Sensing Trouble

Part 3

A bored Starsky is a more-than-slightly crazed Starsky.

Hutch smothered a cough and took another long look at the sleeping form sprawled carelessly across the rumpled bed. Nearly two weeks in the hospital, followed by two more weeks of strictly enforced bed-rest at home, had evidently led Starsky to desperate measures in his search for entertainment.

Because what other reason would he have for being stark naked in bed, clutching his camera like a Teddy Bear?

Hutch knew he would never have the nerve to ask to see the photos. He also knew that this sight should inspire at the very least an irresistible urge to take his own photos and post them on the station's bulletin board.

He wondered what was wrong with him, that it didn't.

The itch in his throat became unendurable and he fled to the kitchen. He leaned over the sink and covered his mouth with both hands, attempting to cough quietly.

He was not successful.

"Hutch, is that you?"

Who else would it be, dummy, he thought. If he hadn't been doubled over trying not to cough up a lung, he likely would have answered with something along the same lines. If you'd needed me to pick you up some girly magazines, you could have just asked.

"Hutch?" Starsky was beginning to sound worried, as if some other person might be making all that noise in his kitchen.

Hutch was vaguely amused at the idea of a burglar breaking in just so he could cough all over Starsky's food.

Of course, considering what he eats, a few germs might improve the nutritional value.

"Hutch, answer me!"

Finally regaining control of himself, Hutch stood and reached for the coffee pot, intending to make some excuse about starting breakfast. Two things stopped him. The first was the fact that this last attack seemed to have left him without a functional voice. What instead emerged from his throat was a damp squeak that would certainly not reassure Starsky, even if it did carry all the way back to the bedroom. The second thing that stopped him was the sight of his own hand reaching for the coffee pot.

Germs.

Shit. The doctor had been extremely clear about the importance of keeping Starsky's surroundings sterile while he healed.

I shouldn't have come here today. I should have sent Huggy over.

"Hutch!"

He wanted to wash his hands, but he knew that if he did he'd have Starsky hopping out here on one foot, anxious to investigate, and never mind the delicate skin graft on the sole of the other.

Hutch jammed his hands into his pockets and hurried back to the bedroom. Near the door he jammed his toe against the fire extinguisher, still sporting the price tag hanging off the handle. His curse was a bare dry whisper, as he hopped the last few steps.

The fire extinguisher had been bought during Starsky's "Fun Things to do with a Lighter" phase of self-entertainment. Which had been a particularly disturbing one for Hutch, considering the circumstances ofhisinjury. He had spent several days finding and confiscating all of Starsky's lighters and matches.

Can't you amuse yourself some other way?

Nope.

Watch TV.

Boring.

Read a book.

Boring.

Work on one of the new ship models I bought you!

Boring.

Well, what do you want?

I want to play with my lighter. Unless, you're offering to entertain me some other way…?

You know I have to be at work in ten minutes!

All I know is that you're the meanie who won't give me back my lighter.

Starsky didn't deal well with restrictions on his mobility. Now that he was feeling better, it seemed he was jumping at any excuse to get back on his feet. It was taxing all of Hutch's creativity to keep him in bed the prescribed amount of time. He had taken to crossing days off the calendar, counting down. Just four more days before his next doctor's appointment, when hopefullyStarsky wouldget the green light to start traveling with a crutch.

And sure enough, there was Starsky, already swinging his bare legs over the side of the mattress. Hutch pointed emphatically at the bed and gave him his best scowl. Starsky immediately climbed back in under the covers.

"All right, all right! Geez…" He cocked his head to the side and regarded Hutch inquisitively. "Hey, you look like shit. How come you didn't answer me?"

Hutch cleared his throat, and felt a queasy glob of mucus slide down into his stomach. "Got a cold." The effort it took to speak upset the fragile balance he'd maintained so far. A racking cough ambushed him. He buried his face in his elbow and turned away.

He was straightening, having barely caught his breath, when a box of Kleenex hit him in the head. His startled exclamation triggered another bout of coughing, and he was forced to cling to the doorframe to stay upright.

He heard Starsky say, "You sound like shit, too. You're making me sorry I ever got my hearing back."

Hutch staggered as he bent to retrieve the box of Kleenex. "Thanks, buddy," he whispered, hoarsely. "I really appreciate the boost to my self-esteem." He dried his eyes and then blew his nose.

Starsky threw back the covers and shuffled over to the side of his bed. "C'mon, climb in. It sounds like you need this more than I do."

Hutch shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the door. I should go…

Starsky's smile disappeared. "What's the problem?" He lifted the sheets lying across his lap, made a show of checking, and then said, "I put some shorts on, if that's your issue. Besides, you know your virtue's safe with me."

Again Hutch shook his head. "Germs," he croaked.

"Germs? Hutch, my feet aren't going to catch your cold."

Hutch took a step, backwards, toward the door.

Starsky's expression darkened dangerously. "Lie down, before you fall down." He played the trump card. "Or I'll come over there and make you."

Hutch surrendered. He was not up to arguing with Starsky today. He did as he was told, clutching the Kleenex box to his chest like a shield.

"You keep dragging me into bed with you," he said. "Maybe I should be worried."

"Believe me, buddy, snot isn't one of my big turn-ons. Now, if you were covered in whipped cream…"

Hutch abruptly reconsidered his decision to get into Starsky's bed. The man was dangerous when he was bored.

"Come back here! I'm joking." Starsky grabbed Hutch's shoulder and firmly pushed him flat onto his back. Hutch felt his chest rumble dangerously and he concentrated on controlling his cough as Starsky tucked him in so snugly he couldn't have run if he'd wanted to.

He was too close. Imagining an invisible cloud of germs growing exponentially with every passing minute, Hutch held his breath. He stared up at Starsky's rough textured chin and thought, this is a bad idea. He's going to get sick, or infected, or something.

Starsky, apparently pleased with his efforts, patted Hutch's chest, causing him to exhale with a gasp and a cough.

"Dobey told you to go home, didn't he." It wasn't a question.

"I'm not that sick," protested Hutch, just as another spasm in his chest made a liar out of him. He rolled onto his side and hid his face in the pillow. Damn, I'll probably have to burn this thing when I'm done.

"Oh, yes you are! And that means I get to look after you for a change." Starsky sounded ridiculously pleased with the idea, and a moment later Hutch heard the hum of a dial tone as the phone by the bed was picked up.

He rolled back and cracked a watering eye open. "What are you doing?"

Starsky didn't answer, he was busy dialing, the numbers clacking around in a circle. In a moment, Hutch heard him say, "Hey, is Huggy there? No. No… Geez, no! This isn't a social call. Or a crank call. Yeah, I know last time, but… Yes, I know you have a business to run. Aw, will you just tell Huggy I need to talk to him? I want to order some food!"

Starsky covered the mouthpiece of the receiver and made a face at Hutch. "Some people get so cranky."

It occurred to Hutch that it might not have been a good idea to leave the phone beside Starsky's bed these last two weeks.

"Hey, Hug! Yeah, I'm doing great. Is Anita having a bad day? Never mind. Listen, I'd like to order a bucket of your chicken soup. No, not for me. Hutch is sick!"

Huggy must have read the same thing into Starsky's voice as Hutch did, because Starsky's next comment was an indignant, "No, I'm not happy about it! Geez, what gave you that idea? Anyway, if you could pick up some cough syrup and decongestant on your way over, I'd really appreciate it. And a burger with fries for me."

Starsky hung up the phone and turned toward Hutch with a grin. "This is going to be fun, just like a sleepover!"

Hutch gave him a dubious look.

"Didn't you ever have sleepovers when you were a kid? No wait, don't answer that. You probably didn't."

He's looking at me like I'm the most entertaining thing he's seen in weeks. Hutch resisted a sudden urge to hide under the covers. Instead, he said, "You mom let you have sleepovers with sick kids?"

"All the time," said Starsky, confidently. "Especially if they had something worth catching. That's how I got mumps, measles, and chickenpox." The pause that followed was weighted with significance. "Besides, this will give us a chance to talk."

The serious tone in Starsky's voice put Hutch on instant alert. He raised his head from the pillow and regarded Starsky with alarm. "About what?"

"About this." The sweep of Starsky's arm encompassed much more than his physical surroundings. "About you." His hand landed lightly on Hutch's chest. "About her."

Hutch worked one hand out from under the blankets and rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a tension headache building behind his eyes.

"I thought you didn't want to talk about her." Hutch felt a brief twinge of resentment, mixed with disappointment that things couldn't have been left well enough alone, unexamined. Every time he'd tried to talk about the way things had gone down, Starsky had cut him off. He'd finally decided to take it as a gift, permission to avoid the issue, and try to get back to normal.

Except that things aren't normal, are they?

Because if things were normal, he'd be able to feel something. Instead of a numbness that suggested to him that maybe he'd died in Mexico, with her.

Starsky said, "I didn't. Then. I was too busy hating her, and being mad at you. But I've had… a little… time to think since then." He was speaking very carefully, as if Hutch might do something unpredictable at any moment, and needed to be treated with exceptional care.

And I thought he was the one who was going crazy.

Hutch felt the mattress shift, and opened his eyes to see Starsky propped on an elbow, staring at him intently. He rolled over and tried to kick himself free of the confining blankets. Enough is enough.

A hand clamped firmly over his bicep, holding him back.

"Let me go!" snapped Hutch. A coughing jag ripped its way past his throat, knocking him down onto the bed. Unable to cope, he covered his face with both hands. His chest rattled and he choked on phlegm, trying to pull air into his straining lungs.

He felt the blankets folded back, and then the same hands that had been restraining him a moment earlier were helping him sit up and lean forward. He drew his knees up to his chest, and leaned his head on them, exhausted.

"She died, and you never got any chance to say goodbye."

"I was there when she killed herself." The rattling snarl that emerged from Hutch might have had more to do with the mucus in his lungs than it did with anything intentional, but it felt right.

"And believe me, I know you weren't saying goodbye. You wanted to save her." Starsky reached for the pitcher of water on the table next to the phone.

Hutch silently cursed Starsky's persistence. Apparently having time to think made the man, in his own mind at least, an expert on Hutch's psychology. Coming over today had definitely been a mistake. If I don't end up giving him some sort of horrible infection, then he's going to drive me to commit partner-cide, just to shut him up.

"Don't—" he started to say, and then discovered that his voice had disappeared again. For crissake!

"You loved her," said Starsky, as he poured water into a glass.

Hutch shook his head in emphatic denial. I didn't love her, I only loved the idea of her. I lost sight of what love really means.

"None of it's your fault, you know." Starsky handed him the glass of water.

Yes it is.

"No, it's not."

Hutch's surprise must have shown on his face, because Starsky snorted derisively. "Oh, don't give me that look. I know what you're thinking. And it isn't your fault. She was everything you love in a woman."

Hutch swallowed some water and found his voice. "You never liked her." That nasty little flare of resentment sparked in his chest and, deeply ashamed, he attempted to squash it immediately.

"We hardly got the same taste in women, Hutch. I thought she was a snob, and she thought I was…" Starsky paused, clearly trying to recall the word she had used. "Uncouth. But to you she was beautiful and smart and cultured, and I think you saw something in her that needed-" Starsky stopped abruptly.

Hutch was unable to think of any way to finish that would adequately describe the enormity of what she needed. She had been all about need. She'd taken from Hutch as much as he had to give, and when he had nothing left, she'd turned on him.

And on Starsky.

Hutch pushed himself back on the bed, until he was propped up against the headboard. He remembered a woman with honey colored hair and light eyes, and skin so fair she glowed in the slanted light of the setting sun. She looked fragile, but she loved with a passion that left long bloody wounds in its wake.

It had been an accident, the first time he'd marked her. Shamed and horrified, he'd hastened to apologize.

"The opposite of pleasure is not pain," she said, smiling. "It's a lack of sensation. It's death."

If pleasure and pain are on the same side of the coin, maybe love and hate are as well. Hutch wondered where that left him. Feeling nothing.

"You ever play marbles when you were a kid, Hutch?"

Hutch shook his head. He had no idea where Starsky was going with this, but he knew better this time than to presume that it was a change of subject.

"We used to take some of our marbles and heat them in my mom's oven. If you left them in there long enough the glass would crack. Not so much that the marble fell apart, but enough so that you had these thin lines running through the center. Prettiest thing you ever saw." Starsky took the empty glass back from Hutch and placed it on the table. "But you couldn't play with them. If you knocked them even a little, they'd break."

Hutch felt the corner of his mouth twitch into something that was maybe a smile.

Or maybe something else.

He said, "You're saying she was cracked." Great, now he thinks he's a philosopher.

Starsky simply looked at him, expressionless.

Hutch sighed, and then coughed lightly. "If it was so obvious, how come I never saw it?"

"Because you were looking at how beautiful she was, inside and out. I saw cracks, you saw…"

"…light," finished Hutch. "Refraction, reflection, brilliance." He lowered his head, grasping a fistful of hair. The pain felt good. It was much better than feeling nothing. "She hurt you," he said. "You tried to warn me. I wouldn't listen. And when she turned on me, she did it by attacking…" The one person I loved more than anyone. "…you."

"She hurt you, too," said Starsky. "And I was too wrapped up in myself to even notice."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. Remember just before you sprung me from the hospital? I hardly let you get a word in edgewise. I was an ass, and you just let me get away with it!"

"I took off without a word, and left you there for eight days." That did it. Hutch folded over as another round of coughing shook him.

Starsky rubbed his back, following the line of his spine. "You were busy tracking her down and getting your heart ripped to shreds, and then you come back, and what do I do? I tear into you some more."

"You pulled me into bed with you. Again." Hutch gave him an amused glance.

"It's the only way I can get you to stop running away from me."

Hutch frowned. What the hell was Starsky talking about? He wasn't running away. He'd been sleeping on Starsky's couch, checking in from work five times a day, doing everything Starsky couldn't do for himself, and trying to keep on top of things down at the precinct as well. He'd dealt with the official reprimand, the inquiry, and the piles of paper work Dobey seemed to consider fair trade for his inexcusably unprofessional behavior. He'd been living practically on top of Starsky, bossing him around, lecturing him, bullying him into taking his meds, hiding his lighters…

And anyway, wasn't it Starsky who had been refusing to talk?

He coughed again. Starsky handed him a Kleenex and he blew his nose.

"I was really worried you'd gone insane," rasped Hutch. Unbidden, his hand traveled to his pocket where the latest of Starsky's lighters still resided.

Starsky grinned. "What, the lighter thing? I'll have you know the department's psych says it was a perfectly healthy way of coping with boredom, under the circumstances. Plus, I was probably 'facing my demons', though I don't think I actually had any to face. And you know, you really didn't have to hide all the matches and candles in the house as well."

Hutch shrugged, and then started coughing again.

He was still coughing when Huggy arrived with their food. He paused in the door of Starsky's bedroom, his arms full of parcels and his eyebrows climbing up into his hairline.

"It's a pajama party, Hugs!" said Starsky cheerfully. "You wanna join us?"

"Thank you kindly, sir," said Huggy with considerable dignity. "But I will pass, especially as you do not appear to be wearing pajamas, and he sounds like Typhoid Mary's blonder cousin. I'll take my payment in cash, thank you."

This time when Hutch choked, it had nothing to do with his cold.

Starsky hollered at Huggy's retreating back, "Aw, but we were going to pay you in jelly beans!"

Hutch felt his cheeks growing hot. He slid down the bed, pulling the blankets up over his face. As he listened to Starsky and Huggy banter, however, a new feeling began to supplant the embarrassment. It was an easing of a tension he hadn't even known he was carrying, a final letting go of resentment and blame.

Starsky didn't have a college education, but he was by far the wisest man Hutch knew. He had real class, in a way that had nothing to do with his taste in art or fine dining.

He's right. I did love her. That felt good to admit, finally. But, I love him more. And that felt even better.

Hutch reached above the covers for the box of Kleenex. He didn't dare emerge, and he didn't want to wipe his streaming eyes on the underside of Starsky's blanket. A hand shoved a wad of tissues at him, and he pulled them under the covers and blew his nose.

He felt Starsky lean over him, and heard him say, very quietly, "My feet got a little crisped, so what? Healing's easy. You, on the other hand, have been doing a great impression of the living dead, and you haven't been getting better. So, when your throat's up to it, you're going to tell me everything that happened. Because I'm ready to hear you now." One rough pat, and then Starsky was back to yelling at Huggy in the kitchen.

Hutch generally thought of himself as an agnostic. Sometimes, on his bad days, he even considered that he might be an atheist. But the thought that occurred to him now was an honest prayer, both a promise and a plea to a higher power.

From now on – God help me – I swear I'll listen to him.

For a brief, disoriented moment he wondered where he was. It didn't seem right to wake up feeling quite this good. There was something almost unsettling about having experienced a full night's sleep, without any dreams of any sort, disturbing or otherwise. But then he rolled over and saw the reason fast asleep on the pillow next to him.

Hutch smiled to himself, and lay back. For the first time in weeks he felt truly alive, and not even the congestion in his sinuses, or the alarming way his chest rattled when he breathed could impact on that. His gaze traveled around the room, taking in the cluttered tabletop, and the assorted flower arrangements brought home from the hospital. His contentment faded, replaced with puzzlement. Something was missing.

It took him a few minutes to put it together, to realize what had almost been overlooked in the chaos of the past month.

Hutch carefully slipped out of bed. If he was very quiet he might be able to pull the boxes down from the top of the bedroom cupboard without waking Starsky. After all these years of complaining about Starsky's decorating, he thought he had a pretty good idea of where everything should go.

Only maybe this year he would get a real tree, a small one in a pot, instead of the tacky silver aluminum tabletop thing Starsky favored. He could give it a home in the park after the season was over.

Hutch was balanced on a chair, trying to reach a box on the top shelf that looked promising, when he thought he heard a noise from the bed. He turned to look, but Starsky still had his eyes shut, apparently asleep.

It might have been convincing, if it weren't for the lines of stern control around his mouth. He was clearly struggling not to laugh.

Hutch grabbed the box, and stepped down off the chair with a thump. He tried to say, "I know you're awake," but his voice still seemed to be missing in action. He coughed a few times instead, and Starsky lost his battle with himself. His eyes flew open and he chortled.

Hutch scowled. Grabbing something from the top of the box, he pitched it at Starsky. The clump of plastic mistletoe impacted with Starsky's chest and bounced onto the covers.

Starsky retrieved the ornament and held it up. "Is this a hint? You trying to tell me something here?" He blew a kiss in Hutch's direction. Then he ducked as a stuffed Rudolf bounced off the wall above his head. "Hey, reindeer really can fly!"

Hutch rolled his eyes, but he couldn't suppress the grin on his face.

Few people would call this normal, but this was what he'd been missing. This was where he belonged.

End.