Since Sliced Bread

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Huggy’s Halloween Party will be the first social event Starsky has been well enough to attend following Sweet Revenge, but only if he and Hutch can agree on costumes.

 

This story was originally published in the zine Venice Place Chronicles, Volume VI, in 2006 by Keri T.

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“Say what?” Hutch mumbled around the last, half-chewed mouthful of his hamburger, staring incredulously at his friend. With the lunch rush almost over, Huggy had joined them at their table for a few minutes of friendly conversation. Hutch, however, was certain he couldn’t possibly have heard Huggy’s announcement correctly.

“I said, my Halloween party this year has a theme,” Huggy repeated with more emphasis than patience, enunciating deliberately as if he suspected Hutch might have developed a sudden hearing deficiency.

“A theme?” Hutch echoed. “What do you think this is, the senior prom?” he teased and was surprised when Huggy began to almost squirm in his chair. “Come on, Hug. Give,” he demanded, sensing an opportunity for a little good-natured teasing.

Huggy continued his uncomfortable little seated dance, his demeanor the same as when, in the early days of their association, the partners had caught him out in one of his less reputable schemes. After a minute or two, however, he relaxed and shrugged. “It’s what Lynn-Marie wants,” he admitted philosophically.

“Lynn-Marie wants?” Hutch echoed, shaking his head in disbelief. “This sounds serious.”

His mobile features pulled into a comical grimace, Huggy nodded gravely. “It is,” he confessed. “We’ve already had the talk.”

“The commitment talk? Man, this is serious,” Starsky entered the conversation for the first time. He pushed his empty plate away, the tilt of his head and a lifted eyebrow asking the fate of the remaining fries on Hutch’s plate.

“About as serious as twenty-five to life,” Huggy agreed mournfully. “And Lynn-Marie wants a Halloween party with a theme.”

“But Halloween already has a theme,” Hutch pointed out, deciding to let Huggy off the hook a little. “Ghosts, goblins and witches.” He slid his plate across the table to Starsky where it was eagerly accepted. French fries might not be the best fuel for a healing body, but Hutch wasn’t inclined to object. Starsky was still ten pounds under weight, so counting calories was a consideration for the future.

“Not to mention cowboys, vampires and…uh…zombies,” Starsky added, more of his attention on the confiscated plate than the conversation.

Huggy discounted Halloween’s traditions with a wave of his hand. “My lady wants this year’s party to have a little class,” he explained.

“As a wise man I know once said, ‘what the lady wants, the lady gets,'” Starsky conceded the wisdom of Huggy’s amorous strategy, his eyes meeting Hutch’s in a moment of private communication.

Hutch nodded to acknowledge the shared memory, grinning to confirm he had also understood the unspoken message. Hutch’s days of pleasing the ladies were in the past, all of his undivided romantic attention now focused on his old friend and new lover. As far as Starsky’s welfare and happiness were concerned, Hutch had turned into a spineless pile of mush, and there wasn’t much nowadays he could refuse his miraculously surviving partner. Starsky had to do little more than ask, and Hutch would do whatever was within his power to make sure the wish was granted. A situation that, fortunately, Starsky didn’t seem inclined to take unfair advantage of too often.

Reminded by the pointed clearing of Huggy’s throat that this was neither the time nor the place to be gazing at Starsky as if he were the greatest invention since sliced bread, Hutch returned his attention to Huggy. He widened his eyes and offered his most innocent, inquiring smile in the hopes of masking his indiscreet lapse. “So, just what classy theme does the lady want?”

“Great couples of history,” Huggy announced in the dramatic tones of a Little Theater thespian.

“Like Count and Countess Dracula, or Frankenstein and his bride?” Starsky asked seriously.

A second derisive wave dismissed the suggestion as beneath Huggy’s notice. “No, Starsky. Great couples, not the late, late, late creature feature. Think history, my man. Think literature. Not B horror flicks.”

The sudden devilment that lit Starsky’s face warned Hutch that his friend was about to launch a bit of ridiculous teasing. When the sparkling blue eyes fixed on him, drawing Huggy’s attention as well, Hutch braced himself to be the victim of Starsky’s questionable sense of humor.

“You mean,” Starsky drawled, a grin breaking out before he had even set up the joke, giving fair warning of the punch line to come, “like Romeo and Juliet? Wasn’t Juliet a blond?” he asked, his gaze fixed on Hutch’s shoulder-length hair.

“Don’t even think it,” Hutch growled, the menace he attempted to inject into his voice overshadowed by the laughter he could barely suppress. He switched his glare to Huggy in the hope–a vain one, of course–of discouraging him from joining Starsky in his teasing.

“He’d have to get rid of the fungus,” Huggy pronounced seriously after giving Hutch a thorough appraisal.

Hutch covered his mouth with his hand, as much to hide his smile as to protect his much-maligned facial adornment. “You keep your beady eyes off my mustache,” he warned Huggy as he pushed up out of his chair, warmed through and through by the sound of Starsky’s unfettered laughter. It had only been in the last week or so that Starsky had been able to let loose like this, really laughing from the belly. Hearing it was more than enough compensation to Hutch for finding himself the butt of the joke.

That didn’t mean Hutch was going to let it go on too long. Even spineless, besotted piles of mush had to have a little dignity. “Come on, Romeo,” he commanded Starsky while dropping enough bills on the table to cover their lunch tab. “I have to get back to work, and you’re going to be late for your PT.”

Starsky grimaced at the reminder of the grueling afternoon ahead of him, but obediently climbed to his feet. “You shouldn’t have threatened the caterpillar,” he chastised Huggy. “I might have been able to talk him into it.”

“Seriously,” Huggy appealed before Hutch had a chance to offer a pithy response. “I really want you both to come.” He hesitated, his eyes lingering on Starsky and all trace of humor erased from his somber face. “This’ll be the first party you’ve been up to coming to since….”

Hutch watched Starsky reach out and pat Huggy on the shoulder, wondering if Starsky saw what he did in their friend’s expression. That Starsky’s survival meant as much to Huggy as it did to Hutch, if for very different reasons. Huggy, and everyone else in their lives, spent most of their time on the outside of a universe that had narrowed down to two, only occasionally given an opportunity to do more than look on and cheer from the sidelines as Starsky made slow by steady progress toward full recovery. Starsky’s presence at this themed party was going to mean as much to Huggy as every tiny improvement meant to Hutch. One more milestone on the seemingly endless road back to a normal life. One more way to thumb their noses at Gunther.

“We’ll be there, Hug,” Starsky finally promised, then raised both eyebrows, belatedly seeking Hutch’s approval.

“Yeah, we’ll be there,” Hutch agreed readily, giving only a passing thought to what he might be letting himself in for, deciding that maybe spineless mush didn’t need too much dignity after all. “But I’m notshaving my mustache.”

Hutch was having second thoughts before they even reached the back door. He followed Starsky out into the alley and then, instead of going to his own latest junker, he stayed on Starsky’s heels to the Torino. Hutch caught the driver’s door as Starsky opened it, curling his fingers around the edges of the window, unintentionally creating a physical barrier between them.

“Something on your mind, babe?” Starsky asked expectantly.

Hutch hesitated, then shrugged. “The party’s next Friday night. You’ll have PT all afternoon and you’re usually pretty…” He let the rest of his cautionary objection remain unvoiced when Starsky cocked his head and smiled indulgently. “Sorry. Can’t seem to help it,” he apologized, uncertain that he would ever again be able to take Starsky’s health and safety as a given. He feared this insistent need to compulsively watch over his partner would never subside to a more manageable level.

Starsky looked around the deserted alley and then laid his hands on top of Hutch’s. “I’m not complaining, Hutch,” he said very gently, his eyes soft, the way they were after they had made love. “I can grab a nap, or we can leave early. Play it by ear, huh?” He paused, his thumbs stroking at the backs of Hutch’s hands. “But I am getting better, Hutch. Slower than a herd of turtles, but I’m getting there.”

“I know,” Hutch agreed, but it was an automatic response. Intellectually, he knew. His brain understood that Starsky was healing. Every day, his eyes were offered some new evidence to gloat over and hoard away like a talisman against a future that became less uncertain with each milestone toward recovery that Starsky passed. His heart, however, was slower to accept the proof of his senses.

“You know,” Starsky drawled, voice dropping down into a promising growl, “if you keep looking at me like that, you won’t be working and I won’t be going to PT.”

Hutch sighed, forcing the past to get back into the past and quit crowding in on today’s happiness. “Don’t push it too hard this afternoon,” he cautioned nevertheless, releasing the door and reluctantly sliding his hands out from beneath Starsky’s.

“Don’t worry, Papa, I won’t,” Starsky teased as he slipped in behind the wheel. “Hey! There’s an idea. We could go as Ma and Pa Kettle,” he suggested.

Hutch groaned as he pushed the door closed. “Oh, my God. Huggy’s created a monster.”

~*~*~

“Anthony and Cleopatra?” Starsky suggested doubtfully, the last  “a” catching and squeezing out as a grunt when he bent to pull his jeans off over his bare feet. His hand moved to his chest as if he could wring out the pain that snagged his breath, but then dropped almost immediately to the waistband of his briefs. He pushed them down, stepping clear of the red puddle and then posed, hands on naked hips, his grin challenging Hutch to keep his mind on their ongoing costume discussion.

Without comment, Hutch acknowledged the unfair tactics, but took advantage of Starsky’s posturing to savor the latest signs of improvement. All three of the bullets Gunther’s assassins had triggered into Starsky’s body had entered his back, but none had gone through and through. His chest, therefore, remained unscarred. Up until a few weeks ago, Hutch hadn’t needed to see the scars that defaced Starsky’s back to be reminded of the trauma his lover’s body had sustained. Today, however, even he would be hard pressed to guess that a little over five months ago Starsky had been almost fatally wounded. The ribs and hipbones that had been so painfully prominent when Starsky had first been released from the hospital, were now camouflaged by the weight he had gained. The sleek definition of solid muscle mass was beginning to return to chest and abdomen once again.

“You’re afraid of snakes,” Hutch pointed out absently, letting the topic of costumes distract him from the plump snake at Starsky’s groin. He reminded himself that it was a weeknight, and that it really was a minor miracle that Starsky was even still awake. Hutch usually counted himself lucky if Starsky didn’t fall asleep over dinner, worn out by the daily physical therapy. Tonight, however, the topic of possible costumes seemed to be keeping Starsky alert. So far, Hutch had dismissed everything from Adam and Eve to Taylor and Burton, but the persistent vetoes didn’t seem to be dimming Starsky’s interest in the subject. “And I keep telling you, I’m not wearing a dress.”

Instead of lying down on the towel spread out over the center of the bed, Starsky sauntered forward a couple of steps, his arms reaching for Hutch. “Maybe I’ll wear the dress,” he countered Hutch’s objection with a leer, conveniently ignoring the mention of his phobia.

Hutch snorted at the unlikelihood of that public display, but allowed himself to be reeled into the circle of Starsky’s embrace.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Starsky reminded him of a long-ago under cover operation. A little old, gray-haired grandmother who had given a shakedown artist a rude surprise.

Hutch had no trouble making the choice between continuing the banter or laying claim to the parted lips Starsky offered. The kiss that, until a few short months ago, Hutch would have assumed unwelcome, quickly deepened from tenderness to passion to hungry desperation. With their mouths sealed and their tongues dancing against each other, Hutch was free to immerse himself in his desire for this man, while Starsky’s fingers quickly worked free the buttons on his shirt and slid between the gaping edges. Gently, his hand smoothed over the muscles of Hutch’s chest until teasing fingers found his nipple and pinched.

Hutch moaned and ended the kiss, nipping at the soft lips when Starsky pinched his nipple again. “Sneaky bastard,” he accused affectionately. “You’re just trying to distract me.”

“Guilty,” Starsky admitted without a trace of remorse. His hands deserted Hutch’s chest and slid into his hair, finding a grip there, and tugging Hutch’s mouth back to his.

Hutch allowed himself to be manipulated long enough for them to share a second kiss that reversed the emotional progression, ending it when their mouths once again moved against each other gently. For a second time, Hutch parted their lips, dissolving the physical kiss but continuing it within their locked gazes.

“First things first,” he murmured to remind himself, as much as Starsky, that they had serious business to attend to. He released the naked body and pointed an uncompromising finger at the bed.

Starsky groaned a dramatic, wordless protest, but obediently stretched out face down on the towel, while Hutch retrieved the bottle of oil that had been warming in a bowl of hot water on the bedside table.

Hutch uncapped the bottle as he sat down beside Starsky on the bed, trying to ignore the scarring on the right side of Starsky’s back and look, instead, for the same signs of rehabilitation as he had seen in chest and abdomen. The evidence was more subtle here, the eye drawn immediately to blackened pockmarks and purple incision scars. The proof was there, nonetheless, in the improved muscle tone and the uncomplaining way Starsky spread his arms, his hands laying flat on the mattress above his head. A month ago, unless he was pumped full of painkillers, such a position would have pulled one of the pitiful whimpers from Starsky that always tightened Hutch’s throat.

“Take that, Gunther,” Hutch whispered before he slicked both hands with the warm oil and laid them over the scars.

“Yeah, take that,” Starsky grumbled, his face pressed into the pillow, his body tensing in anticipation of the pain Hutch was about to inflict.

“Easy,” Hutch crooned, carefully moving his hands over the scars and the surrounding muscles. He paused long enough to add more oil to his hands and then returned them to Starsky’s back, spreading his fingers wide to cover as much of the injured area as possible. He waited a few moments, allowing the heat of the oil and the warmth of his hands to soak into the damaged flesh. “You know the physical therapist would do this if–”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Starsky cut off the offer. “Doesn’t hurt as much when you do it,” he insisted, and then buried his face in the pillow, his muffled voice continuing to deliver unintelligible objections.

Hutch easily ignored the grousing, aware that it was just Starsky’s way of preparing himself to endure. What was harder for Hutch to ignore were the sounds of pain that, in a few minutes, Starsky would be unable to suppress. Pain Hutch would be inflicting. That the pain was necessary, a means to the end of returning Starsky’s flexibility to him was of little comfort to Hutch. It was still his hands that would force rigid scar tissue to yield and knead compliance from damaged muscles, his strength that would wring cries of pain from the man he loved.

Offering an apology in advance, Hutch spent more minutes than usual spreading the warm oil over the entire length and breadth of Starsky’s back, and then in a gentle massage to coax anticipation-taut muscles to relax. As much as Hutch dreaded this nightly ritual, despising the necessary suffering, he also loved it. Each night he remembered, as he hoped Starsky also remembered, that it had been one of these massages that had finally lowered the last of the barriers between them and allowed them to admit their love for each other.

“Get on with it, babe,” Starsky finally commanded, drawing Hutch from the haze of sensual memory. “We’ve got better things to do with that oil.”

Squeezing his eyes closed, wishing he could as effectively deafen his ears, Hutch sought out the first hard ridge of scalpel scarring and laid his thumbs side by side on the center of it. Slowly, he stroked outward to the ends of the scar, pressing into the hardened flesh to break up the scar tissue. He repeated the movement three times, putting more strength into each repetition. The third time pulled a moan out of Starsky, and Hutch bit his lip over the automatic apology, offering it instead with hands that swept gently from shoulders to waist before he began the painful process on the second scar farther down Starsky’s back.

By the time Hutch had finished with the second scar and was ready to move on to the third, Starsky had started to sweat. He still had his face buried in the pillow to muffle the sounds he made, but Hutch could feel the groans vibrating through the muscles of his back. Five minutes ago, Hutch had been acknowledging the love/hate relationship he had with this ritual; now he was no longer conflicted. He hated it. Every damned second of misery that crawled around the face of the clock on the bedside table.

“Oh, Christ.”

The muffled curse, along with the groan that followed it, froze Hutch’s hands at the outermost reaches of the third scar, his body shuddering as if the burning stretch was being inflicted on his own flesh. He glanced at the clock and saw that a measly eight minutes had passed.

“Breathe,” he instructed Starsky as the physical therapist had taught him, the reminder delivered through teeth clenched in sympathy.

“Easy for you to say,” Starsky ground out, then obediently pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He repeated the calming inhale/exhale until his muscles relaxed a little. Starsky, of course, had also had his lessons.

Twenty-two minutes to go. Hutch wasn’t sure he would make it. It was the same thought he entertained every night as he purposely abused the body he wanted only to cherish. It was agony for both of them, endured in silence except for the sounds of Starsky’s suffering. Even the bedsprings seemed to conspire in dragging each minute into a never-ending eternity of damnation by remaining utterly mute.

It occurred to Hutch as he again swept a momentary respite into the taut muscles, that perhaps they were only aiding and abetting the slow march of time with their stoic silence. Maybe they could give that minute hand an encouraging kick in the ass with a little distracting conversation. The subject of appropriate costumes for Huggy’s party had kept Starsky awake all evening, perhaps it could also give both of them something to think about besides this ritualistic torture.

“You run out of ideas already?” Hutch challenged. “Cleopatra was a brunette,” he added and waited to see whether Starsky would rise to the occasion or decide he preferred to wallow in silence.

“Uh,” Starsky grunted, then accepted the distraction and offered his own challenge. “I still say you’d make a great Juliet.”

It was lame, falling back on an already vetoed suggestion, but just getting the words out in a tone that came very close to teasing was a commendable effort, and Hutch rewarded it with a couple of long, slow sweeps up and down the length of the tense back. “Maybe,” he conceded the ridiculous possibility, leaning over to press a kiss into the back of Starsky’s neck. “But your Romeo days are over, schweetheart,” he insisted jealously, deliberately borrowing Starsky’s Bogey impersonation. He lingered over the bowed nape, rubbing his lips against the sweat-dewed skin and then traced the hairline with his tongue tip. Eventually, he reluctantly straightened and began working his fingers into the muscles surrounding the scars, noting how those muscles were regaining the bulk and tone that Starsky had possessed before the shooting.

“Did the Marquis de Sade have a girlfriend?” Starsky demanded with the next out-rush of panting breath, turning his head so that Hutch could see the flushed profile.

“If he did, at least you’d have to wear the dress,” Hutch murmured around the Rock of Gibraltor in his throat. Small wonder he loved this man. Tortured like a sinner at the rack, and Starsky could still crack a joke.

Amazingly, Starsky gave a hoarse little laugh at the rejoinder. “Already told ya, maybe I would.”

It was all Hutch could do not to interrupt the massage again with more kisses, this time, to the corner of Starsky’s mouth. The blue eye was still squinted with pain, the deep groove of suffering still dug deep into Starsky’s cheek, but the tight-held lips had softened, the corner Hutch could see tipping up into a smile that he ached to taste. He resisted the temptation, but just barely.

“Hey, how about Sonny and Cher?” Starsky suggested, that tipping smile growing into half a grin. “I got you, babe,” he quoted. “Don’t I?” he added with purring satisfaction at odds with the yelp of pain that followed it.

Hutch fast-forwarded the lyrics of the duet through his head, searching for a rejoinder that would keep the game going. A game that was, he suddenly realized, second cousin to the silly one he and Starsky had been playing over the ping-pong table in the squad room at Metro minutes before Starsky was shot. Hutch shivered, caught for a paralyzing second in the terrifying memory, and then was drawn back to the present by the rapid rise and fall of the body beneath his hands as Starsky panted. “Even if we can’t pay the rent,” he vowed.

“Good thing,” Starsky agreed. “Half of not enough pay to begin with doesn’t go very far,” he grumbled. “But I don’t think I’d like you in a black wig,” he dismissed his own suggestion. “Couples, couples, couples,” he chanted in time with each rhythmic push of Hutch’s hands against his stubborn muscles. “Hey! How come I’m doing all the thinking?” he asked after a minute or two of consideration. “Weren’t you the guy who always insisted on picking out our under cover costumes?”

That was true. Indulging his own flair for the dramatic, Hutch had always chosen their personas and dressed them accordingly–sometimes to Starsky’s very vocal complaints. Playing dress-up, however, had lost most of its appeal after a game of hide and seek had nearly cost Hutch his life. That was the main reason he had been letting Starsky come up with all the suggestions and had taken on the role of wet blanket for himself. Maybe it was time to switch roles. “If you insist,” he said to buy himself a few more seconds to think up a possibility. This was harder than he had thought. “How about… Lucy and Ricky Ricardo?”

“You’ll have some ‘splainin’ to do in the squad room if you dye your hair red,” Starsky countered immediately, “But Ethel was a blonde.”

Hutch interrupted the massage long enough to give a handful of curls a retaliatory tug, then began kneading again. “Rhett and Scarlet?” he wondered aloud, smiling as he remembered how Starsky had started bitching halfway through that endless movie that his ass was numb and his jumbo popcorn devoured. “Huggy did say think history or literature,” he defended his proposal.

“Literature? ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’ is literature?” Starsky protested, his voice going tight, the objection broken up into several distinct pieces as Hutch rhythmically pushed the heel of his hand into one of the scarred-over bullet wounds.

“I see your point,” Hutch conceded, easing the pressure to allow Starsky to catch his breath. His ass had been just about as numb as Starsky’s, although Hutch had refused to admit his boredom. “Your turn. How about history,” he said, hoping to lob the ball back into Starsky’s court.

“Best I could do was a D-minus in history, babe,” Starsky backhanded the ball right back. “And you already turned thumbs down on Tony and Cleo. But Huggy didn’t say no television couples, he just said no creature feature. If Lucy and Ricky were fair game, how about… I know, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. You’ve got lots of cowboy clothes, and we’ve both got guitars.”

“And the chief and the commissioner could come as Trigger,” Hutch suggested, struggling to keep his hands connected when Starsky began laughing, his breathless chuckles bouncing his body on the bed.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. “But which end would which be? They’re both a couple of horse’s asses.”

“Mmmm,” Hutch hummed, distracted from the game he had started because he had just realized that he was performing the very last of the manipulations the physical therapist had recommended. A startled glance at the clock confirmed it. In less than a minute, the torture would be over.

Slowly, Hutch eased the pressure until, by the time the second hand hit the twelve, his hands rested quietly on the quivering muscles of Starsky’s back. In a moment he would start stroking again, but this time his hands could cherish, his fingers adore and offer apology until Starsky would fall asleep beneath the much gentler ministrations.

“Your turn,” Starsky announced just as Hutch was about to begin massaging again, and then he turned over onto his back.

“My turn?” Hutch echoed, his hands resting on the furry chest, his eyes searching Starsky’s face for an explanation for this unexpected break with familiar routine. “Oh, you mean the couples–”

“No,” Starsky interrupted. “I mean, your turn,” he repeated, sitting up and reaching out to rest his left hand on Hutch’s shoulder, his fingers pressing into the muscles there. “I know hurting me ties you up in knots. Let me see if I can work a few of them loose,” he offered.

“I’m fine, Starsk. Really,” Hutch insisted, trying to gently shrug off Starsky’s hand before his muscles revealed the lie. He appreciated the gesture, but he knew Starsky had to be too tired.

“Uh-huh,” Starsky grunted with a glare that Hutch suddenly realized was real. Starsky didn’t seem angry-exactly–as if he might be plotting a little revenge, but he did appear…determined to have his way.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hutch asked, uncertain if he really wanted the answer.

“It means, tell it to the Marines, buddy,” Starsky growled, pushing Hutch’s already unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders, his hands gliding caressingly over Hutch’s skin as they followed the material down his arms. “‘Cause this GI ain’t buyin’ it.” The near aggression left both his face and his manner, however, as he took Hutch’s hands in his. “You’ve been looking after me for months, Hutch. Let me give you a little TLC for a change,” he appealed.

“I…I don’t mind,” Hutch continued to argue for no good reason he could think of. Perhaps it was simply because he had spent so many months in hyper-protective mode, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to switch it off. He did not, however, offer any resistance when Starsky pulled his shirt over his hands and tossed it to the floor.

“I always thought partnership was about give and take. That’s how it always was for us before Gunther,” Starsky reminded him. “Am I still your partner or not, Hutch?”

Still his partner–in so many more ways now than ever before. Starsky’s side of the desk was a void that assaulted Hutch’s senses with its emptiness every time he looked at it; the ache in his chest only easing when he came through the door each night and could hold Starsky in his arms. Without further argument, Hutch left the bed and began to strip. “You just want a chance to play the old Marquis,” he accused Starsky, feeling the need to dissemble a little, to hide how deeply moved he was by the offer. It was, most likely, a hold over from when humor had to cover his deepening feelings for his partner. Only another habit that had not yet realized its purpose had been served.

Starsky grinned maniacally, shuffling to the other side of the bed. “Could be,” he agreed, and then patted the towel, his grin becoming a leer. “On your belly, big boy,” he purred with a provocative wink.

Hutch hesitated, one knee already propped on the bed as he realized Starsky might have something more in mind than a soothing massage. He shivered and lay down hurriedly to hide the sudden stirring of his cock, instantly aroused by the possibility that, for the first time, Starsky intended to take the lead in their lovemaking. Just the possibility was intoxicating, but, unable to completely turn off his protective instinct, Hutch didn’t want Starsky to feel obligated if it turned out he was over-estimating his stamina. Or perhaps, more selfishly, Hutch didn’t want his hopes rising even faster than his cock.

Hutch had barely settled himself onto the towel that was still warm and damp from Starsky’s body, when he felt both of Starsky’s hands on his back, heated palms and wide-spread fingers laying claim to the muscles with a thrilling proprietary certainty. His cock throbbed, jerking to full erection against the rough caress of the terrycloth, urging him to wrest control of the action from Starsky. If he was going to overcome his body’s demands and follow Starsky’s lead this first time, he needed a distraction. “You know, maybe we’re looking at this couple thing all wrong,” he said, hoping that what had worked for pain would also work for pleasure.

“Shhh,” Starsky hushed him, leaning close to whisper, his warm breath a sibilant wash into Hutch’s ear canal that made his shiver. “Just enjoy,” he pleaded.

Hutch relaxed, his urgency banked by the desire in Starsky’s voice. Just relax. Just let it happen. Let his partner take the reins back into his hands for a while. Hutch struggled to allow the pleasure of it claim him, to turn off his brain, tried hard–but failed–not to notice that there wasn’t as much strength in Starsky’s right hand as it mirrored the strokes of the left.

“Mmmm,” Starsky hummed. “There’s a couple of bad ones.”

The announcement was followed by gentle, persistent pressure under Hutch’s shoulder blades. That pressure might not be as strong on the right as it was on the left, but it was strong enough to work out the knot. Sinking into the pleasure as his muscles were kneaded and coaxed into relaxing, Hutch very soon no longer had to struggle to shut down his mind. He was floating on a sea of sensual bliss as Starsky worked down his back. The occasional pause to untie a stubborn knot only aided the push and pull and rhythmic rocking of the message to lull his anticipation into a comfortable idle. Anticipation re-awakened, however, when Starsky reached his waist, rousing Hutch from the near trance he had fallen into.

Hutch waited, possessed by a new patience to be lead wherever Starsky wanted to take him, no longer feeling the need to forge ahead and drag Starsky along with him. He was rewarded for his newfound restraint when Starsky moved, the warmth that had pressed against his side suddenly withdrawn, the rocking of the bed telegraphing Starsky’s intentions before an insistent knee nudged Hutch’s thighs apart.

Still Hutch waited, arousal beginning to tug at the tight lead he held on it when Starsky settled between his legs and the hands that had coaxed his back muscles into relaxing laid claim to his ass. Once again impatience threatened to snap the lead, and Hutch hurried into speech to ease the strain. “Is it getting flat from sitting behind a desk every day?” he panted, the sudden cessation of the steady push, push, push of Starsky’s kneading suspending the thrust of his cock into the firm mattress.

The bed rocked beneath him, and Hutch felt the moist heat of breath a second before Starsky kissed the cheek of his ass. The wet, open-mouthed caress pulled a groan out of Hutch that, to the uneducated ear, might have been a second cousin to Starsky’s groans of pain. The next moan that left him was closer kin, prompted when Starsky abandoned him a second time. His wordless protest was cut off unvoiced, however, when Hutch heard the snap of the lid of the oil bottle.

“Oh, Christ,” he moaned, burying his face in the pillow, clenching his hands around the edges of it when he felt the still-warm oil drizzled on his ass.

Hutch heard the bottle fumbled onto the nightstand, and then Starsky’s hands were back on his ass. All pretense that this was just a nice little backrub between friends was banished when, with each circular stroke, two thumbs dipped deeper into the crevice between his cheeks. Hutch trapped the demands to hurry behind clenched teeth, struggled to subdue the need to spread his legs wider, to buck, to somehow force those hands to go where he wanted them most. His sanity was frayed to the breaking point when, at long last, an oily thumb finally stroked over his anus.

“Now here’s a tight little muscle I almost missed,” Starsky crooned, his thumb circling and circling. “Think I might be able to loosen this up for you?”

Hutch bit the pillow hard and lifted his ass a little, hoping Starsky would accept that as permission to proceed, eternally grateful that Starsky could still read his body language when the pressure on his anus increased. A moan began rumbling around in his chest, became a groan in his throat, and burst free of his lips in a wordless prayer of thanksgiving when the stubborn muscle suddenly yielded.

“Like that?” Starsky purred, his lips pressed to Hutch’s ear again.

“Oh, God, Starsk. Please,” Hutch managed to put words into his plea, turning his head and forcing open squeezed-shut eyes. His body jerked, a brain cell or two realizing that Starsky was supporting his weight on his right arm, that the hand finger-fucking him to nirvana was the dexterous left. Then an impudent finger found his prostate, and Hutch stopped caring if his lover was hung from the ceiling.

“Come up for me, babe,” Starsky demanded, his finger sliding out of Hutch, both hands finding a slippery grip on his hips.

Eagerly, Hutch lifted and waited through the agonizing seconds it took Starsky to position himself, the first hard pressure setting up an ache in his gut that only his lover could ease.

“Gonna let me in?” Starsky crooned. “Open up for me?”

Hutch bit his lip, holding back the babble of pleas and demands, but was unable to trap a cry of pleasure as Starsky’s cock finally won out over the defensive muscle. One hard, clean stroke that cleaved his soul in two, the torn halves re-forming to welcome the deep thrusts that pounded pleasure into his body. Hutch arched and writhed and bucked beneath the onslaught, his laboring lungs panting a melody of sensation in rhythm with the sharp slap of flesh on flesh as their bodies met while the percussion of bedsprings sang a squealing counterpoint.

“Love you, love you, love you.”

With the breathless chant panted into his ear and Starsky’s hand stroking his cock, Hutch was finally free to allow the last ragged strand of control to slip through his fingers. Opening his heart and his body to this sweetest possession, he let climax overtake him, feeling the pulse and throb of his own release echoed deep inside him.

Shaking in aftermath, Hutch struggled to draw one deep breath into compressed lungs, unwilling to dislodge the dead weight that crushed him into the bed. Loving it. This wasn’t the first time that Starsky had fucked him, but it was the first time Starsky had had the strength and the energy to mount him. And Hutch loved that, too. Alive. Healing. Stronger every day. The miracle of Starsky’s life, of the love they had found together, echoed inside him with the aftershocks of the pleasure they had shared. Hutch was in no great rush to let the small inconvenience of oxygen deprivation hurry their parting.

“S-sorry, babe,” Starsky, equally as breathless, panted into Hutch’s hair. “Not up to playing the gentleman yet.”

“S’okay. Love it. Love…being surrounded…by you,” Hutch reassured him and was rewarded by lazy kisses that burrowed through his hair to the nape of his neck, a lapping tongue swiping at the sex sweat that soaked him.

“Mmmm. You romantic, you,” Starsky accused gently. “But enough’s enough. Heave,” he commanded.

Reluctantly, Hutch obeyed, arching and tilting until he felt Starsky roll off his back. The softening cock slid free, leaving behind an emptiness that ached inside Hutch until they found their way back into each other’s arms. The now very soggy towel, Hutch discarded to the floor and then pulled up the blanket to cover their cooling skin. Arms wrapped around the love of his life, Hutch listened as Starsky’s labored breathing slowly calmed.

“You had a thought that I rudely interrupted,” Starsky murmured unexpectedly when Hutch was certain his still-healing body had finally demanded its due and forced him to sleep.

“Have I told you lately that I love it when you’re rude,” Hutch replied, his fingers sifting lazily through the sweat-damp curls that tickled his shoulder.

“Mmmm,” Starsky hummed with his mouth pressed to Hutch’s neck, vibrating the response directly into his sated nerves.

“Come to think of it, have I told you lately that I love you?” Hutch asked, knowing he had said it at least three times today, but also knowing he could never say it enough.

“Uh-huh,” Starsky reassured him. “‘Bout half an hour ago. Sweatin’ blood so I can get outta bed tomorrow without a block and tackle. You don’t have to say the words for me to hear ’em, sweetheart.”

“Neither do you,” Hutch purred, feeling Starsky’s “I love you” in the loosened muscles of his back and the good ache in his ass.

“But seriously,” Starsky insisted. “You started to say something about the couples thing.”

Hutch tugged at the handful of curls he held until Starsky leaned back far enough so Hutch could see his face. He was amazed that Starsky was still awake at all; never mind pursing the often-abandoned subject of costumes for Huggy’s party. Although he looked as thoroughly fucked out as Hutch felt, the topic had obviously caught Starsky by the imagination and refused to let go.

“I was just thinking that maybe we’ve been too busy considering the obvious. Just thinking about couples. I mean, partners could be couples, too. Don’t you think?” Hutch asked, wondering idly what a dictionary might have to say about his self-serving definition.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed slowly, the sated lethargy giving away to a more focused attention in his eyes.

“Then maybe we should just go as ourselves,” Hutch suggested. “In my opinion, Starsky and Hutch are a pretty great couple.”

Starsky frowned, eyelids drooping to hide the expression in his eyes. “The best,” he agreed readily enough. “But nobody’s supposed to know we’re a couple.”

As far as Hutch was concerned, anyone who hadn’t already figured that out, and had more than a casual acquaintance with them, must be brain dead. He felt his love must be written all over his face every time he looked at Starsky. They had never actually talked about keeping their relationship a secret, but Hutch had assumed it was a subject that didn’t have to be discussed. They both knew that if they acknowledged being lovers, their partnership would be a thing of the past. Even straight couples weren’t allowed to be partners, and Starsky was determined to work his way back to that empty side of their desk.

“Does that bother you, Starsk?” Hutch asked, tightening the grip he had on Starsky’s hair when Starsky tried to return to his hiding place against Hutch’s neck.

“You sound like the department shrink,” Starsky complained. “‘Now, Dave, how you feel about that?'” he mimicked the counselor the department had insisted he see. “Thinks he’s Freud or something.”

Hutch laughed softly. “Except you know I’d never call you Dave. Especially in bed,” he said gently. “Seriously. Does it bother you we can’t be open about how we feel?”

“Does it bother you?” Starsky asked cautiously.

“I asked first,” Hutch reminded him.

Starsky gave an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, okay. It bothers me. And that makes me feel like a greedy kid. It should be enough that I’ve got everything I want,” he said, his arm tightening around Hutch. “I shouldn’t have to blab it all over the place.”

“But you want to?” Hutch asked, a light bulb belatedly going off in his brain. “That’s why this whole costume thing has really grabbed you.”

“Maybe,” Starsky admitted and, this time when he tried to tuck his face against Hutch’s neck, Hutch allowed the retreat. “We can’t shout it from the rooftops, but I’d like to come up with something that really says us. Nobody else would know, but we would.”

“So, do you have any other ideas?” Hutch asked, waiting through the silence, almost able to hear the click, click, click as Starsky’s mind changed gears.

“Partners for the rest of the world to see,” Starsky mused softly, easing away and propping his head on his hand. “Laurel and Hardy?” he suggested tentatively, his discontented expression appearing to discount this possibility.

“We’ve done that,” Hutch reminded him.

“Batman and Robin?” Starsky immediately countered, proving that whether consciously or subconsciously, he had probably already been considering less orthodox pairings.

“Is it true what they say about those two?” Hutch quipped, trying to imagine either one of them dressed up as caped crusaders.

“You’re not making this any easier,” Starsky complained.

“Hey, cut that out,” Hutch yelped a laughing protest, trapping Starsky’s poking fingers against his side. “Okay, okay. I’ll make you a deal. If you can think of a couple that says us to you, I’ll go along for the ride. No tights and no dresses, but other than that, I’ll wear whatever you come up with,” he promised, hoping he wasn’t going to regret giving his lover such a free hand when the time came to actually appear in public in whatever costume Starsky might come up with.

“The Lone Ranger and Tonto?” Starsky ventured around a yawn.

“Whatever you want, Kemosabe,” Hutch agreed and kissed his lover good night. “Now go to sleep.”

~*~*~

Hutch had had a bitch of a day, and he wasn’t entirely certain that the coming evening was going to be a whole lot better. It had taken Starsky a couple of days, but he had finally settled on an idea for costumes and had been working on them ever since. Hutch, however, hadn’t been able to get so much as a hint out of him just what those costumes might be. Given Starsky’s fertile imagination, Hutch assumed he could find himself wearing anything from Baby New Year’s diaper to Mr. Spock’s pointed ears. He might even end up having to shave off his mustache since he had forgotten to include its preservation in his provisos. He wouldn’t put it past Starsky to take this opportunity to pass a death sentence on the “caterpillar.”

Whatever get up Starsky had concocted, however, Hutch was going to be happy to wear it. An evening of public humiliation, even the sacrifice of his mustache, was a tiny price to pay for the sheer joy of watching Starsky throw himself into a project with all his old enthusiasm. Fanciful it might be, but it seemed to Hutch that devising a costume that would represent their unique partnership had allowed Starsky to truly believe there was life after May 15th. A complete life that, eventually, he would be able to live again to its fullest. And, if Starsky could believe it, then Hutch could as well.

By the time Hutch reached the landing, the cares of the day had fallen from his shoulders, and he was no longer worried what the evening would bring. Whatever costumes they might arrive at Huggy’s wearing, underneath them, they would be Starsky and Hutch. The greatest couple that ever lived–in his modest opinion, of course.

“You’re late,” Starsky greeted him the moment the door opened, grabbing his hand and towing him toward the closed bedroom door. “Close your eyes,” he commanded.

“Hey, don’t I even get a kiss?” Hutch complained, allowing himself to be towed, wanting to shout a jubilant hallelujah to celebrate the strength of the hand that held his.

Starsky stopped tugging, turned and pushed one hard, hot kiss onto Hutch’s mouth, but didn’t give him even a second to respond before the trek resumed. “Close your eyes,” he repeated. “Now, I want you to keep an open mind, Hutch. I gave this a whole lot of thought. Came up with about a thousand couples, but none of them were right for us.”

“I know you did, and it doesn’t matter what–” Hutch started to reassure him, the rest of his words pushed back into his mouth by Starsky’s silencing fingers.

“It matters, Hutch,” Starsky insisted so earnestly that Hutch opened his eyes and was immediately ensnared by the same urgency that possessed his partner. “None of them were right for us. They weren’t real, or they were dead and gone. I wanted a partnership that’s been around a long time, and is going to still be around a long time from now.”

“Just like us,” Hutch agreed. He squeezed the hand that held his, and then closed his eyes. “Show me.”

Hutch heard the door open and willingly followed the hand that led him into the bedroom. He counted four steps from the door, and then Starsky carefully positioned him until Hutch knew he was facing the bed.

“And I didn’t pick it just ’cause I live to eat, either,” Starsky added one more defense and then invited, “Go ahead and open your eyes, babe.”

Slowly, Hutch opened his eyes and took in the symbols that Starsky had chosen to represent their union. There on the bed sat a couple of man-sized jars, constructed from cardboard, their identities emblazoned in labels that had been painted with obvious care. It was so damned simple, and yet so utterly perfect. And only Starsky could have thought of this.

“Well? What do you think?” Starsky asked anxiously.

“I think,” Hutch began, pausing to clear the boulder out of his throat and pull his lover into his arms. “I think I’ve got only one question, Starsk.” He paused again, this time to kiss away the frown between Starsky’s eyes and let loose the grin that just might split his face. “Am I peanut butter or jelly?”