Time Off

182

Originally written for and published in the 2025 SHareCon Advent Calendar, appearing behind the door on December 4, 2025.

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Hutch greeted him with his usual, “Hey,” but he didn’t seem as calm as his voice sounded. He was dressed casually in jeans and shoes, a green tee-shirt, black plaid buttoned shirt, and his dark green baseball jacket—the same clothes he’d been wearing all day at work.

“What brings you here?” Starsky wondered—and only a little concerned—despite that he was always happy to see his partner, and especially when it was a pleasant surprise. Maybe Hutch stopped by to invite him out for an after-dinner drink. Starsky was already dressed comfortably for the evening in sweats, but he knew Hutch could easily talk him into a change of clothes for a romp on the town.

But Hutch appeared sheepish and distracted. He wrung his hands, faced into the living room—as if he’d never been in it before—and heavily sighed.

“Are you okay?” Starsky cautiously asked. He closed the door and stood beside Hutch to look into the room with him, searching for Hutch’s intentions, but finding none.

“Yeah,” Hutch said in a low voice. “I… um… I came to tell you something.” He half-turned to face Starsky and nervously smiled. “Do you have a minute?”

“For you, the world.”

Hutch lightly laughed and walked further into the room. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“When has that ever stopped you?”

“I guess never,” Hutch agreed in a low voice. “Well… anyway…”

“What’s up?” Starsky asked when Hutch stalled. He couldn’t help but feel there was something Hutch wanted to tell him and yet didn’t want to tell him at the same time. Maybe Hutch needed to collect his thoughts before saying what he’d come to say. “Do you want a drink?”

“No,” Hutch quickly said. “I won’t stay long.” He went to the bookcase and pulled a random book off the shelf, looking it over as if he had an interest in it when it was obvious he didn’t.

“What’s going on, Hutch?”

Hutch returned the book to its shelf, but still didn’t say anything; he stared into nowhere instead.

“Just spit it out, buddy,” Starsky implored him, joining Hutch at the corner of the bookcase and hoping for his attention. He was finally concerned. “This is me you’re talking to.”

“Right. Um… I’m going to ask Dobey for some time off.”

“Time off?”

“Just a few weeks.”

“What for?”

“To get my head straight.”

“From what?”

Hutch sadly laughed. “That part isn’t relevant.” He began to turn away, but Starsky grabbed Hutch’s elbow and stopped him in his tracks.

“You can’t be serious, Hutch.”

“I’m upside down lately is all,” Hutch explained, still avoiding eye contact. “I have to clear my head.”

“I don’t mean you can’t be serious about what’s bothering you. I’m saying you can’t be serious about telling me you need time off for a few weeks and then not tell me why.”

“It’s personal.”

Since when did Hutch keep anything that personal from Starsky that he’d need nearly a month to assimilate it?

“Did you get somebody pregnant?”

“No,” Hutch said with a hint of annoyance. “Nothing like that. Just some confusion I need to work through.”

Starsky suddenly felt anxious about Hutch’s welfare and was prepared to comfort them both. “You’re not sick or anything, are you?”

Hutch finally looked at Starsky. He obviously wanted to be understood—at least as far as he was willing to explain himself. “It isn’t anything to worry about, Starsk. I’m not in danger. I’m not dying.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, accepting those words as truth—and feeling relieved. He was able to see Hutch more objectively: still strong, both in muscle and in health. Nothing out of the ordinary in his appearance. His hair was combed. He was clean-shaven. He didn’t look roughed up like he’d been in a physical fight. He didn’t smell like women’s perfume. He didn’t reek of alcohol, either.

Starsky would give him what he needed. “So… we’ll talk to Dobey in the morning and—”

“Not ‘we,’ ” Hutch blurted. “Me. I need time off… from… everything.” He broke their precious eye contact.

Starsky’s heart sank. “Oh. Did I do something? Are you mad at me?”

“You’d know it if I was.”

“But you want time off… from me, too?”

“I need to be alone for a while.”

“You know that affects me.”

“Have I asked you for much?” Hutch snapped, sounding frustrated, not irritated.

“No more than the reverse.”

“Then, can you give me what I need right now without the interrogation?”

Starsky squinted at him. He didn’t understand what could possibly have happened in Hutch’s life to make Hutch want to be alone, to not share what troubled him, not even a hint of it. “I can only wonder how you’d be feeling right now if these tables were turned,” was all Starsky could think to say to defend his own feelings.

Hutch obviously felt the verbal punch—and seemed to appreciate it. “It’s complicated, Starsk. I have some time coming to me, so I’m going to head up to the mountains and—”

“You don’t think I can help you?”

“I’m not sure anyone can. I’m not sure I can.”

They looked again into each other’s eyes—until Hutch sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor. That he still stood there made Starsky believe he did want Starsky’s help, but didn’t know how to ask for it.

At the same time, Starsky didn’t feel permitted to pry any deeper, either. “I’ll see you in a few weeks then?”

“I guess so,” Hutch reluctantly said with a nod as he walked to the front door.

“Will you keep in touch so I know you’re okay?”

“I’ll call you when I get home,” Hutch replied, not committing to Starsky’s wish. But he stopped in the foyer when he reached it and stood with his back to Starsky.

Nearly half a minute passed.

“Hutch?”

Hutch turned around and looked across the room into Starsky’s eyes, appearing defeated and helpless. But he sure was beautiful—even when he was obviously troubled by something. Maybe that was the reason he looked so formidable: alpha male, needy, yet self-preserving. “I can’t explain it,” Hutch said with a shrug. He apparently did need Starsky—more than he needed time off.

Starsky took a few steps toward him. “How long have we known each other?”

“A long time,” Hutch figured, respectfully.

“In all those years, have you ever known me to help you out of a bind?”

Hutch sadly laughed. They were—once again—on the same bittersweet wavelength. What could have been worse than Hutch’s heroin addiction or the time he was wanted on a murder charge?

“Try me,” Starsky implored him, as if he hadn’t already been vetted.

Hutch stared at him. “Try you, huh?”

“What do you have to lose?”

“My face, for starters.”

Starsky smirked. “I don’t suppose you can explain that crack.”

Hutch crossed the floor with a certain confidence and didn’t stop until he’d entered Starsky’s personal space and made him back up a few steps. He paused only long enough to momentarily study Starsky’s eyes and his lips—and then Hutch leaned in, pushing past his apparent apprehension and braving a bold move.

Starsky only had a moment to brace himself for a kiss; he was startled, confused, unprepared. But a kiss wasn’t what Hutch planned, was it? A moment later, and Starsky should have trusted his instinct; if asked, he couldn’t say why he didn’t thwart Hutch, except that it was Hutch, and the closeness felt… normal.

Natural.

Them.

Hutch closed the remaining distance, backed Starsky up against the bookcase, and gently kissed Starsky’s lips. If Hutch was nervous, it didn’t come through in his touch; he was sure of himself. Maybe he didn’t think he’d ever get the chance again and he planned to make the most of it while he could.

The timing and the tenderness of the kiss and the smell of Hutch, his skin and his cologne, the sound of his deep breath, his maleness and drive, his closed eyes and his taste, all spurred Starsky into impulsively reciprocating; they fused tongues, lips, breaths. Every bit of Hutch’s warmth and wet mouth and his fierce presence and his willful determination were filled with an unrepressed passion—and it titillated Starsky in a way he couldn’t possibly ignore.

But just when he began to feel consciously aroused, Hutch abruptly broke them apart. He stepped back, licked his lips as he breathlessly panted, locked eyes with Starsky, and appeared somewhat bewildered—a kind of fire mixed with fear in his blue eyes.

“That’s what I couldn’t explain,” Hutch admitted in a more even tone after taking a deep breath, and despite his primal, untethered appearance. He wasn’t facetious.

There was truth in his statement. No words could have explained his action.

“Okay,” Starsky slowly replied, still in disbelief. “I honestly didn’t see that coming.” He needed to justify his erection; it was impulsive, unplanned, and against his wishes. Wasn’t it?

Hutch shrugged. He was obviously perplexed, too. “I didn’t expect to do that without getting punched.”

Starsky understood Hutch’s earlier comment about having his face to lose. “You don’t need three weeks’ time off to figure this out,” Starsky then decided. “We’re going to deal with it right now.” He himself needed a resolution.

Hutch spun in place. “I don’t know.”

“I do know. Sit down.”

Hutch seemed to crave direction because he immediately walked to the sofa and sat on one end of it. “I don’t know, Starsk,” he repeated. “We’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this.”

“But I have a lot of questions,” Starsky argued, sitting on the coffee table in front of Hutch, facing him, his knee pressed to Hutch’s knee to hold his attention, and feeling grateful to have lost his budding erection; Hutch didn’t appear to have one. “You can’t do something like that, Hutch, and not answer some questions. Am I right?”

Hutch kept their steady eye contact and surrendered. “Okay.”

“How long have you been thinking about kissing me, hm?”

“Going on a month now.”

“Have you ever thought about kissing me before; I mean, at some other time in the past 10 years?”

“No.”

“Never once?”

“Not once.”

Starsky leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, and looked Hutch firmly in the eye; he needed direct, honest answers, even if they startled him. “Have you ever wanted to kiss any other guy?”

“No, of course not.”

“In your entire lifetime?”

“Never.”

Starsky thought a moment; he was probably as confused as Hutch was beside himself. Where did Hutch’s desire come from? Where did he expect it to go? “Did that kiss give you a boner?”

“I was too focused on the kiss—and not getting killed—to feel anything else,” Hutch said.

They obviously didn’t have that in common. “But, I mean, in this trouble you’re having, do you want to do more than just kiss me?”

Hutch sat forward and dropped his face in his hands. He groaned.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’ ” Starsky concluded, stunned for a second time. “You had no problem with the ‘no’s. So… just to be clear… are you saying you want to… suck my dick… fuck me… that kind of thing?”

Hutch bent over and buried his face in his crossed arms. In a muffled voice, he said, “Maybe you didn’t hear me when I told you I need some time off.”

Starsky was taken aback by what Hutch had just told him—using words without actually saying them. “Hey,” he said, nudging Hutch. He now needed more eye contact. “What made you start feeling like this?”

Hutch straightened; he ran his fingers through his blond hair, tidying his appearance, or maybe he was just trying to comfort himself. He wouldn’t look at Starsky. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Starsk. Please don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just helping you figure this out. What was going on in your life when this started?”

Hutch appreciated the importance of context because he had a clear answer. “You’d been out of the hospital a while… went into rehab… I couldn’t stop thinking about how close you’d come to dying… or being paralyzed… and I was feeling anxious… paranoid, maybe.”

“About losing me?”

“You have no idea how terrified I was.”

“I have more of an idea than you know.”

Hutch didn’t argue the point. They’d both nearly lost each other over the years—more than once.

“Well, there are other ways to lose you,” Hutch did say. “I overheard you tell Huggy that you had a brand-new lease on life, that you might quit the job, settle down, get married, have some kids.”

“And things would change between you and me?”

“Nature of the beast.”

“Okay… so?”

“We’ve talked about how we get everything we need in life from each other—except that one thing.”

“Sex.”

“And I started thinking… if we did get everything from each other, including the sex, then maybe I could stop worrying about losing you.”

“There’s a leap.”

“You’re not taking me seriously, pal.”

Starsky grunted. “I’m not finding it funny, either. But you gotta understand… this is so…”

“Shocking?”

“More like, surprising. I mean, we’ve always been really close, you know?”

Hutch leaned back into the sofa, dropped his head against the cushion, stared at the ceiling, and deeply sighed. “We’re close, Starsk, but not that close.”

“Are you feeling freaked out because you’re having these thoughts and feelings or because you can’t do anything about them?”

Hutch thought for almost a minute. “I’m not put off by how I feel, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he then decisively said. “I’m fucked up because I don’t know how to turn it off and I know I should. I’ve been trying to, but can’t.” He rolled his head and looked pleadingly at Starsky. “That’s why I need time off, partner, so I can make sense of this and get it behind me.”

“Why did you think you couldn’t talk to me about this?”

“Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

Hutch frowned, but answered anyway. “I remember when John Blaine got killed; you told me I couldn’t be ‘that sophisticated,’ that a ‘man preferring another man isn’t as casual as someone having a bad cold.’ ‘Not that sophisticated,’ and yet there I was a minute ago, French kissing you.”

“I French-kissed you back.”

“That’s your problem,” Hutch said with a kind smile. “You have weaknesses I don’t have; we can talk about those another time.”

They both knew Hutch was Starsky’s weakness—and now the roles were reversed—but Hutch was still clueless about how deep Starsky’s proclivities went.

Still, he didn’t argue; Starsky had been self-preserving in the past. He understood Hutch’s dilemma, but he agreed that this new situation wasn’t technically about him, so he pushed on. “Do you think man-on-man sex is sinful?”

“No.”

“Unnatural?”

“I guess not for me—or I wouldn’t be feeling it, would I?”

“I mean, do you think it’s unnatural for two men to have sex?”

“You know I don’t. Not for gay men.”

“So if it’s natural for you and not unnatural for gay men… are you only now, maybe, realizing that you’re gay?” Starsky didn’t believe that about Hutch, but he had to ask.

Hutch rolled his eyes. “You’re not listening. I only began feeling this way about a month ago—and only for you.”

“I’m listening. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it, that’s all. I’m not judging you, either. So let’s keep digging, hm? You’re only feeling this way because you’re afraid to lose me, but—”

“It started out that way,” Hutch was quick to correct him. “The problem now is that I fantasize all the time about having a romantic relationship with you because I have always loved you, implicitly trust you, can’t live without you, would die for you. How fantastic would it be to have it all with the person who already means the world to me?”

Nothing Hutch said in those words was anything Starsky couldn’t say in return.

“So, if these feelings were reciprocated,” Starsky carefully asked, “would you want to keep them?”

“You mean… if they were reciprocated by you?”

“Well, who else, dummy?”

“It’s moot, regardless.”

“Because?”

“Because they won’t be reciprocated. I’m well aware of your views on gay sex—and even if they changed, it’d be a complicated situation.”

“In what way?”

“It would blow up our careers and our lives.”

Starsky didn’t think an intimate, sexual relationship between them would be that drastic, but he remembered all too well how afraid of it he’d once been. “So we conclude that you’d rather put these feelings behind you; that’s what you want. It’s not that you have an interest in playing them out—if you could.”

Hutch squinted at him. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. I’m just asking. Where’s your head? Where’s your heart-of-hearts? I mean, these are feelings you want behind you because they can’t be fulfilled, not because you think there’s anything wrong with them, right?”

Hutch slowly drew a breath as he sat up, away from the back of the sofa. He searched the space between them for the answer to Starsky’s question, taking his time to genuinely consider it. “It’s an in-between,” he finally said. “I don’t think how I feel is wrong, but it’s pointless. It’s best that I put these feelings away.”

“Best for you?”

“Obviously.”

“And best for the partnership?”

“For sure.”

“Best for our jobs and our lives.”

“Most definitely.”

“Why? I mean, if how you feel isn’t hurting me, then why care if you’re attracted to me? Why make such a big deal out of this?”

“Because I don’t want to feel desire for you that isn’t… appropriate… or can’t be fulfilled.”

“Kind of like you’d have unrequited love?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said, sadly. “It’s not a healthy way to live.”

Starsky understood that, too.

“If you put your desire away, are you going to resent me for it?”

“Why would I?” Hutch asked, confused.

“Because I’d be the one keeping you from requited love, no?”

“This is my doing.”

“Are you going to feel embarrassed for ever having had these feelings?”

“Only if you hate me for them.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

“This conversation isn’t getting us anywhere, Starsk. I need what I need, and what I need is to let this thing go.”

They didn’t speak to each other for nearly a minute. In the silence, holding eye contact, Starsky understood that he was the one between them to make something of the facts; he had the power to change their perspective—and he knew it. Hutch was feeling vulnerable, weak, confused, maybe even heartbroken. They had those feelings in common, albeit at different times in their lives.

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve been there,” Starsky bravely said. “I know what you’re going through.”

“This isn’t a million relationships we’ve had over the years, Starsky. Don’t patronize me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. But I stand by my statement.”

Hutch glared at him. “You’re making light of what I just confessed here tonight.”

“I’m not. Hear me, Hutch. I’m saying I’ve been there—where you are right now.”

“You’ve wanted sex with a man,” Hutch sarcastically replied, “a man who’s been your partner for the past ten years? You’ve been there of all places, huh? This situation isn’t the same as—”

“I know, numb nuts,” Starsky emphatically said, cutting him off as he lightly punched Hutch’s leg. “I meant what I said and I’ll say it again. I’ve been exactly where you are. Years ago.”

Hutch’s stare softened. “You’re not saying you once wanted sex with me,” he surmised, no longer certain he understood what Starsky was trying to tell him.

“When I got shot up in the restaurant,” Starsky explained, “and you took such care of me, I knew then how much I needed and loved you.” He was finally in a safe place to bare his soul, despite his initial apprehension. “When I nearly died from poisoning and you held me tight to ease my pain… I knew then I was in love with you.”

Hutch closed his mouth; he appeared as dumbstruck as he was speechless, and his body posture was tense. But Starsky no longer felt afraid of the truth; Hutch couldn’t hurt him—not physically and, more importantly, not emotionally. Hutch’s own feelings would see to that.

“When you were trapped under the car in the canyon,” Starsky continued, “I was never more terrified of losing you. Trust me when I say that I know how life-changing that kind of fear is; I get why you’re feeling this way. But I’d been wrestling with my desire for you for a long time before then—and I knew how to bury it.”

“You’re serious.”

“It was a lonely time for me, Hutch. I’m only telling you now because I want you to know that I know how you feel.”

“And these feelings you say you had… we’re talking about you wanting to kiss me? fuck me? suck my dick?”

“Same urges you’re having,” Starsky admitted, feeling flushed with the new possibility that he might finally share that kind of love with Hutch. “Got a hard-on a minute ago when you kissed me.”

“Wow,” Hutch said, barely audibly. His breathing was audible, and he combed his hair again with trembling fingers. He was visibly blown away. “I had no idea you ever felt this way about me.”

“I was embarrassed to tell you. Or scared. Or ashamed. Maybe all those things. Mostly, I couldn’t imagine you feeling the same way.”

“There’s some irony.”

Starsky wasn’t finished. “Then Terry came along; she was my last escape from wanting you. By the time that horrible situation was over, I’d finally put wanting to be romantic with you into my past. It was only going to be unrequited love, and I was done feeling that for anybody, even for you.”

“I remember that we sat on the bench after she passed; you were devastated, and—”

“That’s when I made my decision to not love anyone again—at least not like that, and definitely not you. No one could break my heart like you could.”

“I didn’t know I was.”

“Because it was my doing,” Starsky explained, using Hutch’s earlier assessment of his own personal struggle.

But Hutch still seemed sad about his partner’s experience. “What about John Blaine? That was the perfect time to tell me how you felt—or were you really that done with it?”

“I admit it: he stirred up those feelings in me again—but I resented it. I was angry about it. Hurt. Disappointed in him, but mostly in me. I also used that situation to convince you—and myself—that I should never have had those kinds of urges for a man, know what I mean?”

“Ashamed of how you felt?”

“Yeah. I’d be damned if I was going to be that kind of man, a man who prefers a man.”

“Because you think it’s unnatural?”

“I did. But then I was having those feelings for you and, like you are tonight, I figured it must be natural for me. And that was scary—for so many reasons. But it was also… what was your word?”

“Moot?”

“Pointless.”

“And Peter Whitelaw?”

“I was jealous that he could be so open about himself—right out there in public—and I couldn’t even tell the person I loved and trusted the most in all the world how I felt about him. I took my frustration out on Whitelaw. I wanted him to be as private about it as I had to be. I wasn’t fair to him.”

Hutch sadly laughed and briefly covered his face in his hands again. “I don’t believe this,” he said under his breath, and not that he didn’t believe Starsky, but that he obviously found the situation even more dismaying than it was before he’d walked through the door into Starsky’s apartment that night. Another minute passed before those beautiful blue eyes looked at Starsky again. “I’m sorry you were alone in that struggle.”

“I still had you in the end,” Starsky swore with a gentle smile, “and that’s all that mattered.”

“But we should be able to tell each other anything. I’m sorry neither one of us was able to do that sooner.”

“Well, we’re here now, Hutch.”

“We’re here now, Starsk,” Hutch echoed in a soft voice. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit. But now that you know how I once felt and could feel again—if you let me—and I know how you feel, and neither of us is feeling this way because the other one of us is putting pressure on him, or feeling this way because we’re afraid of losing him, then… do you still want to get these urges you have for me behind you?”

Hutch laughed, sounding more relaxed. He leaned back into the sofa, but kept his eyes on Starsky. A long minute passed before Hutch answered that question; he wasn’t going to be impulsive. “Our jobs, Starsk.”

“Hey, maybe you’ve forgotten that we’re undercover cops—and good ones at that. We can fake anything until we don’t want to anymore.”

Hutch laughed. He was definitely considering it. “Okay,” he eventually said, “if you don’t think it would break us, I guess I’d like to see where it goes.”

“We’ve been through worse times?”

“Have we?” Hutch joked. “Maybe we just make things more complicated. We haven’t exactly hit any relationship home runs in our 36 years.”

“Maybe that’s why: they’ve been romantic relationships with everyone but you and me.”

Hutch shrugged and then agreed. “We have a lot more between us that works than most people will ever have.” He no longer looked anxious or sounded uncertain; he was relieved and relaxed, a hint of a smile on his face. “We’re already each other’s… everything else. We know nothing can come between us.”

“Just look at our track record,” Starsky suggested—rhetorically. “It proves we were made for each other.”

“I can’t believe how much I’ve wrestled with this and all along I didn’t have to. And I can’t believe you went through this without me.”

“You wouldn’t have been ready to deal with it back then.”

“Maybe not, but who knows?”

“Yeah, who knows? But water under the bridge. So… are you still wanting some time off to think it through?”

“Time off would be nice, Starsk, but not for that reason.”

Starsky was surprised by the enormity of his own relief. He smiled at Hutch. Was there anything left to say? Was he really going to be gifted that kind of love with Hutch after all those empty years of once wanting it and never getting it and believing it was gone forever?

Hutch smiled back at him, warmly and invitingly, his blue eyes shining brightly in the lamplight. “Any other suggestions or questions, Detective?” he asked, apparently seeking a similar closure.

“Yeah, one,” Starsky said, feeling suddenly excited as he affectionately squeezed Hutch’s knee—and already knowing the answer to his question. His entire self came to life. “When do you want to start the time-off cock clock, hm?”

Hutch reluctantly laughed. He held Starsky’s hand and looked longingly into his eyes. “Fear be damned. I can’t think of a better time to begin than now, can you?”

“Nope.”

“You really want to do this, huh, Starsk? If I kissed you again, right now, you’d be all in?”

“Don’t test me, Hutch,” Starsky playfully begged him, tugging on Hutch’s hand as his erection quickly resurfaced. “I’ve wrestled and waited and wanted this long enough. Just take me.”

* * *