A Sliver of Ice, a Beam of Hope [Part 14a]
Title: A Sliver of Ice, a Beam of Hope
Author: Gideon BD
Type: Slash
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Word count: 13,389 (for installment 14)
Summary: 'It has been almost six months since Starsky’s reinstatement as a BCPD homicide detective, and Hutch is no longer sure how long he can endure this extra-tetchy, morose, antagonistic version of his partner who seems to find a perverse delight in pissing him off for no reason whatsoever. Like Starsky can’t stand his physical presence. Like Starsky wants to drive him away and preserve a respectable distance between them after months of him hanging around Starsky throughout Starsky’s arduous recuperation. Like Starsky is fighting him, fighting him when there isn’t a conflict to begin with, or fighting something that has to do with him.'
Categories: First Time, Angst, Backstory, Bisexuality, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Sweet Revenge, Romance
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Starsky and Hutch are mine, right? Right? No? Drats.
Author's notes: The track I listened to while writing this installment was the piano-only version of Mi Mancherai (I Miss You). A very soothing rendition of the song which I thought was apt for this part of the story. :)
“I love you, Blondie,” Starsky whispers, and together, they fall into a soporific slumber in which Hutch dreams of bathing in cool, winding rivers and wandering through boundless fields of variegated flowers while the sun smiles down upon on him.
& & & & & &
There is such inexplicable serenity for Hutch in the simple tying of Starsky’s shoelaces.
“Ya don’t have to do that, Blintz.”
He doesn’t reply Starsky’s fond comment and knots the white laces of the left dark brown sneaker into a ribbon, smiling softly. He misses Starsky’s old, blue Adidas shoes. They really suited Starsky’s regular ensembles, those skin-tight jeans and colorful shirts and leather jackets. Really brought out the tan of Starsky’s skin, the opulent brunet of Starsky’s hair.
“There. All done.”
“Dummy. I can tie my own shoes, ya know.”
“Is that why you’re just sitting there on the bed watching me do it?”
Hutch chuckles when Starsky’s bandaged hands playfully tousle his hair, and he smiles up at Starsky who’s garbed in that black turtleneck and jeans again, at Starsky’s likewise jovial smile, at the twinkling of Starsky’s crinkled eyes. There are still dark circles of exhaustion around those big, blue eyes. Unlike his slumber, Starsky’s had not turned out to be as revitalizing as his for long. There had been nightmares, bad ones that’d awoken Starsky into mumbling fits of terror out of which Hutch would coax him with gentle words and hugs.
Starsky is starting to remember.
“Are you boys ready?”
A nurse in her late fifties is standing at the open door of the room, grasping the handles of a wheelchair in front of her. She has a motherly smile on her face. She’d been observing Hutch patiently tying Starsky’s shoelaces, and it is her smile that reminds him his love for Starsky that he has always willingly demonstrated in public - now even more so, boldly - is something exceptional. Incomparable. Priceless.
Hutch smiles at her, stands up and says, “We are, now.”
As she maneuvers the wheelchair to the bed, she says to them, “Luckily you won’t be needing your coats today. It’s quite warm and sunny.”
Hutch blinks and glances at her. Coats … oh yeah, their winter coats. He and Callahan had discarded theirs a short while after arriving at the hospital. The waiting area had been hot as hell and jam-packed with people, and he’d left his coat with Callahan to accompany Starsky in the ER. He doesn’t recall Callahan bringing them along into Starsky’s hospital room, and this nurse doesn’t have them with her. As for Starsky’s coat -
“Your coats were taken by a police officer last night,” she adds. “He said the BCPD’s forensics team wanted them.”
“Ah, okay.” Hutch glances down at Starsky, and asks, “Do you feel cold, buddy? Maybe we can ask for a -“
“Nah. I’m good,” Starsky says quietly. “I just wanna go home.”
The side of Starsky’s left foot is touching the back of his right shin. Rubbing it.
“Okay,” Hutch replies with a smile. “Let’s go home.”
Hutch’s jubilation of being with Starsky again abates just a bit as Starsky gets off the bed and totters to the wheelchair. Starsky’s hands and feet will be aching for a few days, the doctor had said, then have a dull throbbing that can last for weeks, even months. The stitched wound on Starsky’s head will have to be cleaned and bandaged anew daily, and if infection should set in, Starsky has to return to the hospital right away.
He’d had a close look at the wound earlier this morning as a nurse, a different one, had redressed it and then handed him the necessary medication for safekeeping on Starsky’s behalf. He’d swallowed visibly at the tidy crisscrossing of over a dozen stitches across Starsky’s scalp. There’ll be a scar, no doubt, but should Starsky grow out his hair again, the profuse curls ought to hide it. The wound had been deep. Just an inch, one more inch, and Starsky would be in the morgue instead, shrouded in white with a bullet in his head, and he … he’d probably be on the slab next to Starsky. Maybe a gunshot to his head too. Or the good old slashing of wrists/forearms. Either way, together with his partner, even in death -
“Hey.” Starsky, sitting in the wheelchair now, is gazing up at him and gripping his right hand. “I’m here, Hutch.”
Starsky’s hand is so warm, even bandaged as it is. So alive. So fitting in his, as if they’ve been created just for each other. Perhaps they really are.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, and he holds Starsky’s hand against his belly, placing his left hand over it as well and smiling at Starsky giving his fingers a squeeze.
At Starsky’s behest, the nurse lets Hutch push the wheelchair. While they head for the elevator, the nurse describes each and every measure of caring for Starsky’s frostbitten limbs and head injury, and Hutch nods and listens dutifully. He’s been down this lane many times, figuratively and literally, trading places with Starsky every so often to be the one being wheeled out of the hospital. But this time, Starsky isn’t just his partner, just his best friend. Starsky’s also his lover. His other half.
His other half that a world not so cruel after all has returned to him, to make him whole once more.
“Is anyone going to pick you up?” the nurse asks as the elevator doors open at the ground floor.
Hutch and Starsky glance into each other’s eyes, Hutch dipping his head and Starsky tilting his head back.
“Ya got my car?” Starsky asks.
Hutch shakes his head.
“It’s still at the Crystal Lake Recreation Center. We got here by helicopter. Do you remember that?”
Starsky blinks up at him, then says, “I think so. You were there with me. You were talking to me. And holding my hand.”
“Yeah,” Hutch says, his soft smile back. “Do you remember what happened to you, now?”
Hutch’s smile softens even more when Starsky looks away but reaches over one shoulder to touch his left hand grasping one of the handles of the wheelchair.
“It’s coming back to me in pieces, but … I’m remembering a lot more.”
Hutch entwines his fingers with Starsky’s.
I’m here too, buddy. I’m not going anywhere without you.
“If you’d like to call someone to pick you up, you can do that at Reception,” the nurse says. She’s already stepped out of the elevator, and is waiting for them to do the same.
“That’d be great, thank you,” Hutch replies.
At the stately, curved cherry wood reception desk, Hutch is handed a white phone by one of the two receptionists there, a blonde woman with wavy hair down to the middle of her back who smiles broadly at him. He smiles politely in response and says an equally polite thank you, and isn’t all that surprised to see her smile wane.
Sorry, random pretty woman, but this man’s spoken for and he’s damn happy about it.
Starsky’s hand is on his lower back as he leans his forearms on the glass top of the reception desk and dials the number of Dobey’s office. Oh boy, he’d forgotten to contact Dobey last night about Starsky waking up and about Starsky being discharged this morning so Dobey’s probably not going to appreciate being called just to become their chauffeur.
“Who ya calling, Hutch?”
“Dobey,” he says, hearing the monotone beeping of his call waiting to be connected go on and on. “I don’t think he’s in.”
He puts down the receiver after another five seconds of beeping. Okay, Dobey’s out, so a chew out’s been dodged too. (For now.) Callahan was his next option, but he’s already put the younger detective through enough crap in the past twenty-four hours and it is the first day of their Dobey-ordered vacation. So that leaves …
“Huggy,” he mumbles to himself.
“Ya calling Huggy?”
“Yeah.” Hutch looks at the oval-shaped clock hanging on the wall behind the reception desk and sees that it’s forty minutes past nine. “It’s a little early for him -“
His reply is cut off by Starsky abruptly grabbing his upper arm. Hard enough that it almost hurts.
“Let’s just get a cab, okay? Please, Hutch?”
Wow, Starsky’s puppy dog eyes are on at full power, large and outwardly innocuous … and at utter odds with the anxiety endowing the intensity to Starsky’s clutch of his arm. What the … Starsky’s frightened of Huggy? What’s there about Huggy to be frightened of -
And then, the startling image of a drunk Starsky at The Pits splashes itself on Hutch’s mind. A drunk, violent Starsky launching himself across the bar to get at a bottle of whisky in Huggy’s hands, hollering at Huggy to give him the fucking whisky or else. A drunk, violent Starsky so entangled in self-hatred and misery that nothing mattered anymore except the numbing of his heart that simply wouldn’t stop loving Hutch.
No, it’s not fear Starsky’s feeling in regards to Huggy.
Hutch strokes the left side of Starsky’s head, sliding his fingers through Starsky’s cropped hair.
Ah, Starsk. Sooner or later you’ll HAVE to meet and talk with Huggy, and something tells me he won’t react like you’re afraid he will.
But what Hutch says is, “Okay. Okay, we’ll get a cab,” and Starsky releases his arm and smiles at him. Starsky’s relief is so evident that Hutch feels it like a condensed fog around both of them. When he turns back to the reception desk and picks up the receiver a second time, Starsky’s hand is on his lower back again, just touching him, maintaining a physical bond between them. It soothes him as much as it seems to soothe Starsky.
His call to Manny at Metro Cab is quick though friendly. Manny obviously remembers him and Starsky, for the cab already on its way to the hospital is on Manny’s dime: “You think I’m gonna charge the two stupendous poh-leece men who saved my company and my homies from a killer? Pssh! Forget it, dude. Oh, send my kudos to that cool cat, Huggy, will ya?”
As the nurse had informed them, the weather is indeed sunny and balmy. Wheeling Starsky through the main entrance doors, Hutch smiles at Starsky turning his face up towards the halcyon heavens and basking in the sunshine with those blue eyes shut. Starsky looks like a boy with not a worry in the world.
“The warmth feels good, doesn’t it?” he murmurs, gazing down at his lover’s tranquil expression.
This winter morning, Starsky’s eyes are as blue as the sky above.
“Yeah, it does,” Starsky murmurs back, gazing tenderly into his eyes, and Hutch knows that Starsky isn’t just talking about the sunshine.
Hutch bows his head more to whisper, “I want to kiss you so bad.”
“Even with my morning breath?”
Hutch grins and says, “Even with.”
“Aw, man, it’s gotta be love,” Starsky says, also grinning, and with the nurse still nearby, Hutch risks only hugging Starsky around the shoulders and resting his cheek against the crown of Starsky’s head. Starsky seems to not care that other people may be watching them, and angles his head to one side so that their cheeks are pressed together. Starsky’s hands are clasping his forearms.
“Missed you,” Starsky whispers, and although Starsky had already said that to him last night, a lump still develops in his throat.
Said in the light of day, in the morning after, the words are doubly elating.
“Missed you too. Missed us. You have no idea how much.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
They smile at each other again, the arch of Starsky’s lips more mischievous but no less adoring.
After spotting a vacant bench near the main entrance/exit of the hospital, Hutch helps Starsky off the wheelchair to his feet and they thank the nurse and then amble to the bench. They sit on the center of the bench, Hutch’s arm around Starsky’s shoulders, their heads touching. Starsky’s shoulders feel bony. Starsky must have lost even more weight since Hutch ran into him at the Metro. It isn’t right that Starsky’s undernourished like this. He’s going to have to fatten Starsky up with all of Starsky’s favorite carb-rich, oily foods, like those gargantuan beef burritos Starsky drools over from that Mexican café on North Evergreen Avenue or those massive pizzas from that pizzeria on North Larchmont Boulevard, and fuck it if anyone’s going to tell them Starsky shouldn’t eat such food these days.
Life’s too damn short.
And what’s the point of living if you can’t enjoy it?
“Hutch, let’s go to your apartment, okay?”
Seated as they are, Starsky can’t see his puzzled frown.
“But you need a change of clothes. I don’t think I have any of your winter clothes at my place. And I’m sure you’d like a shave and a shower, and rest.”
He’d like a shave, shower and a change of clothes too, actually, but all that can wait until Starsky’s been taken care of first. They’ve already had breakfast courtesy of the hospital.
“Ya got heating, don’tcha?” Starsky murmurs. “I can clean myself up at your place. And you got a nice, big bed.”
Something in the left side of Hutch’s chest skips a beat upon hearing the last remark. Without looking at Starsky’s face, he knows Starsky is smiling, and he smiles too, his toes curling in his boots. Starsky’s lips had felt so good around his cock last night, Starsky’s mouth so hot and welcoming and Starsky had swallowed it all, every globule of his come as if it was the elixir of immortality. Just like that night. That auspicious night when they first made love and changed everything between them, changed them.
Oh yeah, If making love’s what Starsky wants, he’ll love every inch and curvature of Starsky, alright. Love every part of the exquisite man, from head to toe and back, until dawn revisits the horizon tomorrow, until Starsky can’t take it anymore and he can’t take it anymore and they have to take a breather. And then do it all over again.
But, first things first …
“Your place is closer though. We might as well stop there first. Okay?”
Starsky sighs, then mutters, “Fine.”
Hutch’s frown returns, one of concern. Huh, maybe he’s reading too much into the reply but his intuition is screaming that there’s more to Starsky wanting to go to his place than meets the eye here. Starsky had also pleaded to go to his apartment rather than his own after the last hospitalization, after the shooting in the Metro car park. Starsky had, however, not objected or been displeased about Hutch dropping by his apartment to pick up extra clothes and other essential items. What’s up with Starsky’s surliness about it this time?
Hutch’s eyes narrow as they stare ahead about a dozen feet at the two-lane road running parallel with the bench and the hospital’s main entrance.
Is there something at Starsky’s apartment that Starsky doesn’t want him to see?
“Starsk.” He rubs the rounded edge of Starsky’s right shoulder, the one farther from him, with his right thumb. “There’s a lot we have to talk about.”
“I know,” Starsky murmurs readily. “But we got time. Right?”
“Yeah,” Hutch says, smiling softly once again. “We got time.”
For the next four minutes, they sit as they are, Starsky’s face turned more towards his, Starsky slumped against his torso. Occasionally he will see, at the periphery of his vision, people walking in or out of the hospital’s main entrance. Two cars drive past the bench and temporarily stop at the main entrance, the first one a two-door, yellow Dodge Aspen and the second one, appearing two minutes later, a green Ford Pinto. A short-haired brunette with a toddler gets into the Aspen. Two guys get out of the Pinto, one of them suffering from what sounds like a severe, hacking cough. None of these people glance at him and Starsky.
At the fifth minute mark, his eyelids begin to droop. Just as his eyes are about to close, the strident honk of a car horn joggles him and his eyes open wide to see … no way, it can’t be -
“Hutch! Starsky!”
There’s the Torino right there in front of them in its candy apple red-and-white splendor, and there’s Callahan, leaping out of the idle car and hastening towards them with a big smile. Callahan must have gone home at some point after going to the Metro with Dobey because he’s now clean-shaven and in one of his classic suits, the plaid two-piece with a dark orange tie, and those leather, wing tip shoes.
“Looks like I got here just in time, huh?”
Starsky is sitting up, inhaling deeply as if he’d been napping and is still half-asleep. Hutch stands up first, and slides his hand along the back of Starsky’s neck to Starsky’s left shoulder, leaving it there as Callahan pats him on the upper back and aims that big smile at Starsky.
“Good to see ya up and about, Starsky. How ya feeling?”
Starsky is now standing too, but Starsky isn’t saying anything. He’s gaping at something on Callahan’s forehead. When Hutch takes a good look at it, he also gapes, his mouth an ‘o’ shape.
“Joey … what happened to you?” Hutch asks, staring at the blue-black contusion in the middle of Callahan’s high forehead.
“Oh, this?” Callahan says, smiling even wider and gingerly touching the shiner. “Bashed in a certain asshole’s face with it, that’s what.”
Hutch’s lower jaw sags more even as he grins.
“Joey, you didn’t.”
“Hey, wasn’t my fault! Honest!” Callahan says, pointing at himself with both thumbs. “He had Minnie hostage and he walked right into me and totally deserved it -“
“Hostage?!” Starsky and Hutch exclaim simultaneously.
“Yeah, when Dobey and I got back to the Metro and he was parking the car in the parking lot, D’Amato came outta the building with Minnie and he had a gun to her head and -“
Another strident honk of a car horn pierces the air. It’s emitting from a beige Buick Regal that has parked behind the Torino, and its driver’s window is rolled down. A bald, brawny man in a suit and tie is waving at them. Hutch doesn’t recognize the man, and glances at Starsky with mild astonishment when Starsky smiles sideways at the guy.
“Hey, Starsky! Callahan told me what happened to you. You really do attract all kinds of crazy danger shit, don’t you?!”
Starsky laughs. Before he can reply, the man shouts at Callahan, “C’mon! We gotta hurry, or we’ll miss the flight!”
“Flight?” Hutch asks.
Callahan places one hand on his shoulder and the other on Starsky’s, and says to them, “Yeah, I’m flying to San Francisco with Nelson and several other guys from Organized Crime. I can’t talk about it for now but I will as soon as I’m cleared to do so.”
Hutch goes back to gaping at the younger detective, bemused by the influx of vague information. San Francisco? Organized Crime? What’s Callahan doing with cops from that department?
Yet another strident honk, a longer, impatient one.
“Okay, Nelson!” Callahan bellows. Then he says to them in a rush, “I’m sorry, I gotta go, I’ll talk to you guys as soon as I get back, okay?” He gestures at the Torino as he strides briskly back to the Buick Regal where Nelson is drumming his fingers on the driver’s door frame. “Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned it and I filled the gas tank before coming here and, oh! Starsky! I got your toque back from Imogen and it’s in the glove compartment and if you guys wanna know what happened to D’Amato and Minnie, talk to Dobey! I’ll call you when I get back, Hutch! Take care, Starsky!”
They watch Callahan clamber into the car and shut the passenger door, waving back when Callahan waves at them. As the car revs past the parked Torino, a grinning Nelson shouts, “Good to see ya again, Starsky! And hey, Hutchinson! We owe ya one for Gunther! How about transferring to OC too?”
“Not a chance, Nelson!” Starsky shouts back affably. “He’s sticking with me!”
Nelson’s gravelly laugh soon fades to silence as the Buick Regal turns onto the main road and disappears from sight. Bowled over as he is, Hutch says nothing, gawking at the Torino with its half-open driver’s door. D’Amato took Minnie hostage last night? And then Callahan head-butted D’Amato in the middle of the hostage situation? And now Callahan’s hanging out with Organized Crime cops and flying to San Francisco on a job with them?
Guess he and Starsky weren’t the only ones who had an exciting night!
“Hey, Hutch, is that the cab ya called for?”
Sure enough, a bright yellow cab has parked behind the Torino, with ‘Metro Cab’ printed in large, blocky letters on its doors.
“Yeah. Wait here,” he replies, patting Starsky once on the upper back. After walking to the cab and apologizing to its driver for the inadvertent inconvenience, he walks back to Starsky and wraps his arm around Starsky’s shoulders.
“You know that guy who was driving the Buick?” Hutch asks while they stroll to the Torino.
“Nelson? Yeah, Ryan Nelson. He’s a senior detective in the Organized Crime unit. Worked with him for my first Narco case.”
“Ah.”
“Who’s Imogen?”
“Forest Ranger Imogen Greene. She was our guide up Mount Islip. If it hadn’t been for her and her dog, I - I don’t know if we’d have found you.”
The leather of the steering wheel is smooth under Hutch’s hands. Pristine, without a single blotch of D’Amato’s blood anywhere. The gas tank’s almost full, and yeah, there’s Starsky’s toque in the glove compartment and it still fits Starsky’s head just right.
“You’d have found a way, Hutch. I know ya would.”
Starsky is smiling at him, tugging the hem of the toque over the bandage covering that near-fatal head injury, and oh, that lump in his throat is back again, at the absolute trust in Starsky’s voice. The absolute faith Starsky has in him. What did he ever do to earn something so treasurable from Starsky?
He wants to know what it is he did, so he can do it again and always be worthy of that faith.
Starsky’s smile softens when he strokes Starsky’s bristly cheek with the back of his fingers. Five years ago, even during that one month they were lovers, touching Starsky like this in public would have been unthinkable. Starsky would have been the first to oppose it, glare at him or snarl at him to back off, not lean into the caress and gaze at him with all that love in those mesmerizing eyes.
Love you too, big guy.
As the Torino glides past the hospital’s main entrance, Starsky says, “We gotta call Minnie. She’s gotta be alright since Joey’s going off to San Francisco and didn’t say anything about her being hurt, but still …”
Hutch glances at Starsky, smiles and says, “We’ll call her later, okay?”
“Okay.” Then, about ten seconds later, Starsky asks, “Hey, didn’t you say the Torino was still at the Recreation Center?”
Hutch waits till he’s maneuvered the car onto the main road and joined traffic before saying, “Yeah. Joey must have gone back early this morning to pick it up and drive it back.”
Very early, now that he considers it, since it takes over an hour to go there by car and another hour back to the city, and who knows what other quandary apart from the hostage situation Callahan had been embroiled in before that.
“That guy’s an angel,” Starsky says, echoing Hutch’s thoughts about the young New Yorker.
Hutch spends a couple of hushed minutes prudently selecting his next words, then says, “You know, I’m glad I had Joey as a partner.”
He senses Starsky’s stare on the right side of his face. Waits for the significance of one particular word to be absorbed by Starsky’s mind.
“Had?” Starsky murmurs.
Attaboy!
“Yeah.”
Starsky seems astounded and spends a couple of hushed minutes himself generating a reply.
“But … you’re still partners with Joey. Aren’t ya?”
So much hope clinging onto the last two words. Hope that he’s wrong.
Hutch grasps Starsky’s left hand with his right, interlacing their fingers, and says, “Last night, while you were still asleep, Joey said something to me that made it pretty clear he knew his partnership with me was coming to an end. And what Nelson said earlier, joking about me transferring to Organized Crime too …”
“Oh. So … you’ll need a new partner. To replace him.”
“No.”
Again, Starsky stares at his face, but he continues to gaze out the windshield as he drives.
“I need my true partner. My irreplaceable partner, to whom everyone else pales in comparison. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”
And without looking at Starsky, he knows that Starsky is grinning that satisfied, puckish grin.
“Yeah … I do. He’ll, uh, be submitting transfer papers in triplicate to get his ass back into Homicide faster than the speed a’ light.”
“That’s what I thought,” Hutch says, deadpan. Then, the instant they glance at each other, they break into robust chuckles, tightening their hold on each other’s hands, laughing for the sake of expressing their elation. Hutch feels like a little boy once more, like that little boy who once lived on a magical horse farm with his mommy and daddy and knew nothing of death or evil. That little boy who had no sliver of ice in his heart. Who had a place where he was safe and loved, a place he called home.
Home, where the heart is.
Home, where Starsky is.
Lounging on the passenger seat, Starsky gazes affectionately at his profile for a long time, still holding his hand. The staring doesn’t bother him at all. He’d often caught Starsky doing just that throughout their years of knowing each other, at all sorts of occasions and locations. Hell, it hadn’t bothered him on the day they met, and why would it?
He’d stared at Starsky just as much. Stared and lusted after a man just minutes after laying eyes on the guy for the first time in his life. Stared and lusted and fell in love, as if a spell had been cast upon him by that humongous smile and those sincere eyes. As if Starsky had been an angel fallen from above, just for him.
No, wait, not fallen.
Sent.
“I like the new look,” Starsky murmurs huskily, and when Hutch glances at him, at the halo of sunshine gilding that toque-covered head and delineating the lines and arcs of that long, smooth neck and those broad shoulders, Hutch has to remind himself to breathe.
Truly, an angel sent from above. Just for him, and him alone.
“You do, huh?” Hutch replies, delighted.
“Yeah.” Starsky pauses. Then, deadpan, he says, “The moldy caterpillar finally got its wings and flew away. How’s that not an improvement?”
As soon as he shoots a mock glower at Starsky, Starsky’s lips twitch and tremble with mirth. It’s such a contagious sight that his own lips twitch too. He lets out an exaggerated sigh and mutters, “Yeah, okay, the mustache wasn’t my best decision for my fa- … Starsky, what are you doing?”
Starsky has opened the glove compartment again and is delving both hands into it, searching hastily for something.
“A tape recorder. I gotta record your confession so if ya ever think about growing the caterpillar on your lip again, I’ll - ouch!“
“That was just a pinch on your belly, you big baby.”
Hutch is smiling so hard that his cheeks are aching.
“Hey! I just got outta the hospital!” Starsky retorts, pouting and rubbing at the offended area, blue eyes twinkling. “That any way to treat a convalescent?!”
“Maybe I should have gone lower, hm?” Hutch murmurs, lowering his voice, permeating it with desire now liberated, and he beams even more at the blush enflaming Starsky’s face from forehead to chin. Starsky, who’d given him an earth-shattering blowjob in a hospital room mere hours ago! Ah, what an intriguing dichotomy his partner is.
“Yeah, well, that part a’ me prefers a lot less pinching, thank you very much.”
“I know. It prefers long, strong sucks. And tongue. Lots of tongue, especially around the head and on the slit.”
Hutch doesn’t look at Starsky for a whole minute. He trains his gaze on the road ahead, his fingers clenched around the steering wheel, his face searing. Damn, his cock’s already straining against his jeans, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to unzip and take himself out on a public highway. While driving.
“What’re ya trying to do, Blondie … gimme a heart attack?”
Starsky’s voice has become even huskier, as if Starsky is out of breath, as if Starsky’s already on the verge. Hutch risks a glance, and almost comes simply from seeing Starsky’s head angled back, those large blue eyes squeezed shut and the Adam’s apple in Starsky’s throat bobbing as Starsky swallows hard. He makes an even riskier glance downwards. Oh damn, Starsky’s as hard as he is and straining just as much in those snug jeans. Damn, damn, damn, why hasn’t someone invented Star Trek-like teleportation already? If someone did, they’d be in a bedroom right now and he’d be yanking off Starsky’s jeans and hurling Starsky onto the bed and -
“You got lousy timing,” Starsky adds, looking at him and smiling at him now. He smiles too, keeping his hands on the steering wheel.
“Except when it really counts, right?” he replies, and they chortle, Starsky’s laugh wonderfully wicked and loving at the same time.
Hutch risks yet another glance. Starsky has placed his bandaged hands on his belly, just above the belt. Starsky’s fingers are curled, like he’s battling the urge to let his hands travel lower down and do very, very indecent things to a certain portion of his anatomy. Starsky’s face is flushed and Starsky’s lips are parted and oh man, if Starsky keeps looking at him like that, he’s going to end up with a sticky situation in a matter of seconds.
He squints ahead at the road, breathes in consciously, then says with what he hopes is a casual tone, “I like your short hair too.”
“Yeah?”
So much pleasure in that uttered word, so much that Hutch’s treacherous mouth murmurs hoarsely, “Brings back memories.”
For what seems an eon, neither man speak or gaze at each other. Hutch’s hands are now gripping the steering wheel so tautly that they’re aching. Aching nearly as much as his erection that won’t go down, not with the delicious human being sitting next to him.
“I … I didn’t think about it until it was too late.” Starsky’s voice is still husky. Thrumming with an energy that shoots straight to Hutch’s groin. “Just really felt like I had to change my look, ya know? Walked into the first barbershop I could find and got it all snipped off, and when I went home and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror …”
Starsky’s breaths have quickened.
Starsky’s thinking the same thing he is, too.
“Have you changed your bathroom mirror?”
In spite of the usual din of traffic and the droning of the Torino’s engine, Hutch hears the hitching of Starsky’s breath.
“Ah, still the wide, rectangular one then. Good. I like a really big mirror in the bathroom. You can see almost everything when you’re bending over the sink … but then you’d know that. Wouldn’t you, angel?”
Jesus, he ought to be receiving an Academy Award for his fantastic portrayal of equable composure and his unwavering tone.
“You bastard,” Starsky whispers, and the two tremoring words are Hutch’s undoing, sending his mind spiraling back five years ago to his Venice Beach canal cottage where he and Starsky were retiring for the night and Starsky was unbuttoning a periwinkle blue shirt and stripping it off while staring into his eyes in the mirror of his bathroom. That mirror had spanned one wall from ceiling to sink and was recessed between two side cabinets, its reflective surface untouched aside from two light fittings on its upper corners. The warm glow from the lights cast a sheen of bronze across the expanse of Starsky’s bared chest, highlighting its dark, soft curls, softening the masculine features of Starsky’s face.
Fuck me here, Hutch.
The shirt had fluttered to the floor from Starsky’s hand, followed by faded blue jeans that Starsky had to peel off like a second skin.
Wanna see your face as you take me from behind.
Tonight, Starsky was wearing red briefs. Waiting for him to peel them off.
He hadn’t said a word as he divested himself of his own clothes, nor when he stepped behind Starsky and enfolded his arms around Starsky’s torso, splaying the fingers of his left hand on a firm, rippled belly as his right hand pulled down the briefs to the thighs then stroked the length of Starsky’s already turgid cock from base to head. Hadn’t said a word at Starsky’s eyes flickering shut, at Starsky’s head falling back onto his shoulder, exposing soft skin for him to kiss and suckle and mark. Not a word, even when he arranged Starsky’s hands on the rim of the porcelain sink and made Starsky tiptoe and spread those supple legs and then cry out every time his lubricated fingers slid in and kneaded that special spot.
Hutch, fuck me now, oh Hutch, please -
And then Starsky had screamed as he plunged in deep, slapping one hand on the mirror while clinging onto the sink with the other at the ferocity of his thrust, screaming a second time with outright ecstasy as he immediately pistoned in and out of Starsky, his hips slamming hard against Starsky’s buttocks. He held Starsky in place with his right forearm across Starsky’s abdomen, watching in the mirror the flight of expressions paraded by Starsky’s animated face: The slackness of intense pleasure, mouth falling open and eyes closing whenever he shoved in till pubic hair chafed against smooth skin. The grimace of even more intense pleasure, big blue eyes in slits and teeth gritted whenever he withdrew and the ridge of the head of his erection scraped Starsky’s prostate, and the best of all, that ear-to-ear grin reflecting his, widening downwards into a final scream as a stream of come erupted from Starsky’s arching body and anointed the sink.
He’d involuntarily bitten Starsky on the shoulder as he came deep inside, enough to bruise though not break skin but Starsky hadn’t complained a bit about it. Starsky had stared at the mirror, at him with glistening eyes round with reverence, fondling his disheveled wisps of blond hair as he kissed the marred skin and mumbled apologies. They had stood there for ages, regaining their breath, their eyes meeting in the mirror, Hutch reluctant to leave Starsky’s body and Starsky reluctant to release him, and the next day, Starsky had to wear a turtleneck to conceal the bite mark plus numerous hickeys on his neck.
It was a black turtleneck. Just like the one Starsky’s wearing at this very moment.
“Is it the same turtleneck?” Hutch asks, his throat dry, his cock as hard as ever, and Starsky makes a sound akin to a whimper and rolls as much as he can onto his side, facing the passenger door and away from Hutch.
“I can’t even look at you. You’re too damn beautiful for your own good.” A gulp, then Starsky rasps, “And if you touch me, I swear I’m gonna come so hard everybody on this highway’s gonna hear me scream.”
“Stole the words right out of my mouth, babe,” Hutch scarcely manages to say.
Desperate for distraction, he switches on the radio. At first, he hears the melodious hums of an electronic piano, then the beginnings of a gentle pop beat. Just when he relaxes, a woman’s resonant voice starts to sing:
Do that to me one more time
Once is never enough with a man like you
Do that to me one more time
I can never get enough of a man like you, oh
Kiss me like you just did
Oh, baby, do that to me once again
Hutch bites his lower lip. Oh god, of all the songs that had to play, it has to be one speaking straight from his heart!
Pass that by me one more time
Once just isn't enough for my heart to hear
Whoa, tell it to me one more time
I can never hear enough while I got ya near, oh
Say those words again that you just did
Oh, baby, tell it to me once again
Now Starsky’s looking at him over a shoulder, also biting a lower lip. He glances at Starsky’s face. Starsky’s expression of chagrin is mirroring his so impeccably that they crack up into gleeful guffaws, dispelling some of the heavy sexual tension for the time being.
“Geez, this is ridiculous. It’s like I’m a horny teenager again,” Starsky says, smiling, sitting with his legs drawn up as much as possible, facing the windshield once more.
Hiding something there, buddy?
But Hutch tenderly replies with, “Or maybe … this is what it really feels like to be madly in love with someone who’s madly in love with you too.”
Starsky gazes at his profile for some time before saying just as tenderly, “You turning mushy on me, Blintz?”
“That’s what a blintz is, isn’t it? Golden hard on the outside, gooey soft on the inside.” He sniffs, then says with a small smile, “And as I recall, there’s a certain curly-haired, Jewish guy I know who loves blintzes so much that he’s willing to pack a whole suitcase of his mom’s homemade ones back from New York.”
“Ya got it wrong. I like blintzes … but there’s only one Blintz I love.”
Hutch’s smile broadens.
“Now who’s turning all mushy?”
He snickers cheerfully at Starsky’s lack of an answer as well as Starsky smacking him on the upper arm. Ah, the radio’s playing a more upbeat song now, one he and Starsky are familiar with since they’d heard it earlier this year in February when it debuted:
This thing called love, I just can't handle it
This thing called love, I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
And uh oh, Starsky’s singing along with Freddie Mercury now and instinctively moving with the music, and all that erotic wiggling on black leather is not helping Hutch with making his erection go away -
This thing called love, it cries (like a baby)
In a cradle all night
it swings (woo woo), it jives (woo woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love
And infectious as Starsky’s spirit is when it comes to song and dance, Hutch joins in with a little amendment to the lyrics that causes Starsky to laugh vivaciously:
There goes my baby
He knows how to rock n' roll
He drives me crazy
He gives me hot and cold fever
Then he leaves me in a cool, cool sweat
“Yeah, babe, that’s me!” Starsky exclaims, and grinning, they croon the rest of the song with zest, revisiting one of the their relationship’s oldest traditions of singing together to reaffirm the bond between them. Hutch is glad for the sunshine pouring in through the windows and windshield, for it’s as good an excuse as any for the sudden moisture in his eyes. When was the last time he’d sung gaily like this with his best friend in the whole world? How did he ever live without this happiness in his life every day?
In the aftermath of the song, he smiles at Starsky who has rolled onto his other side to face him.
Author: Gideon BD
Type: Slash
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Word count: 13,389 (for installment 14)
Summary: 'It has been almost six months since Starsky’s reinstatement as a BCPD homicide detective, and Hutch is no longer sure how long he can endure this extra-tetchy, morose, antagonistic version of his partner who seems to find a perverse delight in pissing him off for no reason whatsoever. Like Starsky can’t stand his physical presence. Like Starsky wants to drive him away and preserve a respectable distance between them after months of him hanging around Starsky throughout Starsky’s arduous recuperation. Like Starsky is fighting him, fighting him when there isn’t a conflict to begin with, or fighting something that has to do with him.'
Categories: First Time, Angst, Backstory, Bisexuality, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Sweet Revenge, Romance
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Starsky and Hutch are mine, right? Right? No? Drats.
Author's notes: The track I listened to while writing this installment was the piano-only version of Mi Mancherai (I Miss You). A very soothing rendition of the song which I thought was apt for this part of the story. :)
“I love you, Blondie,” Starsky whispers, and together, they fall into a soporific slumber in which Hutch dreams of bathing in cool, winding rivers and wandering through boundless fields of variegated flowers while the sun smiles down upon on him.
& & & & & &
There is such inexplicable serenity for Hutch in the simple tying of Starsky’s shoelaces.
“Ya don’t have to do that, Blintz.”
He doesn’t reply Starsky’s fond comment and knots the white laces of the left dark brown sneaker into a ribbon, smiling softly. He misses Starsky’s old, blue Adidas shoes. They really suited Starsky’s regular ensembles, those skin-tight jeans and colorful shirts and leather jackets. Really brought out the tan of Starsky’s skin, the opulent brunet of Starsky’s hair.
“There. All done.”
“Dummy. I can tie my own shoes, ya know.”
“Is that why you’re just sitting there on the bed watching me do it?”
Hutch chuckles when Starsky’s bandaged hands playfully tousle his hair, and he smiles up at Starsky who’s garbed in that black turtleneck and jeans again, at Starsky’s likewise jovial smile, at the twinkling of Starsky’s crinkled eyes. There are still dark circles of exhaustion around those big, blue eyes. Unlike his slumber, Starsky’s had not turned out to be as revitalizing as his for long. There had been nightmares, bad ones that’d awoken Starsky into mumbling fits of terror out of which Hutch would coax him with gentle words and hugs.
Starsky is starting to remember.
“Are you boys ready?”
A nurse in her late fifties is standing at the open door of the room, grasping the handles of a wheelchair in front of her. She has a motherly smile on her face. She’d been observing Hutch patiently tying Starsky’s shoelaces, and it is her smile that reminds him his love for Starsky that he has always willingly demonstrated in public - now even more so, boldly - is something exceptional. Incomparable. Priceless.
Hutch smiles at her, stands up and says, “We are, now.”
As she maneuvers the wheelchair to the bed, she says to them, “Luckily you won’t be needing your coats today. It’s quite warm and sunny.”
Hutch blinks and glances at her. Coats … oh yeah, their winter coats. He and Callahan had discarded theirs a short while after arriving at the hospital. The waiting area had been hot as hell and jam-packed with people, and he’d left his coat with Callahan to accompany Starsky in the ER. He doesn’t recall Callahan bringing them along into Starsky’s hospital room, and this nurse doesn’t have them with her. As for Starsky’s coat -
“Your coats were taken by a police officer last night,” she adds. “He said the BCPD’s forensics team wanted them.”
“Ah, okay.” Hutch glances down at Starsky, and asks, “Do you feel cold, buddy? Maybe we can ask for a -“
“Nah. I’m good,” Starsky says quietly. “I just wanna go home.”
The side of Starsky’s left foot is touching the back of his right shin. Rubbing it.
“Okay,” Hutch replies with a smile. “Let’s go home.”
Hutch’s jubilation of being with Starsky again abates just a bit as Starsky gets off the bed and totters to the wheelchair. Starsky’s hands and feet will be aching for a few days, the doctor had said, then have a dull throbbing that can last for weeks, even months. The stitched wound on Starsky’s head will have to be cleaned and bandaged anew daily, and if infection should set in, Starsky has to return to the hospital right away.
He’d had a close look at the wound earlier this morning as a nurse, a different one, had redressed it and then handed him the necessary medication for safekeeping on Starsky’s behalf. He’d swallowed visibly at the tidy crisscrossing of over a dozen stitches across Starsky’s scalp. There’ll be a scar, no doubt, but should Starsky grow out his hair again, the profuse curls ought to hide it. The wound had been deep. Just an inch, one more inch, and Starsky would be in the morgue instead, shrouded in white with a bullet in his head, and he … he’d probably be on the slab next to Starsky. Maybe a gunshot to his head too. Or the good old slashing of wrists/forearms. Either way, together with his partner, even in death -
“Hey.” Starsky, sitting in the wheelchair now, is gazing up at him and gripping his right hand. “I’m here, Hutch.”
Starsky’s hand is so warm, even bandaged as it is. So alive. So fitting in his, as if they’ve been created just for each other. Perhaps they really are.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, and he holds Starsky’s hand against his belly, placing his left hand over it as well and smiling at Starsky giving his fingers a squeeze.
At Starsky’s behest, the nurse lets Hutch push the wheelchair. While they head for the elevator, the nurse describes each and every measure of caring for Starsky’s frostbitten limbs and head injury, and Hutch nods and listens dutifully. He’s been down this lane many times, figuratively and literally, trading places with Starsky every so often to be the one being wheeled out of the hospital. But this time, Starsky isn’t just his partner, just his best friend. Starsky’s also his lover. His other half.
His other half that a world not so cruel after all has returned to him, to make him whole once more.
“Is anyone going to pick you up?” the nurse asks as the elevator doors open at the ground floor.
Hutch and Starsky glance into each other’s eyes, Hutch dipping his head and Starsky tilting his head back.
“Ya got my car?” Starsky asks.
Hutch shakes his head.
“It’s still at the Crystal Lake Recreation Center. We got here by helicopter. Do you remember that?”
Starsky blinks up at him, then says, “I think so. You were there with me. You were talking to me. And holding my hand.”
“Yeah,” Hutch says, his soft smile back. “Do you remember what happened to you, now?”
Hutch’s smile softens even more when Starsky looks away but reaches over one shoulder to touch his left hand grasping one of the handles of the wheelchair.
“It’s coming back to me in pieces, but … I’m remembering a lot more.”
Hutch entwines his fingers with Starsky’s.
I’m here too, buddy. I’m not going anywhere without you.
“If you’d like to call someone to pick you up, you can do that at Reception,” the nurse says. She’s already stepped out of the elevator, and is waiting for them to do the same.
“That’d be great, thank you,” Hutch replies.
At the stately, curved cherry wood reception desk, Hutch is handed a white phone by one of the two receptionists there, a blonde woman with wavy hair down to the middle of her back who smiles broadly at him. He smiles politely in response and says an equally polite thank you, and isn’t all that surprised to see her smile wane.
Sorry, random pretty woman, but this man’s spoken for and he’s damn happy about it.
Starsky’s hand is on his lower back as he leans his forearms on the glass top of the reception desk and dials the number of Dobey’s office. Oh boy, he’d forgotten to contact Dobey last night about Starsky waking up and about Starsky being discharged this morning so Dobey’s probably not going to appreciate being called just to become their chauffeur.
“Who ya calling, Hutch?”
“Dobey,” he says, hearing the monotone beeping of his call waiting to be connected go on and on. “I don’t think he’s in.”
He puts down the receiver after another five seconds of beeping. Okay, Dobey’s out, so a chew out’s been dodged too. (For now.) Callahan was his next option, but he’s already put the younger detective through enough crap in the past twenty-four hours and it is the first day of their Dobey-ordered vacation. So that leaves …
“Huggy,” he mumbles to himself.
“Ya calling Huggy?”
“Yeah.” Hutch looks at the oval-shaped clock hanging on the wall behind the reception desk and sees that it’s forty minutes past nine. “It’s a little early for him -“
His reply is cut off by Starsky abruptly grabbing his upper arm. Hard enough that it almost hurts.
“Let’s just get a cab, okay? Please, Hutch?”
Wow, Starsky’s puppy dog eyes are on at full power, large and outwardly innocuous … and at utter odds with the anxiety endowing the intensity to Starsky’s clutch of his arm. What the … Starsky’s frightened of Huggy? What’s there about Huggy to be frightened of -
And then, the startling image of a drunk Starsky at The Pits splashes itself on Hutch’s mind. A drunk, violent Starsky launching himself across the bar to get at a bottle of whisky in Huggy’s hands, hollering at Huggy to give him the fucking whisky or else. A drunk, violent Starsky so entangled in self-hatred and misery that nothing mattered anymore except the numbing of his heart that simply wouldn’t stop loving Hutch.
No, it’s not fear Starsky’s feeling in regards to Huggy.
Hutch strokes the left side of Starsky’s head, sliding his fingers through Starsky’s cropped hair.
Ah, Starsk. Sooner or later you’ll HAVE to meet and talk with Huggy, and something tells me he won’t react like you’re afraid he will.
But what Hutch says is, “Okay. Okay, we’ll get a cab,” and Starsky releases his arm and smiles at him. Starsky’s relief is so evident that Hutch feels it like a condensed fog around both of them. When he turns back to the reception desk and picks up the receiver a second time, Starsky’s hand is on his lower back again, just touching him, maintaining a physical bond between them. It soothes him as much as it seems to soothe Starsky.
His call to Manny at Metro Cab is quick though friendly. Manny obviously remembers him and Starsky, for the cab already on its way to the hospital is on Manny’s dime: “You think I’m gonna charge the two stupendous poh-leece men who saved my company and my homies from a killer? Pssh! Forget it, dude. Oh, send my kudos to that cool cat, Huggy, will ya?”
As the nurse had informed them, the weather is indeed sunny and balmy. Wheeling Starsky through the main entrance doors, Hutch smiles at Starsky turning his face up towards the halcyon heavens and basking in the sunshine with those blue eyes shut. Starsky looks like a boy with not a worry in the world.
“The warmth feels good, doesn’t it?” he murmurs, gazing down at his lover’s tranquil expression.
This winter morning, Starsky’s eyes are as blue as the sky above.
“Yeah, it does,” Starsky murmurs back, gazing tenderly into his eyes, and Hutch knows that Starsky isn’t just talking about the sunshine.
Hutch bows his head more to whisper, “I want to kiss you so bad.”
“Even with my morning breath?”
Hutch grins and says, “Even with.”
“Aw, man, it’s gotta be love,” Starsky says, also grinning, and with the nurse still nearby, Hutch risks only hugging Starsky around the shoulders and resting his cheek against the crown of Starsky’s head. Starsky seems to not care that other people may be watching them, and angles his head to one side so that their cheeks are pressed together. Starsky’s hands are clasping his forearms.
“Missed you,” Starsky whispers, and although Starsky had already said that to him last night, a lump still develops in his throat.
Said in the light of day, in the morning after, the words are doubly elating.
“Missed you too. Missed us. You have no idea how much.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
They smile at each other again, the arch of Starsky’s lips more mischievous but no less adoring.
After spotting a vacant bench near the main entrance/exit of the hospital, Hutch helps Starsky off the wheelchair to his feet and they thank the nurse and then amble to the bench. They sit on the center of the bench, Hutch’s arm around Starsky’s shoulders, their heads touching. Starsky’s shoulders feel bony. Starsky must have lost even more weight since Hutch ran into him at the Metro. It isn’t right that Starsky’s undernourished like this. He’s going to have to fatten Starsky up with all of Starsky’s favorite carb-rich, oily foods, like those gargantuan beef burritos Starsky drools over from that Mexican café on North Evergreen Avenue or those massive pizzas from that pizzeria on North Larchmont Boulevard, and fuck it if anyone’s going to tell them Starsky shouldn’t eat such food these days.
Life’s too damn short.
And what’s the point of living if you can’t enjoy it?
“Hutch, let’s go to your apartment, okay?”
Seated as they are, Starsky can’t see his puzzled frown.
“But you need a change of clothes. I don’t think I have any of your winter clothes at my place. And I’m sure you’d like a shave and a shower, and rest.”
He’d like a shave, shower and a change of clothes too, actually, but all that can wait until Starsky’s been taken care of first. They’ve already had breakfast courtesy of the hospital.
“Ya got heating, don’tcha?” Starsky murmurs. “I can clean myself up at your place. And you got a nice, big bed.”
Something in the left side of Hutch’s chest skips a beat upon hearing the last remark. Without looking at Starsky’s face, he knows Starsky is smiling, and he smiles too, his toes curling in his boots. Starsky’s lips had felt so good around his cock last night, Starsky’s mouth so hot and welcoming and Starsky had swallowed it all, every globule of his come as if it was the elixir of immortality. Just like that night. That auspicious night when they first made love and changed everything between them, changed them.
Oh yeah, If making love’s what Starsky wants, he’ll love every inch and curvature of Starsky, alright. Love every part of the exquisite man, from head to toe and back, until dawn revisits the horizon tomorrow, until Starsky can’t take it anymore and he can’t take it anymore and they have to take a breather. And then do it all over again.
But, first things first …
“Your place is closer though. We might as well stop there first. Okay?”
Starsky sighs, then mutters, “Fine.”
Hutch’s frown returns, one of concern. Huh, maybe he’s reading too much into the reply but his intuition is screaming that there’s more to Starsky wanting to go to his place than meets the eye here. Starsky had also pleaded to go to his apartment rather than his own after the last hospitalization, after the shooting in the Metro car park. Starsky had, however, not objected or been displeased about Hutch dropping by his apartment to pick up extra clothes and other essential items. What’s up with Starsky’s surliness about it this time?
Hutch’s eyes narrow as they stare ahead about a dozen feet at the two-lane road running parallel with the bench and the hospital’s main entrance.
Is there something at Starsky’s apartment that Starsky doesn’t want him to see?
“Starsk.” He rubs the rounded edge of Starsky’s right shoulder, the one farther from him, with his right thumb. “There’s a lot we have to talk about.”
“I know,” Starsky murmurs readily. “But we got time. Right?”
“Yeah,” Hutch says, smiling softly once again. “We got time.”
For the next four minutes, they sit as they are, Starsky’s face turned more towards his, Starsky slumped against his torso. Occasionally he will see, at the periphery of his vision, people walking in or out of the hospital’s main entrance. Two cars drive past the bench and temporarily stop at the main entrance, the first one a two-door, yellow Dodge Aspen and the second one, appearing two minutes later, a green Ford Pinto. A short-haired brunette with a toddler gets into the Aspen. Two guys get out of the Pinto, one of them suffering from what sounds like a severe, hacking cough. None of these people glance at him and Starsky.
At the fifth minute mark, his eyelids begin to droop. Just as his eyes are about to close, the strident honk of a car horn joggles him and his eyes open wide to see … no way, it can’t be -
“Hutch! Starsky!”
There’s the Torino right there in front of them in its candy apple red-and-white splendor, and there’s Callahan, leaping out of the idle car and hastening towards them with a big smile. Callahan must have gone home at some point after going to the Metro with Dobey because he’s now clean-shaven and in one of his classic suits, the plaid two-piece with a dark orange tie, and those leather, wing tip shoes.
“Looks like I got here just in time, huh?”
Starsky is sitting up, inhaling deeply as if he’d been napping and is still half-asleep. Hutch stands up first, and slides his hand along the back of Starsky’s neck to Starsky’s left shoulder, leaving it there as Callahan pats him on the upper back and aims that big smile at Starsky.
“Good to see ya up and about, Starsky. How ya feeling?”
Starsky is now standing too, but Starsky isn’t saying anything. He’s gaping at something on Callahan’s forehead. When Hutch takes a good look at it, he also gapes, his mouth an ‘o’ shape.
“Joey … what happened to you?” Hutch asks, staring at the blue-black contusion in the middle of Callahan’s high forehead.
“Oh, this?” Callahan says, smiling even wider and gingerly touching the shiner. “Bashed in a certain asshole’s face with it, that’s what.”
Hutch’s lower jaw sags more even as he grins.
“Joey, you didn’t.”
“Hey, wasn’t my fault! Honest!” Callahan says, pointing at himself with both thumbs. “He had Minnie hostage and he walked right into me and totally deserved it -“
“Hostage?!” Starsky and Hutch exclaim simultaneously.
“Yeah, when Dobey and I got back to the Metro and he was parking the car in the parking lot, D’Amato came outta the building with Minnie and he had a gun to her head and -“
Another strident honk of a car horn pierces the air. It’s emitting from a beige Buick Regal that has parked behind the Torino, and its driver’s window is rolled down. A bald, brawny man in a suit and tie is waving at them. Hutch doesn’t recognize the man, and glances at Starsky with mild astonishment when Starsky smiles sideways at the guy.
“Hey, Starsky! Callahan told me what happened to you. You really do attract all kinds of crazy danger shit, don’t you?!”
Starsky laughs. Before he can reply, the man shouts at Callahan, “C’mon! We gotta hurry, or we’ll miss the flight!”
“Flight?” Hutch asks.
Callahan places one hand on his shoulder and the other on Starsky’s, and says to them, “Yeah, I’m flying to San Francisco with Nelson and several other guys from Organized Crime. I can’t talk about it for now but I will as soon as I’m cleared to do so.”
Hutch goes back to gaping at the younger detective, bemused by the influx of vague information. San Francisco? Organized Crime? What’s Callahan doing with cops from that department?
Yet another strident honk, a longer, impatient one.
“Okay, Nelson!” Callahan bellows. Then he says to them in a rush, “I’m sorry, I gotta go, I’ll talk to you guys as soon as I get back, okay?” He gestures at the Torino as he strides briskly back to the Buick Regal where Nelson is drumming his fingers on the driver’s door frame. “Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned it and I filled the gas tank before coming here and, oh! Starsky! I got your toque back from Imogen and it’s in the glove compartment and if you guys wanna know what happened to D’Amato and Minnie, talk to Dobey! I’ll call you when I get back, Hutch! Take care, Starsky!”
They watch Callahan clamber into the car and shut the passenger door, waving back when Callahan waves at them. As the car revs past the parked Torino, a grinning Nelson shouts, “Good to see ya again, Starsky! And hey, Hutchinson! We owe ya one for Gunther! How about transferring to OC too?”
“Not a chance, Nelson!” Starsky shouts back affably. “He’s sticking with me!”
Nelson’s gravelly laugh soon fades to silence as the Buick Regal turns onto the main road and disappears from sight. Bowled over as he is, Hutch says nothing, gawking at the Torino with its half-open driver’s door. D’Amato took Minnie hostage last night? And then Callahan head-butted D’Amato in the middle of the hostage situation? And now Callahan’s hanging out with Organized Crime cops and flying to San Francisco on a job with them?
Guess he and Starsky weren’t the only ones who had an exciting night!
“Hey, Hutch, is that the cab ya called for?”
Sure enough, a bright yellow cab has parked behind the Torino, with ‘Metro Cab’ printed in large, blocky letters on its doors.
“Yeah. Wait here,” he replies, patting Starsky once on the upper back. After walking to the cab and apologizing to its driver for the inadvertent inconvenience, he walks back to Starsky and wraps his arm around Starsky’s shoulders.
“You know that guy who was driving the Buick?” Hutch asks while they stroll to the Torino.
“Nelson? Yeah, Ryan Nelson. He’s a senior detective in the Organized Crime unit. Worked with him for my first Narco case.”
“Ah.”
“Who’s Imogen?”
“Forest Ranger Imogen Greene. She was our guide up Mount Islip. If it hadn’t been for her and her dog, I - I don’t know if we’d have found you.”
The leather of the steering wheel is smooth under Hutch’s hands. Pristine, without a single blotch of D’Amato’s blood anywhere. The gas tank’s almost full, and yeah, there’s Starsky’s toque in the glove compartment and it still fits Starsky’s head just right.
“You’d have found a way, Hutch. I know ya would.”
Starsky is smiling at him, tugging the hem of the toque over the bandage covering that near-fatal head injury, and oh, that lump in his throat is back again, at the absolute trust in Starsky’s voice. The absolute faith Starsky has in him. What did he ever do to earn something so treasurable from Starsky?
He wants to know what it is he did, so he can do it again and always be worthy of that faith.
Starsky’s smile softens when he strokes Starsky’s bristly cheek with the back of his fingers. Five years ago, even during that one month they were lovers, touching Starsky like this in public would have been unthinkable. Starsky would have been the first to oppose it, glare at him or snarl at him to back off, not lean into the caress and gaze at him with all that love in those mesmerizing eyes.
Love you too, big guy.
As the Torino glides past the hospital’s main entrance, Starsky says, “We gotta call Minnie. She’s gotta be alright since Joey’s going off to San Francisco and didn’t say anything about her being hurt, but still …”
Hutch glances at Starsky, smiles and says, “We’ll call her later, okay?”
“Okay.” Then, about ten seconds later, Starsky asks, “Hey, didn’t you say the Torino was still at the Recreation Center?”
Hutch waits till he’s maneuvered the car onto the main road and joined traffic before saying, “Yeah. Joey must have gone back early this morning to pick it up and drive it back.”
Very early, now that he considers it, since it takes over an hour to go there by car and another hour back to the city, and who knows what other quandary apart from the hostage situation Callahan had been embroiled in before that.
“That guy’s an angel,” Starsky says, echoing Hutch’s thoughts about the young New Yorker.
Hutch spends a couple of hushed minutes prudently selecting his next words, then says, “You know, I’m glad I had Joey as a partner.”
He senses Starsky’s stare on the right side of his face. Waits for the significance of one particular word to be absorbed by Starsky’s mind.
“Had?” Starsky murmurs.
Attaboy!
“Yeah.”
Starsky seems astounded and spends a couple of hushed minutes himself generating a reply.
“But … you’re still partners with Joey. Aren’t ya?”
So much hope clinging onto the last two words. Hope that he’s wrong.
Hutch grasps Starsky’s left hand with his right, interlacing their fingers, and says, “Last night, while you were still asleep, Joey said something to me that made it pretty clear he knew his partnership with me was coming to an end. And what Nelson said earlier, joking about me transferring to Organized Crime too …”
“Oh. So … you’ll need a new partner. To replace him.”
“No.”
Again, Starsky stares at his face, but he continues to gaze out the windshield as he drives.
“I need my true partner. My irreplaceable partner, to whom everyone else pales in comparison. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”
And without looking at Starsky, he knows that Starsky is grinning that satisfied, puckish grin.
“Yeah … I do. He’ll, uh, be submitting transfer papers in triplicate to get his ass back into Homicide faster than the speed a’ light.”
“That’s what I thought,” Hutch says, deadpan. Then, the instant they glance at each other, they break into robust chuckles, tightening their hold on each other’s hands, laughing for the sake of expressing their elation. Hutch feels like a little boy once more, like that little boy who once lived on a magical horse farm with his mommy and daddy and knew nothing of death or evil. That little boy who had no sliver of ice in his heart. Who had a place where he was safe and loved, a place he called home.
Home, where the heart is.
Home, where Starsky is.
Lounging on the passenger seat, Starsky gazes affectionately at his profile for a long time, still holding his hand. The staring doesn’t bother him at all. He’d often caught Starsky doing just that throughout their years of knowing each other, at all sorts of occasions and locations. Hell, it hadn’t bothered him on the day they met, and why would it?
He’d stared at Starsky just as much. Stared and lusted after a man just minutes after laying eyes on the guy for the first time in his life. Stared and lusted and fell in love, as if a spell had been cast upon him by that humongous smile and those sincere eyes. As if Starsky had been an angel fallen from above, just for him.
No, wait, not fallen.
Sent.
“I like the new look,” Starsky murmurs huskily, and when Hutch glances at him, at the halo of sunshine gilding that toque-covered head and delineating the lines and arcs of that long, smooth neck and those broad shoulders, Hutch has to remind himself to breathe.
Truly, an angel sent from above. Just for him, and him alone.
“You do, huh?” Hutch replies, delighted.
“Yeah.” Starsky pauses. Then, deadpan, he says, “The moldy caterpillar finally got its wings and flew away. How’s that not an improvement?”
As soon as he shoots a mock glower at Starsky, Starsky’s lips twitch and tremble with mirth. It’s such a contagious sight that his own lips twitch too. He lets out an exaggerated sigh and mutters, “Yeah, okay, the mustache wasn’t my best decision for my fa- … Starsky, what are you doing?”
Starsky has opened the glove compartment again and is delving both hands into it, searching hastily for something.
“A tape recorder. I gotta record your confession so if ya ever think about growing the caterpillar on your lip again, I’ll - ouch!“
“That was just a pinch on your belly, you big baby.”
Hutch is smiling so hard that his cheeks are aching.
“Hey! I just got outta the hospital!” Starsky retorts, pouting and rubbing at the offended area, blue eyes twinkling. “That any way to treat a convalescent?!”
“Maybe I should have gone lower, hm?” Hutch murmurs, lowering his voice, permeating it with desire now liberated, and he beams even more at the blush enflaming Starsky’s face from forehead to chin. Starsky, who’d given him an earth-shattering blowjob in a hospital room mere hours ago! Ah, what an intriguing dichotomy his partner is.
“Yeah, well, that part a’ me prefers a lot less pinching, thank you very much.”
“I know. It prefers long, strong sucks. And tongue. Lots of tongue, especially around the head and on the slit.”
Hutch doesn’t look at Starsky for a whole minute. He trains his gaze on the road ahead, his fingers clenched around the steering wheel, his face searing. Damn, his cock’s already straining against his jeans, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to unzip and take himself out on a public highway. While driving.
“What’re ya trying to do, Blondie … gimme a heart attack?”
Starsky’s voice has become even huskier, as if Starsky is out of breath, as if Starsky’s already on the verge. Hutch risks a glance, and almost comes simply from seeing Starsky’s head angled back, those large blue eyes squeezed shut and the Adam’s apple in Starsky’s throat bobbing as Starsky swallows hard. He makes an even riskier glance downwards. Oh damn, Starsky’s as hard as he is and straining just as much in those snug jeans. Damn, damn, damn, why hasn’t someone invented Star Trek-like teleportation already? If someone did, they’d be in a bedroom right now and he’d be yanking off Starsky’s jeans and hurling Starsky onto the bed and -
“You got lousy timing,” Starsky adds, looking at him and smiling at him now. He smiles too, keeping his hands on the steering wheel.
“Except when it really counts, right?” he replies, and they chortle, Starsky’s laugh wonderfully wicked and loving at the same time.
Hutch risks yet another glance. Starsky has placed his bandaged hands on his belly, just above the belt. Starsky’s fingers are curled, like he’s battling the urge to let his hands travel lower down and do very, very indecent things to a certain portion of his anatomy. Starsky’s face is flushed and Starsky’s lips are parted and oh man, if Starsky keeps looking at him like that, he’s going to end up with a sticky situation in a matter of seconds.
He squints ahead at the road, breathes in consciously, then says with what he hopes is a casual tone, “I like your short hair too.”
“Yeah?”
So much pleasure in that uttered word, so much that Hutch’s treacherous mouth murmurs hoarsely, “Brings back memories.”
For what seems an eon, neither man speak or gaze at each other. Hutch’s hands are now gripping the steering wheel so tautly that they’re aching. Aching nearly as much as his erection that won’t go down, not with the delicious human being sitting next to him.
“I … I didn’t think about it until it was too late.” Starsky’s voice is still husky. Thrumming with an energy that shoots straight to Hutch’s groin. “Just really felt like I had to change my look, ya know? Walked into the first barbershop I could find and got it all snipped off, and when I went home and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror …”
Starsky’s breaths have quickened.
Starsky’s thinking the same thing he is, too.
“Have you changed your bathroom mirror?”
In spite of the usual din of traffic and the droning of the Torino’s engine, Hutch hears the hitching of Starsky’s breath.
“Ah, still the wide, rectangular one then. Good. I like a really big mirror in the bathroom. You can see almost everything when you’re bending over the sink … but then you’d know that. Wouldn’t you, angel?”
Jesus, he ought to be receiving an Academy Award for his fantastic portrayal of equable composure and his unwavering tone.
“You bastard,” Starsky whispers, and the two tremoring words are Hutch’s undoing, sending his mind spiraling back five years ago to his Venice Beach canal cottage where he and Starsky were retiring for the night and Starsky was unbuttoning a periwinkle blue shirt and stripping it off while staring into his eyes in the mirror of his bathroom. That mirror had spanned one wall from ceiling to sink and was recessed between two side cabinets, its reflective surface untouched aside from two light fittings on its upper corners. The warm glow from the lights cast a sheen of bronze across the expanse of Starsky’s bared chest, highlighting its dark, soft curls, softening the masculine features of Starsky’s face.
Fuck me here, Hutch.
The shirt had fluttered to the floor from Starsky’s hand, followed by faded blue jeans that Starsky had to peel off like a second skin.
Wanna see your face as you take me from behind.
Tonight, Starsky was wearing red briefs. Waiting for him to peel them off.
He hadn’t said a word as he divested himself of his own clothes, nor when he stepped behind Starsky and enfolded his arms around Starsky’s torso, splaying the fingers of his left hand on a firm, rippled belly as his right hand pulled down the briefs to the thighs then stroked the length of Starsky’s already turgid cock from base to head. Hadn’t said a word at Starsky’s eyes flickering shut, at Starsky’s head falling back onto his shoulder, exposing soft skin for him to kiss and suckle and mark. Not a word, even when he arranged Starsky’s hands on the rim of the porcelain sink and made Starsky tiptoe and spread those supple legs and then cry out every time his lubricated fingers slid in and kneaded that special spot.
Hutch, fuck me now, oh Hutch, please -
And then Starsky had screamed as he plunged in deep, slapping one hand on the mirror while clinging onto the sink with the other at the ferocity of his thrust, screaming a second time with outright ecstasy as he immediately pistoned in and out of Starsky, his hips slamming hard against Starsky’s buttocks. He held Starsky in place with his right forearm across Starsky’s abdomen, watching in the mirror the flight of expressions paraded by Starsky’s animated face: The slackness of intense pleasure, mouth falling open and eyes closing whenever he shoved in till pubic hair chafed against smooth skin. The grimace of even more intense pleasure, big blue eyes in slits and teeth gritted whenever he withdrew and the ridge of the head of his erection scraped Starsky’s prostate, and the best of all, that ear-to-ear grin reflecting his, widening downwards into a final scream as a stream of come erupted from Starsky’s arching body and anointed the sink.
He’d involuntarily bitten Starsky on the shoulder as he came deep inside, enough to bruise though not break skin but Starsky hadn’t complained a bit about it. Starsky had stared at the mirror, at him with glistening eyes round with reverence, fondling his disheveled wisps of blond hair as he kissed the marred skin and mumbled apologies. They had stood there for ages, regaining their breath, their eyes meeting in the mirror, Hutch reluctant to leave Starsky’s body and Starsky reluctant to release him, and the next day, Starsky had to wear a turtleneck to conceal the bite mark plus numerous hickeys on his neck.
It was a black turtleneck. Just like the one Starsky’s wearing at this very moment.
“Is it the same turtleneck?” Hutch asks, his throat dry, his cock as hard as ever, and Starsky makes a sound akin to a whimper and rolls as much as he can onto his side, facing the passenger door and away from Hutch.
“I can’t even look at you. You’re too damn beautiful for your own good.” A gulp, then Starsky rasps, “And if you touch me, I swear I’m gonna come so hard everybody on this highway’s gonna hear me scream.”
“Stole the words right out of my mouth, babe,” Hutch scarcely manages to say.
Desperate for distraction, he switches on the radio. At first, he hears the melodious hums of an electronic piano, then the beginnings of a gentle pop beat. Just when he relaxes, a woman’s resonant voice starts to sing:
Do that to me one more time
Once is never enough with a man like you
Do that to me one more time
I can never get enough of a man like you, oh
Kiss me like you just did
Oh, baby, do that to me once again
Hutch bites his lower lip. Oh god, of all the songs that had to play, it has to be one speaking straight from his heart!
Pass that by me one more time
Once just isn't enough for my heart to hear
Whoa, tell it to me one more time
I can never hear enough while I got ya near, oh
Say those words again that you just did
Oh, baby, tell it to me once again
Now Starsky’s looking at him over a shoulder, also biting a lower lip. He glances at Starsky’s face. Starsky’s expression of chagrin is mirroring his so impeccably that they crack up into gleeful guffaws, dispelling some of the heavy sexual tension for the time being.
“Geez, this is ridiculous. It’s like I’m a horny teenager again,” Starsky says, smiling, sitting with his legs drawn up as much as possible, facing the windshield once more.
Hiding something there, buddy?
But Hutch tenderly replies with, “Or maybe … this is what it really feels like to be madly in love with someone who’s madly in love with you too.”
Starsky gazes at his profile for some time before saying just as tenderly, “You turning mushy on me, Blintz?”
“That’s what a blintz is, isn’t it? Golden hard on the outside, gooey soft on the inside.” He sniffs, then says with a small smile, “And as I recall, there’s a certain curly-haired, Jewish guy I know who loves blintzes so much that he’s willing to pack a whole suitcase of his mom’s homemade ones back from New York.”
“Ya got it wrong. I like blintzes … but there’s only one Blintz I love.”
Hutch’s smile broadens.
“Now who’s turning all mushy?”
He snickers cheerfully at Starsky’s lack of an answer as well as Starsky smacking him on the upper arm. Ah, the radio’s playing a more upbeat song now, one he and Starsky are familiar with since they’d heard it earlier this year in February when it debuted:
This thing called love, I just can't handle it
This thing called love, I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Crazy little thing called love
And uh oh, Starsky’s singing along with Freddie Mercury now and instinctively moving with the music, and all that erotic wiggling on black leather is not helping Hutch with making his erection go away -
This thing called love, it cries (like a baby)
In a cradle all night
it swings (woo woo), it jives (woo woo)
It shakes all over like a jelly fish
I kinda like it
Crazy little thing called love
And infectious as Starsky’s spirit is when it comes to song and dance, Hutch joins in with a little amendment to the lyrics that causes Starsky to laugh vivaciously:
There goes my baby
He knows how to rock n' roll
He drives me crazy
He gives me hot and cold fever
Then he leaves me in a cool, cool sweat
“Yeah, babe, that’s me!” Starsky exclaims, and grinning, they croon the rest of the song with zest, revisiting one of the their relationship’s oldest traditions of singing together to reaffirm the bond between them. Hutch is glad for the sunshine pouring in through the windows and windshield, for it’s as good an excuse as any for the sudden moisture in his eyes. When was the last time he’d sung gaily like this with his best friend in the whole world? How did he ever live without this happiness in his life every day?
In the aftermath of the song, he smiles at Starsky who has rolled onto his other side to face him.