NS: Four Times Hutch Didn't Quit and One Time He Did

[peg22]

so, on the way to the end of the Panto Chronicles, this fell out. Sometimes the boys take precedent over their real selves . . .

It's slash
It's S/H
It's got young boys, blood, The Fix, old boys and a new Torino . . . what else is there, really?!?!?

It may even get a little mushy at the end . . . blame it on the holidays and hormones.

Four Times Hutch Didn’t Quit and One Time He Did

by Kaye

 
I. Breaking In

He peered in the small diamond-shaped window, squinted through years of soot and grime and 
whatever else, and could barely make out the form of a man in a recliner. Bloated. Probably dead. 
Great. He looked behind him and saw that his training officer, Billy, was leaning against the car, 
watching. He knocked and shouted. The man in the recliner didn't move. He looked back at Billy, 
now sucking on a toothpick.

"Stiffs don't usually answer the door, Pretty Boy. You're gonna have to break a window."

He turned back to the door. No way was anyone getting through that tiny window. No way was Billy 
going to haul his ass off the hood of the car to help him. No way was he going to last through six weeks
 of the Billy and Pretty Boy show. No way should he have ever  decided to become a police officer. 
He looked around the porch for something heavy. 

"Try the door, Pretty - sheesh."  Billy sighed and bent down to tie his shoe.

He turned the knob and it creaked and then the door opened. The light streamed into the room, 
carrying him with it until the smell slapped him across the face, sucked all the good air from his lungs. 
The guy was ripe. Just about to pop. He looked back and saw that Billy had actually shoved himself off
 the hood and was heading up the steps.

"Don't touch anything." 

He ignored Billy and walked slowly towards the man, who had green slime dripping down his face. 
He fought the urge to puke his guts all over the slip covered couch and took a step closer. 
And puked his guts all over the slip covered ottoman instead.  He hung onto his knees and hoped he 
wasn’t destroying evidence. He wiped his mouth with the edge of his sleeve and felt a hand on his 
shoulder.

"Here.” Billy shoved a cigar and a stick of gum in his face. “Chew this and go smoke this.” 

He took the gum and stuffed it into his mouth. Billy had already moved to the chair where the guy was 
still oozing green slime.

“Go wait for the bus.”

Hutch made his way out into the sunshine before he puked again. In the tiny rose bush next to the 
porch. So much for the gum. He could hear Billy mumbling about fucking rookies and his bum luck to 
get the girly ones and he reached into his pocket for a cigarette. No way was he going to try to smoke
 one of Billy’s cigars.

He took a long draw from the cigarette – making a note not to tell Starsky since they had both decided
 to quit – and sat on the steps that led down to the street. The smell from the body wafted around 
him, mixing with the smoke, turning it from horrific to mildly  noxious. He could hear the siren in the 
distance and chuckled. No way this guy needed lights and sirens. He’d been dead for a long time.

He looked at his watch. 7:30. No way was he going to get off on time. He could hear his mother’s
voice, bankers never work late, and allowed himself a moment behind a mahogany desk in the mortgage 
assessment department of Duluth Farmer’s Credit Union, pushed himself off the stoop and headed
into the house.

 II. Breaking Out

“Jesus, Hutch – it’s a little baby.” 

He didn’t need to see the look of horror on Starsky’s face. He could hear it in every syllable. He could
feel it in every finger digging into his arm. 

He felt Starsky sag into him and they both took a step back from the dumpster.  From the crime scene.
 From the nightmare that had started when dispatch sent them to the alley on a suspicious activity call.
 They had already found the mother – dead, throat slashed. Starsky had chased two guys into traffic, 
but they were just gandys looking for a place to sleep. 

They had been a little horrified and a little excited when they called in the dead body and were told 
detectives were en route. Their third day together on the streets. Alone. Their first crime scene to 
secure. Their first chance to prove they could be partners. They had been riding together for almost
 a week because the squad was down three guys already and Starsky had begged and Capt. Ferguson 
had given in – with a strict warning.

Don’t fuck anything up. I don’t need shiny-assed rookies messing with my monthly numbers.”

The excitement of finally working together had been tempered by a hundred mind-numbing traffic 
stops and a dozen domestic disputes. And now this. Hutch hung onto Starsky’s collar as he emptied 
three burritos and a root beer onto the pavement behind the dumpster. Fought the urge to join him.
 Fought the urge to push him back into the car and drive somewhere that didn’t smell like piss
 and death and talcum powder. Where they could leave the job at the time clock, not follow it into 
their nightmares. Where he could really lose himself in the man whose head was cradled in his hand. 

This was life – this thread of a beating heart and the cursing and retching that filled the alley. This 
new idea of someone who matched him in all the crooked corners of his life. This, not the rest of it.  

He looked up as the light blue mustang belonging to John Blaine and his partner roared into the alley, 
followed by the coroner’s wagon. He patted Starsky on the back and stepped around the dumpster. 
Back on the job. The hand that brushed his chest as he moved away kept his voice steady as he 
welcomed the new officers into the nightmare. 
 

III. Breaking Down

He reached across the car. “Thanks, Starsk.”

Starsky had said barely a word the whole way home from the station where they had deposited Forest 
and Jeanie. Just white-knuckled his way through rush hour traffic, only breaking the silence with a 
“fucking Barry Manilow” when Mandy came on the radio. He clicked it off and they rode in silence the
 rest of the way to the cottage.

Hutch didn’t want to go into the cottage. Didn’t want to stay in the Torino. Didn’t want to think about
 the long night ahead of him – the long day after that. And after that. And after that. He rubbed his arm
 and looked out the window at the sun and the streets and the kids on bikes. How had the world 
outside remained so much the same when the world inside - his head, his body, this car – had shifted 
nto something he didn’t recognize? 

Starsky shoved the Torino into park and let the engine idle. He wiped a hand across his face and 
patted Hutch on the thigh. “You want to wait out here a minute?”

Hutch couldn’t take his eyes off the front door. The whole thing was making him a little . . . he 
couldn’t understand the difficulty he was having staying inside his own skin. Staying inside the car, 
not floating up and out and away. Then he looked down at his hand, shaking despite the grip he had on
 his leg, and he understood it completely.

This was withdrawal. He was jonesing right now just like a hundred other hypes he’d seen on the 
streets. Not the wrenching, retching withdrawal he had just been through at Huggy’s.  No this was 
more subtle, snaking between him and the rational thoughts of moving on, moving forward, beating this . . .

He wanted a hit. He flinched at the sense memory of the needle slipping into his vein, the backwash of
 blood, the medicine coursing through his body at the speed of light . . .

“Hutch, you okay?” Starsky had turned off the car.

Was he okay? No. Could he be? Maybe. But wouldn’t he feel better just six blocks down the beach, 
where Snort and Little José could make him forget about the pain and the itch and the guilt that crept
 up his spine faster than any narcotic? 

Starsky hadn’t asked for this. Junkie partner. Probably headed for jail. Most likely headed down that 
beach sooner or later to score. At the very least, suspension and then suspicion following their every
 move after that. He should just get out of this car and disappear into the escaping daylight. Escape 
into the night. Let Starsky mourn him now, instead of later.  

The hand that gripped his chin surprised him. He was forced to turn and look into Starsky’s eyes. 
Forced to face his guilt, his fear. His partner.

“Don’t disappear on me, Hutch. You’re not alone. No matter what you’re brain is telling you right now,
 you’re not alone. I’m here. You wanna go get drunk, we get drunk. You wanna quit, toss our badges 
in the sea, drive to Mexico, we’re gone. You wanna burn the cottage to the ground, I got a match. 
But you’re not doing this alone. You got it?”

He felt the tension drain out of his body. Starsky’s hand moved to the back of his neck, kneading.
Healing. Starsky as methadone. He should’ve known.  

He squeezed Starsky’s thigh, took a deep breath, swung the Torino’s heavy door open, and walked 

slowly to the front porch.

IV. Breaking Up

He was in hell and her name was Marianne. Her name was really Starsky, but he had not evolved that 
far as a human being to actually name the origin of his pain. No, he had stayed true to form and found 
a substitute, a doppelganger. A dame. 

Definitely not a lady. Or a girl. Or a chick. A dame. All legs and eyes and a voice that carried enough 
trouble to drown in. This was convenient, since he was tired of circling the drain with his own 
problems. He had fucked her and fucked her over. She let it all happen to her and thought she 
deserved it. He let it all happen to him and thought everyone else was fucked up. Which, in his more 
rational moments, he knew was fucked.

He’d even pissed off Starsky this time. The original source. Disappeared on him. For two days. Showed 
up messed up. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought Starsky was glad he was beat up, 
not fucked up. Or high.

He allowed the humorless chuckle. There would be no horse this time. Nothing could save him now. 
He was the singed fragment of the worst burn-out case since Eddie Orleans dropped his badge and gun
 on Dobey’s desk and then walked off the 12th street pier. 

Everything he touched turned to shit. No wonder he had crashed into a woman who was equally 
miserable. Equally fucked. The only real difference was that Marianne had not fallen in love with her
 partner. Just her brother. Which was no difference, really. 

And then Starsky met him on the steps of the courthouse, took him home, made him shower and shave,
 cooked him some ungodly goop he called chicken soup. Did his laundry, changed the sheets on the 
bed, even got the landlord to fix the screen on the back porch, through which he had “accidentally” 
thrown an entire bottle of Jack Daniels one night during a bout of guilt and pain and the unrelenting 
itch to bend his partner over a piece of hard furniture.

He sat on the couch, nursing a beer and watching Starsky burn another batch of toast. He felt a little 
closer to human than he had in a while. He could almost catch the past out of the corner of his eye – 
a past that included dinner and a late night movie, his legs tangled in Starsky’s, his hand casually 
massaging the back of Starsky’s neck, until the movie ended, or it got a little too intimate and 
Starsky would leap up and, with the promise of “see ya tomorrow, Hutch,” head down the stairs, 
leaving Hutch a little hard and a little happy.

But that was a lifetime of near misses ago. Sometimes he was surprised to just be standing upright. 
Sometimes he couldn’t. Sometimes he eyed his service revolver with more than wishful thinking. 
But most of the time he just shoved it all back into the filthy corners of his soul and carried on.

He watched Starsky walk the length of the apartment, set a tray of soup and bread on the coffee table
 and shrug into his jacket. The past disappeared forever behind the piano – there were no late night 
movies in this reality. Only Starsky, pissed, disappointed, probably bleeding, but completely unable to 
stop taking care of him.

“You oughta take a couple of days off.” Starsky fidgeted with his keys, didn’t look up. “Do you good. 
Do us good. I can’t keep doing this, you know.” The last part trailed off into a whisper and Hutch 
didn’t look up again until he heard the Torino escape into the 
future.

 
V. Breaking Free

He folded the letter and slid it into the envelope.  Starsky looked at him over the rim of his reading 
glasses, but then settled back into his paper.  Didn’t even ask to read it – which was a first for Starsky,
 the eternal snoop. He drained the cup of barely warm coffee, tapped his fingers, and then swept the
 envelope off the table and into his pocket.

“Going to the mailbox?” Starsky’s voice carried over the sports page.

“No – this better be in person. Thought I’d stop by the grocery on the way back – want anything?”

Starsky lowered the paper and stared at him, eyebrow raised. He raised his in response and then 
shoved his chair back and got up. Slowly, since it was morning and since his vertebrae had never 
ceased their objection to his car hopping, criminal wrestling past.  As he waiting for his spine to 
catch up with the rest of him, he glanced back at Starsky, who had yet to get back into the box scores.

“What?”

“You know what.”

“I forget to kiss you good morning again?”

Starsky smiled, one of those x-rated ones that climb lazily from his lips to his eyebrows, one of those 
that made victims weep and criminals . . . well, weep.

“No, I think you kissed me good this morning. I’m talking about that letter.”

Hutch patted his pocket. “It’s here. It’s done.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Didn’t we already?”

Starsky folded the paper, stood and walked over to Hutch, who was trying to scoop up his keys and 
put on his jacket so as to avoid whatever Starsky had in mind.

“Hutch, stop for just a minute, will ya?”

“No, Starsky, I won’t. I don’t want this to be a big deal. I just want to go, drop off the letter and go to
the store, maybe get a nice pork loin, some asparagus, a chardonnay . . .”

“Asparagus? Are you trying to kill me? I ate something green yesterday.”

“You ate green Skittles yesterday.”

“And . . .?”

“And so you need some green vegetables, and I haven’t cooked in a week and I’m not going to let you 
make this into a big thing.”

Starsky’s eyebrows wagged. “Oh, yeah?” He reached down and grabbed Hutch’s crotch. “I can make
 this into a real big thing.”

Hutch twisted away and managed to snag his keys off the table by the front door. Starsky made a grab 
for him, but he opened the door and escaped down the steps. Starsky shouted something Hutch 
couldn’t hear and he chuckled as he backed out of the driveway and saw the one lone finger 
appearing from the front window. That man would never grow up. Thank God.

He got both asparagus and Skittles at the store, wandering the aisles like a man with all the leisure time
 in the world.  Not a realistic possibility, what with Starsky at home.  He was probably sitting in the 
window now, waiting to flip the welcome home bird. Waiting to see if Hutch really did it.

He made one last stop before he pulled in the driveway, and was greeted not with the finger, but with
 a full moon at three o’clock in the afternoon. Good thing the neighbors were all at work.  He honked
 and the moon disappeared and Starsky threw the door open and walked slowly down the front steps, 
silent, eyes wide, his mouth a gaping hole. Finally, Hutch had gotten the last word.

 *****

Captain Manny Campos waited until shift change to open the letter. He reached into his bottom 
drawer, pulled out a bottle and a glass and poured himself a stiff shot. He knew this letter was coming 
for a while, but had hoped maybe the recent personnel changes and salary increases would hold it 
for another decade or so. He took a drink and began to read the neatly typed paragraph that 
signaled the end of a career, the end of an era, really. 

He’d never worked for the BCPD without them. When Starsky quit ten years earlier, he figured Hutch 
would have been out the door as well. But he had stayed on, carving his own career from the 
new technology division and his knack for spotting irregularities in the reams of data the computers 
spit out on a regular basis. 

He sighed. He was getting too damn old. Should hang it up, too. Follow Starsky and Hutch into the
 sunset. The last of the cowboys. He drained the glass and laid the letter on the scanner, resisting the
 urge to “accidentally” drop it in the trash, and then hit enter. Shame that one keystroke could 
eradicate that kind of history.

Then he saw the other letter. The one addressed to “Manny”, the one handwritten, the one that 

explained everything.

Manny,

I figured by now you’d be three fingers into my resignation, so I thought I’d let you know my plans. 
Our plans. Still hard to use those kind of pronouns – too many years of singular instead of plural. 
You made my last few years in the department enjoyable, an adjective I wouldn’t have used during the 
first years. I’m glad you made Captain, Manny – you deserved it, especially after all you did to help me
 bring down Gunther and his crew. I will never forget that. And then when you stepped in and found 
e a place here where I could be okay without Starsk – well, you know what that meant to me.

But it’s time. Starsky’s gave up his fraud job with the county last year after his back surgery and he’s 
been after me to join him in “blissful retirement” ever since.  I’d give the man my life – confessed that
 to you enough times in the back booth at Huggy’s after twelve too many, didn’t I – and so I’d better 
put my money where my mouth is.

So, I’m turning in the tin. Never thought I’d make it two years, much less 23. Wanted to quit a hundred
 times a day those first rookie years. Cut it down to a dozen times a day after Starsky joined me. 
Only once or twice a day since.  It’s been a good career. I think we’ve made our mark – helped some 
folks. I just want to know what it’s like to wake up in the morning without that knot in my stomach, 
knowing this could be the day somebody eats the bullet, or the blade, or the cliff crumbles beneath 
my feet . . .

Sorry, sometimes those days just don’t want to let me go. And so I’m letting them go. And Starsky 
doesn’t know it yet, but I bought him another car to celebrate. Yes, another Torino. Rehab 1976. 
rebuilt engine, though – will actually corner without tossing me through the windshield. But still that 
same candy apple red – and I got Huggy’s son Teddy to detail a stripe.

So you have to come over and check it out. If I’m lucky, he won’t make me ride in it.

Thanks again, Manny. 

Hutch

 *****

“I don’t understand . . .” Starsky finally found his voice.

Hutch opened the car door and hopped out. “What is there to understand?”

“Where’d you get it?” Starsky’s hand reached for the hood, but then he jerked it back.

“It’s not going to bite you, Starsk – it’s just something I picked up from the store.”

“Like hell.” Starsky took another step forward and ran a finger along the hood. 

“Well, you’re all about making this retirement a big thing, so I decided you were right.” Hutch took 
Starsky by the shoulder. “And if anything could show you how much I love you, this reincarnation of 
my nightmare should do it.”

“But, how . . .” Starsky had moved to the driver’s window, fingering the side mirror, his hand trailing 
down to the door handle. “It’s mine?”

“Of course – who else? I’m keeping my Beemer, thank you. It’s just . . . well, I didn’t want us to just 
sit here getting old and I know you’ve been looking for one on Ebay, and I just . . .”

Starsky turned around and pulled Hutch close. “You asshole. I love you.” Then he whirled around, 
yanked open the door, and slid into the car.

“Exactly.” Hutch chuckled and then held his hands to his ears as Starsky cranked the ignition and 
gunned the accelerator. He wondered for a brief moment exactly what kind of blow job had made 
this seem like a good idea.

“C’mon, Hutch. Let’s go!” 

And the look on Starsky’s face reminded him.


fin

Comments

[kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com]

“Asparagus? Are you trying to kill me? I ate something green yesterday.”

“You ate green Skittles yesterday.”

This is why Starsky and I get along so well :)

Oh, I adore these, but especially the older boys. They make me all melty :D

[peg22.livejournal.com]

older boys are the best - Skittles rock!

[kassidy62.livejournal.com]

K, love this so much. I was reading over the very first part, just trying to see what it is you do to bring it to life. Just a few details, a lot of personality, looks so eeeasy (yah right) and it's all perfect. You're just fucking amazing. Stuff should fall out of you more. Eeeew (but you know what I'm sayin')

There's something going on for the type with me - could be this old pc, but every section but the first one chops a little off at the right?

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks girly! and thanks for the formatting thingy . . . you're always sticking my stuff in the correct places . . . snerk.

[mashfanficchick.livejournal.com]

Starsky as methadone.

Gah. Perfect. Painful and beautiful and perfect. And I can see it so clearly, how it just makes perfect sense.

“I ate something green yesterday.”

My second favorite line (after the one above it). Hilarious on its own, and made even better by Hutch's response.

And then, really, just the whole last section. I love the older boys, and there was just so much to love, from the letter to the "full moon at three o'clock in the afternoon" to what they've been doing these last years to the car and everything it means...not to mention Starsky in reading glasses (my personal kink). Just...everything.

Amazing as always. Thanks!

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks for reading. I do love those older boys - all settled down and mellow . . . and starsky in glasses is . . .sigh!

[enednoviel.livejournal.com]

Awww... lovely. What a wonderful story to read after getting up and having my coffee. And... older boys. *happy sigh*

[peg22.livejournal.com]

oh so glad you read it during coffee - my favorite time with the boys!

[thayln.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the stuff. I love so many things about this: the shear stiff-necked determination that keeps them together through the rough times, the little gestures that speak to so much feeling, and, at last a sense of release and Hutch's decision to allow himself to enjoy life in his own grumpy way. Way good.

*toasts you with morning coffee*

[peg22.livejournal.com]

that's a great description - stiff necked determination! glad you liked it!

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

Sublime. No other word for it. I love the life you gave them as older guys, and that gesture of the Torino.. oh my... I teared right up there.

And rookie Hutch to burn-out Hutch is just perfectly done.


Your writing as ever is amazing. You make it look effortless - and if it is, btw, I think I'll have to hate you a little bit.*g* So lyrical, visceral adn.. I don't know.. earthy?? Can't explain it, but you bring them to life so vividly and completely for me.

If I have to choose then my favourite moment is this one in the car post Fix:

The hand that gripped his chin surprised him. He was forced to turn and look into Starsky’s eyes. Forced to face his guilt, his fear. His partner.“Don’t disappear on me, Hutch. You’re not alone. No matter what you’re brain is telling you right now, you’re not alone. I’m here. You wanna go get drunk, we get drunk. You wanna quit, toss our badges in the sea, drive to Mexico, we’re gone. You wanna burn the cottage to the ground, I got a match. But you’re not doing this alone. You got it?”

So fucking canon and gorgeous it hurts..

Thank you and bless you my bachgen

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks girly girl - you make me want to write more - always. Like it makes sense to someone else . . . and you know I did a little happy writer dance when I got to work in the "toss our badges in the sea" line . . .it's why we write, eh?!

[ancastar.livejournal.com]

This is just amazing. Truly. I'd highlighted one line to comment on, early in the story, then found another five or so more scattered throughout. Your Hutch just makes my heart ache. First in sympathy and then later with joy. It's wonderful stuff. Here are some of the parts that really resonated for me:

Fought the urge to push him back into the car and drive somewhere that didn’t smell like piss and death and talcum powder. (Talcum powder! Brilliant.)

“Don’t disappear on me, Hutch. You’re not alone. No matter what you’re brain is telling you right now, you’re not alone. I’m here. You wanna go get drunk, we get drunk. You wanna quit, toss our badges in the sea, drive to Mexico, we’re gone. You wanna burn the cottage to the ground, I got a match. But you’re not doing this alone. You got it?” (Starsky as methodone. Well of course.)

“You oughta take a couple of days off.” Starsky fidgeted with his keys, didn’t look up. “Do you good. Do us good. I can’t keep doing this, you know.” The last part trailed off into a whisper and Hutch didn’t look up again until he heard the Torino escape into the future. (I had been planning to highlight Hutch catching a glimpse of his past out of the corner of his eye. Then this came along and just destroyed that line. In the best possible way. *g*)

“And if anything could show you how much I love you, this reincarnation of my nightmare should do it.” (The Skittles line is choice. But this made me laugh and repeat the line outloud. I love it. All of it.)

Thank you.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

such amazing fb, thank you so much. again, makes me want to write and write and write. DId I mention I'm glad you're here? I am!

[silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely! Actually brought a tear to my eye.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks - that's a great compliment!

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

This was so sweet - really a fantastic round up of all the doorways Hutch had to pass through to get to the end here.

And of all the beautiful lines and ideas you offer, this is the one that made me smile a little sadly and wistfully:

Starsky looked at him over the rim of his reading
glasses, but then settled back into his paper.

Because THEN, then I knew, they WERE together, beyond all the shit and crime and trouble, over and done and loving each other after all.

And the Torino- that's such a great touch. *G* And of course, Hutch has a Beemer. That's very fitting. :)

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks so much for the really lovely comments . . . and I'm getting a little addicted to older boys . . .

[aesposito.livejournal.com]

Oh wow... the legs tangled up on the couch and the little hard and very happy line.... oh wow.....

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks - yeah, they're kinda good together . . .

[ea-calendula.livejournal.com]

Oh, man! This is so great! Love the older guys and you just have such a beautiful way with words. Love that.

Ea

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks - appreciate the comments - sigh, I love those old boys, too.

[dawnebeth.livejournal.com]

This one crept up on me slow and quiet. Hutch was having hard times but luckily, he had that one reason to keep going on.
Starsky as methadone. He should’ve known.

Loved that line--it's a little perverse and illogical, but yeah, they're addicted to each other.


Dawn

[valis2.livejournal.com]

This is just awesome. I love future!fic, and your writing style is fantastic and gutsy and so damned real and breathing that I just can't stop reading. Love love love your writing.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

thanks - appreciate the comments and so glad the guys are real for you - a writer's goal for sure!

[igbc.livejournal.com]

I know this fic's been around a while, but I just found it. And I love, love, love it. Every bit of it, every syllable. You are amazing.

[peg22.livejournal.com]

glad you found it. thanks for reading - I do love writing these boys!