Wading in Da Nile

259

A missing scene for The Game. What happened after Starsky found a very ill Hutch in the car?

 

Art by Lorraine Brevig.

This story was originally published in the Venice Place Chronicles VIII in 2008.

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Starsky finally broke down in the soup aisle at the grocery.

Up until that point, he’d kept himself in check, between getting Hutch to the hospital and making damn sure that the asshole Pardee went straight back to jail without passing go or collecting two-hundred dollars.

He’d kept a stoic face when the doctor informed him and Dobey that Hutch was teetering on the edge. “The botulism is so far advanced that he was already losing respiratory function,” Dr. Franklin explained with his Basset Hound expression more dour than usual. “His lungs were filling with fluid.”

“But you can cure him, right?” Starsky was mentally and physically exhausted. Any self-castigation about the stupid bet could wait until Hutch had fully recovered.

“Because we were aware of the tainted soup yesterday, several batches of botulism antitoxin had already been sent from the CDC before Hutch was brought in.” He consulted his notes on Hutch’s case with a frown. “He was very, very lucky. His disease progressed slowly, and the lung paralysis had not totally compromised him. Another few hours and it would have been another matter entirely. We gave him the antitoxin just in time, but he’s still gravely ill.”

Starsky could feel Dobey’s hard brown stare accuse him of jeopardizing Hutch’s health, and he purposefully ignored the hollow guilt in his belly. Just as he’d ignored the niggling little warning bells that had gone off in his head seconds after he and Hutch had sealed the stupid deal over Huggy’s pool table.

“So, is there some kind of deadline that we’re looking at here?” Starsky asked, feeling stupid.

“What do you mean?”

Dobey still had the stern, angry-father expression, but he nodded. “Is there a specific length of time before Hutch will be out of danger? Twelve to twenty-four hours, something like that?”

Edward Franklin very rarely laughed, at least not in the time Starsky had known him, and although he didn’t even crack a smile under the current circumstances, his tone carried a certain amused disdain. “The way Marcus Welby and his ilk tell the grieving family ‘your son’s fever will peak in two hours and if we can get him past the crisis, then he’ll live?’”

Starsky snarled, mad at himself, and at Franklin for mocking him. “Yeah, like that.”

“Fortunately for their patients, TV doctors have to cure them in fifty-five minutes,” Franklin said. “I don’t have that luxury. There’s no way to tell how soon it will be before Hutch turns the corner. He wasn’t breathing well just before you found him, and developed pneumonia on top of the botulism.” Seeing the shock on their faces, Franklin softened. “It’s frightening, I know, but I’ve seen the two of you in here before. He won’t give up before his time.”

What if Hutch’s time is up?

Starsky tamped down on the guilt, stomping it mercilessly into dust. He did not cause this anymore than Hutch had. They’d played a stupid game that had gone wrong, but ultimately neither of them was to blame. There was no real bad guy, not even the fucking soup company.

Well, maybe the fucking soup company. It was their soup, after all.

Why the hell had Hutch drunk the damned clam chowder cold? What had possessed him to suddenly throw his usual sensible precautions to the wind?

Starsky clamped down on the fear that roiled through his guts, making it hard to take a decent breath. They’d sat there in the squadroom, sniping at each other while Hutch was swilling chowder so poisonous it out-stripped the noxious concoction Bellamy had given Starsky.

Death by soup can—such a ridiculous epitaph to carve on a man’s tombstone. And one Starsky was not going to tolerate. Hutch was not going to die—he himself had claimed he wanted to live until he was a hundred and forty-eight, so God-damn it, thirty-three wasn’t even one fourth of the way there. Especially since his birthday was barely one month ago.

The Hutch of old would never have drunk cold soup from a can. The Hutch who dated Abby Crabtree two years ago had enthusiastically embraced a healthy regime to boost his sex drive and claimed running gave him a high almost as potent as illegal drugs. So, where had that Hutch gone? Starsky missed him with a pang that startled him.

They’d both changed. Both gotten tired and sore. Burned out, like candles with wicks at both ends. There were too many criminals who got away with a slap on the wrist, and too many families torn apart by violence. Far too many years waiting for that vow to “make a difference” to actually mean something.

Starsky swallowed the bitter realization that one of the reasons he’d been unsuccessful in pulling Hutch out of the game was that they had forgotten to trust one another. Somewhere along the way, the old me and thee had gone out the window, replaced by a cynical, double-dog-dare-you skepticism overlaid with a competitive spirit gone wrong. Just when they both should have taken one step back and given their beer-soaked brain cells a minute to think logically, they’d barreled ahead with the ludicrous bet.

“Starsky?” Dobey’s voice had a curious streak that was hard for Starsky to identify when he was so wrapped up in his own musings. “Dr. Franklin said that we can go upstairs and see Hutch now, didn’t you hear him?”

“Hear him?” Starsky repeated. So much for his own observational skills. Some detective he was, he hadn’t even noticed the doctor leaving.

Hadn’t even been able to recognize his own partner wearing a prosthetic nose and spirit-gum beard selling pencils.

Starsky nodded numbly, following Dobey to the elevator.

“Dave?” Dobey said in such a gentle, concerned way that Starsky looked up. “Are you all right?”

“I thought you were angry,” he muttered, shame burning in his belly.

“Disappointed that two of my detectives acted like adolescents, but you should know better than to think I’d be angry at a time like this.” Dobey pressed the button for the fourth floor. “The two of you managed to pull off an arrest even while he was sick as a dog.”

“I don’t even know how he held off Pardee for so long,” Starsky muttered, kicking himself for missing so many clues about a man he claimed to know intimately. “I’ll interrogate the girl friend—what’s her name?” His brain was made of oatmeal mush, and about as useful.

“Gina.”

“I’ll talk to her and Pardee in the morning.” He stumbled on the gap between the elevator and the fourth floor hallway. “I’ll get to it ASAP.”

“You need some sleep. There are other cops who can do that.”

Starsky would have laughed if he had the energy. Sleep? What was that? Hutch woke him up at six a.m. on Saturday and he hadn’t had four hour hours of sleep since then. Hunting for Hutch while imagining his buddy dying had kept him going through the long, tense hours. Now, he just wanted to see Hutch. Know that he was alive and would be for another one hundred and fifteen years.

“2093.”

“What?” Dobey paused in front of a room with the name Kenneth Hutchinson written on a card on the door.

“Hutch wants to live until the year 2093,” Starsky answered.

“Why?” Dobey’s bewilderment was on par with Starsky’s own.

Why, indeed?

Why did someone who bemoaned the state of the human condition on a daily basis want to stick around that long?

Hutch often reminded Starsky of a Peanuts cartoon he’d seen a long time ago. Linus was standing alone, clutching his blanket, and the balloon over his head declared, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”

Improbably, for all his grousing and cynical disposition, Hutch held onto hope. Hope that someday things would fall into place for him, and his life would have meaning. That the current state of things was completely snafu—situation normal, all fucked up, was something Hutch expected to get past. He must be able to divine the future far better than Starsky.

“Good evening.” A gray haired nurse wearing glasses trimmed in rhinestones stepped out of the room. “Are you visiting Mr. Hutchinson?”

“I’m his partner, Dave Starsky.” Starsky stuck out his hand to shake hers but she held a large clipboard, a stethoscope, and an empty IV bottle. “This is our captain. We’re cops.”

“So I heard. I’m Alice Reynolds. I’ll be caring for Mr. Hutchinson tonight.” She nodded toward the bed and Starsky caught a glimpse of his best friend over her shoulder. The sight of Hutch attached to a breathing machine and strung with IV lines out of both arms had the power to shatter Starsky. He crossed his arms over his chest to hold the bits of himself together.

“He’s heavily sedated to allow the ventilator to provide maximum oxygenation, and I’ve just started his antibiotics,” Alice said.

“Can we see him now?” Dobey asked politely.

“One at a time, for a short while.” Alice juggled her load to look at her watch. “I’ll be back to give him another dose of morphine in half an hour.”

“Thanks.” Starsky couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch. He reached out to brush Hutch’s dirty, sweaty hair off his forehead. He had the strongest need to pull Hutch up and cradle him, just as he’d done before the paramedics arrived.

The irony that Hutch now occupied the exact same bed where he’d camped out for a couple of hours did not escape Starsky.

Don’t play with fire’ cause you might get burned—or in this case, lung paralysis.

“He’s in good hands,” Dobey said, his voice hushed in deference to the whoosh and hiss of the ventilator. He clasped his hands over his abdomen, almost like he was praying. Maybe he was. Starsky hadn’t prayed in so long he couldn’t even conjure up an English version of anything he’d learned in Hebrew school as a child.

“Franklin’s a good man,” Dobey added.

“Pulled me through,” Starsky agreed. He was useless. There was nothing to do except look at Hutch. He hadn’t even helped with the Pardee case because all his attention had been on finding Hutch. Starsky was so used to taking action, dashing off in some kind of quest, no matter what the reason, that standing in a sick room left him feeling clumsy and disarmed. No weapons at his disposal.

Dobey cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you two alone. I have to call Edith anyway. Missed church this morning. She’s sure to make me go to Bible study on Tuesday evening now.”

Starsky almost smiled. The thought of the small but fierce Edith Dobey docking her husband’s free time with mandatory church attendance would have been funny on any other day.

“Man, Hutch, what’d we get ourselves into?” he said aloud. “We made fools of each other, and where in the hell did you get all that make-up and those rubber noses?”

Hutch didn’t answer, but then, Starsky hadn’t expected him to. The ventilator whooshed, a sucking sound that didn’t sound normal. None of this was normal. They should have been celebrating the capture of Bay City’s most wanted over beers at Huggy’s, burgers as big as Frisbees served up alongside mounds of French fries. Laughing, toasting each other for a job well done. What partners—best friends—were supposed to do.

Instead, Starsky was faced with the real possibility that Hutch could die, and he’d be alone in the world. No partner, and more importantly, no best friend.

A bleak future—but then, the present hadn’t been a garden of roses recently, either. They’d strayed apart, turned their backs on what made their partnership strong; the trust and genuine love they’d always had, right from the beginning.

What exactly had brought them together at the academy? What quirk of fate shoved David Starsky at Ken Hutchinson, two complete opposites, and caused them to discover true friendship?

Starsky had never known anyone he could talk to so easily. Hutch was—on occasion—pedantic, condescending and supercilious, but to Starsky that didn’t make as much of an impression as his generous spirit, intellectual drive, and true devotion to life. Where that had come from, Starsky didn’t know, and in a way, he didn’t want to examine their origins too closely in case he discovered it had all been a colossal cosmic joke. He cherished Hutch above all over people. That had been a truism he could stand on for many years now.

When had he stopped feeling that way? When had the competition gotten in the way of love? When had they stopped knowing that it was all fun and games?

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets botulism.

“Hutch, what do we do to make this better, huh?” Starsky whispered, touching his forehead to Hutch’s. Hutch radiated heat like an oven left on too high but at least he was still alive, and that was good enough for now.

“Mr. Starsky?” Alice poked her head into the room. “Your ten minutes were up a long time ago. You should go home and get some rest. He’s not going anywhere.”

Which was exactly what Starsky was afraid of. That Hutch wasn’t going anywhere ever again.

He started to protest but stopped. If he caused too much trouble, the nurses might not let him visit again. “I’ll be back in the morning,” Starsky said, fatigue weighing down his shoulders.

He couldn’t go home. The idea of being alone on this night gave him the creepy-crawlies. Every time Starsky imagined Hutch up against Pardee, no back-up and sick as a dog, he started to heave. He should have been there, next to Hutch, shoulder to shoulder. A true friend supported the one he loved. Kept the one he loved safe, he didn’t shove him out into the cold wearing a hairpiece and face paint.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The moment Hutch woke up and breathed on his own, Starsky was going to throw his arms around that idiot and never let him out of his sight again. Not until he was one-hundred and forty-eight-years old.

Starsky arrived at the squadroom at the lull in the swing shift. Those detectives still out on patrol were gone, and the two left typing up paperwork ignored their colleague when he staggered in. The end of the long table he shared with Hutch didn’t just look deserted, it appeared abandoned. Piles of unfinished reports threatened to topple in untidy heaps on the floor. Starsky hadn’t spent more than a few moments at his desk since the fucking bet.

He tossed the Bay City Chronicle he’d bought onto the desk, grimacing at the headlines blaring “One death in Botulism Outbreak, Many infected.”

Something cramped in his belly and he felt like barfing; caustic acid burning holes in his flesh. He couldn’t let Hutch die. It would be worthless. Worse yet, he’d be the cause.

No, the botulism was the cause, he was just the catalyst. The only thing to do was make sure that Hutch’s last actions had meaning. Starsky grabbed up the files on Pardee, poring over the information, but he couldn’t keep his mind on the bland police-speak account of the criminal’s sordid life.

In a burst of energy, Starsky tossed the newspaper into the garbage can and collected up the stray mugs with half-drunk coffee strewn down the length of the long desk. He deposited all the mugs onto the serving cart that held an empty pot of coffee. A bakery box with the dried husk of a bagel made his belly roil again, and he threw the remains in the trash on top of the BC Chronicle.

Just about to shake down Pinky-the-piggy-bank for loose change, Starsky caught sight of Hutch’s book, lying page-side down on the desk. Who but Hutch would have read Shakespeare in the middle of a bunch of former beat cops, most of whom had never even seen one of the Bard’s productions.

Picking up the book, Starsky saw the pages quiver. His hand was shaking. He smoothed the paper down, searching for the passage Hutch had been reading. Although Hutch sometimes teased Starsky about his lack of a college education, Starsky was far from illiterate. He’d seen a number of Shakespeare’s plays, especially those made into movies. Sir Lawrence Olivier as Henry V was his favorite, and not just because of the film’s terrific battle scenes. Reading Shakespeare was a great deal more daunting. The old fashioned language flummoxed his brain and tied up his tongue.

“Starsky!” Simmons called, standing up and stretching. “You want something? Me and Babcock are making a coffee run before we go on stakeout.”

“Not just coffee,” Babcock groaned. “Good stuff. Screaming Yellow Zonkers and Bugles.”

“Nothing.” Starsky waved his hand at them, the acid in his belly sloshing with increasing intensity.

“Suit yourself. How’s Hutch doing?” Simmons shrugged on his lightweight suit jacket.

“Lousy, what’d you think?” he groused, wanting them out. He needed peace.

He needed Hutch.

“Tell him he’d better get his ass back in here!” Babcock called. “Sick leave is for wusses.”

“So, what about when you had the flu last week?” Simmons teased, smacking his partner on the back of the head

Starsky watched them walk out together, their easy comradery another twist in his gut.

He bent over the paperback, pressing down the page where it curved into the spine. Anthony was speaking to Octavia—not that Starsky could remember who she was. He ran his finger down the column of words, but he hadn’t really been listening to Hutch on Friday afternoon.

Archaic sentence construction and Old English words taunted him, but suddenly, as if he could hear Hutch’s smug voice in his ear, Starsky recognized the opening phrase.

“When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way,” he read slowly. “For our faults can never be so equal that your love can equally move with them.” He shook his head, trying the words out again. What the hell did they mean? “Provide your going: Choose your own company, and command what cost your heart has mind to.”

“Why were you reading this, buddy?” Starsky asked. He was so damned tired, the words on the page wobbled like the dancing letters on Sesame Street. What had put Hutch on a Shakespeare kick?

It wasn’t like Hutch to wallow in star-crossed lovers such as Anthony and Cleopatra, unless it was to ogle at Elizabeth Taylor in the movie. Elizabeth with her violet eyes and dark curls.

Starsky laughed derisively, pressing against his belly. He was going way out on a tangent—Liz Taylor had nothing to do with Ray Pardee, or Hutch in the hospital with botulism.

He needed something to hang onto, something solid.

Starsky snatched up a blank report form. He had to be sure Ray Pardee was going back to the slammer where he belonged. Starsky had been too wrapped up in Hutch’s frail condition to have anything to do with the actual arrest of Pardee, but he could still give a statement on what he’d seen, and how he’d followed the breadcrumbs Hutch had left him.

Starsky attacked his typewriter and hammered out all the events from the moment he forced the name of the cab dispatcher out of that little weasel Silver, until the moment he finally found Hutch bleeding, but still breathing, in Pardee’s car. The moment he’d been able to breathe again, too.

Hearing Hutch’s raspy wheeze had been the sweetest music on earth.

“Hutch, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d throttle you big time,” Starsky had whispered into his buddy’s grimy ear, cradling Hutch’s head against his shoulder.

“Bring it on,” Hutch had gasped, a fraction of a smile creasing his cheek, and then he’d winced, the cut on his lip leaking more blood.

Laughing to keep from crying, Starsky had pulled Hutch onto his lap, holding him close until the paramedics brought the gurney around.

He could still feel the too-hot press of Hutch’s body against him. The afterimage of Ken Hutchinson was indelibly imprinted on his arms like a tattoo.

“Choose your own company, and command what cost your heart has mind to.”

The phrase came to him, the meaning suddenly crystal clear. The cost of losing Hutch was far too high. Hutch meant far more than two weeks of the piddly salary he earned from the BCPD. Hutch was not just a friend—he was…

Everything.

Starsky couldn’t imagine being partnered with anyone else. He couldn’t imagine a life without Hutch as his friend, even if all they did was snipe at one another, it was still better than the alternative.

More and more, in the midst of all the back-biting and sarcasm, Starsky had found himself looking at Hutch, just to see him across the desk or next to him in the car. The overwhelming desire to touch him rose up inside Starsky every so often, like a wave enveloping his heart. Even during the cursed pool game, he’d made sure to brush against Hutch, just once. The little tingle of whatever-it-was that linked them had still been there. He’d felt it, deep.

Surely, Hutch had, too.

Starsky looked down at the paperback propped next to his typewriter, centering on Anthony’s lines.

“For our faults can never be so equal that your love can equally move with them.”

Damn.

“Were you talking to me, buddy?” Starsky said softly, biting the inside of his lip. “And I was too stupid to hear it?”

He needed to hear Hutch’s voice, not just the ghostly echoes that collected in the corners of the squadroom.

“I’m a soup-er cop!”

“I’m the brains and you’re the not too inconsiderable brawn.”

Starsky dialed the hospital’s number and propped his weary head on one elbow. When the nurse who answered the phone left him on hold, the dreary musak nearly put him into a coma.

“Mr. Starsky?” Alice Reynolds’s voice jerked him out of a half-dose.

“How’s Hut’sh?” Starsky mumbled.

“His fever is down,” she said.

“That’s good, huh?” Starsky asked, hope rising for the first time since Saturday morning.

“It’s a good sign, but it’s fairly common. Most people have a lower temperature in the morning and higher in the afternoon.”

“Oh.” Starsky gulped spasmodically, sure he was going to puke all over the dingy squadroom floor. “I—I’ll be by later, huh? This afternoon.”

“I’ll tell the dayshift nurse. Take care of yourself, your friend is getting the best possible care.”

“I know.” Starsky laid his head on the desk, too tired to even get up. If he stayed right here, could he sleep through the detectives arriving for morning shift?

“Starsky!” Dobey roared. At least it seemed like he was roaring to Starsky. “I told you to go home hours ago. Were you sleeping on your desk?”

Starsky blinked, confused. The clock on the wall claimed it was nearly six a.m. but he was sure he’d called the hospital at four. He couldn’t even keep time, much less his partner.

“Captain, here’s my report, I’m going home now.” He got up so fast he knocked the chair over. Dobey caught the falling furniture and braced Starsky, too.

“I talked to Hutch’s doctor before I left the house,” Dobey said softly, his gruff tone tempered by the gentle hand on Starsky’s shoulder. “Franklin was on a break, but the resident said Hutch was responding to the antitoxin. Other than that….”

“Wait,” Starsky said bitterly. “Can’t do anything but wait.” He stuffed the paperback edition of Anthony and Cleopatra in his pocket and blasted out of the squadroom. “Can’t do anything.”

* * *

Exhaustion and thirst battled for attention as Starsky drove down Main toward the freeway. He needed something to keep him awake on the drive home. Naturally, he’d hit the streets just as Monday morning commute clogged the entire city. Pulling into a Von’s, Starsky sat in the car, willing himself to get up and go inside.

He’d failed at finding Hutch in time to prevent the botulism spreading, he’d failed—repeatedly—at finding Pardee, and he’d failed as a friend. True friends wouldn’t treat each other like he and Hutch had.

Where had the trust gone and how did he get it back?

“Hey, mister?” An old man with blue, rheumy eyes, matted hair, and a disreputable suit that wouldn’t have sold for a quarter at the Salvation Army store, rapped on Starsky’s window.

“You got a quarter? I just need bus fare to the mission, y’know?”

“Wanna buy a pencil?” echoed in his brain. “It’s a long pencil with an eraser on the top….”

Damn, Hutch, why didn’t I really see you?

The beggar shrugged when Starsky didn’t respond and shuffled away, muttering to himself. “Just need a quarter.”

“Hey, old man,” Starsky called out, scrambling out of the car. The derelict paused hopefully, and Starsky was ashamed that someone that destitute had more faith than he did. “Take a dollar.” He pulled out his wallet. He still had the twenty bucks he hadn’t given Merle, but there was nothing smaller than a five. “Take a Lincoln.” He pressed the bill into the old man’s hand with a feeling of doing penance.

Doing what Hutch would have done.

“Thanks!” the derelict gave a gap-toothed grin, his boozy breath enough to revitalize Starsky’s nausea. “I can get a bed for the night at the Y! They got a shower.”

Starsky added a second five to the pot. “Buy yourself another suit while you’re at it.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar,” the old man said, shaking Starsky’s hand and pointing to the novel peeking out of his pocket.

“You better hurry, the Y fills up pretty quick.” Starsky folded the remainder of his cash in half to fit it into his wallet, trying to remember exactly why he’d stopped at the market anyway. If he even tried eating, it would just come back in a rush.

He wandered up and down the grocery aisles without conscious effort. Nothing looked edible. Nothing caught his interest until he saw a sign with big red letters taped onto an empty shelf. To the right of the sign was a row of Campbell’s tomato soup and on the left were boxes of Lipton’s chicken noodle.

There wasn’t a single can of Ryland Soup. Every variety, from the Vichyssoise to the Clam chowder, was gone with a simple “Sorry for the inconvenience” to cover all contingencies.

It wasn’t enough.

Starsky started to tremble, his belly clenching so painfully that if he’d eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours, he would have spewed all over the woefully inadequate sign.

Inconvenience, fuck them.

What about poisoning? Why wasn’t that on the sign? What about paralysis? Death?

All from one lousy can of spoiled soup.

Starsky slugged the shelf hard, sending red and white labeled cans to the floor, tears blinding him. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything but the desperate need to be with Hutch.

Too much hiding to each other. Too many lies tucked neatly behind banter until they didn’t know which was the truth and which was the stupid rules of society getting in the way of Starsky admitting how he felt about Hutch.

Shocky, he stood in the carnage barely breathing. When the store manager came running up, waving his arms and yelling at him, Starsky couldn’t even hear his voice.

All he could hear was Hutch’s triumphant, “I’m a souper cop!”

He had to find a way back to Hutch before it was too late. Hutch was not going to die on his watch. Not now, not ever.

* * *

“Hey, Buddy,” Starsky greeted his partner for the third day in a row. Hutch did not respond, the slow, even rise and fall of his chest the only sign that he was alive. “Sorry I was late today, but I had to wait until Pardee got transferred back to maximum security. Good riddance, huh?”

He smoothed down the blanket over Hutch’s chest, feeling Hutch’s heart beat. He put his hand there every morning and every evening. It had become a good luck charm and he had to stop himself from leaving a small kiss over Hutch’s breast bone to seal the luck.

“Brought you some cassettes,” Starsky set up the small tape recorder and inserted The Mamas and The Papas. The blended harmonies of California Dreaming poured out of the tiny speaker. The doctors had told him that Hutch needed familiar things; friends and family to bring him back. That even if he couldn’t show it, Hutch was probably terrified that he couldn’t breathe on his own.

He wasn’t the only one. Starsky had dreams where Hutch gasped for breath until Starsky put his mouth over those beloved lips and poured the breath of life into his partner.

Needing to do something to calm his own restless spirit, Starsky had decorated the hospital room with cheery reminders of home, even the stupid statuette of hugging cherubs that Hutch kept on his coffee table. The new waitress at the Pits had sent a huge bouquet of flowers, and all the detectives from Metro had pitched in for a four-foot tall Ficus tree.

Every day Hutch had shown a slight improvement, and every day the doctors were able to turn the ventilator down just a little, giving Hutch’s damaged lung muscles more exercise. His fever was completely gone and yet he slumbered on.

Starsky reached over and turned the music down, humming along with John Phillips.

“You ready for more of Tony and Cleo?” he asked, opening the book. He’d run out of things to talk about the afternoon before and started reading the play to Hutch. The flow of the iambic pentameter was coming easier with every act and Starsky was really enjoying the story. It had it all—love and war.

“Okay, we’re at Act three, scene…” Starsky cracked the book’s spine and folded back the page he’d dog eared. “Scene ‘I’ before ‘V’—that’s four, huh? Bet you thought I didn’t know Roman numbers, huh?” He looked up, examining his partner’s lax face for any sign of response. Any other day, Hutch would have goaded him mercilessly about upper mathematical skills.

He’d have welcomed that Hutch with open arms.

He had to cling to hope, even as it slipped through his fingers. Had to trust that Hutch would come back.

“The scene starts in Anthony’s house and ol’ Tony’s talking first,” Starsky said, “Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that….” Starsky stopped, sure he’d heard a different noise. Some change in rhythm from the usual sucking whoosh of the ventilator, but Hutch was exactly the same, pale lashes closed over wan cheeks. “My ma would have smacked me for saying ‘nay.’”

A slender nurse came in with a shy smile and changed Hutch’s IV bottle, quickly recording his heart and respiratory rate on her notes.

“Nice music,” she commented, humming along to Creeque Alley as she walked out.

“Okay, where were we?” Starsky asked his unresponsive audience of one. “You still following this story? ’Cause I’m a little weak on my Egyptian history, not t’mention Roman battle strategies. All I can remember is the Pharaoh making all the Hebrew people slaves—but I think that’s before Cleo’s time.”

He marked the page in the book with his finger. If he pretended, he and Hutch could have been anywhere other than a hospital room. They could have been side by side in the Torino on a six-hour stakeout, sharing a single Coke and jawing about whatever came up. Usually it was sports and then movies. Hutch often fell asleep when Starsky really got into an interesting movie poser, like whether Sundance Kid was a better shot than Roy Rogers. Or whether Godzilla would win in a match with King Kong. He usually had to wake Hutch up to get him to contribute a grumpy opinion.

“Hey,” Starsky said fondly. “How about we take in a movie when you’re out of here? I’m getting to like Tony and Cleo. We could go to the Rialto, they’re always playing old stuff like Cleopatra. You always did like Liz Taylor.” He held up the book with its cartoon illustration of a Roman soldier. “Or Ben Hur, with the chariot race, huh?” He nudged Hutch with his hand, almost expecting Hutch to nudge him back.

Like usual. Like before.

“You remember Betsey? That girl who worked in Vice with the long, long legs? I took her to see X, Y and Zee—which I thought was X-rated.” He opened the book, preparing to read again. “It wasn’t. But it got Betsey in the mood, anyways. She told me I looked like Elizabeth Taylor, can you believe that? ’Cause I got blue eyes.” He shook his head. Hutch was the one with the bluest eyes on the planet. His own were dull blue stones by comparison. “My ma always said I was more the Paul Muni type.”

In the narrow pause between songs, Starsky heard that different noise again, a small brush of hair against a pillow.

“Hutch?” he whispered. Hope, buried deeply for days, bounded out of its grave with renewed life.

Clear blue eyes regarded him steadily.

“What took you so long?” Starsky said around a cough. Talking around the huge boulder in his throat was a challenge but he wouldn’t have kept quiet for all the world. There was so much to say and no words that adequately expressed what he held in his heart. “Been waiting for you.”

Hutch blinked, blond lashes shuttering his eyes for a long second before he looked up at Starsky again, mouthing something soundlessly.

“Went out for ice cream again, huh?” Starsky couldn’t keep his voice steady. One partially suppressed sob managed to escape before he battened down the hatch on the whole soapy scene. “I just know you’re thinking that, huh?” He could hear Hutch say it so very clearly, had heard those words seconds after Hutch rescued him from a crazed Shakespearean-quoting thespian.

Somehow, Shakespeare kept cropping up in their lives.

He squeezed Hutch’s cool hand, rejuvenated when Hutch squeezed weakly back. “Hey, I gotta tell the doctor you’re awake.” Starsky tightened his grasp, almost afraid to leave the bed for a moment.

His legs trembled when he stood. He couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch. He looked ravishingly, blindingly, beautiful, ventilator tube in his mouth and all.

“I love you, Hutch,” Starsky blurted out and clapped a hand over his mouth. He’d meant to say “I missed you.” I love you wasn’t even close. It was so far removed from his intentions as to be in another language entirely. “For our faults can never be so equal that your love can equally move with them,” he quoted under his breath, watching Hutch really see him.

They’d always been able to speak to one another without saying a word. He’d almost forgotten the bliss of truly hearing Hutch, knowing his heart’s truth.

Because Hutch said “I love you,” as plain as day.

“Starsky!” Dr. Franklin said loudly, bustling in with a nurse and several other young doctors, none of whom Starsky remembered the names of. “Hutch is awake! You should have called me.”

Distracted, Starsky was stunned to find the room filled with people. “I—uh—was just about to.” Before he’d been blindsided by something he never expected to find in Hutch’s hospital room.

Love.

Written in letters six-feet tall and bouncing to the music, like the psychedelic L-O-V-E in Yellow Submarine. That Dedicated to the One I Love by The Mamas and The Papas was currently playing, and not the Beatles, didn’t make a whit of difference.

Starsky laughed and was overjoyed to see the corners of Hutch’s mouth turn up in response.

“This is excellent progress, then.” Franklin smiled faintly, one of the happiest expressions Starsky had ever seen on the dour doctor’s face. “We’re doing rounds right now, but as soon as I finish updating doctors Angeles, Summers, and Williams,” He indicated his little entourage. “Then we can come back and wean the ventilator, perhaps even extubate.”

“That’s great!” Starsky cried. “Doncha think it’s great, Hutch?” He was surprised to realize that he was still holding Hutch’s hand, right in plain sight of a bunch of doctors.

Hutch blinked sleepily and moved his head against the pillow, nodding.

Love can never be exactly like we want it to be.

I could be satisfied knowing you love me.

“Who can give me the symptoms for a diagnosis of botulism?” Franklin asked his interns.

* * *

“It’s the first day of the rest of my life, Starsk,” Hutch announced cheerfully, his pencil poised over a sheet of paper. “I’m going to make every day count.”

“Yeah?” Starsky grinned, mesmerized by the shape of Hutch’s lips, the way his top lip puckered outward with the snap of the K at the end of Starsk.

“Get back into jogging, meditation, and a healthy diet. Lots more grains, black strap molasses, vitamin E…” He paused to take a breath. Hutch was still breathing too fast, although he’d been off oxygen for two days and was ready to be discharged from the hospital.

Starsky thought about kissing that rosy mouth. Planting a solid one right on Hutch’s upper lip. How would it feel kissing someone with a mustache?

“We can stop at the Our Planet Natural Foods market on the way home tomorrow,” Hutch decided, writing down his shopping list. “Right after I get out of this place. I can get all the food and also check the community bulletin board for yoga class listings.” He added a note on his paper. “The place Abby and I used to attend went out of business and was replaced by a Del Taco drive-in, can you believe that? Capitalism forcing out the conscientious business just trying to keep its head above water.” Hutch inhaled sharply, really looking at Starsky for the first time in five minutes. “You’re staring at my mouth, buddy,” he said with amusement.

“I was not!” Starsky turned away purposefully, feeling a hot flush creep past the collar of the red plaid shirt he’d stolen from Hutch’s closet. Could he help it if he was dreaming about having his hands and mouth all over his big blond partner? Could he help it that Hutch’s hospitalization had curtailed any physical demonstrations of love since that first burst of telepathic passion?

There’d been no time to discover what kissing a guy would be like. No time to explore the differences between sex with a man and sex with a woman, when neither of them had ever done it with another guy—as far as he knew.

Another thing he had to clarify with Hutch. No more secrets. No more banter to cover up what was in their hearts.

Everything out on the table and laid bare, so to speak.

“You can’t take your eyes off my mustache, admit it.” His eyes gleeful, Hutch blew a kiss at Starsky.

Starsky intercepted the airmailed buss, closing his fingers around the invisible proof that Hutch loved him.

“You’re jealous because you don’t have one.”

“Oh, now wait just one tiny little minute!” Starsky protested, shaking his fist at Hutch. He wasn’t about to open his fingers and lose the kiss. “I can grow a ’stache faster than you on any day of the year.”

“Prove it!” Hutch said, laughing.

“I don’t have to.” Starsky sat on the edge of the bed. “Ain’t that bushy cookie-duster I was looking at.”

“Oh, then you were hoping I’d teach you my brilliant techniques with stage make-up, huh?” Hutch combed his mustache with his fingernails.

“Just where did you learn to put on one of those rubber noses?” Starsky let himself be distracted because he was sitting so close to Hutch now. Close enough to feel the rush of Hutch’s warm breath when he talked.

And close enough to kiss him.

“That girl I dated, Stacey, who was in Mother Courage at the BC Playhouse,” Hutch started.

“I didn’t see it, remember?” Starsky licked his own bottom lip, once again enthralled by the movement of Hutch’s top lip closing over his lower one when he spoke.

“Yes, you did—you brought…” Hutch frowned. “You didn’t go with me, did you?”

“Hutch, we haven’t double dated in…” Starsky shrugged, the last time was too long ago to be a reliable memory, which left a hollow place in his belly. “You didn’t even bring Stacey over to my place. Not sure I’d recognize her, with a big fake nose, or not.”

“Damn,” Hutch said softly. He folded his big hands around Starsky’s still closed fist. “Starsky, you won, you know that?”

“Huh?” And Hutch always accused him of nonsequiturs.

“You knew me better than I knew myself—and you saw past all the crap I threw in the way.”

Starsky clenched his jaw, he wasn’t going to break down when a nurse, or worse, Dr. Franklin, could walk in at any moment. “I didn’t even recognize my own partner standing right in front of my car.”

“It was the pencils.” Hutch cleared his throat, a suspicious gleam of moisture pooling in his eyes.

“Hey!” Starsky couldn’t take his eyes off Hutch. It was like he’d never seen that strong brow, straight pale hair, and that perfect, masculine mouth before. “That was it, you never have a pencil. Always got to steal one a’mine.” And pat him down in the process, placing his hands where no man had ever touched Starsky before.

Suddenly he saw everything so clearly.

The little touches. The hip bumps when there was no reason to stand so close. Drinking from each other’s coffee cups without wiping off the spit.

They’d been in love without knowing it since the day they met.

Talk about keeping secrets from one another.

“For our faults can never be so equal that your love can equally move with them,” Starsky quoted and then did what he’d wanted to all morning long.

He kissed Hutch.

Twice.

Hutch breathed into his mouth, his mustache ticking Starsky’s nose. “Nobody’s fault, Starsk. Not mine, not yours. We had to find that out on our own.”

“I shoulda tried this in the first place,” Starsky whispered, mapping the shape of Hutch’s face with the touch of his lips. “Would have known you anywhere.”

“Choose your own company, and command what cost your heart has mind to,” Hutch finished the quotation and sealed the kiss.

 

FIN