Part 25

A few days later Starsky lay sprawled out on the couch in Hutch's front room. Despite the fact that he'd made significant steps in his recovery to warrant a reduction in the dosage of his medication he was still plagued by the inevitable good days and bad days which were only to be expected whilst recovering from injuries as severe as the ones he'd sustained, and although the good days now significantly outweighed the bad, today had been a particularly bad day indeed.

Starsky had woken up in an unusually severe amount of pain, which no amount of medication had seemed able to relieve, and, exhausted, had been thus confined to the sofa by his equally weary and evidently still suffering friend for the majority of the day, occupied only with eating and dozing. He'd been wracked with guilt as he thought about the extra responsibility this placed on Hutch, who should have been resting himself.

So wrapped up had he been in his own suffering that he'd completely failed to notice that Hutch had barely managed to consume more than a few mouthfuls of food all day, and was evidently feeling particularly rough himself as he'd swallowed hard after every mouthful in a bid to keep his food down, and clearly still suffering from the ill effects of yet another sleepless night. Come early evening however he'd finally awoken to the by now all too familiar sound of Hutch's dry heaves coming from behind the closed and locked door of the bathroom.

Starsky sat up stiffly, emitting a deep groan as he slid himself from his horizontal position, back propped up against the hard back of the couch for a moment as he waited for the room to cease spinning and for his brain to finally catch up with the rest of his body, before leaning forward, resting his elbows against his knees as he rubbed his heavy eyelids wearily. He was at least relieved to discover that he was no longer in any pain, the day of rest forced upon him by his friend had been the best medicine anybody could have insisted upon and his concerns now turned to Hutch.

Starsky sighed as he got to his feet, taking a few tentative steps in the direction from where the heart wrenching sounds of his friend's vomiting were coming from, before appearing to change his mind, and making his way over to the small coffee table where Hutch kept his phone, before picking up the receiver and dialling Huggy's number.

He waited patiently, listening to the drone of the dialling tone before their friend finally answered.

"You've reached 'The Pits', this is the proprietor Huggy Bear speaking."

"Hey Huggy," Starsky said, still somewhat groggy himself as he rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily before glancing in the direction of the locked bathroom door. "I think we might have a problem with Hutch, I know its short notice but could you possibly meet me here in about half an hour?" He asked.

"Of course." Huggy responded, a sigh of relief escaping Starsky as he spoke which he hadn't even been aware that he had been holding onto. "Starsk you know you don't even have to ask!"

Starsky smiled absentmindedly. "Thanks Huggy." He told him, before adding almost as in an afterthought. "Oh, and Huggy, you couldn't rustle us up something could you? Only nothing too heavy, I don't think Hutch's stomach could take it at the moment."

"Of course, you just leave it with me Starsk." Their friend chirruped in response. "I'll be with you both in two shakes of a bat's tail."

Starsky immediately found himself choking on a small laugh. Huggy always did have an uncanny ability of lightening even the most sombre of moods and moments, he was the perfect man to have around during a crisis.

"Huggy, bats don't have tails." He smiled.

"Yeah, but they don't know that." Huggy said, and out of sight of Starsky widened on the one side. "I'll be with you soon."

"Thanks Hug. I really appreciate everything you're doing for Hutch and me." He sighed.

"Don't even mention it." Huggy said before putting the phone down. "You've both been through a terrible ordeal, I don't know what would have happened to Hutch had he lost ya. You two just concentrate on getting better."

As the line went dead Starsky replaced the receiver, and, hearing the sound of the toilet flush realised that Hutch must have by now emptied his stomach of it's meagre contents and stopped vomiting. Then hearing the sound of the shower power into life he sat back, sinking deep into the soft cushions on the sofa and waited for his best friend to freshen up.