Author: jat sapphire
Contact: [email protected]Obligatory Semi-Legal Disclaimer Thing: I don't own either Starsky or Hutch, I just write down what I think up and I don't make money for it. I think of this story as slash, though it doesn't explicitly depict sexual acts between two men. Still, if such a relationship disturbs you or you're underage, please go away.
Take It Easy
Hutch was getting better. He said so; the doctor and nurse said so; anyway Starsky could see it for himself. Hutch had color again under that translucent skin, and there was some energy in his movements, even when he was only reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table.
Why Hutch getting better made Starsky jump into the Torino and drive as hard and fast down the freeway as he could, filling his ears with the sound of the engine and feeling every part of the car like an extension of his own body . . . Starsky didn't know.
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't drive like this in order to think.
Even the engine noise and the roar of air through the windows weren't enough. He turned on the radio, fiddled with the tuner, found something that felt good in his ears and cranked the volume up. The Eagles. He sank into the familiar tune until the words began to register.
". . . take it ea-sy, take it ea-sy,Starsky glared at the speaker. He hated it when songs talked to him. "Come on, ba-a-by," sang the radio. Somehow he didn't turn it off.
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy . . . "Baby. Babe. When he'd started calling Hutch that, not very often, it was just the slang they both knew. He'd dropped a lot of it, "groovy" and "man," and all that hip stuff. "Babe" he still used. Women liked it, some of them, though he never had kept it just for women.
He tried to remember the last woman he'd called "babe." It couldn't really have been that long ago. He'd said it in the hospital just that morning. That was to Hutch, though.
The Torino thrummed under him. He looked back, signaled, changed lanes. He put one arm out the window and patted the side of the car in time to the music.
"Lookin' for a lover who won't blow my cover, she's so-o hard to find."When was the last time he'd gotten laid?The air against his face was warm, with a gritty quality that reminded him of New York, what seemed like a million years ago. He felt it ruffle his hair, cool the sweat on his neck and forehead. An almost loving touch. He tilted his head farther into the airstream.
"Take it ee-ee-easy . . . take it ee-ee-easy . . . "He shifted gears and the motor sang. The radio told him where to take his family pictures to get them developed. The sun bit into the skin of his arm, and the other cars flashed and dropped from tenor to bass as he passed them. Take it easy. Easy.He remembered family drives on days like this, when he and Nicky tussled or argued or slept in the back seat, isolated by the roars of wind and engine and the low adult murmurs from the front. The smell of his father's cigarettes, the scorching sun on the window side, lulling him, telling him he was safe in his kid-world, on the way home.
But he realized he only felt that way remembering it.
He wondered what he'd feel nostalgia for years down the road, looking back at this time now. The feel of chrome stripping and window-glass edge and rubber under his arm? The flash of light from the outside rear-view when he moved his head? The sudden shade across his face when he moved the hot sun-visor, and the way the tension at the corner of his eyes loosened?
Hutch's head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, the broad back fitting into Starsky's arm, as Hutch's pale lips touched the water glass Starsky held for him.
No, how could that be a precious memory? He had so many better ones. Hutch healthy, running, laughing at him, taking food off his plate, playing his guitar and singing "Black Bean Soup," why not those?
Actually he couldn't choose which memory to count more than the rest.
The radio started one of those really sappy tunes, one of those that Starsky had trained himself to shut off in the first few bars so it wouldn't roost in his mind like a pigeon, dropping its little sentimental shits on all his thoughts. Click --off. But there was no silence: the air and the motor and his thoughts were all still loud.
Damn, he was remembering that sappy tune! He reached mentally for anything to shut it out, bury it. "Take it e-easy," he crooned under his breath, "take it ee-easy. Don' let the sound 'a your own wheels drive you crazy . . . " Hutch would make a face, tell him to shut up --Hutch's reaction was so vivid in Starsky's mind that he glanced over to at the passenger seat and felt a little jolt when he saw it was empty.
The car was empty. Except for him.
There always was a moment in these drives when the pleasure was over, all at once, like the last bite of dessert that was cloying in his mouth, or the last few gulps of coffee that left him too wired. This was it. Starsky pulled his arm into the car and began to look for an exit. If he didn't turn around soon, he wouldn't be back before the end of visiting hours.
The Eagles song was still replaying inside his head:
Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to understand . . .He whistled it through his teeth as he pulled the car into the curve of the off-ramp.Tomorrow he'd pick Hutch up, see him through the check-out paperwork, and get him back home. Settle him in a chair to look on while Starsky watered that jungle of his. Starsky knew just how Hutch would tilt his head back and narrow his eyes, and then criticize every damn move Starsky made, tell him how much water to give each plant and what to say to them . . . and Hutch thought singing to the car radio was weird!
We may lose and we may win, though we may never be here again . . .The radio stayed off; the car moved at a sedate seven miles an hour below the speed limit; Starsky smiled as he visualized Hutch against the green backdrop of his plants. Babe, he thought, and didn't ask himself why the word seemed as individual now as a name.As Hutch's name.
*End*