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“Why do you do it?”
“Beg pardon?” Hutch turned his head to face his partner. They were seated in the front of the Torino, watching a lonely warehouse from down the street where there was some supposed illegal money counterfeiting going on. Hutch’s face pinched in confusion at the sudden question because it had no bearing whatsoever on their prior conversation which had been about the man leading the counterfeiting ring they were after.
Starsky’s leather-jacketed shoulders shifted forward and back in a little shrug and he reiterated, “Why do you do it?”
Hutch rolled his eyes and turned his head again, keeping one eye on the warehouse. “Well, if you tell me what you’re talking about, I might be able to give you an answer,” he said impatiently.
“Run,” said Starsky.
“Run,” Hutch echoed.
“Yeah.” Starsky flapped one of his hands which was propped atop the Torino’s steering wheel by the wrist.
“Could you maybe be more specific?” drawled Hutch slowly, almost scathingly. “I run, we run, all the time on the job.”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” said a frustrated Starsky and waved his hands in a cancelling motion. He looked at Hutch, taking his eyes away from the warehouse, and after a pause asked, “Why do you have those morning runs a yours?”
Hutch tilted his head and gave Starsky an oh-come-on look. “Seriously? Starsk, there are a million reasons why I run every morning. You know that. You’ve known that for years…”
Starsky cut him off with another wave of his hand and a, “Yeah, yeah, I know all those health-nut reasons. But I wanna know why you do it.”
Hutch’s eyes turned hard. “Starsk, you’re not making any sense.”
Starsky heaved a sigh and narrowed his gaze at the warehouse. “What I guess I’m asking is what do you get out of it, besides a great bod I mean?”
Hutch’s throat clutched around a sudden obstruction and he had to swallow until it dissipated. He, too, stared at the warehouse and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his mind suddenly recounting that day’s lap around the block in which he’d bested his own time by approximately thirty seconds, not that anyone was counting. “You think I have a great bod?” he asked, stalling.
“That’s not the point,” replied Starsky somewhat defensively. “But yeah, as far as bods go. You’ve got a good one.”
A shy smile flickered across Hutch’s face, but he suppressed it by cupping his right hand across his mouth while leaning his elbow on the window well. “It sure does help me get my fair share of women,” Hutch commented in a deeper, cockier voice. He moved his eyebrows suggestively and laughed when Starsky gave him a look of disgust and a shake of his blow-dried curls.
“I never saw the appeal myself, so there’s gotta be something else to it,” grumbled Starsky and sank lower in the driver’s seat. Hutch tried to ignore the way Starsky’s knees spread ever so slightly wider with this move.
After a time, Hutch decided he would let Starsky in on the secret that many runners knew about and utilized to their advantage when exercising their sport. “Endorphins,” he said.
Starsky squinted at him. “Endorphins?” he repeated. “What’s that?”
“Chemicals, the chemicals the body and brain emit when pushed to and beyond their limit,” said Hutch, schooling his partner. He looked at Starsky and asked, “Ever hear of a runner’s high?”
“Sure I heard of a runner’s high. ‘S that what endorphins are?”
“Endorphins are the chemicals that cause the high. You run, or really do any strenuous activity long enough, you catch the high,” explained Hutch, proud that he could disseminate this information.
“Huh, endorphins,” mused Starsky.
“Yup.”
They were silent for a while and then Hutch added, “Repeated painful stimuli can also cause an endorphin high.” He could feel Starsky’s eyes sidle his way, but he kept his gaze locked resolutely on the warehouse door.
“So… you’re punishing yourself with these runs. Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Wh-What?! No!” exclaimed Hutch.
“Just to get a cheap thrill…”
“Starsk! That-That’s not what it’s about!” Hutch was mad now. Starsky didn’t get it at all. Since when were they this not on the same page? He couldn’t recall the last time, that’s how often it happened. Hutch inhaled a ragged breath, trying to calm himself. His fist clenched on his thigh.
“Or, maybe, you’re trying to recapture something, huh?” proposed Starsky gently, as though trying to coax an abused kitten down from its hiding place in a tall tree. “A particular feeling? From a couple a years ago?”
“Don’t.”
“A specific kind of high.”
“Starsk, I’m warning you; drop it now.” Hutch said this last through clenched teeth, his heart pounding madly in his chest, his whole perspective on his morning ritual now skewed by what Starsky had said.
Starsky gave a shrug and said, “It’s better than dope, I guess.”
If they weren’t on the clock, Hutch would have done one of two things: either hit Starsky, a good sucker punch across the jaw, or abandoned the car all together and hightailed it from the scene.
“Not like you’re addicted. Can stop any time you want and won’t put you in the poor house or make you lose your job,” Starsky went on, seemingly oblivious to Hutch’s increasing fury and the stockpile of self-loathing that had just escaped the tight jar he’d put it in after the Forest incident.
As Hutch sat there, shaking, his muscles twitching and his mind fuming in silent rage, he felt a hand cover his fist. He froze. He wanted to yank it away, to show Starsky how mad he was, but he didn’t. Instead, he allowed the gentle touch, allowed it to comfort and sooth away the mental anguish that had come with Starsky’s seemingly insensitive pressing of what really shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.
“Why do you have to go and open old wounds like that?” Hutch whispered.
“Because it was suppurating, festering, and you know it,” replied Starsky. “Better to lance it and let all the bad stuff come out.”
Hutch’s hand tightened under Starsky’s. Starsky didn’t let go. As Hutch’s hand relaxed a fraction, he locked eyes with his partner and asked, “How did you know?”
“How do I know you so well, you mean?” Starsky asked as he arched one dark brow. Hutch nodded guardedly. Starsky’s smile was soft. “I just do. Better than you think, better than you can ever know.”
The breath Hutch took was fragile, nearly tearing like a damp tissue with the slightest pressure. He let it go to run its ragged self back into the surrounding atmosphere, away from their little drama playing itself out in the front seat of his partner’s car. Eventually, Starsky patted the hand under his and drew away, placing his own hand back on the steering wheel where his thumb tapped a nearly silent tattoo.
In that moment, Hutch’s heart went from the bottom of his feet where it had sunk to practically ejecting itself out the top of his crown. Known. He was known, by someone as conscientious and caring, yet care-free, as David Michael Starsky. How had he gotten so damn lucky?
The partners snuck a glance at each other and suddenly they both smiled. The grins were boyish, amused, shy, but open and equal. Hutch relished the familiar ache in his chest that this caused, equating it to his frequent runner’s highs, and sighed.
End