WATCHING AND WAITING

By

Nikki Harrington

Sometimes Starsky thinks he spends his whole life in vans.

An established relationship story.

Written: October 2010. Word count: 1,200.

Starsky leaned on the steering wheel tapping his fingers in time to the radio. He was bored; there was nothing to see or do. Plus the seat was uncomfortable; he shifted around, but it felt like they'd used rocks in the seat. He sighed, adjusted the rear view mirror, looked out the windows and went back to wheel tapping.

He hated vans; they were too enclosed, too slow, not easy to maneuver, and didn't respond to his touch - not in the way his Torino did. He had argued with Dobey, trying to persuade his captain to let him use the Torino, but Dobey had insisted on the van. And Hutch had agreed; he'd pointed out they were going for subtle. Starsky sighed again, his car was subtle.

Hutch and Dobey had disagreed. So instead he'd got the van, the van that was their idea of subtle. It was brown, everything about it was brown. The outside, the inside - even the dents were brown. It was boring; it reminded Starsky of Hutch's car.

He looked around him again, but there was nothing going on. Not that he'd expected there to be, Hutch wouldn't appear for another half an hour. And even then all Starsky had to do was watch and wait.

He hated vans. Sometimes he felt he spent his whole life in them or chasing them or rescuing people from them; he'd even stolen one once! Now that had been fun. It'd been great to break into it, to use skills his dad had told him would never be of use. And once inside he'd discovered it had been customized. That had been one van which hadn't been slow or hard to maneuver or non responsive. And it had been comfortable, large, deep seats that weren't too soft or too firm. It had been a dream van; it had been his kind of van. But it'd been one good van moment out of dozens of boring ones; it didn't stack up.

Except it wasn't just one, was it? He smiled to himself as he remembered the first time he and Hutch had made out together. That had been in a van. It hadn't been much, just a bit of touching and kissing, well they were on duty, they were in a van. But it had been enough to make them realize they wanted to do it again. And they had done it again; they'd done it again a lot.

Then there was the time they'd had to spend the night in one. Not that they got up to anything that night, it'd been too cold. But they had zipped their sleeping bags together and snuggled up close to keep warm. Shared body heat, Hutch had said; well he was the Boy Scout. He'd gone on to explain how it would have been more effective if they'd been naked.

Naturally Starsky had wanted proof of that, so the next weekend, they'd dragged the sleeping bags into the living room and camped out, sharing body heat just as they'd done in the van. Except that'd been naked. Hutch had been right, it was far more effective. Starsky grinned at the memory of just how effective it had been.

He stretched and shifted on the seat - the boring brown seat - as he remembered exactly how effective it had been. He'd learned stuff about his partner that night, stuff he'd never have dreamed of. His Hutch had hidden depths, something Starsky had always known. He just hadn't known what kind of depths were hidden beneath that choir boy innocence, beneath the blond hair that gleamed in the sun light, behind the big baby blue eyes that held you captive, beneath the gentle tone, beneath the big hands that could withstand the recoil of a Magnum, yet could cradle the smallest of creatures.

He'd thought he'd known Hutch, known him inside and out, known everything about him, but that night he'd discovered another Hutch. Me and thee had taken on a whole new meaning once they'd connected in the new way. The partnership was more, deeper, the intensity went to a new level, the love blazed so brightly Starsky often wondered why no one realized what had happened. Sometimes the way Hutch loved him, the intensity he loved him with scared Starsky; he wasn't worthy of all that love.

And all that had begun in a van; a van rather like the one he was sitting in now. Maybe they weren't so bad after all. At least some vans weren't. Maybe he could even get to like them. At least he could if Hutch was with him.

Talking of Hutch . . . He glanced at his watch again, surprised to see more than twenty minutes had gone by since he'd last looked. He straightened up in the seat and looked out of the window. Any time now, Hutch would be appearing any time now and Starsky was alert, watching and waiting. The lover had been pushed away; it was his partner out there.

It should be an easy exchange. No one should get hurt. It had been planned. It was simple, straightforward. Nothing should go wrong. But Starsky knew he wouldn't relax until Hutch was back by his side where he belonged.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel again, mentally counting down the minutes until Hutch would appear. And there he was: blond and beautiful and all Starsky's. He walked by the van, giving Starsky the smallest of small nods, as he acknowledged him.

Starsky concentrated on the side mirror; he'd angled it just right. He saw the doorway, saw the guy Hutch was meant to be meeting. His left hand rested just under his jacket, ready to pull his gun if he needed to.

He watched Hutch saunter along the sidewalk, taking his time, he wasn't in a hurry. He could be out for a midday walk, not about to make a drop. He reached the doorway and stopped. Starsky tensed, his hand was now around the butt of his gun. He was ready; watching; waiting; ready to go to his partner's defense if he needed to.

Moments later he let out the breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding as the man Hutch had handed the package to headed off in the opposite direction and Hutch was once again sauntering along the sidewalk back to the van.

He reached it, glanced around him without appearing to and pulled open the door. "Hey, babe," he said, climbing inside and settling down on the seat next to Starsky's. He put his hand on Starsky's knee.

Starsky grinned at his partner, his lover, his friend, his other half. "Hey, blondie." Hutch rolled his eyes. "All done?"

Hutch nodded. "Yeah. Are you okay?"

Starsky gunned the engine, glanced briefly in the mirror and pulled out into traffic. "Yeah. Just been thinking about vans."

Hutch turned in his seat and looked at Starsky. "Vans?"

Starsky grinned again. "Yeah, and how much I love them."

He was still grinning when they dropped the van back at Huggy's cousin's yard some fifty minutes later; some forty minutes later than it should have been. Yeah, Starsky really did love vans.

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