By
Ellis Murdock
19 July, 2002
Profound thanks to Sam
Grayson and Aine-Maire for lending their thoughts, suggestions, and
considerable editing skills to this piece.
Written for Paula Wilshe, with much love, admiration, and gratitude.
Hutch leaned back against the
pillow, tried to get comfortable, and found for the fifth time in two minutes
that no position was really going to offer respite. A distant part of his mind even registered the reason: there's no
physical cure for discomfort that has its origins in a place deep within. He'd drafted Starsky into his
short-but-spirited war against light and sound, resulting in nearly perfect
darkness in the bedroom – a thoroughly unnatural state for early evening. Even that had managed to go awry. Instead of the cocoon he was hoping to
escape into, the darkness had become its own form of oppression, and the
silence made him feel like a soul in exile.
Hutch rolled to his left, every muscle in his body screaming in
protest. What the HELL had happened
today, anyway?
The scenario replayed in his
mind without mercy, and Hutch had no more power to stop it now than he'd had as
it unfolded in the first place. Starsky
had been the first to spot the two small boys splashing happily about in the
water, looking very small in the vastness of ocean. Hutch had scanned the beach in the hopes of finding the adults in
charge of the children, but no likely candidates presented themselves --
worrisome, not only because of the water's depth, but also the presence of an
undertow strong enough to challenge even experienced adult swimmers. Then the splashing became thrashing, and
there was no doubt, no time to think.
Hutch's heart quickened at the memory of what followed. Would anything have been different had he
analyzed instead of reacting? He
frowned. Surely not. An award-winning swimmer for nearly as long
as he could remember, he was the natural choice to go in, something that was
true even before the shooting that permanently altered Starsky's physical abilities. Oh, yeah? You're so capable, Hutchinson, why the hell— His efforts at self-prosecution were
interrupted by both a shaft of light from the doorway and the person
responsible for allowing the intruder to gain entry.
"Hey, how're you
doin'?" As if unsure of his
welcome, Starsky didn't venture fully into the room, leaning instead against
the doorframe and speaking just above a whisper. "I was gonna whip up a couple of my famous Steaks a la
Starsky with those potatoes you like so much, but if your throat's sore, we
could save that 'til tomorrow. How
about it? Y'want me to call Huggy and
have him bring over some soup?"
The unrelenting cheer of his
partner irritated Hutch to his core.
Starsky wouldn't mock him – he knew that – but Hutch found little to be
joyful about at the moment and for the life of him couldn't imagine what might
be making Starsky so euphoric.
"Not hungry," he snapped, "and I was trying to get some
sleep."
"Oh." A response
seemed to be the only encouragement needed to bring Starsky into the room, and
he approached the bed with a surety and confident swagger Hutch hadn't seen for
far too long. Hutch's heart noted the
change, even as his head was inclined to disregard anything that smacked even
remotely of joie de vie.
"You still feeling that
bad?" Starsky reached a hand to
Hutch's forehead, his face registering bemusement and concern as his target
flinched from his touch. "Maybe
you should've been checked out, you know?
Didn't think so at the time, but—"
"I'm fine. Really.
Just need some sleep, okay?"
Their eyes locked, and Hutch
felt his cheeks flush at the intensity of his partner's gaze. Starsky had free access to a part of him
even Hutch couldn't always reach, but the last thing he wanted right now was to
share his turbulent innermost thoughts.
He searched the face staring down at him for the subtlest signs of
unease, sympathy, or even pity but, finding none, felt the acute need to break
contact and turned away. Of course, in this light. . . . But no, he wouldn't really expect to
find evidence of any of those even in the harshest glare of the midday
sun. Starsky's expression instead
radiated a pure, concentrated form of warmth, something frighteningly similar
to understanding, and…love. Please,
just go. He wasn't ready to be that
exposed.
Starsky seemed to have other
ideas, though and, shifting on the small space of bed available to him,
stretched out...shoes and all.
"Must be sore, huh? How
about that rubdown we talked about earlier?
Offer's still good, y'know."
"Starsk, I appreciate
the thought, but really—"
"No trouble at all. Just turn yourself over a little more to the
right…. Perfect!"
If nothing else, Hutch was a
realist perfectly capable of recognizing
a lost battle when he encountered one, and he surrendered without further
protest. Really, what was the
point? The blissful sensation of strong
fingers coaxing angry muscles into submission made that a moot issue,
anyway. Starsky hands were endowed with
the gifts of a wizard, and Hutch had long been utterly powerless against their
rhythmic dance.
"You're not making this
easy, y' know that? I'm not going to be
able to do much if you don't stop fighting me and relax."
"Relax?"
"Relax. It's easy – just think about what you're
doing now, then do the reverse."
Starsky's fingers inched along an almost imperceptible upward path,
paying particular attention to the neatly knotted deltoid muscles of both
shoulders. "C'mon, help me out a
little here. I could bounce quarters
off your back!"
Where some people might have
parsed a clue at the resounding silence and given up, Starsky was predictably
undeterred, continuing blithely on and seemingly oblivious to Hutch's growing
agitation.
"It feels like a rock
garden back here." Starsky was
silent for a second or two, then chuckled softly. "Reminds me of this football game I played in once. Our team was down fourteen zip, right? Late third quarter. Iverson – he was this huge
linebacker, bigger than any high schooler had the right to be – well, he
suddenly got anxious, I guess, and—"
Unbelievable. I don't know
what kind of game this is, buddy, but whatever it is, I'm not in the mood to
play. Angry now, Hutch flipped over with startling speed and nearly
tossed Starsky off the bed. "I
could've killed you. Do you
understand? I could've killed
you!"
If the outburst came as a
surprise, Starsky disguised that fact admirably well. He blinked a few times, then arranged himself in nearly the same
position he'd been in a few seconds earlier, taking the time to tuck in a flap
of sheet that had escaped from beneath the mattress. "You didn't," he
replied evenly.
"That's not the
point!"
"It's not?"
"Well, it's— Okay, it's part of the point, but if I could've
grabbed you like I was trying to do—"
In exasperation, Hutch demonstrated by fixing a vise-like grip on
Starsky's shirt. "What exactly do
you think would've happened? Huh?"
"You'd have probably
latched on with a death grip. Why d'ya
think I towed you in on a beach towel, instead of reaching out for you?"
"And if you wouldn't
have found one?"
"I'd have found
something else."
"And if you
couldn't? Come on, Starsk. You'd have tried. I know you."
"Okay, so maybe I would
have. That's what we do. It's what we've always done."
Hutch sat up abruptly,
yanking the sheet from its sanctuary once again. "And I'd have taken us
both down!" He slammed his fist
into a pillow to help illustrate a point Starsky obviously wasn't getting. "Everything I've ever said about
protecting you, never being able to hurt you, would've gone right out the
window then – I wasn't thinking.
It was…primitive." He
smacked the pillow against the nightstand and hit it again.
"Yeah, you were trying
to survive. You're gonna beat yourself
up over something like self-preservation?
That's what people do when they're drowning, remember? Instinct?
One of the strongest, if I remember my old high school class
correctly." Starsky pulled out the
pillow from behind his back, fluffed it, then handed it to Hutch. "My pillow," he replied to the
questioning look, pointing to the dejected-looking object slumped near the
nightstand. "You can be emphatic
with your own, okay? It'll be even
better – no feathers."
Hutch rolled his eyes and
leaned back with a puff. "I'm
serious."
"I know and I'm sorry,
but it's hard to take anything seriously coming from a guy with a killer
cowlick." Starsky laughed and
further mussed what Hutch knew was already a head full of what his aunt used to
teasingly refer to as "sticky outy bits." "I'm trying,"
he added patiently, "but I wish you'd talk to me. What is it, huh? What is it about this that's got you so tied up in knots?"
"My damsel in distress
routine wasn't enough? For God's sake,
I needed you to rescue me – I felt like an idiot!"
The shock and pain that
washed across Starsky's face struck Hutch with the impact of a physical
blow. He hadn't meant…. "Starsk—"
"Is that what this is all about? You feeling bad because I had to go in and help you?" Starsky took a sudden interest in the two
rings decorating his pinkie, rotating each in turn as he continued. "I know I'm kinda rusty, but it's
something I used to be good at it.
Never seemed to bother you before."
"No! Starsky, please, that's not what
I…." Hutch took a deep
breath. Honesty trumped pride whenever
Starsky's well-being was involved, and vulnerability suddenly lost most of its
threatened sting. "I
panicked," he admitted softly.
As suddenly as it had
appeared, the hurt vanished from Starsky's expression and was replaced by a
knowing smile. "Go on."
"You were there – you
saw!"
"I saw you toss one boy
near to shore, then dive under until you found the second and did the same
thing. Did you see the look on Mrs.
Morton's face when she finally got there and realized those were her kids out
there? That was panic. I almost had to knock her out to keep her
from diving in, too. Glad her husband
came when he did. But I also saw Mom
and Dad when I fished their little ones out the rest of the way and handed them
over – there's nothing like it.
"Elation" and "relief" don't even cover the half of
it. You're their hero."
"Some hero!" Hutch
responded bitterly. "I reacted
like a two-year-old in the deep end of the wading pool. I just don't…I don't know what
happened. You had to pry my hands off
the towel when you pulled me out. I
couldn't even unclench my damned hands!"
There, it was out in the open now.
Strangely enough, instead of it being a cathartic experience, Hutch felt
even more shamed than before.
"You swallowed a stomach
full of sea water, Hutch. If you hadn't
brought it up, you'd have made your quota of salt for the entire year in one
afternoon. There's nothing wrong with a
bit of panic every now and then," he added gently. "Sometimes it's the only healthy
response going."
"I never panic. God knows I've been in emergency situations
before, but I've only ever frozen—"
Hutch stopped there, knowing full well that Starsky would need no
further prodding to remember the last time.
At least that one had been fairly easy to analyze, while this was a
total mystery. "I've been trying
to figure it out, but nothing makes sense.
I have to know why; I have to know what's happening to me."
"I guess just accepting
that you're human is out of the question?"
"What if it's just the
tip of something larger, huh? Where do
we go from there?"
"That's what I
thought," Starsky replied with a grin.
"Okay, I can't claim to know reasons." He sniffed, then laid an arm across Hutch's
chest, patting his partner's stomach lightly.
"But I don't think there's anything wrong with your courage, if
that's what you're worried about. I'll
tell ya something else, too – not only did I get to watch you be you – jump
without looking and save the lives of two little kids -- I got to back you
up. You needed me today."
"I always need
you."
"Yeah, but not like
this. Not to save your life. You know how long it's been since I saved
anybody's life? And to have it be
yours?" Starsky smiled and shook
his head. "Best feeling in the
world. We were – are – partners. Maybe it's not exactly like before, but
something changed in me today. Can you
understand what I'm sayin' here? It's
not just what happened, but the fact that I could do it at all." The hand moved up to the back of Hutch's
neck, absently fingering his newly trimmed hair in a gesture that was at once
comfortingly familiar and achingly intimate. "Think about it, Hutch. Two kids are alive because of you. Their
parents think you walk on water – they'd donate major organs if you needed
them. Hell, they tried to give you
their car! You survived without any
major damage, and you gave me back a part of me I didn't even know was
missing. What more is it gonna take to
make this a good day?"
Hutch stared open-mouthed,
not sure he'd have been more surprised had Starsky started reciting Plato's
Republic in its native Greek. It was an
odd feeling, this sense that the walls of his own disappointment were systematically
caving in on themselves. Then again,
how do you stay angry at your weakness when that same weakness has given the
person you love more than life a newly found gift of strength and capability?
It made no sense, and yet…. Perceptions. Was it possible he'd been so
caught up in his own point of view that he'd missed Starsky's entirely? Not just Starsky's, he amended, as
his own memories from the beach slowly gave way to the fuzzier awareness of the
Morton family reunion going on just twenty feet or so away. So, it's not all about you, Hutchinson. He hadn't actually believed it was, but
recollection of actions that suggested otherwise caused his cheeks to heat once
again.
"Can't argue with it,
can you?" Starsky asked, the triumphant grin he sported brightening the
room.
"No." Hutch settled back into comfortable
closeness with his partner, finally allowing some of the day's tension to ebb
away. There was still no explanation
for the panic, and he didn't like the self-doubt that spawned. Then again, how much did it really
matter? He'd go swimming again,
confidence would be restored, life would move on, and all would be right with
the world. "I still don't feel like a hero." It was a simple point, but an important one.
"Just as
well." Starsky swiveled enough to
take off his shoes, then stretched out fully alongside Hutch, the resulting
warmth doing more for Hutch's muscles than a hundred massages. "I like you better when you're humble,
even if it is the truth." Starsky
leaned in close to the nearest ear and whispered, "And you are, you
know. Always."
Hutch smiled and granted both
mind and body permission to relax into the sleep wanting so desperately to
overtake his consciousness…until another thought sprang to the surface, and he
raised himself up on his elbows.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"So you're telling me
that nearly drowning was, in the larger scope of things, somehow therapeutic
for you? That this was something
good?"
"It was, and I
appreciate it. There really aren't a
lot of people out there who would go to those lengths."
Hutch sighed, and lay back
again. "No, I don't imagine there
are. You've got it now, though? I mean, reassure me that I'm not going to have
to throw myself into a burning building the next time you're feeling a little
low."
Starsky yawned and elbowed
Hutch lightly. "Nah. A broken bone would more than do it – I make
great splints."
finis