THE RAIN spilling
from the over-stuffed clouds and running in gravy-brown rivers down the street, Starsky thought, would have been more than
enough excuse to stay home on most days. Add to that the fact that it was Christmas
Eve, and the end result was city streets so utterly deserted he couldn’t help but wonder if everyone had disappeared
off the face of the planet overnight.
Which
would pretty much put him and Hutch out of a job, if that were the case, because there wouldn’t be much call for policing
in a depopulated universe. Vaguely disturbed at that thought, Starsky pulled
up in front of Venice
Place.
He dashed
up the stairs and paused briefly at the top landing to shake the rainwater out of his hair.
Then he banged on his partner’s door. “C’mon, Hutch! We got bad guys to catch, and wrongs to right, and fair damsels to molest!”
There was
no answer.
Starsky
bounced anxiously from one foot to the other. Unbidden, his subconscious pointed
out (in a not particularly subconscious kind of way) that he hadn’t actually seen
another living soul since he’d tumbled out of bed that morning.
Swearing
fervently that he’d never again let himself fall asleep watching late-night reruns of the Twilight Zone, Starsky knocked
harder. There was no answer. Frowning
– it wasn’t like Hutch to oversleep, after all – he felt along the ledge above the door and retrieved the
key. He let himself into the darkened apartment.
“Hutch?”
he called, cautiously.
A voice
answered him from the bedroom, the words muffled and indistinct.
Well, at least I’m not alone in the universe…
And he’s conscious! Definitely a good sign. Starsky paused at the entrance to the room. There was a large
pile of blankets in the middle of the bed, underneath of which was, presumably, Hutch.
Carefully, Starsky walked across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
The pile
shuffled to one side, courteously allowing him more room.
“Are
you sick?”
One
end of the pile shifted in a clear negative. No.
“Nightmare?
No.
“Embarrassing
rash?”
Emphatic no.
Starsky
grimaced, thinking hard. “Okay buddy, you got to help me out here, because
I’m drawing a blank. What’s wrong?”
One blue
eye appeared from beneath the blankets. “I can’t do it anymore.”
“Do
what?” asked Starsky.
“I
can’t go out there!”
Oh great, he’s finally cracked. “It’s
okay, I understand,” said Starsky in his most soothing voice. “I
mean we all have bad days and the holiday season is especially stressful for lots of people…”
“Stop
that!” Hutch erupted from beneath the blankets, his blond hair standing
on end. He glared at Starsky.
“Huh?”
“I’m
not crazy!”
Starsky
was doubtful. Some of this must have shown in his expression, because Hutch abruptly
lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. Starsky flinched
as Hutch used his other hand to pat the bandage on Starsky’s neck. “Tell
me how you got this!”
Now he’s got amnesia? Starsky was
beginning to get scared. “Don’t you remember? I got snagged on a rusty nail in the warehouse yesterday!”
His rear end still felt bruised from the tetanus shot, given less than lovingly by a nurse with the face and build
of a bulldog.
Releasing
his grip on the collar, Hutch seized Starsky’s hand and held it up. He
pushed the arm of Starsky’s jacket back to his elbow, exposing the neat line of stitches on the underside of his wrist. “And this?”
“The
nutcase with the knife.”
Hutch pulled
up the edge of his own t-shirt, revealing a white bandage attached with surgical tape.
“Want to tell me what this is?”
“You
got shot, Hutch. But you’re almost better!”
“Uh
huh, and how’s your ankle?”
“It’s
a little sore, but I put the tension bandage on it today, so…”
“Why
did we stop keeping all our old casts as souvenirs?”
“Because
we had too many,” said Starsky, bewildered.
“And
why did the nurses put our names on the door of room 114 at Memorial?”
“I
guess because we keep coming back?”
“Every
week, Starsk. Every week!” Hutch snapped.
“We’ve spent so much time in the hospital, my mailman won’t deliver to my house anymore. He says it’s more convenient to just drop it off at Memorial’s admitting desk.” He patted Starsky’s leg. “Do you know how many
bones you’ve broken?”
Starsky
opened his mouth to answer, and then paused. Now that he thought about it, he
realized that he wasn’t sure. “Um…”
“How
many times have you been shot?”
Wasn’t this the sort of thing a person should know? Starsky looked at his fingers and tried to count back.
Hutch wasn’t
prepared to wait for him to come up with an estimate. “Do you know what’s
going to happen to us, if we go out there today?”
Starsky
was beginning to get an idea of where Hutch was going with this, but he still shook his head.
Hutch leaned
forward, his gaze intense. “One of us is going to get hurt. Badly. And the other one, assuming he doesn’t get hurt
too, will have to rescue him. Someone’s going to almost, but not quite,
die. And once again, for the umpteenth time, you and I will realize how incredibly
important we are to each other. There’ll be lots of comfort, and lots of
hugging, and maybe we’ll even discover our secret love for each other.”
“Well,
I do like the hugging--” Starsky stopped.
“Whoa! Our secret love? We
don’t have a secret love!”
“That’s
because almost every time it happens, it’s the first time. It just hasn’t
happened yet today.”
“Huh.” Starsky was nonplussed. If Hutch says so, then it must be true…
“And
that’s why I’m staying in bed today!” Hutch tossed the blankets
back over his head, turning once more into an anonymous pile of bedclothes.
Starsky
thought he felt a slight rumble. Probably it was just his stomach… Anyway, he had bigger issues to consider. “Hutch,
are you saying that every time we have sex, it’s the first time we’ve ever had sex? With each other, I mean?”
Hutch’s
voice was muffled, but clear. “Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Well,
geez! That sucks!” exclaimed Starsky.
“Precisely.”
Starsky
paused, almost derailed by the comment. “I mean, first times are always
crummy. You fumble and you don’t know what the other person likes and sometimes… Well, sometimes things just don’t last as long as you want them to.”
“…says
the man with the refractory period of a sex-starved jackrabbit…”
Before Starsky
could decide whether or not he even wanted to protest that characterization of his sexual prowess, another rumble shook the
bed, stronger this time. He glanced at the water glass by the side of the bed
and saw ripples form.
“Uh…
Hutch?”
“Mmmph?”
“You
know how you’ve been saying that whenever we go out we get hurt?”
An indistinct
sound of acknowledgement came from under the pile.
“Well,
what about all the times we’ve got ourselves hurt right here? I’m
not talking about people breaking in and hurting us, although that…does…happen.” Starsky glanced warily at the window, then shook his head and continued.
“No, I mean all the other stuff. Like when you sliced your wrist
open on that can, or when I fell in your shower and gave myself a concussion, or when you broke your ankle falling off the
step ladder last Christmas…”
“Nothing’s
happened to me in my bed yet!”
“Except
for that time you were raped by Satanists.”
Starsky
thought he heard a whimper, and he patted the heap of blankets sympathetically. He
was aiming for Hutch’s shoulder, but it occurred to him that he couldn’t really tell at the moment. Well, any other part of the man’s body would likely do just
as well.
“Aw,
c’mon buddy,” said Starsky, jumping to his feet. “You know
you’re no safer in bed than you are anywhere else, so you might as well get up and face the day like a man.”
Hutch pushed
himself up from under the blankets with a groan. “Do I have to?”
he asked, as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
Starsky
snapped his fingers, encouragingly. “C’mon! Let’s go take a shower, and… and… I know! We
can count our scars. I’ll do yours, if you do mine.”
A panicked
expression crossed Hutch’s face. Starsky dropped onto his heels and grabbed Hutch’s knees before he could dive
back under the blankets again. “I’m kidding!” He tilted his head back, grinning, and met Hutch’s suspicious gaze.
“Although, you know, someday we might want to try skipping all the hurt and cut straight to the comfort.”
A
low rumble started somewhere deep in the ground beneath them, quickly intensifying to a full blown earthquake. The floor began to buckle, and the windows cracked. As a large
chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling in the corner of the room, Hutch said sadly, “I think I’m going to have
to take a rain check on that one, buddy.”
_.:*~*:._
The feeling
of consciousness reluctantly returning was a familiar sensation. How many times have I done this, wondered Starsky, as he groped his way back into the waking world.
That
thought was not a good one. It brought with it memories of pain and blood, anguish,
shots fired, officer down…
“Stop
that!”
Starsky’s
eyes flew open. Hutch’s face was about three inches away, and he didn’t
look happy. Actually, considering that he was lit from beneath by the flashlight
in his hand, he looked downright terrifying. “Eep,” said Starsky.
“No
flashbacks!” said Hutch, sternly. “Not today. I can’t cope!”
Fright was
instantly replaced with hurt and outrage. “But, Hutch!” whined Starsky. “I can’t stop a flashback just because you told me to!”
“You
just did.” Hutch’s flashlight flickered and he smacked the bottom
of it with the palm of his hand. The light steadied.
Starsky
stopped in mid protest. His jaw snapped shut and he stared at Hutch, astonished. Then he looked around himself, taking in their surroundings for the first time. The ceiling had come down on one side, trapping them in a corner of Hutch’s
bedroom. There were a number of heavy beams over their heads, and as Starsky
stared they groaned ominously and dust trickled down in a thin stream. Somewhere
above, he could hear the rain continuing to pour down from the sky.
It was obvious
that any attempt to dig themselves out would bring the whole unsteady structure crashing down on their heads.
Trapped in an earthquake. Trapped in an earthquake
in the rain and…I didn’t have a flashback.
Starsky
abruptly pushed himself upright, ignoring the unsteady way the world spun around him.
“Hutch! I didn’t have a flashback!” He blinked, and rubbed the back of his head. “Do you
know what this means?”
It was hard
to tell in the unsteady light of the flashlight, but Starsky thought he saw comprehension in Hutch’s face. He pushed ahead. “You were saying that every time we
go out, we get hurt. And I think maybe you’re right...” Starsky paused. Either that or they were both insane. He gave a quick mental shrug, dismissed the notion as irrelevant, and continued. “Before we never noticed, but now we have.
And that means we might be able to change the way this story goes.”
“Step
off the path…” said Hutch, thoughtfully.
“And
shoot that wolf dead before he even gets to grandma’s house in the first place!”
There was
a pause. “You’re really weird,” said Hutch, finally.
“Yeah,
and you should move out from under that beam before it falls on your head.”
Hutch looked
up. “What beam?”
Starsky
grabbed the front of Hutch’s t-shirt. He threw himself backward, dragging
Hutch with him, just as the beam in question came crashing down in a roar of fractured drywall and rubble.
When the
dust finally settled, Starsky discovered himself on his back with Hutch lying on his chest.
Hutch had his face buried in Starsky’s shoulder and was coughing helplessly.
Starsky started to rub his back and then felt something damp trickle down his neck.
“Hutch! You’re drooling on me, get off!” He pushed ineffectively at the 185 pounds of partner pinning him to the floor.
He heard
a muffled apology, and the head shifted off his shoulder as Hutch continued to cough up the dust in his lungs. Eventually Hutch’s back stopped shaking and they lay there together for a little while, simply breathing
and appreciating the fact that they were still alive.
Together. Alive.
Appreciating
the aliveness of it all.
Really,
really appreciating.
Starsky
cleared his throat, pointedly.
Hutch froze. “Sorry…” his voice cracked a register. “Um, sorry about that.”
“It’s
not that it wouldn’t be fun,” said Starsky, kindly. “But we
really need to stay focused right now, and I can’t do that if you’re going to try and hump me.”
Hutch
rolled off of him. Starsky heard him moving, no doubt trying to find a comfortable
place to lie on the broken ground, and then he lay still in the dark, breathing deeply.
Starsky could almost hear Hutch counting to himself - in, hold-two-three, out,
let your diaphragm expand, repeat.
After several
minutes, Starsky asked, “Better?”
He heard
a non-committal sound. It was followed a moment later by something that might
have been a sob. “I wish I was a kid again.
Nothing too bad ever happens to kids,” said Hutch, miserably.
“Or
dogs,” said Starsky.
“Right.” Hutch’s hand landed on Starsky’s stomach, reaching out for comfort in
the dark.
“Kids
and dogs…” Starsky patted his hand.
“And
little old ladies,” added Hutch.
“Unless,
they’re evil.” Starsky paused a moment, deeply disturbed by the thought
of evil little old ladies. “Girlfriends are pretty much toast, though.”
“Maybe
that’s why we always end up with each other?” Hutch’s hand
slipped lower.
“I
said, stop that!” snapped Starsky.
The hand
was withdrawn immediately. “Sorry.”
Starsky
cleared his throat and shifted position. Because the rocks under his back were
uncomfortable. Certainly not for any other
reason.
His hip
bumped up against something cylindrical and he reached down to feel the cool smooth metal of the flashlight. Picking it up, he tried the button. Nothing. He gave it a shake and heard the batteries rattle. Tightening
the head, he was rewarded with a flicker of startlingly bright light. The cover
was broken, but the bulb was still intact.
“Let’s
talk about goals,” said Starsky. “What’s our number one goal?”
It took
Hutch a moment to answer. He said, “To get out of here.”
“Think
bigger.”
“Get
out of here without seriously injuring ourselves. Because I don’t want
to spend another Christmas in the hospital.”
Starsky
chuckled, and watched the beam of the flashlight play across the top of their cave.
“The nurses will be disappointed. I hear they’ve specially
decorated our room. Shoot, the cafeteria’s probably already heating up
the Christmas goose for us.”
“Just
what I need,” said Hutch, sourly. “Food poisoning. Again.”
“So,
our goal is to get out of here and make a whole lot of nurses very unhappy by standing them up for Christmas.”
“How’s
your head?”
“Hard
as a rock.” Starsky batted Hutch’s hand away from his temple. “Let’s look at what we know. We’re
trapped in our house…”
“My house.”
“Right. Your house.
And there’s been an earthquake. And it’s raining.” Starsky pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Could
be worse.”
“How?”
“Well,
first off, there’s no one trying to kill us…at the moment.”
“That
we know of,” said Hutch, gloom weighing down his voice.
Starsky
made a dismissive noise. What was the point of worrying about things that haven’t
happened yet? “All we have to do is sit tight, and eventually we’ll
get rescued. Hutch, you’re the guy who seems to have all this mapped out. What comes after the rescue?”
There was
a long silence. Finally, Hutch said, “The sex.”
“You
wish!” Starsky had grown bored with examining the ceiling. He sat up and began moving the beam of the flashlight across the floor.
Rubble, rubble, broken board, rubble… “Maybe this isn’t
that kind of story. Maybe this is the kind without any sex, just hugging. Because, you know, I do like the hugging…”
“Pookie!”
exclaimed Hutch.
“Huh?”
“Not
you, dummy!” Hutch scrambled forward a couple feet in the cramped space. “Shine that light over here.”
Starsky
obliged and a moment later Hutch gave an exclamation of triumph. He held up something
that looked very much like a handful of mud. “Pookie!”
“What’s
that?”
“This
is Pookie. She’s an African violet.
I can’t believe she survived…”
“I
can’t believe you call that survival.”
“Her
pot was smashed. Here, give me that flashlight.
Maybe we can find something else to put her in…”
“Hutch,
we’re not moving in down here!” protested Starsky, as he handed over the light.
Hutch sat
back on his heels, and regarded him seriously. “It might be safer. No guns, no knives, no medieval instruments of torture…”
“Nah,
eventually it’d all cave in.” As if in illustration, another beam
shifted, and dust cascaded down the side of their enclosure. In the distance,
over the hiss and shush of the rain, Starsky thought he could hear sirens.
“And
kill us. Again,” said Hutch.
“What?” Starsky wasn’t following.
“Nothing. Never mind. Look, are you going to help
me find something to put this plant in, or not?”
Obediently,
Starsky started to search, but a scrap of crumpled paper derailed him almost immediately.
He eased it carefully out from under a brick. “Hutch, gimme that
flashlight back.” As soon as he had the light in hand, he held up the torn
scrap, confirming his earlier suspicion. Without thinking, he exclaimed, “Hey,
it’s my letter to Santa! How did it get here?”
Starsky
knew the moment he spoke that he’d made a serious mistake.
“Why
would you write a letter to Santa?” asked Hutch, sounding incredulous. “It’s
not like anyone believes in him.”
Starsky
didn’t answer immediately. He considered his options, and finally decided
the hell with it. “Actually,” he said, with as much dignity as he
could muster. “I do.”
“Do
what?”
“I
do believe in Santa Claus.” Starsky was glad it was dark. He kept the beam of the flashlight focused on the far corner, just as if he might still be looking for
a pot for “Pookie”.
He heard
a funny sort of choke from Hutch. “No one over nine believes in Santa Claus. You’re putting me on.”
Starsky
didn’t answer.
Hutch started
laughing. “So…what? Did
you go down to the mall and sit on Santa’s knee? Tell him you’d been
a good boy this year, and ask him for a present?”
The man names a plant “Pookie,” and he’s laughing at me? Sulkily, Starsky said, “You mean a present like that train
you never bought for me?”
“You
got me an ant-farm!” protested Hutch, outrage in his voice.
“So?”
“So,
you have any idea how many times I’ve had to make up for giving you a tree – a very nice tree, I might add –
and you have never, once, apologized for buying me an ant farm?” Hutch was shouting now.
“Ant
farms are cool!” snapped Starsky. He meant it. He’d spent many a Christmas Eve hoping to find one under his own tree in the morning.
Hutch’s
voice dropped abruptly and he bit off each syllable, as he said, “They escaped.”
“Yeah
well, that wasn’t my fault.”
“Actually,
it was.”
Starsky
paused as a vague memory tugged at the back of his mind. “Oh, yeah…”
Before Hutch
could press his advantage in their argument, there was another alarming shift in the beams, and rainwater began to run down
the remaining wall of Hutch’s apartment. A familiar, deep, voice called
out, “Starsky! Hutchinson! Are you in there?”
Starsky
laughed. “Hey, it’s Dobey!” He threw his head back and bellowed
as loudly as he could, “Cap! In here!”
Dobey’s
voice drifted back. “Who’s hurt, and how badly?”
“No
one’s hurt! We’re fine!”
Starsky choked on the last words, and had to cough a few times to clear his throat.
“Damn dust.”
“Really?” Oddly, Dobey sounded doubtful. “Any
flashbacks?”
“Nope!”
“How’s
your claustrophobia?”
Starsky
felt a queasy sensation start up in his stomach, but he squelched it firmly. “No
worries at all! Hutch is planting us a garden in here!”
“Yeah,
how about Hutchinson? Any crippling
anxiety attacks? Unfounded guilt issues?”
Hutch answered
this one himself. “No, sir.”
There was
a long pause, and then Dobey’s voice seemed to hush slightly as if he didn’t want to be overheard. “Ah… do you two need a moment to get your pants back on?”
This time
they answered in chorus. “NO!”
_.:*~*:._
Starsky
adjusted the position of the last pot. Outside the rain continued to fall, and
inside the patter of water into various kitchen containers provided a counterpoint of sound.
His apartment at 2000 Ridgeway had survived the quake mostly unscathed, but the roof was no longer watertight.
It was a
small thing. Dobey, out of consideration for the fact that they had (once again)
almost been killed, had given them the rest of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day off.
Crossing the room, Starsky joined Hutch on the couch and leaned back to admire the unlit tree. There was no star this year, because they had stopped decorating halfway up. No one was going to fall off a stepladder or chair this year. He
leaned forward and retrieved his cup of lukewarm (non-scalding) cocoa.
Pookie was
sitting in a new pot on the coffee table, looking very much the worse for wear. Starsky
wondered if African violets could survive on only two and a half leaves.
Well, if it was even remotely possible, Hutch would manage it somehow.
Starsky
surveyed all this and then heaved a deep sigh of contentment. “We did it.”
Immediately,
Hutch clapped his hand over Starsky’s mouth. “Sssh! They’ll hear you!”
Starsky
shook him off, grinning. “Nah, it’s okay. We’re safe. At least until midnight
tomorrow… And maybe even the day after that, if Santa believes in Boxing
Day.”
“What’s
Boxing Day?” Hutch shook his head.
“No wait, never mind that. What does Santa have to do with all this?”
Starsky
put his cup back down on the table next to Pookie. Turning, he retrieved his
jacket from the arm of the couch. A little dust puffed up into the air, as he
pulled a piece of paper from the pocket. “Just keep in mind that I was
thinking about all the Christmases we’ve been having lately. How, you know,
if one of us isn’t being shot or tortured, then we’re electrocuting ourselves hanging lights, or stabbing ourselves
with mistletoe.”
Hutch nodded.
Starsky
carefully unfolded the paper, and cleared his throat. He read aloud, “Dear
Santa, This year, could you make it so that Hutch and me can have a nice quiet Christmas at my place together? And no one gets hurt? Love, Dave.” He looked up expectantly at Hutch, but found only incomprehension in his friend’s face.
“Don’t
you see?” asked Starsky. “He delivered!”
“Starsky,
my apartment was destroyed in an earthquake!”
Starsky
refolded the letter. “I’m still wondering what you did to deserve
that much coal in your stocking.” Tossing the letter onto the coffee table,
he added, “But I wouldn’t worry too much. I have a feeling everything
will be back to normal by tomorrow.”
“Normal.” Hutch’s expression was a study in tragedy.
“We’ll
think it’s normal, anyway.”
Starsky
wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but somehow Hutch managed to look even sadder than before.
“Aw,
c’mere you big beautiful blond, you!” Starsky grabbed Hutch and pulled
him into an embrace. “So what if Santa didn’t bring you anything? I’ve got a present for you, and you haven’t even tried to unwrap it yet!”
“It’s
wrapped?” Confused, Hutch pulled away and looked around the living room,
clearly expecting to see a present sitting somewhere.
Starsky
leaned back on the arm of the couch and gave him a slow smile. “Does denim
count?” As Hutch turned towards him with a look of dawning wonder, he added,
“You’ll forgive me if I forgot the bow.”
Just before
their lips met, Hutch said, “We’ll tie it on you after.”
~end~
