NS: Venus in the Sky with Rhinestones 1/6
Title: Venus in the Sky with Rhinestones
Author: Dawnwind
Starsky/Hutch
kidfic, committed relationship
Originally published in the VegaSHcon zine '09
Disclaimer--I make no money on this, just love
Summary: The Starsky-Hutchinson clan have one more member, Lisa Graham. When she mentions marijuana to Starsky, it starts an investigation into drug use at Marshal Center. This is part three of the Venus series. The other two are Venus on the Half Shell and Venus Rising, both at the me and thee archive under Dawnwind.
Critiques and feedback always welcomed!
1/6
Starsky came half awake to the sound of crying, wretched sobs from the hall, and punched the body in the bed next to him. "Your turn to feed the baby," he muttered, burrowing back down into his pillow to retrieve the tail end of the dream involving the Torino and a some hot and heavy make-out scene in the back with…
"Starsk, we haven't had a baby in five years!" Hutch grumbled from under the blankets.
Starsky leaned over to peer blearily at the glowing face of the alarm clock, abandoning all hope of the fantasy necking. He shoved back the covers. "It's three-fucking-o'clock in the morning."
"Who's crying?" Hutch said without opening his eyes. "Not Venus."
"Lisa-again." The anguished cries didn't even sound like the baby the Starsky had adopted five years ago.
"Da-dee." Five-year-old Venus stood resolutely in the doorway of their bedroom, her favorite one-armed doll dangling from her fist. "Lisa's crying. She woke me up!"
"We heard." Hutch groaned, sitting up.
"I'll go." Starsky pulled on a sweatshirt in deference to the late autumn chill in the house. Served him right for trying to lower the electric bill by turning down the heat at night.
"I can sleep with Papa." Venus said sleepily, a wrinkle from her pillow imprinted on one milk chocolate brown cheek.
Starsky grinned despite his sleepiness. He'd never figured out why Venus had designated Hutch as Papa and himself as Daddy, but whatever kept things straight in a household with two male parents was great with him. Four kids, a mate, one dog, two cats and a mortgage. After he was shot in 1979, when the police department appointed psychiatrist asked him where he expected to be in five, six, seven years, he would have never, ever have imagined his future anything like this.
Hutch hauled her into the space Starsky had vacated. "You want any help?" he asked his partner, while Venus cuddled in close.
Lisa's crying had diminished to anguished sobs. Starsky shook his head, trying to wake up sufficiently to deal with the miserable girl. "You gotta be up before six for that drug task thing," he told Hutch. "At least I don't have a class to teach at Marshal Center until later in the morning."
Hutch didn't really look like he was going to get out of bed, Starsky noted, allowing himself a little bit of self-pity. "Lunches all made. Thursday is Poptart day for breakfast, and then maybe I can grab a nap." It was a rare day that he got the always-hoped for nap.
He found Lisa Graham, the newest member of the Starsky-Hutchinson household, huddled in the hall, curled around the giant stuffed panda that she always slept with. Captain Dobey had given her the black and white toy for her 19th birthday ten years before, the day after Lisa was brutally raped in the back of a bus. Starsky was always surprised that she apparently didn't connect the toy with the horrible day, because he certainly did. Lisa's seventy-five pound Doberman, Chester, lay with his head across her lap, and a sorrowful look on his face.
"Lisa, sweetie." Starsky gathered her, panda and all, into a hug. Helping her stand, he said, "It's cold out here on the wooden floor, how 'bout we get you back to bed?" Chester woofed softly, following closely after them.
"Why, Dave?" Lisa cuddled the panda, holding tightly to Starsky's hand. "Why did my mommy die?"
There was the hardest question of all, and one he hadn't found an adequate answer for yet-not in the thirty years since his own father had died. In an odd quirk of fate, Jakob Starsky had died in November, 1957, exactly the same month, but not to the day, that Lisa was born.
"That's the eternal mystery, Lise," he whispered. Starsky led her into the bedroom Lisa shared with Venus. A moon-and-star nightlight cast a yellowish glow across the wooden floor so that Venus' ruffly pink princess bed was barely visible. The left side of the room had been transformed into a near identical version of Lisa's room in her childhood home. The same candy stripe bedspread covered the twin bed and a brown wooden dresser held her clothes.
"Mommy always tucked me in," Lisa said, climbing under the covers. "Why can't she come back?"
Starsky pulled the blankets up, stuffing Harold-the-Panda in next to her. Mitzi Graham had died very suddenly of a heart attack two months earlier in September, leaving her twenty-nine-year-old developmentally delayed daughter completely alone. Luckily, Starsky and Hutch had been listed as Lisa's guardians in Mitzi's will ever since the rape in 1978.
"I just keep dreaming about her," Lisa said in a tear-soaked voice. "I found her in her bed."
"I know, sweetheart," Starsky agreed, stroking her white-blond hair. "That was scary. I'm so glad you called me and Hutch. So glad." Lisa's garbled phone call was seared into his memory, coming in the middle of one of the usual, chaotic mornings around their house. She'd been sobbing uncontrollably and Starsky hadn't understood one word in five, but her 'Mommy won't wake up!" had galvanized him. He and Hutch had piled Venus, and their two adoptive sons, David and Steven, into the car and driven over to the Graham house to find that Mitzi must have died of a heart attack during the night. Trying to make Lisa understand what had happened was a difficult and ongoing process.
Bringing her into their home was a foregone conclusion. For the first month, Lisa had been profoundly depressed, but she was starting to act more like her old bubbly self. Starsky suspected that putting her into the same room with Venus had been not only a necessity, since the house had no more bedrooms, but an inspired choice. Venus adored having an older sister and Lisa loved having someone who looked up to her.
"Why don't you tell me another story about her?" Starsky urged, perching on the edge of the bed, almost wedged in against the bedside table. "Give me another one of your favorite times with your mom, it'll help me fall asleep." It never had lulled him back to sleep yet, but it seemed to work wonders on Lisa.
"She was in her bed and she wouldn't get up!" Lisa's voice raised into another wail.
Starsky pulled Lisa against his shoulder. "That was the scariest thing that could happen."
"I needed to go to work!" Lisa insisted, with a sob. "It was on a Tuesday. Tuesdays I have oatmeal for breakfast, with a banana and milk, and I put on my uniform and work at McDonald's early."
"You almost always have oatmeal for breakfast."
"Oatmeal on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday-but not Thursday." Lisa perked up, sitting straighter to wipe her damp face against Starsky's sweatshirt. "Not Thursdays at Dave's house," she sing-songed. "We have a new routine, schweetheart." Her mimicry of his delivery was flawless. "Poptarts. And my favorite flavor of Poptarts is cinnamon."
"The woman has taste," Starsky said to Harold-the-Panda. "Cinnamon is by far the best flavor."
"Mommy sometimes put cinnamon on my oatmeal, but not on Tuesdays. Tuesdays, I had a banana," Lisa said quietly. "And Sundays, we'd have breakfast in bed, with the newspaper. She made cinnamon toast. Hot-can't eat it right away or it'll burn the roof of my mouth. I had to wait, and that was hard!"
"Don't I know it, schweetheart." Starsky yawned widely.
"I'd read the comics," she went on, only the occasional hitch in her breathing left of her tears. "Peanuts and Beetle Bailey and Garfield, and save my favorite for last. First eat the cinnamon toast and then read…" She paused and Starsky could almost see her cuddled up next to Mitzi, blond heads bent over the funny pages. "Rick O'Shay."
"Rick O'Shay!" Starsky remembered the pun laden Western strip with delight. "Hipshot Percussion and Gaye Abandon."
"But they don't have Rick O'Shay in the paper anymore," Lisa sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. She snuffled and leaned against Harold-the-Panda. "No more. It's gone, just like my mommy."
"You know what?" Starsky snapped his fingers. "Someday, you and me will go down to that used bookstore over near where Hutch used to live, on Ocean. I bet they'd have reprints or a comic book of Rick O'Shay."
"Really?"
Starsky felt something constrict in his belly. If that damned store didn't have a book of the comic, he'd find a bunch of back copies of the Bay City Chronicle and Xerox strips of Rick O'Shay himself. "Really," he promised. "Now, you snuggle down and go back to sleep. Tomorrow-well, actually today- is Poptart day, and then you have knitting class with Maggie at Marshal Center."
"I like knitting," Lisa said. "Cross over, pearl one…." She drifted off and Starsky leaned back against the wall, feeling himself slowing, relaxing into a doze. "Dave?" Lisa asked groggily. "Are you sleeping?"
"No, no, not me!" Starsky gave an exaggerated stretch and sat up straighter. "You still want to talk?"
"In the funny papers, Hipshot really isn't a bad guy, is he?" She sounded worried, but he had a suspicion that she wasn't actually talking about a long-legged comic strip gunslinger.
"Sometimes he does the wrong thing, but he's always sorry in the end, and since Rick is the sheriff and his best friend, Hipshot can't be very bad, can he?"
"That's what I thought." Lisa nodded her head against the pillow which fluffed up her pale hair. "But there are real bad guys, aren't there?"
"Unfortunately, Lise. What are you thinking about?" He just hoped it wasn't a rehash of the rape after all these years. He was too tired to have a prolonged discussion about why that horrible incident happened to a sweet, gentle girl.
"Nothing," she said evasively. Lisa couldn't lie her way out of a paper bag.
"Nothing?"
"It's…" She was obviously drifting off, her words muffled by the pillowcase. "You know, Hipshot smokes. Smoking Mary Jane is the same as smoking a cigarette, and that's bad for you."
Starsky sucked in air so fast the old aches in his chest from Gunther's hit started up with a vengeance. If Lisa had told him that she had robbed a bank, he wouldn't have been more surprised. That she knew the slang for marijuana and was obviously aware of what to do with a joint shocked him to the core.
Lisa's mental age was not much more than ten or eleven, but she was a grown woman. What a lawyer at the rape trial had once termed "mental deficiencies" didn't equate to staying a child forever, even if she did still like stuffed animals. Starsky had grasped that years ago, when Lisa started dating a young man named Kevin Margulies. Kevin had Down Syndrome, and like Lisa, was working at a real job with the help of the staff at Marshal Center.
But knowing about marijuana?
"Lisa, what…" He shook himself, needing to be sharp. Where the heck had she learned about drugs? "Have you smoked marijuana?"
"A'course not," she answered with such affront that he backed off. "Smoking is bad, I told you that."
"Does Kevin?" he asked hesitantly, ready to separate the two immediately if that boy had led her astray.
"He has asthma!" she said derisively, as if that explained everything.
And in a way, Starsky supposed it did. Someone with asthma wouldn't want to add to their respiratory problems by smoking. Just like he had to be careful around cigarette smoke seven years after getting shot in the lung. "Did you see one of your friends smoking marijuana?"
"Dave, I'm sleepy," she whined, sounding so much like Venus that he smiled in spite of his concerns. "When are we gonna go find the Rick O'Shay comics?"
"Uh-not tomorrow, I mean today, Lisa," Starsky said absently, marijuana still in the forefront of his thoughts. "But soon."
"Good, cause…" Lisa yawned and pulled Harold-the-panda closer around her. "I'm gonna read 'em to Mommy up in heaven."
"That sounds good." Starsky rubbed the ache in his chest, watching as Lisa's breathing evened out. He sat still, staring out at the shadows. The moon-and-stars nightlight provided just enough light to turn Venus' abandoned bed into a monster out of some child's nightmare, mysterious humps of bedding and inky black voids lurking like danger just inches away.
Starsky scolded himself for letting such foolish fantasies take hold, and stood up. He'd know if one of his kids was taking drugs, right? He knew all the signs, had taken college courses on drug education and dealt with drugged criminals for years before he quit being a detective. Not to mention that Hutch was head of the Bay City police drug task force, for Christ's sake. The idea of Lisa, of all people, being exposed to marijuana scared him silly.
He was almost glad that the kids he and Hutch had adopted in the last five years were still young. Five-year-old Venus was in kindergarten and doing great, already starting to read and spell. Just thinking about her could make Starsky smile. When he'd first adopted her, he'd been terrified. What did he and Hutch know about a baby? What did they know about raising the mixed race little girl he'd found abandoned in a gas station? How would they handle the job? Now he understood that every parent grew into the role. That every new child entrenched him or herself in his heart and wouldn't let go. That no matter what some gossips might think, there was only good in this household-two men who slept together, and a growing passel of kids.
Starsky had found newborn Venus, so it was quite right that Hutch found their next two children, at the site of a horrific multiple murder. David, then six-years-old, had been protecting his dead mother and injured younger brother Steven after their abusive drug addict step-father shot them. Stunned by the fact that both children bore an uncanny resemblance to Starsky, Hutch couldn't resist helping them-and ended up adopting them legally. Because two men could not adopt children as a couple, Venus bore Starsky's name and the boys were Hutchinsons. Despite his early abuse, David was now ten and doing surprisingly well in fifth grade, although he was still a guarded, angry child.
As for five-year-old Steven, his progress was gained in minute increments. The doctors had diagnosed autism a full two years after Starsky and Hutch recognized how profoundly different Steven was from the other two children. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was a weird mixture of made-up language and mimicry. He was compulsive to the nth degree, only content with exactly the same routines at all times. He wanted the same clothes, the same foods and the same toys, and the slightest things could send him into a rage that sometimes lasted for over an hour. Every once in a while, Starsky got a glimpse of just who Steven could have been if he hadn't lost a huge chunk of himself those horrible days after his father shot him, forcing then six-year-old David to go into protection mode. It was something David had never quite gotten out of.
Starsky stood up to go back to his own bed. It too cold for him to be standing in his bare feet on a wooden floor. Maybe he should turn up the heat? Even with the slight chill, he stayed, watching Lisa sleep. Around him, he could hear the sounds of the house at night-familiar and soothing. Chester woofed deep in his throat, making Lisa turn over with a sleepy sigh.
Starsky ran his hand down the dog's warm head and got a slobbery tongue on his wrist in return. "Hey, you. Quiet. Everybody's sleeping but me."
Chester nodded his doggy head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and settled again at the foot of Lisa's bed with a contented snuffle.
Looking though the door to the boys' room, Starsky could just make out two curly heads on the same pillow. No matter how many times he or Hutch tucked Steven into his own bed, the boy ended up in David's. Starsky braced himself on the doorframe and listened to them breathe. A long swath of light from the street lamps shone through the bedroom window, illuminating the curve of Steven's cheek and the narrow line of David's jaw, so like his own.
He was happy-most of the time. Sure, he'd grumble and grouse at the kids. Yell at Hutch because Hutch would yell right back at him, and then tumble him into bed when they had the first opportunity, but it was an amazingly good life. After he quit the police force, he'd gotten a physical education degree which led to a promotion as head of the athletics department at the Marshal Center and a part time position as the local manager for the Special Olympics basketball team. He didn't investigate crime any more-Hutch was the one in law enforcement now, but quite often, Starsky found that he didn't really miss being on the streets. He made a difference with kids and adults who had special needs, and that felt good.
Too tired to stay up a moment longer, Starsky headed back to the master bedroom and found Venus starfished across all the available space between Hutch and the edge of the bed. The girl was three foot six and only thirty-eight pounds but she felt like she weighed a ton when Starsky tried to shove her over. The cat, Bastet, tucked between Venus and Hutch, harrumphed her displeasure and arched her back. Starsky managed to shift his daughter on her side so that he could spoon in next to her.
But sleep didn't come. Between Hutch's intermittent snores, the deep, rumbling purr of the cat who curled herself into a ball right at Starsky's groin, and horrified thoughts of Lisa behind the gym at Marshal Center smoking weed, he couldn't doze off. A glance at the lighted clock just visible over Hutch's shoulder proved that it was 5:15. Hutch had to get up in fifteen minutes and there'd be no quiet in the house until he and Lisa left for Marshal Center at 10:30.
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head which prompted Bastet to butt her furry chin against his arm and meow plaintively.
"Not you, too," Starsky grumbled under his breath. At this rate, it didn't matter how much health food Hutch tried to get Starsky to eat. He was going to die before he was fifty from lack of sleep.
As if alerted by Bastet's call, their other cat Isis appeared in that supernatural way of cats and pounced right on Starsky's full bladder.
"Fuc…" Starsky swore, cutting himself off because Venus was asleep beside him. "Off, off, I'll feed ya." Both cats leaped down from the bed, landing with soft thumps.
"Starsk?" Hutch rolled over, eyes at half-mast.
"Might as well get up, Blintz, your alarm's going to go off." Starsky laughed when the highly annoying buzz punctuated the end of his sentence.
Smacking the top of the alarm clock, Hutch stretched, his t-shirt riding up over an almost flat belly. Starsky watched for the sheer enjoyment of seeing Hutch on display. Just one more thing he would never tire of-looking at his beautiful mate.
"You get any sleep, babe?" Hutch scratched his crotch, which was something Starsky also very much enjoyed, even if it reminded him of very pressing needs.
Jumping out of bed to beat Hutch to the bathroom, Starsky nearly tripped over a cat. His fuck came out uncensored. "Nope, and I gotta talk to you about something," he said, making it to the toilet just in time.
Hutch followed him in and turned on the shower to let the water warm up while Starsky did his business. Starsky reached over and ran a loving hand down Hutch's sleep-warm back, and ended up getting kissed while a light spray from the shower misted his cheeks.
"Should have closed the shower door." Hutch laughed, wiping his face dry with the t-shirt he pulled over his head.
"It’s okay. I needed a wake-up shower," Starsky shook his head, flicking water out of his hair.
"We could…" Hutch said hopefully, now fully nude.
The offer was more than tempting, and with so little sleep, Starsky's willpower was weak.
"You think they'll all stay asleep?" He stripped off his sweatshirt in one move.
"Venus? She pretends she's the princess who found a pea under her mattress, but she's really Sleeping-" Hutch tugged Starsky toward the shower stall.
"Beauty," Starsky finished, taking in the glorious sight of his lover. "Gimme a minute, will you?" He pulled the drawstring on his pajama bottoms, stepping out of them and into the curve of his lover's wet arms. "I missed this."
"What are you talking about?" Hutch leaned close, letting his long cock slide enticingly into the join between Starsky's thigh and balls. He ran the soap down the curve of Starsky's back, brushing a kiss to his cheek. "We did this…"
Starsky turned, claiming the kiss with his mouth, breathing into Hutch, even if that meant practically drowning in the downpour of the shower. "Weeks ago," he managed, sputtering. "I can't keep looking up at you; I'm getting water down my throat."
Starsky grabbed the soap, lathering Hutch's belly and sides, avoiding his crotch. As much as he wanted to have a quickie, Venus was in the next room, and the bathroom door wasn't even closed all the way.
"Wimp." Hutch rocked into Starsky with a glint in his eye, grinding his hips with the finesse of a pole dancer, but he didn't go any further. Closing his eyes, he sighed when Starsky washed him down, the hot water plastering his pale hair against his skull. "When does David have another sleepover with that kid Aiden?"
"Night before Thanksgiving," Starsky said, rubbing his hands one last time over Hutch's big frame. He blinked water out of his eyes, trying to come up with a way to get rid of the kids for a couple hours so that he and Hutch could have some adult time. Aurie-Mae, the mother of Venus' best friend, was always happy to have one more child around the house. "Think we can foist Venus off on Aurie-Mae?"
"And Lisa works late at McDonald's on Wednesdays." Hutch shut off the faucet with a something that looked like regret. "That just leaves Steven."
"Rosie Dobey would watch him." Starsky waggled his eyebrows and grabbed two towels off the rack. "We gotta do this."
"We have to," Hutch agreed with a quick, chaste kiss. "I don't know how much longer I can hold out."
"Keep that in mind, big guy." Starsky pretended to knee him in the nuts and danced out of the way of Hutch's grab, holding his towel out like a matador.
A child's ear piercing shriek ended their high-jinks.
"Damn," Hutch said softly, jerking a clean t-shirt on. "I'll get Steven."
"Boxers?" Starsky pointed.
Hutch jammed on the underwear and ran down the hall. Starsky sighed, donning an old pair of jeans and his favorite shirt, a freebie promotional that said, Need a Hutch? Dave's Nude Furniture on Washington. The first time Hutch ever saw Starsky wearing the bright red shirt, he'd thrown a boner like a teenaged boy. That memory sustained Starsky on many a trying day.
"Daddy?" Venus sat up, knuckling the sleep out of her eyes.
And so the day began.
(cont in part two)
Author: Dawnwind
Starsky/Hutch
kidfic, committed relationship
Originally published in the VegaSHcon zine '09
Disclaimer--I make no money on this, just love
Summary: The Starsky-Hutchinson clan have one more member, Lisa Graham. When she mentions marijuana to Starsky, it starts an investigation into drug use at Marshal Center. This is part three of the Venus series. The other two are Venus on the Half Shell and Venus Rising, both at the me and thee archive under Dawnwind.
Critiques and feedback always welcomed!
1/6
Starsky came half awake to the sound of crying, wretched sobs from the hall, and punched the body in the bed next to him. "Your turn to feed the baby," he muttered, burrowing back down into his pillow to retrieve the tail end of the dream involving the Torino and a some hot and heavy make-out scene in the back with…
"Starsk, we haven't had a baby in five years!" Hutch grumbled from under the blankets.
Starsky leaned over to peer blearily at the glowing face of the alarm clock, abandoning all hope of the fantasy necking. He shoved back the covers. "It's three-fucking-o'clock in the morning."
"Who's crying?" Hutch said without opening his eyes. "Not Venus."
"Lisa-again." The anguished cries didn't even sound like the baby the Starsky had adopted five years ago.
"Da-dee." Five-year-old Venus stood resolutely in the doorway of their bedroom, her favorite one-armed doll dangling from her fist. "Lisa's crying. She woke me up!"
"We heard." Hutch groaned, sitting up.
"I'll go." Starsky pulled on a sweatshirt in deference to the late autumn chill in the house. Served him right for trying to lower the electric bill by turning down the heat at night.
"I can sleep with Papa." Venus said sleepily, a wrinkle from her pillow imprinted on one milk chocolate brown cheek.
Starsky grinned despite his sleepiness. He'd never figured out why Venus had designated Hutch as Papa and himself as Daddy, but whatever kept things straight in a household with two male parents was great with him. Four kids, a mate, one dog, two cats and a mortgage. After he was shot in 1979, when the police department appointed psychiatrist asked him where he expected to be in five, six, seven years, he would have never, ever have imagined his future anything like this.
Hutch hauled her into the space Starsky had vacated. "You want any help?" he asked his partner, while Venus cuddled in close.
Lisa's crying had diminished to anguished sobs. Starsky shook his head, trying to wake up sufficiently to deal with the miserable girl. "You gotta be up before six for that drug task thing," he told Hutch. "At least I don't have a class to teach at Marshal Center until later in the morning."
Hutch didn't really look like he was going to get out of bed, Starsky noted, allowing himself a little bit of self-pity. "Lunches all made. Thursday is Poptart day for breakfast, and then maybe I can grab a nap." It was a rare day that he got the always-hoped for nap.
He found Lisa Graham, the newest member of the Starsky-Hutchinson household, huddled in the hall, curled around the giant stuffed panda that she always slept with. Captain Dobey had given her the black and white toy for her 19th birthday ten years before, the day after Lisa was brutally raped in the back of a bus. Starsky was always surprised that she apparently didn't connect the toy with the horrible day, because he certainly did. Lisa's seventy-five pound Doberman, Chester, lay with his head across her lap, and a sorrowful look on his face.
"Lisa, sweetie." Starsky gathered her, panda and all, into a hug. Helping her stand, he said, "It's cold out here on the wooden floor, how 'bout we get you back to bed?" Chester woofed softly, following closely after them.
"Why, Dave?" Lisa cuddled the panda, holding tightly to Starsky's hand. "Why did my mommy die?"
There was the hardest question of all, and one he hadn't found an adequate answer for yet-not in the thirty years since his own father had died. In an odd quirk of fate, Jakob Starsky had died in November, 1957, exactly the same month, but not to the day, that Lisa was born.
"That's the eternal mystery, Lise," he whispered. Starsky led her into the bedroom Lisa shared with Venus. A moon-and-star nightlight cast a yellowish glow across the wooden floor so that Venus' ruffly pink princess bed was barely visible. The left side of the room had been transformed into a near identical version of Lisa's room in her childhood home. The same candy stripe bedspread covered the twin bed and a brown wooden dresser held her clothes.
"Mommy always tucked me in," Lisa said, climbing under the covers. "Why can't she come back?"
Starsky pulled the blankets up, stuffing Harold-the-Panda in next to her. Mitzi Graham had died very suddenly of a heart attack two months earlier in September, leaving her twenty-nine-year-old developmentally delayed daughter completely alone. Luckily, Starsky and Hutch had been listed as Lisa's guardians in Mitzi's will ever since the rape in 1978.
"I just keep dreaming about her," Lisa said in a tear-soaked voice. "I found her in her bed."
"I know, sweetheart," Starsky agreed, stroking her white-blond hair. "That was scary. I'm so glad you called me and Hutch. So glad." Lisa's garbled phone call was seared into his memory, coming in the middle of one of the usual, chaotic mornings around their house. She'd been sobbing uncontrollably and Starsky hadn't understood one word in five, but her 'Mommy won't wake up!" had galvanized him. He and Hutch had piled Venus, and their two adoptive sons, David and Steven, into the car and driven over to the Graham house to find that Mitzi must have died of a heart attack during the night. Trying to make Lisa understand what had happened was a difficult and ongoing process.
Bringing her into their home was a foregone conclusion. For the first month, Lisa had been profoundly depressed, but she was starting to act more like her old bubbly self. Starsky suspected that putting her into the same room with Venus had been not only a necessity, since the house had no more bedrooms, but an inspired choice. Venus adored having an older sister and Lisa loved having someone who looked up to her.
"Why don't you tell me another story about her?" Starsky urged, perching on the edge of the bed, almost wedged in against the bedside table. "Give me another one of your favorite times with your mom, it'll help me fall asleep." It never had lulled him back to sleep yet, but it seemed to work wonders on Lisa.
"She was in her bed and she wouldn't get up!" Lisa's voice raised into another wail.
Starsky pulled Lisa against his shoulder. "That was the scariest thing that could happen."
"I needed to go to work!" Lisa insisted, with a sob. "It was on a Tuesday. Tuesdays I have oatmeal for breakfast, with a banana and milk, and I put on my uniform and work at McDonald's early."
"You almost always have oatmeal for breakfast."
"Oatmeal on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday-but not Thursday." Lisa perked up, sitting straighter to wipe her damp face against Starsky's sweatshirt. "Not Thursdays at Dave's house," she sing-songed. "We have a new routine, schweetheart." Her mimicry of his delivery was flawless. "Poptarts. And my favorite flavor of Poptarts is cinnamon."
"The woman has taste," Starsky said to Harold-the-Panda. "Cinnamon is by far the best flavor."
"Mommy sometimes put cinnamon on my oatmeal, but not on Tuesdays. Tuesdays, I had a banana," Lisa said quietly. "And Sundays, we'd have breakfast in bed, with the newspaper. She made cinnamon toast. Hot-can't eat it right away or it'll burn the roof of my mouth. I had to wait, and that was hard!"
"Don't I know it, schweetheart." Starsky yawned widely.
"I'd read the comics," she went on, only the occasional hitch in her breathing left of her tears. "Peanuts and Beetle Bailey and Garfield, and save my favorite for last. First eat the cinnamon toast and then read…" She paused and Starsky could almost see her cuddled up next to Mitzi, blond heads bent over the funny pages. "Rick O'Shay."
"Rick O'Shay!" Starsky remembered the pun laden Western strip with delight. "Hipshot Percussion and Gaye Abandon."
"But they don't have Rick O'Shay in the paper anymore," Lisa sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand. She snuffled and leaned against Harold-the-Panda. "No more. It's gone, just like my mommy."
"You know what?" Starsky snapped his fingers. "Someday, you and me will go down to that used bookstore over near where Hutch used to live, on Ocean. I bet they'd have reprints or a comic book of Rick O'Shay."
"Really?"
Starsky felt something constrict in his belly. If that damned store didn't have a book of the comic, he'd find a bunch of back copies of the Bay City Chronicle and Xerox strips of Rick O'Shay himself. "Really," he promised. "Now, you snuggle down and go back to sleep. Tomorrow-well, actually today- is Poptart day, and then you have knitting class with Maggie at Marshal Center."
"I like knitting," Lisa said. "Cross over, pearl one…." She drifted off and Starsky leaned back against the wall, feeling himself slowing, relaxing into a doze. "Dave?" Lisa asked groggily. "Are you sleeping?"
"No, no, not me!" Starsky gave an exaggerated stretch and sat up straighter. "You still want to talk?"
"In the funny papers, Hipshot really isn't a bad guy, is he?" She sounded worried, but he had a suspicion that she wasn't actually talking about a long-legged comic strip gunslinger.
"Sometimes he does the wrong thing, but he's always sorry in the end, and since Rick is the sheriff and his best friend, Hipshot can't be very bad, can he?"
"That's what I thought." Lisa nodded her head against the pillow which fluffed up her pale hair. "But there are real bad guys, aren't there?"
"Unfortunately, Lise. What are you thinking about?" He just hoped it wasn't a rehash of the rape after all these years. He was too tired to have a prolonged discussion about why that horrible incident happened to a sweet, gentle girl.
"Nothing," she said evasively. Lisa couldn't lie her way out of a paper bag.
"Nothing?"
"It's…" She was obviously drifting off, her words muffled by the pillowcase. "You know, Hipshot smokes. Smoking Mary Jane is the same as smoking a cigarette, and that's bad for you."
Starsky sucked in air so fast the old aches in his chest from Gunther's hit started up with a vengeance. If Lisa had told him that she had robbed a bank, he wouldn't have been more surprised. That she knew the slang for marijuana and was obviously aware of what to do with a joint shocked him to the core.
Lisa's mental age was not much more than ten or eleven, but she was a grown woman. What a lawyer at the rape trial had once termed "mental deficiencies" didn't equate to staying a child forever, even if she did still like stuffed animals. Starsky had grasped that years ago, when Lisa started dating a young man named Kevin Margulies. Kevin had Down Syndrome, and like Lisa, was working at a real job with the help of the staff at Marshal Center.
But knowing about marijuana?
"Lisa, what…" He shook himself, needing to be sharp. Where the heck had she learned about drugs? "Have you smoked marijuana?"
"A'course not," she answered with such affront that he backed off. "Smoking is bad, I told you that."
"Does Kevin?" he asked hesitantly, ready to separate the two immediately if that boy had led her astray.
"He has asthma!" she said derisively, as if that explained everything.
And in a way, Starsky supposed it did. Someone with asthma wouldn't want to add to their respiratory problems by smoking. Just like he had to be careful around cigarette smoke seven years after getting shot in the lung. "Did you see one of your friends smoking marijuana?"
"Dave, I'm sleepy," she whined, sounding so much like Venus that he smiled in spite of his concerns. "When are we gonna go find the Rick O'Shay comics?"
"Uh-not tomorrow, I mean today, Lisa," Starsky said absently, marijuana still in the forefront of his thoughts. "But soon."
"Good, cause…" Lisa yawned and pulled Harold-the-panda closer around her. "I'm gonna read 'em to Mommy up in heaven."
"That sounds good." Starsky rubbed the ache in his chest, watching as Lisa's breathing evened out. He sat still, staring out at the shadows. The moon-and-stars nightlight provided just enough light to turn Venus' abandoned bed into a monster out of some child's nightmare, mysterious humps of bedding and inky black voids lurking like danger just inches away.
Starsky scolded himself for letting such foolish fantasies take hold, and stood up. He'd know if one of his kids was taking drugs, right? He knew all the signs, had taken college courses on drug education and dealt with drugged criminals for years before he quit being a detective. Not to mention that Hutch was head of the Bay City police drug task force, for Christ's sake. The idea of Lisa, of all people, being exposed to marijuana scared him silly.
He was almost glad that the kids he and Hutch had adopted in the last five years were still young. Five-year-old Venus was in kindergarten and doing great, already starting to read and spell. Just thinking about her could make Starsky smile. When he'd first adopted her, he'd been terrified. What did he and Hutch know about a baby? What did they know about raising the mixed race little girl he'd found abandoned in a gas station? How would they handle the job? Now he understood that every parent grew into the role. That every new child entrenched him or herself in his heart and wouldn't let go. That no matter what some gossips might think, there was only good in this household-two men who slept together, and a growing passel of kids.
Starsky had found newborn Venus, so it was quite right that Hutch found their next two children, at the site of a horrific multiple murder. David, then six-years-old, had been protecting his dead mother and injured younger brother Steven after their abusive drug addict step-father shot them. Stunned by the fact that both children bore an uncanny resemblance to Starsky, Hutch couldn't resist helping them-and ended up adopting them legally. Because two men could not adopt children as a couple, Venus bore Starsky's name and the boys were Hutchinsons. Despite his early abuse, David was now ten and doing surprisingly well in fifth grade, although he was still a guarded, angry child.
As for five-year-old Steven, his progress was gained in minute increments. The doctors had diagnosed autism a full two years after Starsky and Hutch recognized how profoundly different Steven was from the other two children. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was a weird mixture of made-up language and mimicry. He was compulsive to the nth degree, only content with exactly the same routines at all times. He wanted the same clothes, the same foods and the same toys, and the slightest things could send him into a rage that sometimes lasted for over an hour. Every once in a while, Starsky got a glimpse of just who Steven could have been if he hadn't lost a huge chunk of himself those horrible days after his father shot him, forcing then six-year-old David to go into protection mode. It was something David had never quite gotten out of.
Starsky stood up to go back to his own bed. It too cold for him to be standing in his bare feet on a wooden floor. Maybe he should turn up the heat? Even with the slight chill, he stayed, watching Lisa sleep. Around him, he could hear the sounds of the house at night-familiar and soothing. Chester woofed deep in his throat, making Lisa turn over with a sleepy sigh.
Starsky ran his hand down the dog's warm head and got a slobbery tongue on his wrist in return. "Hey, you. Quiet. Everybody's sleeping but me."
Chester nodded his doggy head, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, and settled again at the foot of Lisa's bed with a contented snuffle.
Looking though the door to the boys' room, Starsky could just make out two curly heads on the same pillow. No matter how many times he or Hutch tucked Steven into his own bed, the boy ended up in David's. Starsky braced himself on the doorframe and listened to them breathe. A long swath of light from the street lamps shone through the bedroom window, illuminating the curve of Steven's cheek and the narrow line of David's jaw, so like his own.
He was happy-most of the time. Sure, he'd grumble and grouse at the kids. Yell at Hutch because Hutch would yell right back at him, and then tumble him into bed when they had the first opportunity, but it was an amazingly good life. After he quit the police force, he'd gotten a physical education degree which led to a promotion as head of the athletics department at the Marshal Center and a part time position as the local manager for the Special Olympics basketball team. He didn't investigate crime any more-Hutch was the one in law enforcement now, but quite often, Starsky found that he didn't really miss being on the streets. He made a difference with kids and adults who had special needs, and that felt good.
Too tired to stay up a moment longer, Starsky headed back to the master bedroom and found Venus starfished across all the available space between Hutch and the edge of the bed. The girl was three foot six and only thirty-eight pounds but she felt like she weighed a ton when Starsky tried to shove her over. The cat, Bastet, tucked between Venus and Hutch, harrumphed her displeasure and arched her back. Starsky managed to shift his daughter on her side so that he could spoon in next to her.
But sleep didn't come. Between Hutch's intermittent snores, the deep, rumbling purr of the cat who curled herself into a ball right at Starsky's groin, and horrified thoughts of Lisa behind the gym at Marshal Center smoking weed, he couldn't doze off. A glance at the lighted clock just visible over Hutch's shoulder proved that it was 5:15. Hutch had to get up in fifteen minutes and there'd be no quiet in the house until he and Lisa left for Marshal Center at 10:30.
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head which prompted Bastet to butt her furry chin against his arm and meow plaintively.
"Not you, too," Starsky grumbled under his breath. At this rate, it didn't matter how much health food Hutch tried to get Starsky to eat. He was going to die before he was fifty from lack of sleep.
As if alerted by Bastet's call, their other cat Isis appeared in that supernatural way of cats and pounced right on Starsky's full bladder.
"Fuc…" Starsky swore, cutting himself off because Venus was asleep beside him. "Off, off, I'll feed ya." Both cats leaped down from the bed, landing with soft thumps.
"Starsk?" Hutch rolled over, eyes at half-mast.
"Might as well get up, Blintz, your alarm's going to go off." Starsky laughed when the highly annoying buzz punctuated the end of his sentence.
Smacking the top of the alarm clock, Hutch stretched, his t-shirt riding up over an almost flat belly. Starsky watched for the sheer enjoyment of seeing Hutch on display. Just one more thing he would never tire of-looking at his beautiful mate.
"You get any sleep, babe?" Hutch scratched his crotch, which was something Starsky also very much enjoyed, even if it reminded him of very pressing needs.
Jumping out of bed to beat Hutch to the bathroom, Starsky nearly tripped over a cat. His fuck came out uncensored. "Nope, and I gotta talk to you about something," he said, making it to the toilet just in time.
Hutch followed him in and turned on the shower to let the water warm up while Starsky did his business. Starsky reached over and ran a loving hand down Hutch's sleep-warm back, and ended up getting kissed while a light spray from the shower misted his cheeks.
"Should have closed the shower door." Hutch laughed, wiping his face dry with the t-shirt he pulled over his head.
"It’s okay. I needed a wake-up shower," Starsky shook his head, flicking water out of his hair.
"We could…" Hutch said hopefully, now fully nude.
The offer was more than tempting, and with so little sleep, Starsky's willpower was weak.
"You think they'll all stay asleep?" He stripped off his sweatshirt in one move.
"Venus? She pretends she's the princess who found a pea under her mattress, but she's really Sleeping-" Hutch tugged Starsky toward the shower stall.
"Beauty," Starsky finished, taking in the glorious sight of his lover. "Gimme a minute, will you?" He pulled the drawstring on his pajama bottoms, stepping out of them and into the curve of his lover's wet arms. "I missed this."
"What are you talking about?" Hutch leaned close, letting his long cock slide enticingly into the join between Starsky's thigh and balls. He ran the soap down the curve of Starsky's back, brushing a kiss to his cheek. "We did this…"
Starsky turned, claiming the kiss with his mouth, breathing into Hutch, even if that meant practically drowning in the downpour of the shower. "Weeks ago," he managed, sputtering. "I can't keep looking up at you; I'm getting water down my throat."
Starsky grabbed the soap, lathering Hutch's belly and sides, avoiding his crotch. As much as he wanted to have a quickie, Venus was in the next room, and the bathroom door wasn't even closed all the way.
"Wimp." Hutch rocked into Starsky with a glint in his eye, grinding his hips with the finesse of a pole dancer, but he didn't go any further. Closing his eyes, he sighed when Starsky washed him down, the hot water plastering his pale hair against his skull. "When does David have another sleepover with that kid Aiden?"
"Night before Thanksgiving," Starsky said, rubbing his hands one last time over Hutch's big frame. He blinked water out of his eyes, trying to come up with a way to get rid of the kids for a couple hours so that he and Hutch could have some adult time. Aurie-Mae, the mother of Venus' best friend, was always happy to have one more child around the house. "Think we can foist Venus off on Aurie-Mae?"
"And Lisa works late at McDonald's on Wednesdays." Hutch shut off the faucet with a something that looked like regret. "That just leaves Steven."
"Rosie Dobey would watch him." Starsky waggled his eyebrows and grabbed two towels off the rack. "We gotta do this."
"We have to," Hutch agreed with a quick, chaste kiss. "I don't know how much longer I can hold out."
"Keep that in mind, big guy." Starsky pretended to knee him in the nuts and danced out of the way of Hutch's grab, holding his towel out like a matador.
A child's ear piercing shriek ended their high-jinks.
"Damn," Hutch said softly, jerking a clean t-shirt on. "I'll get Steven."
"Boxers?" Starsky pointed.
Hutch jammed on the underwear and ran down the hall. Starsky sighed, donning an old pair of jeans and his favorite shirt, a freebie promotional that said, Need a Hutch? Dave's Nude Furniture on Washington. The first time Hutch ever saw Starsky wearing the bright red shirt, he'd thrown a boner like a teenaged boy. That memory sustained Starsky on many a trying day.
"Daddy?" Venus sat up, knuckling the sleep out of her eyes.
And so the day began.
(cont in part two)