Reggie

   Hutch was in bad shape, even worse than when Starsky had half-carried, half-dragged his sorry frame into the room. At least then he wasn't so far removed from the drug; he'd still been able to feel the call of the last wisps of junk-induced nirvana that flew through his veins.

   But now, not even the memory was enough. They'd survived what Starsky was sure should have been the worst of it - the awful heaving, sweating hours of the most immediate withdrawal. Now, watching Hutch, he knew that was only the beginning. Bugs crawled all over his skin, and Starsky swore he could feel them, too; he itched and twitched and swatted at them every time Hutch did, sympathetically - or maybe it was just too much coffee and not enough sleep on his part. Whatever it was, he was sure that Hutch was feeling it a thousand times worse.

   He held him close whenever he could, to compensate: held his head over the toilet as his guts heaved and roiled against too much nothing that was in there, held him wrapped tight in blankets in the bed until it got too confining, held his hands open to stop the incessant scratching at already-raw skin as he fidgeted and twitched in the chair, held his eyes when he paced back and forth across the floor. When even that scrutiny became too much of a burden for Hutch to bear, Starsky moved away, to the far corners of the room, and sat on the floor with his head down and his back against the wall, and watched without seeming to, under his lashes.

   This Hutch wasn't the one that he knew; this one alternated between bouts of morose, tense silence, and frantic, desperate pleadings for Starsky to go out and get him a fix using anything he could to try to convince him: their friendship, past debts, even his obvious and seemingly unrelenting need. Starsky just shook his head and handed him another cup of coffee or glass of water or candy bar, that more often than not ended up on the floor or flying across the room or thrown back in his face - anything to try to placate him. Anything to convince himself that he wouldn't do what he was asked, under any circumstances.

   He was sitting on one of the ratty chairs by the bed, fighting sleep by watching Hutch pace. He was almost sure that it was going to be a losing battle - sleep, that was; the war itself, they would win. They had to.

   Hutch, who had been silent for a quarter of an hour, slid down on his knees in front of him. He looked terrible, desperate, wild; dark smudges circled his glittering eyes and his mouth and gave him a look even tighter and more feral than the one he'd worn before. He opened his mouth to speak, but coughed instead; when he tried again, only a dry croak emerged. "Please," he started, and Starsky leaned forward to hear him more clearly.

   "No."

   "You don't know what it's like," Hutch accused.

   "No, I don't."

   "I'd do it for you."

   Starsky shook his head sadly. "No, you wouldn't."

   "I would now, if you asked me. I'm asking you. Please." He tilted his head, a little, and Starsky fought the urge to reach out and smooth a wayward lock of unruly, unclean blond hair. "Just a little something. You could do it, and nobody would know - "

   "I'd know."

   "You know every place there is in this city," Hutch continued, as if he hadn't said anything. "Every dealer, every back alley. You could get me something in five minutes. Just to - " he swallowed, hard, " - just to take the edge off. Just to help. You do this for me, this one time, and I won't ask again."

   Starsky uncurled his hand and smoothed the lock of hair, and then another. "Partner," he said, "you're a liar."

   "Dammit!" Hutch yelled, slamming his fists into the floor. "I'd do it for you!" he accused. "I'd do anything for you, and you won't do this one thing for me."

   "I am doin' this for you, Hutch," Starsky said, knowing that his words were falling on deaf ears, but needing to say them regardless.

   All of the pain - and the very weight of him - seemed to disappear as Hutch crumpled down to the floor. Starsky leaned even further over in the chair, rubbing his hands over his friend's slumped shoulders. When Hutch mumbled something at him, he moved closer to hear, almost covering his entire body.

   "Don't touch me," Hutch said.

   Starsky immediately lifted his hands away like the offending objects they were. He didn't move, though; there wasn't anywhere else to go. Besides, this was part of what he'd signed on for, in taking care of Hutch. It also meant taking whatever abuse he needed to dish out, in order to get the poison out of his system.

   Hutch took a few more shuddering breaths before he raised his eyes. The look in those eyes surprised Starsky; instead of the disgust and hatred he'd expected to see there, Hutch seemed almost apologetic. 'Maybe,' he thought, 'maybe you're finally gettin' over it, partner.'

   "I'm sorry," Hutch said, his voice still shaky. "I didn't mean that."

   "'S okay," Starsky said. "It's not you talkin', I know that. It's the stuff."

   Hutch nodded, and, to Starsky's surprise, rested his head on one of Starsky's outstretched thighs. "I'm so tired," he said, nuzzling the thigh with his cheek.

   "Maybe you can get some sleep," Starsky said, grateful for the prospect of a reprieve from the exhausting watch and instantly pained by the disloyal thought. "Want me to help you to the bed?"

   "Yeah," Hutch said, and let himself be pulled up and levered over to the bed. He flopped down unceremoniously, but didn't let go of Starsky's hand, pulling him down, as well.

   Starsky perched on the edge of the mattress and smoothed more of the unruly hair away from his friend's face.

   "Starsk," Hutch said.

   "Yeah?"

   Hutch opened his eyes, lasering his partner in a glittering glance. "If you give me what I want, I'll give you what you want."

   "You ain't got nothin' I want," Starsky said, with humor in his voice. "You'd hafta pay me to take that hunk of junk you call a car off your hands, and there ain't enough money in the world to make me help you score, not when you're so close to beatin' this, babe."

   "I'm not so sure about that," Hutch said.

   "I am."

   "About not having anything you want," Hutch clarified. "I think I do." He removed his hand from the death-grip he'd been holding on to Starsky's wrist, and slid it further down his partner's body, till it rested easily on his inner thigh. "I think I can give you what you've always wanted."

   Starsky stared at the pale, blunt-fingered hand that lay in between his legs. Hutch wasn't doing anything, but Starsky could feel the clamminess of his skin even through the worn denim of his jeans. "No, Hutch," he said, finally, voice hollow, and extracted himself from the bed.

   Hutch was grinning at him - 'not Hutch,' Starsky thought to himself, 'this ain't Hutch, this is the Other; it looks like him, it sounds like him, but it ain't him, not by a long shot' - and cocked his head to the side. "It seems like a fair deal to me, and we'd both get what we want. You give me the stuff, I give you me."

   "No," Starsky said, again, the pain a flash like a bullet in his head. He turned around, for the first time in all the years that he'd known him utterly unable to bear the face of the man in front of him.

   Turning his back turned out to be a problem unto itself. Hutch made no sound as he crept over on sock feet and draped an arm around Starsky's neck, half the length of

   his body pressed up hard against him. Starsky forced himself not to respond in any way.

   "You think I don't know?" Hutch said. "You think I never guessed? Oh, babe, " he drawled the word out to an obscenity, "you have no idea what I've learned about addiction. And obsession. And want."

   "You're not my Hutch," Starsky said, startled to realize that he'd said the words that had become a mantra to him out loud.

   "No," Hutch agreed. "But I could be. I could be anything you want me to be."

   "If I get you a fix."

   "Yeah. That's not such an unfair trade, is it? Not going by how much you want it." Hutch licked his lips and made a bold grab for Starsky's crotch.

   Starsky, however, managed to evade him and walked swiftly across to the other side of the room. Hutch, surprised at the sudden move and still unsteady on his feet, nearly toppled over onto the floor. He only avoided doing just that by grabbing on to the nearest chair at the last moment, the picture of wounded dignity.

   "I don't want you," Starsky said. He was breathing hard, his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the doppelganger of his partner who was still leering at him. It was a bad dream, a bad fantasy come to life. He knew - he knew that Hutch knew, and that he'd always known. He knew and it remained unspoken because it had to be, because his partner loved him more than anyone or anything else in his life, and wouldn't hurt him for the world. Only now his partner was gone, and this ghost had replaced him - a ghost who'd found something he loved more than his job, his friends - much more than his partner. Much more than his life, even.

   "I don't want you," he said, again, and meant it. This wasn't the Hutch that he'd secretly - or not so secretly, it seemed - desired for so long. This was a junkie willing to do anything to score, a whore willing to sell himself for a fix.

   Hutch just stood there, looking broken, and defeated, and pathetic. He was strung-out, dirty, sweaty, pale, bruised, thin, and he shook like a twenty-year drunk with the DTs. Starsky had to dig his nails into his arm hard not to walk over, throw himself at his feet, and promise him anything, if only he could have his partner back. The real one.

   Before he could do anything, though, Hutch turned around and stumbled back to the bed, and collapsed across it. He shivered and shook and moaned, and Starsky didn't do a thing but watch, his back ramrod-straight against the wall.

********

   do me wrong, do me right,
   tell me lies but hold me tight,
   save your good-byes for the morning light,
   but don't let me be lonely tonight

********

   They finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, Hutch on the bed and Starsky in the chair, until the very fact that it was morning and he had slept woke Starsky. He crept over to the phone and called Dobey as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb the man still shivering and shaking on the bed, not knowing who he might be that day and afraid to find out.

   As it turned out, he was damned close to being the man that Starsky proudly called 'partner'. The fact that he left the room against orders, even though he was weak as a day-old kitten, proved it. The fact that he almost got himself killed by following up - alone - on Mickey's so-called 'lead', validated it. The fact that he didn't wind up dead, but collapsed gratefully in his partner's arms relatively unscathed, confirmed it.

   The fact that he ended up alone again, after saying good-bye to the girl whose love had precipitated all of this, driving Starsky and Forest in the Tomato back to the station without saying a word the entire way, pretty much cemented it. This wasn't the Other; this was Hutch.

********

   say goodbye and say hello,
   sure enough good to see you, but it's time to go,
   don't say yes but please don't say no,
   I don't want to be lonely tonight

********

   "What did the Captain say, anyway?"

   "When?"

   "Right before we left."

   "Geez, you are out of it, aren't you? He said not to come in for the next couple of days," Starsky said, from behind the open refrigerator door in Hutch's kitchen.

   "Don't you have anything decent to eat in here, or is it all sticks and twigs?"

   "I don't know. I haven't been here in a while," Hutch said. "He didn't ask - "

   "He didn't have to," Starsky said, shutting the door firmly. "He knows."

   Wincing, Hutch nodded and looked away.

   Starsky squatted down in front of him. "Look, you know him. I told him enough. The rest he guessed, but he saw you with his own two eyes, Hutch. Other than what we had to put in the report, there's nothing official about this, okay?"

   Hutch put his hand out, intent on capturing his arm. "Starsk - "

   Starsky moved away. "Think I'm gonna order a pizza," he said. "Or maybe some Chinese. You hungry?"

   Hutch shook his head with a grimace at the very mention of food. "No," he said, rubbing a weary hand over his face. "But you go ahead. I think I could sleep for a week, though. And I need another shower or eight."

   Starsky nodded. "Mind if I use the phone?"

   "Of course not."

   Starsky picked up the phone and dialed in an order. Hutch was only half-listening, unable to summon up the energy even to get himself off the couch. Finally, when Starsky re-cradled the phone, he pushed himself up on his feet, feeling even more weary when raised to his full height. Starsky hovered close without actually touching him, in case of imminent collapse. "You gonna be okay?"

   "Yeah," Hutch nodded. He smiled, tiredly. "Thanks to you."

   "I'd better go, let you get some sleep," Starsky said.

   Hutch frowned at him. "What about the food?"

   "Gonna go pick it up and eat it at home. You're dead on your feet, pal. You need some sleep - like, for the next two days or so." Before Hutch could say anything else, Starsky had shrugged into his jacket and was halfway out the door.

   "Hey," Hutch said, and Starsky poked his head back in. "Thanks."

   Starsky just smiled. "Yeah. Gimme a call when you wake up, Sleeping Beauty." Then he disappeared, leaving Hutch with the vague feeling that something was wrong, but too tired to do anything about it.

********

   go away then, damn you,
   go on and do as you please,
   you ain't gonna see me gettin' down on my knees
   I'm undecided, and your heart's been divided,
   you've been turning my world upside down

********

   "Hello? Hello?" Irritated and confused when the insistent buzzing didn't respond to him, Starsky re-cradled the phone. Stuffing the pillow over his head didn't help, either, so he finally got up and stumbled to the door in pajama bottoms, with his gun in his hand.

   "What?"

   Hutch stood there, hands in the air. "Don't shoot."

   "Why dintcha just let yourself in?" Starsky grouched, stumbling back from the door.

   "I couldn't find my key."

   "If you had bothered to try the handle, Mr. Police Detective Hutchinson, you might have discovered that it wasn't locked."

   "Well, that's not very smart, is it, living in this day and age?"

   "Look, it's three o'clock in the morning. I don't need lectures at three o'clock in the morning. If anyone had broken in, I'd've shot them, okay?" Starsky winced at the sudden brightness of the light in the kitchen, so he turned it off again. A few moments later, he tried again, finding the light much less painful the second time around. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

   "Starsk, something's wrong."

   That immediately kicked in Starsky's protective instinct. "What's wrong? You feelin' bad again? Dammit, I knew I should have stayed with ya! Come on, sit down." He ushered Hutch over to a chair and sat him down. "There's nothing so bad that we can't get through it together, okay? Whatever you need - " Hutch was grinning at him, which caused Starsky to stop his stream of chatter. "What?"

   "You're touching me."

   "Yeah. So?"

   "You were avoiding me." At Starsky's puzzled frown, he added, "Before, I mean."

   "I don't know what you're talkin' about." Starsky stood up, and went over to the fridge. "You want something to eat?"

   "See, there you go, doing it again. You've been avoiding me ever since - " Hutch paused. "Ever since yesterday."

   "I've been all over you since yesterday, closer to you than your own shadow."

   "When you weren't thinking about it, yeah. But whenever you think about it, you pull away. Like you just did. We need to talk about this, Starsk."

   "No, we don't," Starsky said, pulling out orange juice and finding a glass. "Because there's nothing to talk about."

   "I hurt you - "

   "You didn't do anything to me," Starsky insisted. "You weren't in your right mind, Hutch. Anything that happened happened because of the junk."

   "Maybe so, but that didn't give me the right to use your feelings for me - "

   "And just what the hell do you know about my feelings for you, anyway?" Starsky slammed the glass down in the sink, his shoulders shaking as he attempted to get himself under control.

   "Starsk - "

   "You say you know about addictions? You were addicted for days, Hutch," Starsky said. "You try mainlining your favorite drug for years, and then we'll talk about addictions."

   Hutch stood up and moved over to where Starsky stood, but before he could get close enough to touch, Starsky growled at him.

   "Don't touch me."

   "I have to," Hutch said, closing the distance between them. The physical distance, anyway; the back that he touched was as tense as he could ever remember seeing Starsky, the muscles taut and unyielding, even to him. 'Even to me,' he thought, unaware when that had ever happened before. He pressed himself up against that back, unthinking, and wrapped his arms around Starsky, holding him tight.

   "Don't," Starsky breathed, but there was desperation in his voice instead of anger. "Don't do this."

   "Starsk - "

   "No. It isn't fair. I helped you, okay? Not because I expected anythin' from you, but because you're my partner, my best friend."

   "I love you."

   "I know! Look, I know you think you're making it better, but you're not." Starsky managed to shrug away from Hutch's desperate grasp. "I don't want - this."

   "What do you want?"

   "I want things to go back the way they were! I want them to be normal again. I want - " He faltered.

   "You want me," Hutch finished for him.

   Starsky's answer was soft, and full of defeat. "Yeah."

   "You can have me."

   "You don't know what you're sayin'."

   "I think I do."

   "You're sayin' what you're sayin' because you think you owe me something. I'm tellin' you that the debt is paid. So go home, and let me go back to sleep." Starsky's voice turned desperate. "Please."

   Hutch wasn't about to let it alone, however. He moved forward, cradling his partner's face in his hands, and when he brought his lips down to Starsky's he was surprised how soft that mouth was, and how it drew him in, like a flame to the moth he hadn't known was within him. It was only with difficulty that he stopped kissing him.

   Starsky's eyes were closed, his mouth wet, but he managed to push Hutch away again. "You think I want your body," he said, almost to himself. "You think if you give me your body for a night - "

   "Not just a night," Hutch said. "For as long as you want it."

   "That will be enough for me. You don't have any idea." Starsky's eyes opened, and the depth of feeling in them was almost enough to send Hutch back-pedaling out the door. "I want everything," he said. "Starting with your body and ending at your soul. Frankly, I don't think you'd survive really discovering what I want, pal."

   Hutch swallowed, drowning in those depths. "Try me."

   Starsky shook his head. "There ain't no tryin', no goin' back," he said. "I would devour you whole."

   "And that's supposed to make me not want it?"

   Starsky took one of Hutch's hands and pressed it against his bare chest, then slid it down, until he was cupping the hardness through the soft fabric of his pajama bottoms. His flashing eyes all but dared Hutch's to waver. They didn't.

   A moment later, he was the one doing the devouring, pushing Starsky down into the tangle of still-warm bedclothes, throwing their clothing to the four corners of the room, and falling into the intoxicating warmth of Starsky's mouth like a drowning man.

   His teeth sank into the soft skin surrounding a nipple, and when Starsky writhed underneath him he took that as the encouragement it was meant to be. His hands mapped the expanse of his partner's body, giving instant and definitive lie to the thought that he was doing this because Starsky needed it, because he owed it to him.

   He groaned against the over-warm skin, lips and tongue marking him for life, and fell gratefully when Starsky pushed him over on the bed, taking his turn at exploration.

   He'd thought - stupidly, Hutch now realized - that he knew everything there was to know about him, but that was a lie. He knew Starsky's body, in an abstract way: he'd have known how to give an exact description of him to any stranger, could have picked out his voice among a thousand, could rattle off his vital statistics without a second thought. But he didn't know, until now, how his pupils blacked out the midnight-blue irises when he

   was aroused, the exact red his lips deepened to when bruised by kisses, or the swell of his hips as they pressed against his own. And he'd surely never tasted him before; never known the sweat and fire of him, the searing heat of his arousal. He wondered, once or twice, if Starsky wasn't right and he wouldn't survive this full-on assault of desire. He'd only just discovered the capacity within himself to want this, but for Starsky it had been long years of unrequited passion, finally given leave to express itself. He wondered how Starsky had survived it. He wondered why he'd wanted to.

   He was everywhere: mouth and hands and teeth and cock and thighs and stomach, everywhere Hutch could look there was just Starsky. Every time he opened his mouth, there was more of him to taste, more of him to feel, more of him to need. He was barely aware of his own body, except for the fact that Starsky seemed fascinated with it, and was playing him like some fine instrument, increasing his arousal by subtle increments, until he was suddenly flying on it, desperate for a completion that Starsky seemed unwilling to allow him. He had a sudden, panicked thought that maybe this was the payback for his years of obliviousness and neglect, and a deserved one, too - death by unsatisfied arousal. His eyes must have shown what he was thinking, because Starsky just grinned at him, and he melted into the bed, boneless with relief and an unspeakable gratitude as he was led over the edge.

   The end was sweet and gentle, surprisingly so, considering how much he felt. Something that should have shattered them utterly seemed instead to bond them even more tightly together - apt, considering that his tongue was in Starsky's mouth and his hands - he didn't even know where his hands were, except that they were touching Starsky. His entire body was touching Starsky, and when he came - when they came - they came together, literally and figuratively.

   It was a long time before he could speak. "Why didn't you tell me?" he said, finally.

   "You think I knew?" Starsky, sprawled flat on his stomach, shivered, and Hutch pulled the blankets from the floor. "I only knew - I only guessed - at half of it, babe. If I'd've known the rest - well, let's just say that you might not be here right now."

   "Why?"

   "I'd've run screaming a long time ago, blondie." That admission was punctuated by a yawn.

   "Coward," Hutch chuckled, and pulled Starsky over on his side, earning a round of protest.

   "We're gonna be stuck together in the morning."

   "You'd rather be stuck to the sheets?"

   "Wouldn't be the first time," Starsky grinned, through another yawn.

   "I'd rather have it this way, thanks. Go to sleep."

   Starsky peeked an eye at him. "You gonna be here in the morning?"

   "Where the hell else would I be?"

   "I dunno."

   "If you think I'm driving home at this hour, you're crazy. Say goodnight, Starsky," Hutch said, rolling his eyes.

   "Goodnight, Starsky. Now, you say it."

   Hutch chuckled again. "It." Their banter ended in a gentle snore, he closed his eyes and slid into sleep.

********

   do me wrong, do me right, right now, baby
   go on and tell me lies but hold me tight
   save your good-byes for the morning light, morning light
   but don't let me be lonely tonight.
   I don't want to be lonely tonight.
   no, no, I don't want to be lonely tonight
   I don't want to be lonely tonight

THE END