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"C'mon, babe." Starsky held out his hand to Joanna Haymes, but Hutch had the distinct impression that Starsky was talking to him and not to the kidnapping victim. "It's all over."
"I'm sorry!" Joanna wept against Hutch's shoulder. "I should have . . . I was so scared."
"Joanna, your father is waiting for you," Hutch said into her hair, easing her off the grimy bed of the van. He loosened her bonds, dropping the dirty gag without a thought. "It'll be all right very soon."
"Daddy?" Joanna whimpered, sounding like a small child.
She clung to Hutch, her arms wrapped too tightly around his sore ribs. He coughed as surreptitiously as possible, not wanting to jar her, and felt the heat of Starsky's eyes on him. Locked onto him, as if he was afraid to look away.
"We'll call him," Starsky said, his left hand dangling in the air before he latched onto Hutch's uninjured arm.
Joanna stumbled getting to her feet and would have fallen if Hutch hadn't steadied her, but it was Starsky's hand that kept Hutch standing. Starsky guided him gently over the rubble of the mangled taco van, careful with Hutch's bloody left elbow, never once touching the girl.
"You're safe," Starsky said, and again, he was speaking to Hutch. He gripped Hutch's arm a shade too tightly, but Hutch didn't mind. Welcomed the security, the surety of his partner. "You're safe," Starsky repeated belatedly, as if remembering he was supposed to be dealing with Joanna, too.
"Starsk," Hutch said, because he needed to reassure. To the rest of the world, Starsky looked lean and tough, any stray emotions tucked neatly behind a fa�ade of aggressive control. But Hutch knew different. The clues were there. Starsky had barely said a word since the terrified "I thought you were dead," just after finding Hutch bloodied but alive, with two slugs in his bullet-proof vest. He'd sat absolutely still and let Hutch question Callandra, silently studying them both with wide blue eyes until the psychic gave up the cryptic clues. Very unStarsky-like. He'd driven like a racecar driver bent on winning the Indy 500 to get them to Joanna's prison before the wrecking ball obliterated any sign of the girl, but now hung back, as if not sure he should get involved and possibly alter the favorable outcome.
Starsky was scared, he just wasn't going to admit it.
"I'll call it in." Starsky squeezed Hutch's arm one last time, and headed toward the Torino parked just inside the junk yard.
"Starsk," Hutch said, and coughed. Starsky flinched at the sound, but didn't turn around. "Get the blanket from the trunk for Joanna."
She moaned against his aching ribs, still crying, although it was mostly shuddering sobs by the time they reached the car. The sound grated on his nerves, and he wondered when rescuing her had taken second place. He should have been elated, but there was an indefinable something that was lacking. When had this become more about he and Starsky, and less about the victim?
Starsky was nodding to whatever dispatch was saying and fumbling for something in the pocket of his jacket. "We'll meet Dobey and Haymes at Memorial Hospital," he replied into the mic. "ETA ten minutes, dispatch."
He tossed the mic back in the car, finally succeeding in extricating a pair of sunglasses from of his jacket. His hand trembled, the glasses wobbling as he barricaded himself behind the wall of cheap plastic and tinted glass. He smiled grimly, all teeth, without an ounce of joy.
Unsure whether to comment on the retreat or let it lie, Hutch opened the passenger door, sliding an unresisting Joanna into the car. "You get the blanket?"
"You know where it is." Starsky ducked down, his shoulders straining, and for a moment Hutch thought he was crying, or maybe puking. Then, the trunk popped open with a click when Starsky released the trunk lever tucked against the driver's seat.
Hutch wrapped his fingers around the edge of the open trunk-well, fighting the exhausting drain of adrenaline. The worst was over, but there were still mounds of paperwork to get through, once Joanna was back with her family. He wasn't sure he had the energy for anything but curling up and sleeping for a million years. Preferably with Starsky right beside him.
They had to talk, had to do something to relieve the immense tension in the air. It felt like mid-summer in Minnesota when the air was thick with humidity instead of the cool ease of a mild winter in California. He could barely breathe, and it had nothing to do with the bruise spreading across his torso from the bullets slamming into BCPD's best reinforced vest.
Starsky scared him, the way he vacillated between almost clingy neediness and brittle detachment. And Hutch hadn't missed the awed, respectful looks the other cops had given his partner before they'd gone to question Callandra. Something had happened to Starsky in the moments after Hutch was shot. Something dark and terrible, and he was still back on that motorcycle, racing after the car he'd incinerated with a single bullet.
The ride to Memorial was so silent, Hutch could hear the squeal of seagulls when they drove along the ocean fronted road for a mile before turning left toward the hospital. Joanna had fallen into a doze, huddled into the gray department-issue blanket, hiccupy sobs emerging every once in a while to remind them of her presence.
Starsky looked straight ahead for the whole journey, driving just below the speed limit, tapping the brakes so smoothly that the heavy car seemed to float just above the pavement, never once hitting a pothole that might jostle the passengers. As much as Hutch appreciated the care, he would have preferred Starsky's usual chatter, or even frustrated yelling to alleviate the oppressive dread. He felt like he was driving to his own funeral, with Starsky as the main pall bearer.
When the Torino jolted over a speed bump in the hospital parking lot, Hutch gasped, pain shooting up his hip to his ribs. Starsky looked over at him, the black rims of his shades a marked contrast to the pallor of his face, and slowed the car to a creep. Up ahead, a crowd had formed to wait for them, Joanna's father in the forefront.
For a big man, Haymes could move fast. He pulled Joanna out of the car before Starsky had set the brakes in the ER parking, hugging her tightly. Joanna wept again, chanting "Daddy, Daddy," over and over like a mantra.
Joe Haymes clutched at his daughter. "You're heroes," he announced in a booming voice to Starsky and Hutch just as medical personnel crowded around Joanna, sweeping her into the hospital. "You did more than just earn a reward, you brought her home."
Dobey took charge of the Haymeses after that, exuding solid command and compassion, shielding the family from a phalanx of reporters who had congregated in the ER. Apparently, Hutch's frenzied dash from phone box to telephone had attracted notice and by the time Starsky announced over the police band that Joanna was safe, the newspapers were on the story like a pack of hounds on a fox.
"So much for keeping the this quiet," Hutch muttered, feeling old and very, very sore. Starsky didn't say anything, and the stillness in the car weighed on Hutch like an anvil pressing down on his head. He should get up, go in to take Joanna's statement, but he couldn't move. Not like there was any hurry there. The kidnappers were dead, their car flash-burned in under a minute, at least according to the cops who'd seen Starsky's one-in-a-million shot.
There would be no one to prosecute, no one to take to trial. Joanna was safe, and he himself was alive against all odds. Collandra's visions had saved the girl. So why did things feel completely unresolved?
He glanced over at Starsky, saw the way his knuckles were white where his fingers were clamped around the steering wheel. Saw Starsky's Adam's apple wobble when he swallowed deeply, his hissed exhalation like air escaping a shredded tire.
"It's all over," he said, the words inadequate.
"You need to get checked out," Starsky said distantly, still staring at the glass doors of the ER as if he could find the answer to a mystery there. "Make sure . . . you could have internal bleeding, or something."
"I'm fine." That sounded lame, even to him. He was scraped raw and black-and-blue. Hutch pressed gingerly against his side. His whole chest hurt with every single breath, but there was no grating of bone against bone, or stabbing sharp agony to signal a broken rib. He'd had those before, had a frame of reference to compare with. This hurt, but he'd survived. "Just bruised, nothing broken."
"You're not a doctor!" Starsky shouted so loudly Hutch flinched. Two spots of red highlighted Starsky's otherwise sickly pale face, and for a second he froze, eyes hidden behind the sunglasses. "Hutch, please," he whispered. He lowered his head to the steering wheel, still grasping the rim with both hands. "Please go in there, get patched up."
"You coming?" Hutch asked, climbing out of the low-slung car like an arthritic old man. His muscles were seizing up, each movement harder than the last.
"No, I . . ." Starsky flexed his fingers, marginally relaxing enough to get some color back in his knuckles. "Gotta move the car before an ambulance forces me out."
"This won't take very long, Starsky. I'm fine. The hell with the red zone, come in."
"I can't." Starsky shook his head, throat spasming. "I'll wait out here, babe."
Babe. The word wrapped around Hutch, more comforting than any painkiller the doctors could prescribe. "Don't go anywhere, you hear me?" Hutch warned, suddenly afraid.
"Where would I go?" he asked forlornly. "You're here." He reached over, pulling the passenger door shut as if raising the drawbridge and leaving Hutch stranded across the moat.
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Hutch was x-rayed, bandaged and poked with needles, but in the end, the doctors couldn't find any good reason to keep him around. No concussion, no broken ribs, no scary sounding cardiac contusion�a bruise on the heart wall that could cause an irregular beat. Nothing to write home about. Getting shot in the chest on a January afternoon was all in a day's work.
His elbow stung like fury, but he'd had worse playing in the inter-police league baseball games. So why did he feel as strung out as the day after he'd cold-turkeyed heroin? Jumpy, hyper-alert and as shaky as a four point oh earthquake.
Starsky was still sitting in the Torino in a nearly empty parking lot when Hutch came out of the ER. It was full dark at 6:30 in the evening but Starsky still had on his sunglasses, He cleared his throat when Hutch got in, raising his head off the headrest.
"Your place or mine?"
"Mine is closer," Hutch answered, not ready to deal with Starsky just yet. He hurt. He was tired, and Starsky's behavior was as infuriating as it was mystifying. "Doctor said I had the constitution of a mule. Too stubborn." It sounded stupid in the hollow void of the car, no longer as funny as it had ten minutes earlier.
"You hungry?" Starsky asked anxiously, as if he hadn't said a thing.
"Not very."
"Scrambled eggs, then. I'll make scrambled eggs, like you did . . . " he cut off, somehow navigating the car through rush hour traffic perfectly well despite the dark glasses. "For me."
After Simon Marcus' kidnapping. Because Hutch had never gotten a chance after the shootout at Giovanni's, or even after Starsky recovered from Bellamy's near-lethal injection. Just one month ago, he'd taken a woozy Starsky home, bundled him into bed and fed him eggs. Their own private code for all-fucked-up-but-coping. They were guys: they didn't whimper.
"Starsky . . ." Hutch wanted to say he didn't need food, he needed his partner. He needed to hear Starsky's side, what was going on inside that head. What had possessed him to annihilate a car full of kidnappers?
Except that he knew why, understood that one action completely. Knew without a doubt that he would have done the same thing, if the tables were turned.
"Starsky, I'm here. I survived."
"Not yet," Starsky whispered, so close to the edge Hutch could feel the drop off separating them. "Wait 'til we get home."
Starsky's hand was on his back all the way up the stairs at Venice Place. Hutch walked at a snail's pace, feeling every bruise and abrasion, but feeling Starsky's hand more. Starsky never once complained about the slow climb, which was a first. Usually he was bouncing ahead of Hutch, daring him to go up two at a time.
At the top, Hutch stopped, fumbling wearily for the keys. Starsky made a low, impatient sound, snatching the extra set off the lintel. He jammed the correct one into the lock and pulled Hutch bodily into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him.
"Hutch," Starsky said so low and raw that only the crisp 'ch' was actually audible. He stood, one hand gripping Hutch's uninjured arm, just as he'd done back at the scrap yard, holding on like he couldn't let go. "I thought you were dead. I thought . . . "
"I know, Starsk."
Starsky turned into Hutch, his head bowed, and Hutch could feel the fine tremors running down his partner's body through their connected arms. Or maybe he was trembling, too. It was too difficult to tell the difference.
"Hey, mushbrain," Hutch said softly, welcoming Starsky home.
Starsky went to him as if seeking shelter, taking a long, deep breath. He bracketed Hutch's face with both palms but still didn't look up at him, resting his cheek on Hutch's right shoulder.
"I killed 'em. Aimed and took them out."
"I would have done the same." It was the truth. He'd known that from the moment he'd heard what Starsky did.
"Oh, God, Hutch."
They were so close that Starsky's heart seemed to be trip-hammering inside Hutch's chest, but Starsky held himself tight, all taut wire and jagged edges under his skin.
"You're not allowed to go first," Starsky whispered into the flannel of Hutch's shirt, clutching at the fabric with a fierce desperation.
"What?" Hutch tilted Starsky's face up and lifted the glasses that masked his eyes. Tears glinted in Starsky's long lashes. Hutch brushed his lips over the fine hairs, tasting a hint of salt before moving lower, seeking his partner's mouth.
Starsky breathed into him, giving and taking life, restoring the balance. His tongue darted out, seeking Hutch; tasting him, joining him.
They'd kissed before. But it was always new, always a discovery that Hutch never took for granted. Finally, Starsky's arm curved around Hutch's body, cradling him gently, never bearing down on fresh bruises, protecting his partner at all costs.
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"What did you mean?" Hutch asked when he was seated at the kitchen table watching Starsky hunt up eggs, milk, pepper and cheese for their dinner. "When you said that I'm not allowed to go first?"
"Nothing," Starsky shrugged, juggling his armful over to the table. He cracked eggs against the side of the blue and white china bowl Hutch had inherited from his Grandmother Hutchinson, and stirred in the milk. "I was freaked. Just like . . .a bad dream, a premonition."
"You don't believe in precognition, you said so yourself."
Starsky shuddered, goosebumps pebbling his upper arms just below the edge of his heather blue t-shirt. "I don't."
"Even though Callandra was right?"
"He . . . " Starsky grabbed a fork, stirring the egg mixture with enough force to slosh some over the sides of the bowl. "If he's so good, how come he didn't know what was going to happen to you? Huh? Tell me that."
"He never said he could see everything, or even understand what he was seeing."
"We were with him. He touched you, lots of times!" Starsky snatched up the salt, shaking a white snowstorm over the yellow concoction. Hutch intervened, taking the shaker out of his hand before their eggs had a higher salinity than the Great Salt Lake. "Hey!" Starsky protested, but didn't move when Hutch dumped the contents of the bowl into a frying pan. "He should have known. I should have known."
Pain shot through his heart so abruptly, for a moment Hutch thought he was having some sort of delayed reaction to the shooting. Maybe the doctors had been wrong about that pericardial contusion thing.
I should have known.
Breathing carefully against the chest lock, he pretended nothing was wrong, positioning the pan on the stove burner and turning up the gas flame. "When Marcus grabbed you, I didn't know. Didn't suspect a thing."
"That's different." Starsky came up behind him, molding his warmth into Hutch, his thighs firm against Hutch's and his arms wrapped around his waist.
"No, it's not." Hutch let himself lean into his partner, the eggs forgotten. The terror of the endless hours searching for Starsky was so palpable, it could have happened that afternoon, overlapping with his own shooting, instead of weeks earlier. "Sometimes, we're so connected, I think I can read your mind. Hear your thoughts�and that day, I couldn't. Couldn't feel you at all."
"Yeah." Starsky tightened his hold, bestowing a small kiss to Hutch's jaw. "I can feel you now. I couldn't . . . when I saw them shoot you."
"I would have done anything to get you back." Hutch closed his eyes. They'd never talked about this before. Never admitted how deep their connection went. His ribs ached where Starsky's elbow pressed in, but there was no way he was going to mention that. This was what they both needed.
Marcus' supercilious mug leered at him in his mind's eye, and he banished the vision, along with yellow painted roses and a frightened girl bound on the floor of a mangled van, concentrating instead on what was here and now. He and Starsky.
"Eggs are burning!" Starsky shoved the frying pan off the stove, a trail of black smoke rising up from the charred ruins.
"Now there's were a little precog would have come in handy," Hutch said with just enough sarcasm to downplay the soapy moment. He blinked rapidly. The smoke was stinging his eyes and he turned on the fan.
Starsky hastily swiped the back of his hand across his face, obliterating any sign of tears that might have been, one side of his mouth turned up in a sardonic grin. He slouched against the counter, the angle of his hip accentuating the curve of his groin. "Babe, a sense of smell is all one of us needed here. Guess we both messed up." He waved ineffectually at the accumulated smoke.
"Starsk, we both survived." In spite of the lingering effects of being shot and falling through a window, Hutch found himself looking down, admiring what Starsky was offering. He knew how tight those blue jeans were. How difficult to remove without a great deal of tugging and wiggling. But oh, the reward was worth it. Starsky's long, furred legs straddling his body, his naked chest sliding over Hutch's bare skin, the friction from their bodies igniting a combustion that could rage hotter than the gas flame on the stove.
"Call out for pizza?" Starsky asked, but he didn't sound the least interested in eating.
There was a raw sensuality in his voice, a huskiness that did incredible things to Hutch's libido.
No one turned him on faster, or with so little effort than David Starsky. Aches and pains vanished, sublimated by pure desire. There was definitely something to be said for the painkilling properties of those magic little endorphins concocted by the brain during sex. Hutch always heartily approved of natural analgesics. So much more effective than the Tylenol with codeine the doctor had written a prescription for�and a hell of a lot more fun.
"I'm ready for bed." Hutch said, very aware of Starsky's scrutiny. He shrugged out of his ripped flannel shirt, letting it drop onto the floor. It was destined for dust rag status, anyway. Pulling his green t-shirt over his head proved much more problematic, or would have if Starsky hadn't taken the initiative. Hutch had just begun to wonder whether Starsky was going to participate at all when his hands were pushed away from wrestling with his shirt. Starsky flipped the sweaty, bloody tee off him so smoothly, Hutch barely noticed how his bruised intercostal muscles protested the movement.
"Those bastards," Starsky muttered, spreading the fingers of both hands wide to encompass the dark, purple bruise centered like a bull's eye on Hutch's chest.
"That's over with." Hutch kissed the top of his head, rejoicing when Starsky moved enough to fit their mouths together. He explored the familiar contours of his partner's lips, memorizing the curve under the bottom one all over again.
"You do need to get to bed," Starsky agreed, curving an arm around Hutch to lead him through the small kitchen to the bedroom. "Relax, recuperate."
"Exactly what the doctor said." Hutch locked onto Starsky's lips once more, kissing with a ferocious need.
"You're out of breath," Starsky chastised when he had a chance to speak without Hutch's tongue in his mouth. "Not good for your lungs. C'mon, lie back, take a load off."
"Only load I got is in here." Hutch reached down to unbutton his pants, but Starsky beat him to it. He unzipped and carefully pulled the dark jeans down.
"You're bruised all over." Starsky knelt, fingering a black and blue mark on Hutch's left thigh that was vaguely shaped like Australia. "Must hurt."
"Not as much as it will if you don't come here, very soon." Hutch buried both hands in Starsky's hair, reveling in the texture, the way the curls grasped his fingers like lovers cuddling in the dark. He inhaled, ignoring the way his chest ached, focusing instead on his lover. Starsky smelled like sex mingled with the fear—sweat leftover from the afternoon and his own personal spicy muskiness. Maybe on another day, Hutch might have sent him off to the shower to freshen up, but today the salty taste of his skin, the sharp scent and awed love in Starsky's eyes combined to prove that he was alive. The feel of Starsky's fingers cupping his sack sent zingy sensations through to Hutch's core, and he cried out with exhilaration when Starsky went down on him. Starsky had an incredibly talented mouth, honed by abundant experience with his partner. Hutch had been his teacher and his student, both taking of Starsky's gift and giving back to him ever since they were in the police academy together.
Frequency didn't minimize the incredible feeling of being sucked up into a warm, tropical storm, swirled and buffeted by Starsky's sweet, hot tongue. And when Starsky rolled his balls in the palm of his hand, twisting just enough to add a dash of pleasurepain to the mix, Hutch couldn't hold back any longer. The gathering forces inside him spilled out into Hurricane Starsky, tossing them both up onto the shoal, two castaways washed up on a desert island, dependent on each other for survival.
"I think I just died there," Hutch whispered, coaxing Starsky onto the bed beside him. He was too tired to do anything more than cuddle into his lover's arms. There was not even enough energy in his whole body to get under the covers.
"Not a chance, babe." Starsky blessed his skin with tiny kisses. "You brought me back to life."
Fin