Reggie

   "Oh, I get it," Huggy said, after he watched Hutch wrestle the large package into the bar and put it on the table in front of his friend. "This time, you left the card at home and got Starsky here a real tree."

   Starsky looked at Hutch in alarm, hands arrested in their journey to tear away the brightly-coloured paper on his birthday present from his partner. "You didn't get me a tree again, did you?" he asked, trying to feign enthusiasm and failing miserably.

   "No, I didn't get you a tree," Hutch said, with exasperation. He sat down at their table and picked up his half-empty beer bottle, dusting some of the confetti that littered the place off of it before he took a drink. Personally, he thought Hug had gone a little overboard decorating The Pits, with the balloons, streamers, and confetti for a grown man, but Starsky absolutely loved it when he walked in.

   "What'd you get me, then?"

   "Why don't you just open it up and see, dummy?" Hutch's hand slid around his date's waist, pulling her down into his lap.

   "Oh, yeah," Starsky grinned, before enthusiastically tearing the rest of the packaging open. "Oh, Hutch," he said, overwhelmed, when the box was exposed. "Hutch. You shouldn've."

   Even Huggy whistled as he examined the box. "That must have set you back a pretty penny."

   "I got a deal," Hutch shrugged. It was mostly true; it had set him back a bit of cash, but he'd combed the city, going to every electronics dealer he could find until he got the absolute best price. Besides, the look on Starsky's face made the expenditure of time and money more than worth it.

   "You should have told me you were looking for something like this," Huggy said. "I know a guy - "

   Starsky laughed. "Who knows a guy who picks up things that fall off the backs of trucks?"

   Huggy was affronted. "Just for that little dig, I'm considering taking my present back."

   "Oh, Hug, don't. I was just kidding, and I love the books." Huggy had presented Starsky - much to Hutch's chagrin - with a set of Time-Life "True Life Disaster" books, to ensure he had his fill of extravagantly presented gore for the year, complete with full-colour pictures. "But this - Hutch, really - "

   "You like it?" Hutch said. Starsky just nodded. "Then that's all that matters, buddy."

   Anna, Hutch's date to the party, finally spoke up. "I give up," she said. "What is it, exactly?"

   "It's a Betamax, honey," Hutch explained. At her continued blank stare, he elaborated. "You know, a video tape machine."

   "Yeah," Starsky said enthusiastically. "It's the top of the line, even. You can have the midnight monster-movie fest whenever you want - even in the middle of the day."

   "Which is great in our line of work, where we spend most of our nights out catching the bad guys."

   "This is incredible," Starsky said. "Thanks." He stood up and gave Hutch - and Anna, who was still on his lap - a hug. "This may be my best birthday ever."

   "That's saying a lot, from someone who might not have had any more of them, a couple years ago," Huggy added.

   "Yeah." Starsky sighed. "Where's Lauren, anyway? She's gonna love this."

   "She went to the little girl's room," Anna said, getting off of Hutch's lap. "I'll go see if she's okay."

   "Tell her I'm ready to go if she is," Starsky called out to the retreating blonde. He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Gotta take my present home and try it out."

   "I figured you'd want to do that," Hutch said. He slid a smaller, wrapped package across the table. "So I got this to go along with it."

   "Hutch, no," Starsky said, pushing the second present back across the table. "You got me too much already."

   Hutch slid the present back. "They're a matched set, Starsk. This isn't going to do me any good, unless I take the machine back, too."

   "Well, okay." Starsky did a quick job on the wrapping paper of the small present. "Son of Frankenstein!"

   Hutch just shrugged. "I couldn't resist."

   This time, Starsky pulled his partner up and out of his seat and into a full-body hug. "This is the best birthday ever," he said. "Thanks to you."

   Hutch coloured at the praise, and pushed his partner gently away. "It's nothing," he said, gruffly.

   "You've sure come up in the world, from someone who used to do a mean Grinch impersonation," Huggy said. "Were you recently visited by the Ghost of Birthdays Past?"

   "Let's just say I've been converted, and leave it at that, okay?"

   The girls returned from the ladies' room, and Starsky gathered up his birthday presents.

   "You need a hand with that?" Hutch asked.

   "Nah. I'll take these," Starsky said, picking up the tape player and the books, "if you can take the movie, Laur."

   "No problem. Hey, a tape machine! Great present." The pretty brunette picked up the movie and examined the cover. "Oh, I love this movie! Can we watch it tonight?"

   "Is this the perfect woman, or what?" Starsky grinned at Hutch, who had to laugh in agreement. "You guys want to come back to my place and watch?"

   "Uh, I have to be at the hospital at seven in the morning," Anna said. "I'll take a raincheck."

   "And I'd better take the lady home," Hutch said. "I'll catch the second showing."

   "Anytime," Starsky said. "Anytime you want." He and Lauren left the bar.

   "Well, I would call that a very successful party," Huggy said. "Good presents, lovely ladies - who could ask for more than that?"

   "I'm surprised that you didn't have a date tonight, Hug," Hutch said, helping Anna with her coat.

   "Who says I don't? The night is young, my friend, the night is young."

   "Well, don't do anything I wouldn't do," Hutch laughed, as he and his date left the Pits.

   "I will certainly keep that in mind."

   "You want to come back to my place?" Anna asked Hutch, when they were in the car.

   "I thought you had to work early in the morning."

   "Oh, I just said that to get out of the invitation, because I thought you were actually going to accept it," she laughed. "I thought the birthday boy might want to be alone with his lady friend. You two can't spend all your time together, after all."

   "Yeah," Hutch said. "I guess not."

   "You could certainly have gotten a more romantic movie, though. 'Casablanca,' or something like that." She slid over on the seat, lifted his right arm and draped it around her shoulder, pressing her soft curves into his side. Her perfume wafted up to him, making him slightly dizzy. "Come on," she said. "Take me home, my white knight, and we can slip into something more comfortable."

********

********

   Hutch waited outside in the car in the morning, not wanting to go in and possibly interrupt a romantic scene. After he'd honked the horn three times, annoyed that Starsky didn't emerge or even yell that he was coming, he finally got up and went to the front door, and knocked.

   There was no answer. Reluctantly, and only because he was starting to get worried at the continued silence from the house, he took out his spare key. He'd stopped letting himself into Starsky's place a few months earlier, out of a new-found need to respect his partner's privacy.

   Starsky had tacitly agreed to do the same for him, in kind.

   When he tried the door, however, he found it unlocked. This led him to unsheathe his gun and use the butt of it to ease the door open.

   "Starsk?" he called out, slipping inside the house. There was no answer. "Starsky?"

   The Betamax machine was set up in front of the television, telling Hutch this was no ordinary robbery case. He shut the door and locked it, and made his way slowly through the house, looking for his partner.

   He didn't have to go far. Starsky was in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet. He'd obviously been violently ill, although now his body was shaken by nothing more than dry heaves. Hutch grabbed a towel and ran it under cool water, patting it against the back of Starsky's neck. "Easy," he said. "You and Lauren have another party back here last night?"

   Starsky shook his head, hands still white-knuckled around the porcelain.

   "You didn't have that much to drink at the Pits," Hutch frowned. "You eat something bad?"

   It was only then that he noticed the newspaper that was crumpled on the bathroom floor, half-hidden by the toilet. He reached over and picked it up, only to have his wrist grabbed in a death-grip by Starsky, who managed to gasp, "Don't," before he collapsed against the toilet again. The sounds of retching were terrible, but Hutch managed to wrench the paper away from him and smooth it out enough to read the headline.

   It was that morning's "Times." He'd picked up his own copy from the doorstep that morning on the way to the car, but hadn't looked at it yet; it was still rolled up in its rubber band on the floor of his car. A feeling that crept up the back of his neck and stood all the hair there on end told him he knew what he was going to see before he even looked, but he had to blink a couple of times even when the truth was staring him in the face.

   A mockery of the 'truth,' as it were. The headline itself blazed out in extra-large boldface type, but it wasn't nearly as eye-catching as the photos that accompanied it. Under "Bay City's Finest?" were two photos of Starsky.

   One of them was taken during their last commendation ceremony, in the Mayor's office. The other was what Hutch had come to think of as one of the photos, the pornographic fakes they'd been sent nearly six months ago. True, there were strategic parts blacked out with large boxes - the untouched photo would never have made it onto the front page, or anywhere inside - but what showed was enough. More than enough.

   Starsky had finally stopped trying to vomit up his internal organs, and was wedged now between the toilet and tub, panting and sweating from the exertion. He was paler than Hutch had ever seen him, even on a hospital gurney spouting blood from too many bullet wounds. This wound went infinitely deeper than any of those had; those had just temporarily destroyed his body, and even that he'd managed to overcome. This, Hutch feared, would be enough to destroy his spirit.

   "We're going to fight this," Hutch said, finally. "We're going to sue - "

   "Who?" Starsky's voice was dry, toneless. "We don't even know who did it. We never did find out. Even though we hoped, an' pretended, we both knew that OD wasn't the end. He was a messed-up hype who couldn't even spell blackmail, let alone perpetrate it." He took the paper out of Hutch's hands and crumpled it up again, throwing it against the wall. "This proves it.

   I was livin' on borrowed time, and I didn't even know it."

   "We," Hutch said. "You're in there today, I'll be in tomorrow. Maybe even the evening edition tonight."

   "No," Starsky said, and it was the first sign of fight that Hutch had seen in him. "We can get an injunction, or something. Stop the presses before this happens again."

   "First amendment rules, Starsk," Hutch said. "No judge is going to put a stop to the freedom of the press." A sudden thought struck him. "Where's Lauren?"

   "She didn't stay over last night," Starsky said. "Thank god. Although, it don't really matter now, does it? I mean, I'm sure she's seen it by now. Everyone in the city's going to see or hear about this picture within the next couple of hours. The phone'll be ringing off the hook - "

   That made Hutch frown. "Yeah," he agreed. "Reporters all over the lawn. You'd think - "

   "What?"

   "That it would have started by now." He stood up, and strode out of the bathroom. "The papers hit the streets at dawn, right? It's been hours since this has been out, and you haven't heard anything, right?"

   Starsky lifted himself painfully from the floor, and held on to the walls to steady himself as he followed Hutch out of the room. "No."

   "Dobey would have called - no, he would have come over, in person," Hutch continued. "There's no way that he would let something like this fly without being here. And the reporters would be here, too, at the first scent - you should have heard from every tv and radio station in the city already." By now he'd reached the front door and pulled it open.

   "Hutch, where are you going?"

   He ignored Starsky and ripped open the passenger door on his car. It took him a few minutes to find the paper, wedged under the front seat among some empty cardboard boxes and old coffee cups. He ripped off the rubber band and opened up the paper, finding what he'd hoped and feared he'd see.

   The headline on this paper was equally shocking, but it was different from Starsky's - this time, it was his own face that stared up at him, needle in his arm, lurid headline screaming "Corrupt Cop!" It stabbed him in the heart, but only for a moment; by the time he got back to the front step, he was smiling. He showed the paper to Starsky, who frowned as his eyes scanned over it. "Don't you get it?" he said. "It's a fake. They're fakes, Starsk."

   "Fakes?" Starsky looked as though he didn't dare believe it.

   "Mock-ups of the front page. You can get them done at amusement parks and carnivals. A fake headline proclaiming whatever you want it to."

   "Fake," Starsky repeated, and finally sagged under the weight of relief.

   Hutch caught him before he hit the floor, and dragged him inside, kicking the door closed with his foot. "Okay, okay, buddy. You need to sit down, and I need to get you some food, fast." He deposited Starsky on the couch and headed for the kitchen. "I only hope you've got something edible in here."

   After a makeshift meal of hastily scrambled eggs and toast, Hutch was relieved to see Starsky looking almost human again, his colour slowly returning to normal. "The thing is, I really thought I'd be okay with it," he said, over the last swallows of coffee. "I thought tellin' you was the hardest thing I'd have to do, but Hutch, it wasn't. All I could think about was that it was all comin' apart in the worst possible way." He shook his head. "It would've killed my mother to see this."

   "Whoever is doing this is sick, Starsk. Sick because we still don't know who, or why. I mean, if there was some demand for something, this might make sense. But this guy - "

   "Or girl," Starsky said.

   "Or girl, just wants to make us systematically crazy. And he - or she - is willing to wait to do it, just dropping these little bombs on us, waiting for them to explode, and going underground again. And then, when we get comfortable, thinking that it's all over - boom!" Hutch slammed his dirty dishes down in the sink. "This has got to stop, Starsk. We've got to figure out who is doing this, and get it to stop."

   "Hey, don't yell at me," Starsky said. "I'm on your side, remember? Gimme ten minutes to have a shower and get dressed, and we'll take this stuff in and show it to the Cap." He sighed. "He's gonna be about as happy to see it as we were."

   "Yeah," Hutch agreed. He poured himself the rest of the coffee and sat down to wait.

********

********

   "I think it's time that we all got serious about this," Dobey said, when the twin headlines were spread out across his desk and the two detectives had given him the low-down of their eventful early morning hours. Starsky had forced Hutch to stop at the first newsstand that they came across on their way in to work, to purchase a copy of the actual morning "Times." It was only when he saw the story about the previous evening's four-alarm fire and the Mayor's conference on the front page that he seemed to truly accept that the papers they'd been given were really fakes. Dobey looked pointedly at both of them. "I want to know what you two are not telling me."

   Starsky shifted in his chair, glancing over at Hutch. "What do you mean, Cap?"

   "Someone's got it out for you. Someone's playing this like a vendetta. I've got a feeling that we've been going at this case all wrong - assuming that it was someone with a professional grudge to pay, someone you busted who got out and wants to get even. That dead kid with the negatives just threw us off the trail."

   "Huggy did say he told him that he'd just come across the stuff," Hutch said. "We assumed that it was a story."

   "Looks like maybe he was telling the truth, eh?"

   "Looks exactly that way," Dobey said. "And now all of this - " he threw the papers down, "leads me to believe that this is a hell of a lot more personal in nature than some ex-con with a chip on his shoulder."

   "It's someone with time on their hands," Hutch agreed.

   "Someone willing to wait," Starsky added. "Let us get comfortable, and then pounce."

   "And someone with money to spend," Dobey said. "A kidnap and frame-up like this wouldn't come cheap. We're looking at multiple men, photographers, motel rooms, props - which all cost money. And there's no obvious motive behind it - no ply for money, no actual threat of public exposure."

   "So far," Starsky said, grimly.

   "Why wait all this time to go public?" Hutch argued. "I think the Captain's right. This is a personal vendetta."

   "Which means that you two have got to look into your personal lives. You're going to have to dig as far back as you can, wherever you can - and I'm talking women, old friends, even old Academy buddies who might have a reason to hold a grudge."

   "Captain - " Starsky protested. "You're asking us to do the impossible. I don't even remember half of the people I met in my life, let alone know where to find them. How are we supposed to do this?"

   "You're supposed to be detectives!" Dobey said. "Look, Starsky, I don't care if you've got to go back and interview your kindergarten teacher, you're going to do it! You, too, Hutchinson. You're going to dig around until you find something! I need my detectives back, with their minds on their work, and not on all this crap! Is that clear?"

   "Crystal, Cap," Hutch said. "Right, Starsk?"

   "Yeah, right, Cap."

   "Good. Now get out there and get this cleared up, once and for all." They got up and headed out of the office. "And I don't want you back in here until you've found something!"

   Hutch headed immediately for the coffeemaker, pouring himself a strong cup to fortify himself for the task ahead. "Looks like it's time to get out the little black book," Hutch sighed, as he sat down at his desk. "I'm really not looking forward to this." He dug up a pad of paper and a pencil and his most current address book, and then looked over at his partner, who was silent and staring pensively at the phone. "You going to be all right with this, Starsk? Starsk?"

   Starsky looked up, the puzzled look on his face telling that he'd obviously not been listening to what Hutch had said. "Hmm? What?"

   "I asked you if you were going to be okay with doing this."

   "Oh, yeah, sure." Starsky stood up. "I think I'm gonna go talk to a couple of people in person, first."

   "You want me to come with you?"

   "No. You stay here, dig through your book. I'll be back in a little while." Before Hutch could ask him anything more, Starsky had walked out of the squad room, leaving his partner at his desk, faced with the distasteful task of going through his past, person by person.

********

********

   To Hutch's surprise, Starsky didn't come back in to the station at all for the rest of the day, although he called in around five to say that he was following up some leads and he'd pick up Hutch the next morning. The empty chair across from him nagged at Hutch as he made his phone calls, crossing off potential 'suspects' from his list of friends and ex-lovers. There were a few women who absolutely refused to speak to him over the phone, which meant he was going to have to go and see them in person, something he was looking forward to even less than merely being hung up on.

   At six, he cleaned up his desk and left. He had a date with Anna that evening, but something made him call her and make an excuse to break it. Maybe it was one too many reminders of old relationships that had gone bad for one reason or another. Maybe he just wasn't in the mood for company.

   But when he found himself sitting in his car in front of his partner's home two hours later, after a couple of beers and a steak dinner that had gone down like sawdust and shoe leather, he knew the truth lay somewhere beyond either of those reasons. He was parked right behind the Tomato, and the lights were on inside the house, but he waited a little while before he went up to the door, hoping reason or insight would strike before his hand hit the doorbell.

   It didn't happen.

   Despite the early hour, Starsky was dressed for bed, in pajama bottoms and nothing else, feet and chest bare. "Hutch," he said, surprised. He didn't say anything else.

   "If I'm interrupting - "

   "No, no, come on in. I was just havin' a quiet night in, readin'." Starsky didn't wait for him to enter. "You want some wine?" he asked, holding up a bottle that was already missing a glass or two from where it sat on the coffee table. "Or a beer, maybe?"

   "A beer would be good, thanks." Hutch stepped a little awkwardly inside, closing the front door behind him. He looked around for evidence that he had interrupted Starsky with someone, but saw no evidence that anyone else was - or had been - there that night.

   "Siddown." Starsky picked up the bathrobe that was draped over the back of the couch and put it on, then padded into the kitchen.

   Hutch took a seat on the couch, standing up quickly when he felt the now-squashed paperback he'd sat on. It was a new hit from the bestseller list, and he put it on the coffee table beside wine.

   Starsky handed over the beer, and grabbed his wine glass, sitting himself down in an armchair. "What's up?"

   "I just - thought I'd check in."

   "How'd it go today?"

   "Wonderful," Hutch said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not entirely sure that Dobey isn't behind this himself. He's probably a sadist in his spare time."

   "Yeah," Starsky laughed. "That sounds like him."

   "How'd you do?" Hutch asked, casually.

   "Had a couple of interesting conversations, but didn't come up with anything promising on the case," Starsky said, but there was a suspicious twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was replaced by a frown when he said, "I thought you had a date tonight."

   "Begged off," Hutch shrugged. "The last thing I wanted to do was see Anna after hearing in great detail from the women I've wronged what a bastard I am all day."

   "Oh, it couldn't have been that bad, babe. You've left a trail of women in your wake, but they weren't all glad to see you go."

   "Yeah. What about you? I thought Lauren would be here tonight."

   "We were supposed to have dinner, but her mom's sick. She's gone to San Francisco to stay with her for a couple of days. I don't expect her back in town before the weekend."

   "That's too bad." An uncomfortable silence settled on the room, and Hutch picked up his beer, then put it down again and stood up. He wandered over to Starsky's record collection, staring at it unseeingly, aware of his partner's scrutiny. He moved over to the bookshelf before he spoke. "I've - I've been wondering about you and Lauren."

   "Oh, yeah?" Starsky's voice was perfectly even and uninflected, but even that didn't make Hutch stop talking, even though he knew he should.

   "Yeah. Like, what's going on between the two of you."

   "I told you the way it was," Starsky said. "It's about me keeping up appearances, and I like Lauren - I never met a woman before who loved late-night monster movies and chili dogs. She's not looking for anything heavy, and neither am I." He perched on the edge of the couch, to better observe Hutch and his pacing. "It works for us."

   "And what happens when it stops working? What happens when she wants it to be more than it is?"

   Starsky shrugged. "Prob'ly the same thing happens that's happened before. It ends."

   "And you think that's fair to her? Leading her on when you know that nothing is going to come from it? Letting her think that you - that you're - "

   "Normal?" Starsky asked.

   "No! No, that's not what I meant, not what I was going to say." Hutch finally stopped pacing, and sagged against the wall, like it might help hold him up.

   "Why are you so interested in my relationship with Lauren, anyway? Is somethin' going on I don't know about? Has she said somethin' to you?"

   "No." Hutch shrugged. "We've barely talked, and you were always there when we did."

   "Do you want to go out with her?"

   "No!" This was said a little too vehemently, but Starsky chose to let it go. "That's not what this is about. I'm not worried about her, Starsk."

   "You're worried about me?" Starsky looked very surprised. "I'm a big boy, babe. I can take care of myself."

   "I know you can," Hutch said, painfully. "I just don't think it's fair that you have to do this."

   "I don't have to. I choose to. Yeah, it makes for a better cover, to have the occasional pretty girl by my side, but it ain't exactly like sticking my hand in acid, or nothin'. I like her, I like spending time with her. She's smart, funny, a good friend. It's no big deal."

   "And what if there was a guy?"

   "Who says there isn't?"

   This blunt, uncouched statement staggered Hutch, but Starsky didn't even flinch; he'd been waiting for this conversation for months now, biding his time until Hutch got up the nerve to ask him all the things he'd been dying to and never allowed himself to, before.

   Hutch found he had to avert his eyes. "I thought you said that you weren't - "

   "I didn't lie. I wasn't, then," Starsky said. "That was months ago. Things change."

   That seemed to push against the very last bit of Hutch's control. "You were right, this isn't any of my business," he said, heading for the front door. "I should go."

   "No, it isn't," Starsky said, grabbing his arm. "And you should stay."

   "Why?"

   "Because we have to talk about this. Because no matter how much you try to pretend that it don't matter, it's still coming between us - not in any big way, but in lots of little ones." He managed to pull Hutch back in the room and over to the couch, where he sat him down. He himself took the armchair again, leveling the equilibrium by granting Hutch the comfort of his own personal space.

   "So ask."

   Hutch dragged his fingers through his hair, but couldn't manage to raise his eyes as he asked, "Who?"

   "That I won't tell you. It's nobody you know, and I don't want you to go looking."

   "I wouldn't - "

   "Babe," Starsky said. "I know you, remember?"

   Hutch swallowed, hard. Stricken blue eyes regarded Starsky. "Who you know, what you know, and how you know it, huh?"

   The ghost of a smile appeared on Starsky's face. "Yeah. Somethin' like that."

   "Only it's not true anymore, is it? I mean, not this way."

   "Ask me what you want to know, I'll tell ya." At Hutch's seeming protest, Starsky continued, "No names, because you don't really want to know names. Anything else, I'll tell ya."

   "Anything?"

   Starsky nodded.

   Faced with getting the answers he'd been dying for, without even consciously realizing it, ever since Starsky had said those fatal words to him, Hutch couldn't think of a thing to ask. Who, where, what, when, how - all of it and none of it seemed to matter. Only, it did matter. "When did you know?"

   Starsky took a breath. "I don't know. I think I always suspected. I don't think I let myself know until I was eighteen. That was the first time anything really happened."

   "But you still sleep with women."

   "Sometimes. Like I said, it isn't like torture, or anythin'. There's degrees of feeling, babe; sleeping with women doesn't make me straight. I could give it up and never do it again and never miss it."

   "But, men - "

   "Men," Starsky said. "Are an entirely different animal." He almost seemed to get lost in his narrative. "They way they feel, the way they smell, they way they taste, the way they touch - it's like making love to myself, in a way." He shook his head. "I couldn't stop, even if I wanted to."

   "And you don't want to." That was said with finality, but tinged with hope.

   Starsky shook his head. "Could you stop sleeping with women? Just - decide it isn't worth the effort, the pain, and stop? I know you. You couldn't - you put yourself out there, over an' over again, even though you've been kicked in the teeth more than anyone I know. It's part of you; it ain't about choosin', one way or the other. It's who you are." Taking a chance, he moved from the chair to the floor in front of Hutch, and kneeled there, hands on his lap. "Why don't you ask what you really want to know, babe?"

   Hutch tried, really tried to look anywhere but at the eyes that were looking at him so evenly, so steadily, so much like they had always looked at him - with friendship, with brotherhood and a love that was so unconditional it made him ashamed to see the unconscious reflection of his own weakness in it. Starsky wasn't touching him - had stopped touching him, practically - since he'd said those words that gave even the friendliest touch a different meaning, so many months ago.

   That was when Hutch finally realized what it was that had driven him here, this night: He missed it. He missed that touch, that feeling that Starsky alone had been able to give him. Not having it was like losing a limb, or an organ - not enough to kill him, but enough to chronically wound.

   "Oh, god, Starsk," he said, finally, as his hands came to rest on his partner's shoulders. Starsky smiled at him and the entire world tilted, shifted back on its axis until it actually felt right again. Without hesitation, he leaned forward and fell into Starsky's arms, almost crushing him in the weight of that hug.

   Starsky was laughing, and he was, too, until his lips brushed by accident against the bare edge of an earlobe. The resulting shiver made him stop, and move away so quickly that Starsky fell over backwards on the floor and just lay there.

   Hutch was in front of the bookcase again, using the frame to hold himself up, when he heard Starsky pick himself up and move to stand behind him. It took a superhuman effort for Hutch to turn around and look at him again. "I can't do this," he said, finally, hating the desperation in his own voice. "I can't do this anymore, Starsk."

   Starsky nodded without moving; he stood stock-still, arms folded in front of him. Hutch wondered if he was even breathing. Finally, he spoke. "Whatever you need," he said. He didn't make a move, open his arms, step forward. There was nothing to suggest that he would do any of those things, or, indeed, that he would do anything, or even that he wanted Hutch to do anything, either. It was all up to Hutch; there was nothing that he would be able to blame this on, no remorse, no regret, but that which would come from himself.

   Hutch took a step forward.

********

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   His fingers felt numb, and they were of no help at all in undressing himself; he settled for tangling them in Starsky's hair as the buttons were undone. He kept staring at his partner's mouth, wet and already red from the kisses they'd shared on the mile-long journey from the living room to the bed. When he reached out to brush across the wet bottom lip with his thumb, Starsky stopped what he was doing with a moan - or a sigh, Hutch couldn't tell for sure which - and caught those hands in his own, drawing them down. Before he could say anything else, though, Hutch kissed him, maneuvering him over on his back on the bed, knees on either side of Starsky's narrow hips.

   He slipped free the loose knot on the bathrobe and peeled the edges back, baring Starsky's chest. His mouth unerringly found each nipple in the dark hair and teased them with his lips and tongue, sucking them to hard peaks that mirrored the incipient hardness pressing against his groin. Starsky caught his hand again when Hutch started to unlace the thin tie on his pajama bottoms, but he would allow no protest, no pause; he drew the material all the way down and off, and then there was nothing tangible left to separate them.

   He eased his body down, covering all of Starsky with his own bare flesh, but still holding most of his own weight. Still, he rested there, breathing more and more slowly until their breath came in tandem. Only then did he take Starsky's mouth with his own, stealing that breath away entirely. Hands came up around his back and dug into his skin, as if afraid that he was unreal, or that he might suddenly disappear; he continued to kiss that mouth until need drove him away from it.

   Starsky's body was so very different - not just from the women that he'd known, but from himself - and yet similar; when he touched the places on that body where he himself longed to be touched, he received responses that mirrored his own so exactly he wasn't sure if he was telegraphing his thoughts directly to Starsky's brain. Never before had the reality of the very core of their partnership been made so clear to him.

   Starsky raised himself up to capture Hutch's mouth again, shifting his body as he did so. Hutch found this sudden re-positioning far more stark and revealing than even their nudity had allowed, and he stopped himself, breathing hard, trying to think, or reason.

   But there was no way to turn this offer down, no way to turn back and pretend that nothing had happened, and nothing had changed. This was a door that, once opened, could never be closed again, and he was faced with the very real 'choice' of either moving forward or stopping altogether. It came down to choosing to have everything, or have nothing at all.

   He told himself that it wasn't so different, to stare into the eyes of his lover as he pushed inside his body, but he brought his fingers up and mapped them gently over Starsky's face, memorizing him by touch. And then he couldn't do anything - couldn't consider anything but the needs of his own body, so he stopped watching and feeling and gave in to the desperate need for completion, eyes shut tight and hands clasped around Starsky's wrists hard enough to leave bruises.

   He cried out and then was lost, collapsing with his full weight onto Starsky's body. He thought that Starsky said something, but he couldn't hear anything but the rush of his pulse in his ears. His body was lifeless and unresisting, and Starsky had little trouble in easing him over on his back and leaving the bed. The last thing he remembered before succumbing to the darkness was the feel of Starsky's hands and mouth on his stomach.

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   "Hutch."

   He moaned and rolled over in bed, opening his eyes. He smiled when he saw Starsky squatting beside the bed. Starsky smiled back.

   "Come on, Hutch," Starsky said, handing him a cup of coffee. "You've got to get up, or we're gonna be late for work, and I don't think the Cap'n will be thrilled if we're late two days in a row."

   "Yeah." Hutch swallowed half the strong black coffee before he could make himself move. Starsky was already freshly showered and dressed; Hutch found his clothes in a neat pile beside the bed and started to pull them on.

   "Don't you want a shower, first?"

   "Gotta go home and change clothes, anyway," Hutch said, indicating his wrinkled clothing. "I'll shower when I get there."

   "Damn. I shoulda woke you up earlier, then. I just thought you could use the sleep."

   "Don't worry about it," Hutch said, with a smile. "I stayed late last night. I'll take my lumps."

   "I'll wait with ya," Starsky said. "Let the Cap yell at both of us." When Hutch was dressed except for his shoes, he sat down on the edge of the still-rumpled bed, and fiddled with a corner of the sheet. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Stupid question, I know, but - "

   "Yeah, I am," Hutch said. "I - I don't know why I came last night." He smiled at the unintended double entendre. "Here, I mean. But I'm glad I did." He pulled on his second shoe. "When you said, before, that you'd only ever loved one man - "

   "I told you last night, babe," Starsky said. "No names. That still holds."

   Hutch nodded. "I just wondered if he was still in the picture."

   It took Starsky a long time to speak. "I don't know how to answer that without telling you the whole story," he said, finally. "An' I'm not prepared to do that. At least, not right now, when we're - late for work."

   "Fair enough." Hutch stood up. "You know, I've got my car outside - you don't have to come with me. I could just meet you at the station."

   "I'll follow you to your place," Starsky shrugged. "It's my turn to drive today, anyway."

   "Okay. You ready to go?"

   "Yeah. Let's hit it. More people in the little black book to get to."

   Hutch groaned and put on his jacket, taking sunglasses out of the pocket. He opened the front door and stepped out into the bright sunshine. "Don't remind me."

   "I told you before, Hutch, not all the people you loved and left hate your guts," Starsky said, locking the door behind them. "It can't possibly be more than - oh, eighty percent?"

   "Gee, thanks, Starsk," Hutch said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

   "No problem," Starsky grinned.

   "Dirtball," Hutch said, under his breath.

   "I heard that."

   "I don't know what you're talking about," Hutch said, innocently, as he got into his car. Looking in his rear-view mirror, he saw Starsky shaking his head and muttering to himself as he unlocked the Torino.

THE END

The sequel to this story is A Hunger