"Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends." - William Butler Yeats
Brown
The first time he sees that brown leather jacket is the day he meets the man who wears it. The hand that reaches out of the sleeve shakes his firmly, the face open and welcoming. His fingers brush the leather as he shakes his hand. From then on in his mind the jacket is as much a part of Starsky as his smile.
The next time he sees the jacket he's lying pinned beneath a car, shivering with the onset of infection into his shattered leg, fever chilling his body despite the baking heat of the sun. The arms holding him are gentle, a support as they wait for the sound of sirens above them. Starsky lets go of him long enough to wriggle out of the jacket and wrap it around Hutch. "Hang on, Hutch." His voice is strained. "Just hold on." The jacket is warm, and he stops shivering. His hand finds Starsky's and clutches it for strength. And he holds on.
The next time he sees it he's sitting in his apartment beside the telephone, waiting for the moment it will ring. It's three in the morning and he still hasn't slept. He can't sleep, as if drifting off, relaxing his watch for even a minute will allow Starsky to slip away, as if he can hold him to life by sheer willpower alone. The jacket is clenched in his hands, two pieces torn apart, the three holes lined across the severed halves in a grotesque stripe. They had to cut it off him to get to the wounds. His mouth curves in a weak shadow of a smile. Starsky would be yelling his head off if he knew it was torn in half. His knuckles are white around the leather, forcing the halves together. He sits that way all night. And he never lets the pieces separate.
The last time he sees the jacket it's hanging in a window of a clothing store, looking so much like his partner's his breath catches. He buys it without even questioning a price, wraps it in Christmas paper and takes it to Starsky's apartment. It's three months until Christmas but he hands it to him the instant he steps inside the door. He's learned that Christmas together isn't something he'll ever take for granted again...and he didn't want to wait that long anyway to see the look of pure delight in Starsky's eyes.