner.”

“Mind? Hell no, I don’t mind. Wha’do I do?”

Vintner directed him to prop his back against the wing chair, spread his legs, and open his arms. Watching Haymes and Vintner take charge of lifting and situating Hutch, Starsky desperately wanted to be in two places at once, able to move Hutch with the gentlest ease only he could manage, and receive him against his chest at the same time. The warm, living weight of Hutch against him slowed his pounding heart.

Best armful in the world.

Hutch turned his head, pressing his brow to Starsky’s cheek. “Right here,” Starsky murmured. “Right here with you.”

“Daddy?” came a frantic feminine voice from the hallway. “Is everything all right?”

Haymes looked up from observing Vintner’s equipment prep. “Joanna! She must have heard the ambulance. Stay out there, sweetheart!” he called to her. “I’ll be right there.” He ran a hand over his thinning gray hair and adjusted his rumpled sweater. “You going to need me, Ray? She shouldn’t see any of this, after what she’s been through.”

“No, you go ahead, Joe. Mr. Starsky and I have this under control. Right, Detective?”

“Damn right we do. Thanks for everything you’ve done, Mr. Haymes.”

“The name’s Joe, and the ledger sheet’s no where near balanced yet. You guys ever, ever need anything, you pick up the phone and call, and it’s done.” With a quick nod and a worried smile at Hutch, Haymes hurried for the hallway where his daughter waited.

Trying not to linger on the sight of Vintner swabbing down Hutch’s chest, Starsky breathed in his partner’s scent, and wished he didn’t have to leave his arms down by his side, to avoid pressure on Hutch’s chest. More than anything, he wanted to wrap them around Hutch and never let go. He remembered what Haymes had said about Joanna.

“Joanna, she’s her mother’s whole life. Mine, too….”

Hutch was his whole life.

Starsky focused all his mental energy on that one thought while Vintner began the needle insertion. Aloud, he was whispering to Hutch, nonsense meant to comfort and give him Starsky’s voice to concentrate on, but on the inside, his whole sense of self had begun shifting, changing, reshaping itself.

Hutch was his life.

He’d known it when he’d seen Hutch plow fists-first through a group of black-robed freaks for him. He’d known it in the days that followed when Hutch had sewn his sanity back into one piece thread by thread. He’d known it when he began waking from dreams of Hutch so confusing and at the same time erotic that only his temper could respond, leaving him in such poisonous moods that even police dispatchers could pick up on it.

There was a rush of air from the vicinity of Hutch’s chest, and Hutch made a noise Starsky had never heard from his partner. He turned his head just a fraction until his nose brushed Hutch’s. There they sat, back to chest, their lips less than a good inch apart, while a former army surgeon looked on in clinical detachment, more concerned with securing something on the other end of that thing he’d called an Angiocath.

“Starsk,” Hutch whispered, his breath tickling Starsky’s lips. Just the short version of his name, but the tone said I love you, I need you, thank you, and Starsky tried to cram all that sentiment into his own whisper. “Yeah, Hutch.”

Then the room came alive with ambulance personnel, Dobey following in their wake, and Starsky had to surrender Hutch to the rolling gurney, knowing now that Hutch carried more than one heart with him when he went.

He couldn’t think of a safer place for his heart to be.

~*~*~

Starsky creaked into a position in the hard vinyl chair that didn’t fuse his backbone to his shins, but he gave up on sleep. Hutch was asleep, thank God, and unaware of the weird tube thing connecting his chest to the weird suction device that sounded like a high-priced vacuum cleaner. It was supposed to continually remove air from Hutch’s chest and let his collapsed left lung heal and re-inflate, which would then allow his right lung to decompress, or something like that. All Starsky knew was that Hutch had been hooked to enough tubes and monitors to resemble some kind of alien experiment on Star Trek.

Starsky had no intention of budging from the torturous visitor’s chair until Hutch was left with only the normal human appendages. And two good-as-new lungs.

Instead of sleeping, he looked back on the last eighteen hours, beginning with the stupid spat over breakfast in the Torino. He didn’t let his mind dwell on the petty attitude he’d shown Hutch most of that morning. He ran hot with fury at himself for not finding something to say before Hutch ran off with the leather bag full of money and a date with a high-powered rifle. He’d never forget that look on Hutch’s face, that gentle “Be careful,” that tender clasp of his arm.

Tired of regrets, he tried finding humor in some of the weirdness they’d encountered in such a short span of time. Two cross-dressing criminals in one morning. How many cops could best that record? For some reason, Starsky couldn’t laugh. Even now, with Hutch out of immediate danger and expected to recover, the humor in the day was lost on him.

He would’ve walked a beat in the switchblade district in exchange for one good chuckle, but there was no laughter for trade today, not when he knew all the instances of men in the guise of women, from runaway shoplifter to dive-bar burglar, had riled him to a self-shamed frenzy inside. Repeated slaps in the face, that’s what they were; fingernail-on-chalkboard reminders that he’d been fighting change in his relationship with Hutch for fear they’d take one step off the cliff, maybe with just a simple kiss, and land onstage in a drag show with shaved legs and their dicks stuffed into pantyhose.

Amateur pop psych bullshit, Starsky scoffed. All of it! Worse, it was self-inflicted pop psych bullshit. And since he never had liked the smell of that brand of bullshit, it was high fucking time he quit wallowing in it!

Truth was, he could stick his dick wherever Hutch would let him, and vice versa, and afterward, he’d still be Starsky, and Hutch would still be Hutch. There’d be a new entity, too–a new, separate living thing between them, this sexual thing–but the face of that new entity wouldn’t be feminine, either. Or if it was, it wouldn’t be frilly and fluttery. It would be femininity at its toughest: a woman in childbirth, in agony but defiant, battling to bring her child into the world, or a mother bear faced with danger to her cubs, all teeth and claws and courage. And yeah, maybe some women’s libber would say those images were sexist, too, but tough tits, pardon his French, because they were fitting.

He and Hutch would have to fight for that new thing between them, they’d face danger on its behalf, and they’d have to be willing to suffer to protect it–and themselves.

Starsky scooted the chair closer to the bed and stroked the back of his hand lightly down Hutch’s cheek. He heard a noise behind him and closed his eyes, psyching himself up to turn and find Dobey’s astonished face. He found instead Dr. Vintner.

“I apologize for not knocking,” Vintner said, coming into the room and shutting the door lightly behind him.

Starsky didn’t back away, or jerk his hand from Hutch’s cheek. It was time to start standing up for what he felt for Hutch, and standing behind it. All the way. They couldn’t afford the littlest slip on the job, or in the squadroom, but here in this hospital room, where Hutch was just a patient, and Starsky just the concerned loved one, he wasn’t making excuses or spinning lies.

Vintner came over to the bedside and did an eyeball assessment of Hutch’s progress. “I was called into the ER a little while ago for one of my regular cardiac patients. Thought I’d stop by here and see how my unexpected patient’s doing.”

“He’s holding his own.” Starsky fought to rid his voice of defensiveness. “Thanks in large part to you.”

Vintner smiled. He leaned back against the wall beside Starsky’s chair and folded his arms over his chest. “Some partnership you guys have.” Starsky tensed and Vintner shook his head. “Relax, Detective. I know what can’t be said, or admitted to.” He scratched his chin. “I lost my first wife while I was in Korea. She died of complications during pregnancy. Our first.”

“I’m sorry,” Starsky said, knowing the words were inadequate but having none better.

“I came back home and spent all my time building my career. Dated here and there, but I was determined I’d stay single. Then, five years ago, I met the lovely Connie Chenowith at a charity golf tournament. We’ve been married for three years now. Want to see a picture of her?”

“Sure.”

Vintner delved underneath his lab coat and drew his wallet from his slacks pocket. He flipped the wallet open to the clear plastic accordion of photos and held one out for Starsky to see. The lady had bright blue eyes, sandy-blonde hair that curled and wisped around her face, intriguing features, and a quality to her that set her apart, made her shine.

“Congratulations, Doc, she’s one beautiful lady.”

“That she is. Just as sweet as she is beautiful. The gentlest soul you’ll meet.” Vintner chuckled, all pride and loving smugness. “Thing is, if I’d met Connie in 1969, I wouldn’t have looked twice. Hell, I wouldn’t have even looked once, more’s the pity.”

“Why not?”

“Because in 1969, Connie was still Conrad Chenowith.”

Starsky did a double-take, his mouth flopping open.

“Fall of ’69, Conrad took a trip to Casablanca, underwent extensive surgery and convalescence, and returned to the United States as Connie. By the time I met her, she’d been legally a woman for well over a year.”

“Oh, man.”

“No, no. There wasn’t a thing manly about her. Let me tell you, she’s a knock-out in golf knickers and Argyle sweater. I was hooked the minute I saw her. She told me about herself on our second date in my favorite little seafood place. I made a mad dash to the men’s room, where I brought up everything I’d eaten, then did some silent debating with the mirror after I cleaned myself up. Today when I said I was more like Frank Burns than Hawkeye Pierce? God’s honest truth. Uptight, self-righteous, and conventional, that was me. Well, standing there in that bathroom, forty-eight years old, widower of two decades, I knew I had to grow out of my tight-assed conventionality or I’d lose the best thing to happen to me since the Truman administration, when I met my first wife.”

“You obviously grew out of it.”

“I did. Connie helped me. Patient as the day is long, that woman. Forgave me every time I lapsed into a ‘what the hell am I doing’ attitude. We have it a little easier than you and your partner. As far as all but a few people know, we’re just like any other heterosexual couple. But there’s some risk involved. I can think of at least ten patients who’d drop me as their doctor in a heart beat if they knew I’d married a transsexual. My opinion? Good riddance if they did. Connie’s everything to me. I love my work, I’m eager for every heart surgery I perform, but if I had to choose between career and Connie?” Vintner laughed and held up the photo. “This lady would win hands down.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Vintner nodded. “And you know why? Because of the person she is on the inside. I remind myself frequently that she was that same person inside when she was still Conrad on the outside. That gets me to thinking that we humans spend way too much time concerned with the outside of other people. Not me, not anymore. Good to see you and your partner don’t either. There isn’t a damn thing wrong with knowing your priorities, Detective. Tell your partner I looked in on him.” With that, the soft-spoken physician pocketed his wallet, patted Starsky’s shoulder, and left the room.

Starsky sat in the quiet room and thought about something else Vintner had said at the Haymes’s. Something about falling back on what he knew best: protecting Hutch. The doctor had scored a bullseye with that one. He’d been trying to protect Hutch from these newer feelings, too. He realized now the stupidity in that. Hell, even with a psychic’s warning, he couldn’t protect Hutch from this tension pneumo-thing that could’ve killed him. One minute Hutch was sore but standing on his own two feet, the next he couldn’t breathe and was about to deep-six both lungs. Keeping his eye on Hutch every second hadn’t put a stop to that. Why should he keep trying to protect Hutch from him?

He understood Vintner’s decision to dive into the deep end with his lady-with-a-past. Hutch could go to Casablanca and have himself surgically transformed into a blond-headed gazelle, and Starsky would still love him. Need him. Live for him. Why shouldn’t he love him now when Hutch was everything a person could want in a human being? If a self-confessed uptight cardiologist could overcome a few preconceptions about gender and love, then Starsky could overcome a few of his own.

Twice today he’d been granted a last-minute reprieve from the unspeakable tragedy of losing Hutch. If he waited until the third strike, they might both be out…of time.

He reached over to thumb-tip caress Hutch’s bottom lip. “I promise, partner. First day I have you safely out of this place, I’m telling you the truth about what you are to me.”

~*~*~

Whistling It’s a Beautiful Morning, Starsky lifted a hand to knock on the carved door, but before he made contact a croaky voice called, “It’s open!”

Astonished, Starsky opened the door and took a second to appreciate walking into Hutch’s apartment. Too soon–far too soon–to forget that without a bulletproof vest and some weird thing called an Angiocath, he wouldn’t be walking into this place and seeing a gorgeous Hutch curled on the couch under an afghan pulled off the brass bed.

“How’d you know I was out there?” Starsky decided he’d better lock the door while he was at it. He had plans for a discussion that needed no interruptions from any other well-meaning visitors. “Giving Collandra a run for his money in the psychic business?”

“Nope. Heard you whistling. Nobody else I know can whistle a pop tune that off-key.”

Starsky rolled his eyes heavenward. “Critics!”

“Where’ve you been? I expected you half an hour ago.” Hutch pulled his legs up to his chest, giving Starsky room on the other end of the couch. “I crawled out of my nice, warm bed for you, chump.”

Hutch complaining about being out of bed? Starsky eyed him. “Still worn out?”

Hutch yawned. “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s your first real day out of the hospital. Six days in that joint will wear anyone to a frazzle, and your body had to direct all its energy to patching up your lungs. Three whole days you were hooked to that vacuum cleaner that probably cost more’n my car.”

“A Pleur-Evac, Starsky. It’s not a vacuum cleaner…as such. But you’re probably right about the cost.” Hutch yawned again and shivered. “What I’d like to know is why a stay in the hospital screws with my inner thermostat. I’ve been freezing my butt off.”

“Can’t have that!” Starsky grinned. “Lift up that afghan and let me under there; we’ll share body heat. Good, old-fashioned first aid.” He lifted a bulging paper bag for Hutch’s visual inspection. “I have another old-fashioned remedy right here.”

“Yeah, what’s that? I assume it’s the explanation for why you were an extra thirty minutes getting here?”

“Hey, if some stubborn nitwit had let me stay here last night, I woulda been here this morning, wouldn’t I?”

“I would’ve let you stay if you’d agreed to sleep in the bed with me like a sensible person. But, no, you were worried about jostling me or impeding my rest, or something stupid. And I didn’t want you to have a night on the couch after five nights of contorting yourself in that godawful hospital chair. So, yes, I made you go home and sleep in your bed.”

Starsky sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know when I’m not wanted.”

Hutch gave him a too-serious look for eleven o’clock in the morning. “Then you don’t know your head from a hole in the ground. Sit down already. What’s that remedy you were bragging about?”

“You know that little quick-mart a few blocks from my place? Mum’s Quicke-Shoppe? Little lady runs it herself. I think she’s half-English, half-Italian, and about a hundred-and-fifteen years old. Anyway, she makes incredible chicken-and-rice soup. I always thought chicken soup wasn’t chicken soup without noodles, but she made a believer outta me.” He withdrew a lidded Styrofoam container and passed it over to Hutch. “Careful, it’s hot.”

Hutch cautiously eased the lid off and breathed in the steam. “Oh, wow.” He let the lid fall to his quilt-covered lap. “Spoon, please.”

“All in good time,” Starsky assured him. “I also bought half an Italian loaf, fresh baked this mornin’, and some of her olive oil to dip it in.” He set the flatter Styrofoam container of oil on the coffee table and rested the wrapped loaf of bread beside it. Last to be dug out of the bag were the napkins and plastic soup spoon. “Here. Spoon, as requested.”

They ended up sitting side by side, the afghan spread over their laps, with Starsky on Hutch’s left, between his partner and the door. I might’ve decided to stop protecting him from me, but protecting him from everything else ain’t gonna change. Not in this lifetime.

Of course, having him on that side made it easier for Hutch to spoon-feed Starsky the occasional mouthful of soup. After one delicious spoonful, Starsky licked his lips and said, “You’re the guy just out of the hospital. Shouldn’t I be feeding you?”

“Nope.” Hutch twisted with a slight wince and angled another spoonful toward Starsky’s mouth. Starsky opened up obediently, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch’s clear, heated gaze, which in turn didn’t want to leave Starsky’s mouth.

Slurping up the soup, inching closer to Hutch, Starsky licked his lips again and watched Hutch watching him, then saw that strong, elegant jaw twitch. Such a tiny twitch, but it went straight to Starsky’s cock. He couldn’t believe something so simple could leave him quivering inside like a horny tuning fork. Hah. A horny tuning fork. Hutch would probably get a laugh out of that.

“Hey, Hutch?”

Hutch took ten full seconds–ten Mississippis, Starsky counted–to drag his gaze from Starsky’s mouth up to his eyes. “Yeah?”

Starsky didn’t bother to mention the horny tuning fork. He had something more important in mind. “I–”

“I know,” Hutch murmured.

“I want–”

“I know.” Hutch was down to a breathy whisper.

It couldn’t be this simple, could it? Starsky had planned for a drawn-out discussion in which he had to lay out his case, deal with Hutch’s counterarguments, and finesse a compromise worthy of the UN. Oh, well. Best way to see if Hutch was really with him on this: throw the guy into the pool and see if he’d swim. If not, Starsky would jump in after him and find some way to get their partnership out of deep water before they drowned.

Starsky glanced at the container of soup. “You might wanna put that down.”

Hutch blinked, and for a second Starsky was afraid he’d broken the spell with something so commonplace, but the spark of igniting fire hadn’t left the air. Hutch handed him the container instead of reaching to the side and risking his injured ribs. Starsky was impressed. That kind of higher brain function was leaving him fast, but Hutch evidently had back-up generators in the old cranium. Disposing of the container on the coffee table, Starsky maneuvered back under the afghan, taking a deep breath. Now or never. He took Hutch’s hand gently in his, drew it slowly, easily under the cover, and pulled it to rest firmly against the growing hardness in his jeans.

They each made a desperate noise at the same time.

“It’s all for you,” Starsky said through a whimper. “Last month or so, it’s all been you.”

Hutch watched him closely, thumbing around until he found the head of Starsky’s cock through the denim and rubbing until Starsky sounded like a blue movie. All sensation abruptly ceased, but Starsky didn’t care, because Hutch had moved his hand up to cup Starsky’s jaw, and that beautiful, male, slightly scruffy face came closer and closer…

As kisses went, it was clumsy. Their noses bumped, teeth scraped lips, the angle left something to be desired, and Hutch understandably had no lung stamina. But Starsky got more of a charge out of that fifteen-second smooch–an estimation: he wasn’t counting Mississippis that time–than he’d gotten out of a night of sex with some of the ladies he’d had in bed. Nothing to do with gender, Starsky figured, but the person. Like Vintner said. The inside of Hutch revved Starsky’s engine. The outside wasn’t half damn bad, either. Giving Hutch ample opportunity to draw in breath, Starsky pressed forward again, and this time Hutch’s mouth opened in concert with his, and the igniting fire burst into flame.

When Starsky got a fingernail grasp on his sanity again, Hutch was gasping. Grinning, too. And generally looking smug as a bug under a rug, as Huggy would say. Starsky flicked his tongue against his teeth, reassured that Hutch hadn’t sucked it off.

“Damn,” he said shakily. He narrowed his eyes. “I thought I’d hafta come up with some smooth apology about why I’ve been a horse’s ass lately, and how it’s ’cause I suddenly wanted to jump you and hump you like a dog, but you already knew, huh?”

Hutch’s hoarse bark of laughter made Starsky feel superhuman. His best friend–soon to be his lover–was really in one piece, back to himself, all systems go.

“Starsky, it’s just like how we work on the street. In some situations, you let me take the lead; in others, it’s better for us if you go barreling ahead. We don’t even have to talk about it, we just know, and we do what works. This is one of those situations for you to be on point, partner. I’ve known for a long time, and I’ve known you had to be the one to take the lead, bring it out in the open between us.”

“So, what happens now?”

Hutch’s smile was tender. “You’re still on point, Starsk. I’m right behind you, waiting for your signal. You’re the forward guide in this expedition. We take things at your speed, and we don’t do anything until you’re ready.”

Most times, Starsky thought he and Hutch were fairly matched in the brains department. Sure, they had developed their intellect differently: he in the school of hard knocks, and Hutch in a four-year university, but they’d come to each other pretty well matched. Then, at times like this, he got the feeling that Hutch had more to teach him than he could ever hope to learn in one lifetime. Nah. If he said that out loud, Hutch would mock-brag about being the brains in their duo, and then he’d go all quiet and serious-eyed and say that they had a lot to teach each other. And he’d be right…as usual.

“Then com’ere,” Starsky growled. His best seductive growl. Hutch had this warm, melty look on his face, so Starsky guessed the growl worked. He spread his legs and opened his arms, offering himself in the same way he had a week ago, but for a much different reason. Hutch took the hint. He stood and eased around Starsky’s leg and sat down on the edge of couch in the cradle of Starsky’s limbs, leaning back against his chest. Hutch was all heat and softness: velour above the waist; sweats below. Starsky approved.

“Um,” Hutch moaned. “Just like a week ago, but I like this better.”

“Yeah.” Starsky nibbled at Hutch’s neck. “I couldn’t exactly neck with you while Vintner was deflating your chest. You think you can reach that little container on the coffee table without offending your ribs?”

“Yeah, no problem. What is it again?”

“Olive oil.”

“Starsky, what do you need olive oil for right now?”

“You’ll see.”

“Am I about to find out you have a kinky side?”

Yep, Starsky had things to teach Hutch, all right. “I’d call it more creative than kinky. Makin’ do with what we got on hand.” He opened the container and dipped his fingers into the oil. “Make that, in hand.”

Hutch’s chuckle sounded breathless with lust, not some lung gripe. “Now what?”

“Now you peel those sweats down far as you can; down to your knees, fine with me.”

He didn’t have to look down to know that Hutch had done what he asked. With those sweats down the scent of turned-on male socked Starsky right in the nose. When that musk only made his own cock turn to hot lead in his jeans, he knew he could get through this without making a worse ass of himself. He wanted Hutch.

“Starsky?” Hutch urged in a desperate grunt-moan.

And Hutch wanted him.

Sliding his arms around that slender velour-covered waist, Starsky took a second to enjoy the feel of Hutch cradled against him. Yeah, this really was the best armful in the world. He looked down over his partner’s shoulder for a visual of the target. Damn, that was a big target, standing tall and proud out of those dark gold short curls, wet-tipped and flushed with need, and holy shit, it twitched while he stared at it. That pleading cock twitch battered Starsky’s last doubt to pieces. He shot his oil-dripping left hand forward and grasped that hot, hard flesh, that living, pulsing extension of his Hutch.

Hutch let out a string of words that made absolutely no sense, sounding higher than the moon, like all those endorphins he talked about getting from running–and not just his, but all the endorphins in a fifty mile radius–had rushed straight to his brain. All Starsky knew was those endorphins had taken the scenic route through his brain. If he could get the same feeling from running that he’d just gotten from wrapping his hand around the most intimate part of Hutch, he’d be the first man to circle the globe in Adidas.

In another replay of a week ago, Hutch turned his face until his nose brushed Starsky’s, this time seeking a kiss. Starsky closed the tiny distance the way he’d wanted to in Haymes’s study, and his mouth was ravaged by the hungry wild man in his arms. Their mouths fit together, stretching to let tongues stroke their deepest, the kiss hard, healing. Starsky trailed his fingers up and down Hutch’s shaft, sliding its skin, until he had Hutch nice and slick and pulling out of the kiss to gasp sexy obscenities.

Hutch had every right to direct some of those obscenities at Starsky when he drew his hand away, but the classy guy only asked hoarsely, “What the hell?”

“Now’s when I need some backup, partner. Wanna do you right. So take yourself in hand, yeah, like that.” Starsky then fitted his hand over Hutch’s. “Okay. Pull your meat the way you like best, oh, yeah, and my hand’s goin’ along for the ride. That way…oh, oh, man this is kinda intense…I’ll know next time just how you need it.”

Up and down his hand rode as the hand under his glided that foreskin, and when the down-strokes got harder, faster, letting that plump cockhead peek out, Hutch’s thumb swept up to greet it. The next time Hutch’s thumb had a friend, and the press of Starsky’s finger to that warm, moist tip made Hutch yell “Sta-a-r-rsky” in a way Starsky couldn’t have dreamed up if he’d tried, but oh, hell, that voice screaming his name sent zingers of pleasure through his balls.

Panting, Hutch fondled his sac with his left hand, so Starsky covered that busy hand with his right. He felt Hutch’s hand begin a light tugging, and he heard a harsh moan slip from his parted lips. “Ah, Hutch, you tug on your nuts when you jerk off?”

“No,” Hutch said, voice strangled, “you tug on my nuts.”

“Wha’?”

“In my mind…when I jerk off…it’s your hand tugging my nuts.”

“Oh sweet fuck,” Starsky swore.

“Yep…in a nutshell.”

Nutshell! Starsky laughed, Hutch’s responsive laughter vibrating against him. God, he should’ve known any sex they had together would come complete with jokes. Somehow that just made everything hotter, better. Then he had to concentrate on keeping his hands at the speed of Hutch’s, and finally he couldn’t concentrate on a single damn thing, because Hutch was howling, and warm sex-scented wetness landed on Starsky’s hand. And that was so fucking out of this world he almost embarrassed the hell out of himself. His cock throbbed painfully and there’d be a wet smear on his jeans, but he didn’t lose it.

Whew, close shave.

He needed to move, unzip, thrust, something, before his dick blew a hole through his jeans, but Hutch had slumped against him, gasping too fast for normal, and Starsky learned something else about sex with Hutch that he’d never experienced with another lover. Even with his dick threatening to jerk itself off if Starsky didn’t pay it some attention, his partner’s safety claimed top spot on his list of immediate concerns. His brain sent a message southward for his cock to shut the hell up already because his balls wouldn’t really pop like squeezed grapes in the next few seconds, and he began rubbing Hutch’s chest through the velour.

“Hey, you okay?”

Hutch’s gasps had evened into slightly longer breaths. “I’m…good, Starsk. Every possible way a guy can be. Hoo, yeah, I’m good. Your turn.”

“Wait a second, are you forgettin’ where you were yesterday?”

“I was doing a good job of it until you reminded me.” Already twisting around in the loose embrace, Hutch cupped Starsky’s face in his sticky hands, and Starsky got another ball-clenching jolt from knowing he’d have Hutch’s come smeared along his jaw line. “They kept me until they were absolutely, positively sure I was fine, Starsk. Okay? So stop with the worrying, because I’m about to change how you look at olive oil forever.”

“How I look at–huh?”

But Hutch didn’t offer an explanation, too busy shimmying the rest of the way out of his sweats, and then going to work on Starsky’s jeans. Starsky thought he might have said something humiliating and corny when his cock got its first kiss of freedom and his balls had room to do their thing. He was so caught up in his relief he didn’t notice that Hutch had knelt on the floor between his legs until silky liquid poured over his burning cock.

“Mother’a–!”

Hutch bent his head over Starsky’s groin, enthusiastically lapping up the oil he’d just dumped on Starsky’s cock, in slow, wide licks that had those endorphins in Starsky’s brain doing jumping jacks. Just when Starsky thought he might get off on that, Hutch opened his sexy mouth, closed his lips around Starsky’s cockhead, and did some kind of lightly drilling thing with his tongue that would turn any guy into a grunting caveman.

“Ungh, yeah, ungh, yeah.”

Hutch wasn’t done. He slid the seal of his lips slowly down Starsky’s throbbing shaft and then started up a suction that could pull a bowling ball through a straw. Starsky was only human, unlike his partner who was apparently a cocksucking devil in angel’s clothing. He’d waited his turn; he couldn’t wait a split-second longer. Jerking backward so hard, so fast his cock popped free of that devilish suction just in time to save his lover a strangling, he erupted all over Hutch’s gorgeous, bright-eyed, flushed face.

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod, HUTCH!”

His chest heaved nearly hard enough to stretch his red jersey, his balls were tingling, but he tried to keep his eyes open to see Hutch’s reaction. In the farthest corner of his mind he promised himself when he re-gained his sanity, maybe ten years down the line, he’d ask Hutch where the fuck he’d learned to give head like that. Right now he had something more important to say if he could get his abused vocal chords to cooperate.

Hutch stared up at him, smile glistening, not bothering to wipe away the physical proof that he’d just given Starsky the best orgasm of his life. Only one thing a guy could say to that, and he hoped to God Hutch could hear the truth in it and wouldn’t take it for just orgasmic sentimentality.

“Holy shit I love you.”

For that Starsky got a kiss, sticky and wet in more ways than one, Hutch just surging forward and planting it on him, and he loved that Hutch assumed he wouldn’t mind sharing a little of the stickiness. Afterward, Starsky shed his jersey, swiped at his face with it and handed it over to Hutch. A little stickiness was sexy; too much, too long was gross. Starsky’s cock jerked when Hutch pressed the shirt to his face for a second, breathing in, before he wiped his face dry. Then it was time to get comfortable. Starsky talked his post-orgasm spaghetti noodle legs into standing so he could lose his jeans. Hutch had a similar idea, yanking that velour shirt up and over his head, leaving tousled hair Starsky couldn’t wait to smooth down. They settled naked on the couch together, Starsky underneath, Hutch curled around him. Starsky immediately went to work on Hutch’s soft hair, running his fingers through it, patting it down to its usual neatness.

“Pickles,” Hutch said.

Starsky wondered if that incredible orgasm had done blown his eardrums along with his mind. “Did you say pickles?”

Hutch raised his head from Starsky’s chest and gave him a serious look. The guy could poker-face a joke with the best of them, but the flush over his forehead and cheeks looked more embarrassed than sexual, and that didn’t come with the usual Hutchinson gag. “You think I can’t read your face like a book? Three seconds after you came down from Mars you were asking yourself where I learned to go down on a guy.”

Starsky’s turn to flush. “And the answer’s pickles?”

For a second Hutch’s expression held a fierce warning, a sharp-eyed, squared-jaw reminder that he could take bullets in his vested chest, crash through a glass door, and still chase around the town trying to find a missing girl. Starsky got a surprising shiver of arousal that such a man wanted to get naked and sticky with him.

“Even one smart ass remark out of you, Starsky, and there’ll be more hell to pay than Joe Haymes could write a check for. I’m only telling you this so you won’t be thinking I have some wild, exotic past you have to compete with. Yes, the answer is pickles. My sexual experience with men consists of a circle-jerk my senior year in high school, and an unrequited attraction to my freshmen philosophy professor at U of M.” The fierce look gave way to a sheepish smile. “Didn’t want to completely botch the first time I tried to give you head, so I’ve been…uh…practicing on pickles. Those big, whole dills.”

“Pickles.” Starsky didn’t know whether to be amused, turned on, or insulted.

Hutch read his face again because he raised his eyebrows and said with a hint of defensiveness, “What? They’re long, thick, juicy, and salty. Tell me where I’m off base.”

Starsky grinned then. “Geez, you’ve been going down on pickles for me?”

“Yes, Starsky.” Hutch laid his head down again. “I’ve all but killed my gag reflex, but now I hate pickles. I don’t mind telling you, the real thing is so much better.”

“Yeah, well, you know what you’ve done?”

“Hm?”

“I like pickles. Especially on a burger. How’m I supposed to eat a burger with pickles and not pop wood thinking about you deep-throatin’ a dill?”

Hutch’s rich chuckle felt so damned right against Starsky’s breastbone. “I’m looking forward to that. Something tells me I’m going to be giving in more often when you want a fast-food lunch.”

Starsky sighed in plain contentment. If he had whiskers and a tail, he’d be purring all over the place. “How’s it like this, Hutch?”

“What?” Hutch yawned.

“This thing with us. So easy, so comfortable, like we’ve been doing it forever.”

“Oh, that’s simple.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure.” Hutch sounded sleepy. “We’re in love.”

Starsky was surprised Hutch didn’t comment on the heart doing the can-can just underneath his ear. “Yeah? Yeah. But, still, it bein’ so new and all–”

“Starsky,” Hutch said in that I-know-better voice, “we’ve been in love for years.”

Oh. Starsky wrapped his arms around his half-asleep partner. Yep, Hutch had things to teach him, all right.