French Fries
Captain Dobey walked into the canteen and spotted his newly partnered detectives, Starsky and Hutchinson, eating lunch. Keeping an appraising eye on them, he selected a cheese sandwich, pot of jello, an apple and an orange juice for his own meal and then went and sat at a table a little way from them. They seemed oblivious to his presence or indeed that of anyone else.
Hutchinson was waxing lyrical about something whilst attacking a green salad and Starsky was nodding occasionally whilst chomping his way through a double cheeseburger. Talk about chalk and cheese. Dobey wondered, not for the first time, whether this pairing was going to work: on paper and in person the two young men seemed to be complete opposites.
As he watched, Hutchinson finished his salad and sat back, asking Starsky something. Starsky frowned and then grinned and started talking rapidly. Hutchinson leant over and picked some fries of his partner's plate and ate them. Starsky didn't bat an eyelid, just ate some himself and carried on talking. Then Dobey saw the dark haired detective, who was still talking non-stop, reach for the ketchup and put a generous dollop on his side of the plate. Then he reached for the mayonnaise and squirted a dollop onto the other side of the plate. Both men continued eating the fries, after dipping them into their respective condiments.
When the fries ran out, they wiped their hands and cleared the table in unison. As they walked past him on their way out, they nodded at him without pausing their conversation.
Dobey felt something stir in his chest and swallowed down the bittersweet memory of conversations and French fries shared with Elmo, his own partner and dearest friend. He knew now that his two detectives would work perfectly together and have each other's backs one hundred percent. Rather than worrying about them working together, he knew his job would be making sure they were allowed to flourish as partners and to be a support as needed if one of them was ever undercover alone or, God forbid, injured. He knew the anxiety and pain of both of those experiences and had been grateful for his own captain's support. It was time for him to take his turn in that role and he looked forward to watching these two young men develop their careers and their friendship.