Work Text:
Fighting off Crazy as Best We Can
By
Dawnwind
Hutch couldn’t sleep. So he walked.
He’d walked all the way from his canal side cottage to Starsky’s place last night--four miles. Hadn’t actually gone in to wake Starsky up, just rested on the steps for a spell before walking home. He’d managed to sleep for three hours after that.
Longest stretch of unbroken sleep he’d had in—seven days. Since…
Hutch scratched at the needle marks on the inside of his elbows. They hadn’t healed, because he kept scratching. They itched.
Everything about him itched. He was a snake about to shed his skin. He was raw, exposed nerve endings firing endlessly. When his fingernails raked across the tender flesh, he had a visceral sensation of pain and arousal so powerful he wanted to grab his cock and jerk. First time he tried, he couldn’t even rouse himself to a pallid imitation of an erection. He hadn’t tried again.
He walked to avoid calling Starsky. He was using his partner as a crutch, depending too much on Starsky’s willingness to provide support when Hutch needed to stand on his own two feet.
But he wasn’t strong enough yet. He needed to deal with his immediate problem before he could go to Starsky and confess what had been in his heart for longer than he could remember. If he was going to come clean and admit he’d been harboring deep feelings for Starsky—deep love--he had to be clean. Not a shambling shadow of himself.
His hands still shook, and while he no longer vomited almost everything he ate, he felt poised between acute withdrawals and the chronic maintenance of sobriety. He’d never worried about drinking—hell, beers weren’t in the same league as— It was very difficult to say the word.
Heroin.
He couldn’t connect that illegal, addictive drug with his own life. He’d always tried to be healthy. Ate his leafy greens. Avoided fried foods. Got lots of exercise. Hey, he was walking right now. Not yet able to jog the way he used to, but that would come.
Still—heroin. He clenched his trembling fingers into fists. This would not defeat him.
Hadn’t.
He’d fallen far, but gotten away from Forest’s goons on his own. That was good, right? A positive step.
So why did he feel like such a failure? Weak and weary to the bone.
He’d been unable to fight Forest. Hadn’t protected Jeannie. Had drawn Starsky, Huggy, and Dobey into his hell, and for what? Yes, they’d arrested Forest; he was off the street. But what about all the other manipulative, sadistic pushers?
Hutch paused, light-headed, and took a deep breath that turned into a cough. At ten-thirty at night, the air was blisteringly hot, searing his throat and lungs like a flame thrower. Temperatures had been hovering at 99 degrees for three days, and with the Santa Ana winds scouring the brittle, bone dry grass on the hillsides, wild fires were rampaging through Ventura, Malibu, and Temecula. Even though the fires were miles from Bay City, the air was impregnated with smoke and ash.
He was so damned tired. The coughing hurt, echoing the metaphysical ache deep in his soul.
Hutchinson, pull yourself together.
Take a damned step forward, get away from this shit, and start living.
What are you afraid of?
Further failure. He already knew that.
Disappointing Starsky.
Starsky had been so strong, so loyal, such a fierce defender for good and decency. Hutch could still feel Starsky’s arms around him, holding him close. He’d had fevered dreams of Starsky brandishing a sword with an undulating blade, his curls dancing in the wind as he slayed a dragon.
Hutch had waked with the words vorpal blade and jabberwoky on his tongue, unable to connect either to reality until he realized he’d dreamt Starsky as a knight in Wonderland. And in his dream, he had kissed the valiant knight.
Were Alice’s weird adventures safer than his own, or equally as terrifying? He couldn’t quite find his place in the world, and that was what scared him most of all. That he’d lost his way even when he knew his ultimate destination.
Starsky.
He was in love with Starsky. Not as a buddy or friend, but with romantic, passionate love. Which, if he was being honest, scared the hell out of him. How would Starsky respond if he told him? What would happen if Hutch didn’t?
Hutch owed it to Starsky to be truthful. He had to prove he was worthy--a man, not some junkie craving a fix, and concealing a secret desire for his partner. He was worried that Starsky would scoff, countering with the notion that Hutch was simply emotionally overwrought, still mixed up after the brief but powerful addiction.
That could be a reason, but in his soul, Hutch knew his feelings for Starsky had sharpened. Become precise and as clear as a diamond. He’d leaned into the abyss and seen a version of his own life. He was not going back there. Moving forward was the only option.
What he and Starsky already had was so precious that he’d been afraid to change the dynamics. Jeannie had been a stop-gap, he saw that now. He’d used her to hide from basic truths about himself. That he had been too cowardly to tell Starsky how he felt.
Conflicted and desolate, Hutch trudged on, wiping sweat from his neck, paying no attention to where he wandered.
Escape. Respite.
He stopped, panting, and leaned against a building, his fingers finding purchase on round stones. He looked up, way up, to a golden cross on the roof. A church.
Sanctuary.
The front doors were open, yellow light spilling out into the dark. Compelled, Hutch walked in through the narthex, looking up at shadowed stained glass windows. The interior of the church was entirely wood, the curved ceiling an inverted boat.
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ—“ a voice called out.
Overcome, Hutch froze. “What?” he asked instinctively, searching for the source of the sound.
He could see the top of a head over the edge of the lectern, but the outspread wings of a golden eagle that supported a Bible hid the rest of her.
“Hello,” she replied in surprise. “Welcome.”
“I’m sorry,” Hutch said, turning to go. He shouldn’t be here, fouling a house of God. Not so soon after—
“Stay.” A young woman came down the main aisle of the nave. “Please, if you need shelter, we have beds…food.”
“I’m not homeless,” Hutch said softly.
“Then rest.” She smiled, waving an arm at the pews. “Pick a seat, any seat.”
“Are you a—“ He wasn’t even sure what denomination this church was. Were there female priests? He didn’t know. Been a long time since he’d paid any attention.
“Oh, sorry!” She rolled her eyes, offering a petite hand. From the top of her tousled black curls to the bottom of her red Keds sneakers, she couldn’t be five feet tall, and, in his estimation, barely over twenty. Twenty-four at most. “I’m Mary Elizabeth. Most people call me Maryliz. I'm not a priest, if that’s what you meant, but almost.” She grinned, her brown eyes twinkling. “One more semester at the seminary, then yay, I get to wear a dog collar.”
At a loss for how to respond to such an onslaught of information, he blurted out the first thing he could think of. “You’ve certainly got the right name for the religious life.”
“I know, huh?” Maryliz bobbed her head. “Catholic mother. Dad who basically sat on the fence about religion.” She shrugged, perching on a pew and patting the wooden seat beside her.
Hutch sat, feeling like he’d been caught in a joyful whirlwind.
“So what did I go and do, fall in love with the…” Maryliz spread her arms to encompass the entire church, her face glowing with an inner light. “The grandeur, the majesty, the power of the spirit. I wanted to be a priest, and a good Catholic girl can’t do that.” She beamed at him, tapping her nose. “But a good Episcopal girl can—or will be able to soon. They let me into seminary; I’m sure to be ordained next year.”
“My grandfather was a Lutheran pastor,” Hutch said slowly, taking in the beautiful church. Now he knew why he’d come in. Why the place made him feel—not at home, not even at peace—but maybe, just maybe, a modicum of relief. The building reminded him of Farfar’s old parish. He could breathe here. “This is a magnificent church.”
“This is where I fit in,” she said, swinging her feet—they didn’t quite reach the ground. “God’s everywhere, obviously.” Her eyes were merry, as if she’d told a particularly funny joke, “but some churches just fit a person better than others, don’t you agree?”
“I-I couldn’t say.” Hutch inhaled, exhausted. “Been a very long time since I worshiped—anywhere. I…” He trailed off.
How could he explain his life to this sprite of a girl—well, woman, if she was in the seminary. How could she possibly understand what he’d been through, seen?
“So anyhoo,” Maryliz said when he didn’t say anything else, “when you walked in, I was reading Galatians aloud. Practicing my sermon voice, you know? Father Jameson lets me rattle around here after the evening services. I like the church at night—there’s such a deep silence.” She giggled, pointing a finger at him. “I just saw your face, you think I must talk constantly—which is probably true, but sometimes I listen.” She shut her mouth, miming zipping it shut. Then kinked her finger, beckoning to him, indicating it was time for him to talk. And waited.
Hutch was paralyzed—not afraid, not the way he’d been earlier, or even seven long days ago in Forest’s tract house. He simply couldn’t find the right word to begin speaking.
“Episcopalians don’t have confessionals, more’s the pity, since sometimes it’s just easier to say something hard in a small, secret place,” Maryliz said finally. “But, seems to me you’ve got something on your mind that needs to come out.” She gently touched the minute drops of blood on his white shirt sleeve. “At least, I think you’ve kept the demons away for one night.”
“I’m not high,” he said stiffly, shame tightening his belly.
“No, I’ve seen enough addicts volunteering at the Free Medical Clinic to know that.” Maryliz sat back, drawing her feet under her knees, Indian style. “And you’re not sweating badly enough to be actively withdrawing.”
Her analysis was so straightforward and simple. No mincing words or pretending that they weren’t discussing use of a highly addictive drug that could have—should have--ruined his career and his life.
Hadn’t—because of Starsky.
He still hesitated. “Isn’t there some kind of priest confessional confidentiality?”
“I suppose there is.” Maryliz considered this for a moment. “Since I’m only half a priest, I’ll add in my Girl Scout promise on top. And my dad’s creed, loose lips sink ships.”
That could have made him laugh on any other day. Starsky would have. Starsky and Maryliz would have been cracking each other up by now.
“I’m a cop,” he said, lacing his fingers together and staring at his clenched hands. Yet, his belly didn’t spasm the way it had been for so many days, and when he took a breath, there was a sweetness, a cool ease that almost made him weep. “I didn’t use h-heroin…voluntarily. I defied a very connected criminal, tried to help an abused woman escape from his influence, so he—“ Hutch dug his nails into the backs of his hands, sure Monk was right there, ripping up his sleeve and driving the needle into his veins.
No!
That was over, a nightmare. Never to happen again.
“His goons beat me and doped me up until I was high, but I got away.” A highly edited version of the truth, but with all the salient points.
“Shit,” Maryliz said vehemently, albeit barely audibly. “I know, I know, I have to stop the swearing, but sometimes there’s a time. And this is it.” She looked up at the stained glass window over the altar.
A small sanctuary lamp hung close enough that Hutch could make out the details of Jesus suffering on the cross with the two Marys weeping at his feet.
“As for consolation, I’m not very good at that yet.” She bit her lip, turning back and regarding him with a wisdom that defied her youthful face. “The church would say that to find inner peace, you should forgive him. I say you did the right thing in helping the woman without a thought for your own life. What do you say?”
“I don’t know anymore.” He could almost visualize a crossroads—the recent past a crooked path with needle sharp rocks. A painting of the Good Samaritan on a side wall offered no help. Hutch had to figure out which way to go. He wanted something more, something good, substantial and vital.
Starsky kept coming to mind.
Except, didn’t he have to stand up on his own feet? Not keep leaning on Starsky’s strong shoulders? Was he strong enough to turn the tables? To take Starsky in his arms and let Starsky lean on him for a while? That was a gold ring worth reaching for.
“I will go back to working as a cop,” he said. Internally, he’d never thought otherwise, but it felt good to say the words out loud. “The criminal was arrested, the woman—left on her own terms. I—I’m on sick leave for a couple days.”
“Did you withdraw on your own?” she asked, aghast.
“No, my friend helped. More than helped, he got me through it by the skin of my teeth.” Hutch hitched a breath, back in that room, fighting the unbearable craving, yelling at Starsky, and yet depending on him utterly. He could still feel Starsky’s arms wrapped around him, holding his shattered body together until the parts healed and renewed. Until he could stand on his own again.
“The worst was last Thursday and Friday,” Hutch said dazedly, suddenly feeling like he needed to curl up on the wooden pew for about six hours.
“For my days are consumed like smoke and my bones are burned as in an hearth,” she quoted reverently. “Psalm 102, verse 3.”
“How did…” Hutch wasn’t sure how the authors of the Psalms could so accurately describe the way he’d felt.
“Any kind of illness has a…basic similarity.” Maryliz shrugged. “If you just read the Bible and let the words resonate through you, so many times, you can—feel the truthfulness. I don’t mean about God, so much, but that the people way back when had exactly the same worries, fears, and frustrations that we do.“
“Farfar--my grandfather--was more a brimstone and fire kind of preacher.” Hutch chuckled. “I’ve never thought of reading the Bible to find the human side of it.” He yawned against the back of his hand, his ears popping.
Maryliz nodded. “It has many personal moments that we can relate to.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30, verse 5.”
“We all have trials but if we can get past them…” Hutch said finding the personal philosophy he’d worried he’d lost. “You aren’t going to quote Job now, are you?”
Her brown eyes twinkled despite the somber subject. “Pain, loss, despair—they’re all universal,” Maryliz said, folding her hands. “They also isolate us; make us afraid to reach out exactly when we should.”
His experiences at the hands of Forest had been more extreme than most cops—hell, most people—would ever undergo, but they were not insurmountable and he had come through to the other side. It wasn’t morning yet, but the dawn was very close.
Now was his chance to stand tall. Hutch knew where to find the sun that illuminated his life.
Starsky. All roads led back to one man.
He had to talk to Starsky. Tell him how he felt. Reveal secrets that had kept him up nights far longer than one week ago.
He wasn’t able to hold back a jaw cracking yawn, his eyes watering from the force of his exhaustion. “I should go now, but thank you…” Hutch took Maryliz’s hand, gratitude filling his belly. He was astonished to realize that he hadn’t scratched the inside of his elbow in over half an hour. He was healing.
“You didn’t mind that I was practicing my ministerial—eh,” she started to giggle, looking more like a teenager than a seminarian, “comfort and consoling skills?”
“Didn’t seem like practice to me,” Hutch said sincerely. “I think you have that down pat.”
“Thanks. Wait a sec for me.” She scrambled off the pew and dashed up the main aisle to the chancel. Slinging an enormous sized purse over her shoulder, she trotted through the church to him, swinging a huge ring of keys in her right hand. “I’ve got to lock up. My car’s in back. Can I drop you anywhere?”
Hutch thought about it for a moment. He was weary bone deep, with a fatigue that wanted days of sleep, but he wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the thoughts, the feelings for Starsky, that were welling up inside him.
Watching Maryliz turn the key in the massive wooden doors, Hutch frowned and then scanned the street. He realized abruptly that he hadn’t paid a bit of attention to the street signs when he’d walked here. “Where are we?”
“St. Paul’s Episcopal. Mildred Avenue.” She pointed west. “There’s Pacific two blocks away.”
His internal map oriented itself and Hutch nodded. He’d lived in this area since the sixties; why he’d felt so discombobulated was probably part and parcel of brain cells killed off by the heroin. The word was getting easier to say—if only in his mind. “Thanks for the offer of a ride, but I can walk down Pacific and over to my place on Ocean easily enough.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Maryliz winked and crossed herself, a dimple indenting her left cheek.
Laughing, he clasped her hand, looking down into her bright, open face. She would make a terrific priest. “I never would have expected it, coming in here, but you’ve given me clarity.”
“Far out,” she said. “And if you’re so inclined, come back on Sunday. I’m premiering my sermon. Be the first on your block to hear it.”
“I might take you up on that,” Hutch said sincerely. He’d liked the old fashioned wooden church with the huge stained glass windows. In the day time, with the sun streaming through the colored glass to paint rainbows across the pews, the interior light must be exquisite. “Good night.”
“You, too. God bless.” Maryliz sketched a wave, walking down the long wall of the church to a battered Pinto parked at the rear.
He began to walk, letting his feet find the way home. As always, his thoughts went to Starsky.
He’d messed up recently, that was clear. He and Starsky had always based their friendship, their entire relationship, on trust and honesty. He’d abused both. He hadn’t told Starsky about Jeannie’s connection to Ben Forest—endangering all three of their lives. At the very least, he should have told Starsky where he was going. He hadn’t because he’d been concerned that Starsky could pay dearly if Forest tried to beat it out of him. Instead, his own deceit had come back to bite him in the butt.
He’d never felt any sort of love for Jeannie. She’d been gorgeous, if—he admitted to himself—not exactly brainy, and a satisfying lover. Nothing deeper than that. He’d wanted Starsky, but settled on her because she’d been in trouble, and he thought he could rescue her from harm. Had thought she would make him feel like a man.
That had backfired spectacularly.
Starsky was his world. Starsky saw all of him, the good, the bad, the stupidly valiant, and accepted each part of him with a good heart. Starsky had pulled him up by his bootstraps when he’d been laid low. Starsky had accepted help when he needed it, too. He’d been shot their first year on the force, when the necessity of learning the ropes had separated them into two different precincts. The bullet wound, a graze across the temple, had sent Starsky into a dark place born in Viet Nam. Hutch had reached out a hand and pulled Starsky in, holding him through the night when he’d shivered out the terrors of war.
Just as Starsky had done for him. They balanced one another, two halves of a whole.
Would love…? Hutch paused, smelling the late evening air off the Pacific. It had finally cooled off, winds from the north bringing a hint of possible rain and blowing the smoke from the fires out to sea. Would love--sex?--change what he and Starsky had?
He turned onto Ocean with a slower step, unsure how to approach the future. If Starsky rejected him, what then?
Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.
If Starsky accepted him, what then?
Hutch stopped by his car, snugged up against the curb a few steps from the front of his house. Seemed like a sign, even if logically, he’d known full well where his car was parked.
Go over to Starsky. Do it now before he lost his nerve. Driving would be far faster than the walk he’d done the night before.
The exhaustion that had descended on him at the church had been burned away by bright adrenaline. He dug his car keys out of his pocket, filled with nervous energy. The drive to Starsky’s house had never seemed longer, the hands on his watch turning more slowly than physics deemed was possible.
It was eleven p.m. when he pulled up in front of Starsky’s place. The lights in the flat were on, like beacons in the dark street. Hutch couldn’t get out for a moment, feeling like he’d been encased in cement.
What-if…?
That was Starsky’s purview, speculations. Hutch liked facts. Demanded facts, evidence. He wouldn’t get any proof for or against his basic truth unless he confronted the most important witness to the case. The only other person who had any significance in this situation.
He coughed, and realized he was unconsciously scratching the inside of his left elbow. Smoothing down his sleeves, Hutch plucked up the tatters of his pride and climbed the long staircase to Starsky’s door.
As he raised his hand to knock, the door opened before he put knuckles to wood.
“Hey,” Starsky said, holding out a cup.
Hot chocolate. On a day when it was hot enough to boil the water on the sidewalk. Leave it to Starsky to defy the usual expectations.
“You probably haven’t had anything to eat since this morning.”
Hutch found it in him to chuckle. “How’d you know?”
“I heard that untuned engine of yours grinding around the corner.”
He couldn’t dispute the betraying noise, but that wasn’t what he’d asked. “How did you know…” he began, then changed the intent somewhat, “that I’d be here?”
“I automatically made enough for two cups. Habit.” Starsky pushed gently on the bottom of the cup in Hutch’s hand, urging him to take a sip of cocoa.
Hutch complied. The chocolate was excellent. Not some store brand crap mixed with powdered milk, this was real Mexican hot chocolate, the rich, dark flavor redolent with hints of cinnamon and pepper. He didn’t have to be told to take a second and third gulp. The sweetness went to his head, leaving him with a pleasant feeling of mild intoxication.
Or maybe that was caused by the sight of Starsky in indecently short denim cut-offs and a t-shirt that said Grand Funk Railroad.
Starsky waved him into the house and watched while Hutch perched on the edge of the couch. Picking up his own cup of chocolate, Starsky drank. There was a chocolate-y mustache on his upper lip when he set the cup down on the coffee table.
Hutch yearned to wipe that away—maybe even lick it. He coughed, unnerved by his sexual yearnings for Starsky. He’d come this far, dammit. He had to take the final step.
“Thanks,” Starsky said, sitting beside Hutch.
“For what?”
“For coming back to me. After last week, you kept your distance.” Starsky shrugged. His curls danced in the wind from the open window. “Maybe we both needed to take a break after--”
Hutch tensed, uncertain. How did he ask? Should he blurt out his intentions, or stay wary, alert for more signs of Starsky’s heart?
“You’ve got cocoa on your upper lip,” he said instead.
Starsky grinned, his pink tongue darting out to remove the evidence.
“I’ve been…so confused, Starsk,” Hutch admitted, turning the mug around and around in his hands. They only shook a little. “I feel like my body isn’t my own. For a while, it was like I didn’t have any boundaries—especially from you.”
Starsky nodded, placing his fingers on Hutch’s thigh where it lay beside his own, Starsky’s hairy, bare leg warm against Hutch’s khakis. Hutch suddenly wished his leg were bare, too, but he didn’t dare say that out loud.
“And things have changed, I know that for certain. But I don’t know how to…” Hutch paused, so aware of Starsky’s hand on his thigh, of Starsky’s dark blue eyes looking straight into his own. He wanted to be brave, but the events of the last seven days, not to mention the morals and sanctions of every day society—not simply the church, but the authorities in the police department, his own family—stopped his tongue. “I don’t know how to feel normal yet, but my God, I wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for you.”
Starsky patted Hutch’s thigh and took his hand away to grab his mug for a last drink. “Aw, you feel like that when the withdrawals first hit, but with heroin, it’s mostly like a really bad flu. You wouldn’t’ve died.”
“How did you know?” Hutch repeated his original query.
Starsky froze, his eyes overly wide as if he’d been caught. Quite obviously not in a lie, because he’d proven his knowledge of withdrawal symptoms, so possibly this was something he did not want to discuss.
“Viet Nam?” Hutch guessed. Starsky rarely spoke of his time in country, and when he did, it was light hearted tales of drunken revelry in the Hanoi bars or the time that he saw Bob Hope in the USO show.
Ducking his head, Starsky nodded, gazing at his bare feet. “I tried heroin one time. Hated the stuff. Hated feeling so slow and…disconnected from life.”
Hutch listened, afraid to make a sound and disturb Starsky’s reminiscence.
“Marijuana was better,” Starsky tugged at the ragged edge of his shorts, wrapping the thread around his forefinger, “not so much like being smothered under a huge layer of thick blankets, but I didn’t even smoke maryjane more’n a handful of times. Mostly when we’d been out in the damned rain for days, patrolling and the…stress was like something pressing down on your neck, trying to break you in half…” He mimed toking a very small joint and rolled his eyes up in a pretend drugged haze. “There are days here,“ he laughed bitterly, “being on the streets, feels like the stress could eat you alive.”
“Amen,” Hutch said. “You knew people who used horse regularly?”
“Yeah, both in country and when I was a teen over on the south side, next door to John Blaine.” Starsky finally looked over at Hutch again, but there was guilt in his eyes. “I learned what to do, how to hide it, y’know, so that the lieutenant in charge of our patrol didn’t find out. Was there when a couple of my buddies came all the way down. Lots’a fluids, something sweet to get a guy over the hump, and then the shits come and the hurling. It’s a fucking nasty drug, no two ways about it, and I was damned if I was gonna let you go through that alone, Hutch, you gotta believe me.”
“Starsk, you saved my life,” Hutch said sincerely, hugging him close. Part of him wanted to be even closer, but the other half knew this was simply what they both needed. Proof of survival.
Starsky gulped, his face pale with what could have been remembered pain and anguish, but Hutch suspected was fear—and love, mixed together.
“You’re part of my soul, Hutch,” he blurted, raising a hand to touch the healing bruises on Hutch’s cheek. “I know how hard this was— still is.”
He took a breath, and Hutch could see Starsky’s pulse fluttering in the carotid artery under his jaw line. Hutch could have so easily leaned forward and pressed his lips against that throbbing vessel.
“You’re my everything,” Starsky went on.
“I love you.” The words came out before he could stop his mouth. His hard won control still wasn’t fool proof.
Starsky stood abruptly, hovering warily a few feet from the couch, scratching the inside of his left elbow.
Mosquito bite, Hutch identified immediately, wanting to scratch his arm but stopping himself.
Starsky opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he’d started to say and shook his head violently as if clearing out water in his ears. “What did you say?”
“I love you. I want to kiss you,” Hutch said, pronouncing each word carefully. In for a penny, in for a pound. He’d already gotten over the hardest part.
Starsky crossed his arms over the Grand Funk Railroad. One corner of his mouth turned up in an uncertain smile and he blinked rapidly. “I—uh…”
Hutch was stunned that his strong, resourceful and resilient partner was about to cry. “I’m sorry, Starsk, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll go—“ He got up, heart slamming against his ribs, shame pricking the back of his throat.
“No.” Starsky put out a hand as if he were practicing his traffic cop moves. “I been thinking about you every single day since we met in ’68. I can’t ever get you outta my head. Even when I was with Helen, which probably is why me and her broke up, I guess. But last Friday, that was one of the first times I didn’t have these fantasies about kissing you. You were hurt and…” He blinked furiously and turned away.
Hutch pictured himself in Starsky’s arms, exactly one week ago, both of them sweaty, smelling of vomit and crap. In no way had that been erotic or sexual. Then recalled the peace that had descended when he’d gone into St. Paul’s and his healing had begun. He wanted Starsky, and if he stripped away all the tangled despair, fear and lust that had knotted him today, he knew admitting his love had been right. And good. He hoped Starsky thought so, too.
“I know what you mean. You’ve been with me, inside, no matter who else I was with. Part of me, the part I want to be—“ He put his arms on Starsky’s shoulders. “I want to be with you always.”
Instinctively, Starsky turned around in Hutch’s embrace and stroked his whiskery cheek. “This is a whole different week. We’ve been changed in a lotta ways.” He gazed at Hutch, licking his bottom lip. “I want to kiss you, too.”
“So?” Hutch managed to keep from shouting for joy, but only just. His heart rate accelerated even faster until he felt quite dizzy. Could have been the exhaustion, the after-effects of heroin withdrawal or simply being so close to Starsky with sex on the brain.
“Who goes first?” Starsky teased. “Is it like dancing? Does one of us lead?”
“You’re the one who claims he can dance,” Hutch murmured, bridging the tiny gap between their mouths to press his lips against Starsky’s. It was mind-altering. He was immediately addicted.
Panting, Starsky came up for air, both arms tight around Hutch’s rib cage. “Helen’s got nothing on you.”
“Good to know.” Hutch smiled, leaning in for a second kiss. Or was it the third, he hadn’t kept count. He could stand on his own feet as long as Starsky was shoulder to shoulder with him.
“You taste like chocolate,” Starsky said. “I could get used to this.” He tugged Hutch back onto the couch, their legs pressing even closer together than before. “Where were you all night?”
“You ever go to church to find something you thought maybe you lost?” Hutch asked, looking down at his hands. Steady as a rock. He gazed up at Starsky, calm and content. He had found strength, and now love. “I mean synagogue I guess, in your case.”
Starsky nodded, staring out the window at the dark night. “Looking for something to fill the hole in your soul? I don’t tell anybody,” he half smiled, turning back to Hutch, “not even you, but every once in a while, there’s a peace in a holy place that comes from…I dunno, stepping outside yourself and letting something else in.”
“God?” Hutch asked curiously. They’d never discussed religion.
“I guess.” Starsky shrugged. “Ma used to say, He listens when nobody else does. I don’t call it praying, but I’ve talked to Him a time or two.“ He clasped Hutch’s hand in his, bouncing them slightly on their thighs. “Last Friday was one of those times.”
Hutch didn’t know what to say, but he was truly touched.
In a quiet place in his soul, he remembered one of the few Bible verses he’d ever memorized as a teen, probably because it was so non-religious sounding. From the Song of Solomon: “I will rise now and go about the city in the streets—I will seek him whom my soul loves,” Hutch quoted.
“No more walking alone.” Starsky held him in his arms. “We’re a team, on the streets and in the sheets.”
“Stop talking.” Hutch kissed him.
FIN