Revelations

I guess I dozed off, ‘cause the next thing I knew, Hutch had started this twitching thing, and I woke as his hands flailed.

Hutch’s hands. I thought about them for a minute. Those same hands that clenched a gun so securely every day and could beat the crap out of a perp, also painted beautiful pictures, made plants come to life, and made soothing music that flowed over a trouble soul and brought calm and peace to it. I know this because when I was recovering and nightmares would wake me, Hutch was right there with his guitar, strumming it and singing softly until I went back to sleep and my dreams settled.

“No.” Hutch whimpered, and I looked down at him. His face was pinched, his forehead creased, his legs moved as if he was trying to run somewhere, and his hands clenched at the bedcovers as he sobbed a louder ‘no‘.

He was deep in the throes of a nightmare.

I guess I knew he had them, but I didn’t know to what extent. I figured it had to be the SP the latest goon’d forced on him, and he was havin’ flashbacks to that rat bastard Forrest who’d forced the heroine into him, as he clutched his pillow and rocked it as his wails got louder. I couldn’t let that go on, as he was breakin’ my heart, so I called his name.

“St . . .St . . .Starsky?” That adorable stammer . . . adorable? When in the hell had I started using the word adorable, and in connection with anything Hutch did? Anyway, he got that stammer he usually did when he was nervous or excited, and his blue eyes stared at me as his hands reached for me.

“I’m here.” I told him and he crushed me against him. “Man, Blintz. Must’a been one hell of a nightmare there. What’cha’ dreamin’ about? The morphine?” He shook his head. “Gillian?” He shook his head again. “The car crash?” Again he shook his head and I was frustrated, so I spoke a little sharper than I’d intended, and I watched as the drugged look come over his face. I knew that though the drug was working its way out of his system, he was still heavily influenced by it, and he swallowed as I snapped. “Then what WERE you dreaming about!?”

“Not a dream.” He shook his head. “Nightmare. A horrible nightmare. Starsky was shot and I was helpless and couldn’t stop it.”

Oh man. Hutch still had nightmares about me getting shot. I still had them, but it was natural. I was the one who’d gotten shot.

“Hutch, how often you get these nightmares?”

“Depends. Sometimes three, sometimes five nights a week, depending on the stress of the day. And sometimes more than once a night. Sometimes I’ll call him up after one of them just to hear his voice.”

I hung my head.

Two years.

It’d been almost two years since I was shot. My wounds had all healed and scarred over, but my partner was still mentally bleedin’. However, it finally explained the phone calls in the middle of the night where someone wouldn’t say anything, or Hutch’d just tell me he’d dialed my number by mistake or he’d just be checkin’.

Hutch had to heal, but how? And then I looked at his hands again. And then I looked at my shirt. The scars on my chest under the shirt were physical evidence that I was all right. Maybe if Hutch had physical proof that I was still alive and still breathin . . .

Then I stopped thinkin’. I mean, what was I thinkin’ about?

Hutch, right?

Hutch loved me.

Hutch wanted to make love to me.

Could I let him? Would those hands that brought such pleasure to my troubled soul bring pleasure to my body too?

What the hell was I contemplating? Was I really thinkin’ of lettin’ my male, best friend, and partner make love to me to ease his tortured mind and his soul? Was there somethin’ about Hutch that I felt, but didn’t know myself? I mean, as long as I’d forced Hutch to be honest, I suppose I had to look at myself and be honest too.

I mean, yeah, me and Hutch are partners and best friends and you’re supposed to put your life on the line every day for your partner, but there are limitations, right? I mean, you don’t mess with your partner’s girl – but we’d blown that rule. You don’t betray your partner either – we’d blown that rule as well. And, after either of those things happen, you’re supposed to dump your partner like an old pair of socks. But, we’d blown that rule too.

What was it about the big, Blond Blintz that kept me coming back to him after things got so screwed that we shouldn’t have even been talking?

Did I feel more for him than I knew myself? Or more importantly, would admit to?

There was one thing I wanted to do though, before planning anything of a romantic nature with Hutch – and don’t you think that sounded weird? Anyway, I wanted to see if he could say to me, sober and without the chemical enhancement, what he’d said that night. I got up, went to the couch, and it was a while before I fell asleep as I planned my next move.