The Morning-After Marriage

Vanessa has walked out on Hutch, he’s been on an extended bender and is recovering from it now at Starsky’s place. They’re in the kitchen at something after midnight.

This little pre-slash slice-of-life backstory popped into my mind after reading “Long Way Home” by Hutchrules3. It wasn’t intended to be anything as formal as a sequel, but I wanted to give credit where due for the inspiration to tackle my first serious, if brief, piece of fiction just to see if I could do it. I share it with her kind permission.

Starsky lifted the glass teapot, reconsidered, and put it back down on the counter. “Still hurtin’, buddy?”

“Only when I scream.”

“You don’t want any more of this camouflage stuff, do you?”

“Chamomile. No, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Dobey’s pissed. Did I tell you we were supposed to be on stakeout this morning?”

Hutch stared at him, eyes wide. “You tell him I was sick?”

Oh yeah. The whole story. Dobey had reacted with undisguised compassion. “Since when does sick matter? Adams and Moyer took it. We owe ’em.”

Hutch nodded, adjusted his teacup’s handle to about five after three o’clock, then started to push back his chair. “Well. Guess we better hit the sack if we gotta be in tomorrow bright and early.”

“Relax. We got days off.”

The look Hutch shot him delivered equal parts relief and hope.

“There’s a lot of people in your life who care about you, Hutch. No matter what happens over the next couple of weeks, you should try to remember that.” He looked up at Hutch then, prepared to meet a smile, but saw only a brief spark in his eyes before they went dark again.

“She probably already has divorce papers ready for me.”

There were times Starsky could imagine Vanessa plunging one of her perfectly manicured hands right into Hutch’s gut, grabbing whatever would hurt the most, and giving it a good hard twist. Like now.

He pushed himself away from the counter more aggressively than he meant to, so he took a moment to collect himself. Then he paced around behind Hutch’s chair and set both hands firmly down on his shoulders. “I think you need to let the people who really love you show you what it’s all about, babe, and don’t look back.”

Hutch closed the small gap that separated the back of his head from Starsky’s chest, and let out a ragged breath. “It’s not the past that’s getting to me. It’s the future.”

Most of what Starsky wanted to say got lost in his throat. The option of giving Hutch’s shoulders an impromptu massage seemed like it would relax them both, so he settled for that, until after a few minutes it seemed Hutch was growing anxious again.

“So. Feel like a shower?”

Hutch responded to his cue and abruptly squared his shoulders, shrugging off Starsky’s hands. He made a broad farce of sniffing his own airspace and struck his idea of a classic Marx Brothers pose. “I soitinly hope so f’your sake.”

“Aw, Hutchinson.” A soft hit to the head. “I keep tellin’ ya. You’re too white-bread for Groucho.”

“Sorry, Ollie.”

“See? That’s better. Go with your strengths.”

“Second banana to the likes of you?”

“Could be worse. Could be cleanin’ up after the elephant act.”

“That supposed to cheer me up?”

“Cheers me up. And wither I goest –”

“No, sorry. Can’t keep up with you, Starsky.”

“Sure you can, ’cause I’m taking life easy. Between shows right now and so are you. So, hit the shower. Unwind.”

“Good idea, Ollie.”

“Yeah.”

“Messed up your sheets when I was sick before.”

“Nah, well. I’ll change ’em while you’re in the bathroom. Leave the dishes. Come on.”

Starsky watched Hutch stand and shake some kinks out. He figured if he could get him to narrow his perspective on the rest of his life to fifteen minutes at a stretch, he just might make it through Thursday. Good enough start.

Starsky straightened up the room, changed the bed linens, tossed a clean pair of pajamas onto what would be Hutch’s pillow, did the dishes, and set a fresh glass of water with two aspirins on a plate next to the alarm clock. He was just turning it to “Off” as Hutch and a cloud of steam emerged together from the bathroom.

Starsky turned down the covers. “Feeling better?”

“Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille. Closer to human, anyway. What, you going to bed now?”

“Nope. Me next.” He jerked a thumb toward the bed as he headed for the shower. “You get in there and relax. Be with you in a minute. That’s about how much hot water you left me.”

“But I just got up. I’m not tired. We had breakfast–”

“It’s night, dummy. That was a midnight snack. You confused? You said yourself either we get some sleep or we’ll be zombies tomorrow. Maybe we don’t have to be cops at oh-dark-thirty as usual, but there’s…you know…we got a lot to do. Over your place….”

Suddenly, it was quiet.

Starsky turned back, ran his hand over Hutch’s wet hair and patted his jaw, noting with a tug of sadness that Hutch had shaved, too. “You’re okay.”

When Starsky came back from his shower, the aspirins and half the water were gone and Hutch was sprawled face down across two-thirds of the bed, dead to the world. Normally, Starsky might have greeted this with some choice words and assertive reassignment of space. He let it go at digging blankets and sheets out of the closet, covering Hutch with most of them and heading for the couch with the rest.

He punched a cushion into the shape of something that could serve as a pillow and made himself as comfortable as his opinion of Mrs. Kenneth Hutchinson would permit. He considered the idea of hating Hutchinson for loving the bitch. Instead, he decided he’d just make damn sure that whatever Hutch once dreamed she could offer him would pale in comparison to what he’d have now, without her.