The Road Less Traveled

After John Blaine’s death, Hutch’s teasing comment, “…And you’re not even a good kisser,” prompts Starsky’s enigmatic response: “How do you know?” Interrupted by the police dispatcher, Hutch’s only chance to respond comes later… much later.

Originally published in the Starsky and Hutch slash zine, Shadowplay, in 1989.

Art by Jean.

“How do you know that?”

The immediate comeback caught Hutch unprepared, and the interruption of the dispatcher provided a welcome reprieve.

“All units in the vicinity Eighth and Becker, we have a 417 at the Landsdowne Apartments, number 136-B. Shots fired.”

“This is Zebra Three. We are responding.”

Over the years Hutch had developed an aversion for domestic calls. In the knife-edge existence of police work, there was a thin red line between life and death, and family quarrels were notoriously apt to turn deadly for the intervening officer. Today’s case did nothing to alter this perception. The truck driver, who had returned early from a trip to discover his wife in flagrant delicto with his boss, proved to be violently resentful of the attempt to curtail his revenge. The .45 slugs that missed Hutch’s head by inches added Assault on a Police Officer to the ADW charge.

By the time the cuckolded husband had been disarmed, arrested, and handed over to the late-arriving black and white, and the reports had been filed, it was evening of the midsummer day. Starsky sat in the front seat this time, slouched down in meditative silence, expression inscrutable. Thinking about John Blaine again?

“Still want that drink?”

The curly head swiveled around, and Starsky considered him enigmatically for several seconds before replying. “Why not?” His tone gave nothing away.

In unbroken silence they drove to Venice, ascended to Hutch’s apartment, and shed their jackets and weapons. Starsky located glasses while Hutch retrieved the bottle of twenty-year-old Scotch he kept for special occasions.

After the ritual of pouring was complete, they lifted their glasses to one another in solemn salute, and drank. No words were spoken. No eulogy for the dead, no mocking tribute to the vagaries of life, no reference to the unsettling case. The quiet held, and grew gradually into something more—a womb of transitory peace enclosing the pair of them.

The blood-red dying sun slanted long streamers like searching fingers through the slats of the sunporch, but couldn’t quite reach the unlit interior of the apartment. Twilight settled in, bringing with it only minimal surcease from the heat of the day. The cops sat across the kitchen table from each other like matched bookends, sipping the liquor in voiceless companionship. Unasked, Starsky refilled Hutch’s empty glass and poured a like measure into his own.

Starsky was different tonight, his mood elusive, defying Hutch’s attempts to interpret it. He could sense none of the confused denial of the past few days, none of the bewildered pain Starsky had exhibited earlier, none of the resentment at the trust betrayed, which might have been expected.

Elbows propped on the table, Starsky cradled the tumbler in both fine-boned hands, staring into and through the amber liquid with unfocused eyes. In the half-light, his narrow face had an otherworldly look, like a conjuror listening to inner voices, viewing arcane mysteries invisible to human eyes. At frequent intervals he raised the vessel and drank, and without thinking about it, Hutch matched him swallow for swallow. When their glasses were empty, he filled them again.

Outside, a horn blew, a high-pitched voice called out sharply and was answered, a west-bound jet passed overhead. And still they sat, while shadows lengthened and gloom descended—Starsky grave and thoughtful, Hutch caught in a limbo of vague expectation, as distanced from his own emotions as from those of his best friend.

Starsky looked at him at last, drew a breath to speak, and seemed to think better of it. The half-formed words escaped as a sigh and he lowered his gaze again.

What? Unwilling to break the silence, Hutch thought the question at him. And his counterpart lifted glitteringly intense eyes to meet his, dispelling the dream-like mood with a look that answered as surely as if he had spoken aloud.

You know.

No. Instinctive disavowal. The scrape of chair legs shattered the stillness as Hutch shoved away from the table, the very act of flight giving the lie to his denial. In the suddenly threatening atmosphere, the front window drew him with the illusion of a bridge to the safer everyday world.

The liquor-induced warmth combined forces with the temperature to make him feel stifled and uncomfortable. When he wiped at his face, his hand came away wet. He needed neither sight nor hearing to know that his partner had followed, and stood behind him in the dusk.

“How do you know?” Softly spoken, a challenge void of threatening intent. Starsky was so assured that their thoughts were parallel that he didn’t even bother to specify the object of his question. Oh, dangerous….

Staring blindly out the window, Hutch weighed the options, rejecting the pretense of misunderstanding for a falsehood of another sort. “It was just a joke, Starsky.”

Starsky’s silence rebuked him, labelled his lie, mocked his willful self-deceit. When had speech become so unnecessary? Perhaps it had always been so. Even as the new understanding took root, Hutch disclaimed it. Hunching his shoulders, he kept his gaze turned resolutely away, seeing nothing.

From behind, an impatient exhalation conveyed recognition of his intent and unswayed determination. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to put your assumption to the test?”

No. Yes. No…. “Is that what this is, a test?” His voice was tight, echoing jarringly in his ears.

You know better.

He spared a moment to regret the Scotch, consumed too quickly on an empty stomach. It was impairing his judgment, eroding his self-control, deluding him. He was constructing a fantasy of nonverbal communication that had no foundation in reality. What would be next—visual hallucinations?

Starsky spoke again, destroying the attempt at rationalization. “You know better.”

Panic battled with resignation. “I know better,” he agreed at last. A thousand implications tied to three words.

Better than to suggest that his closest friend would play games with something like this.

Better than to pretend that nothing lay behind his carelessly provocative statement.

Better than to let you push us into something that’s safer left alone.

…Better than to deny what we have?

Memory flashed back to the St. Francis Hotel—the two of them standing before another window, locked in painful confrontation over John Blaine’s sexual orientation. “Thought you were the one who was so shocked by all this.”

“Shut up. I can change my mind, can’t I?”

There it was, then. Upfront, honest, and direct. Just like his straightforward friend. He turned to face Starsky.

His partner confronted him unblinkingly, his expression a combination of belligerence and wistful longing that Hutch found both endearing and frightening.

It’s not too late to stop this, he told himself desperately. The misstep could still be avoided, the forbidden fruit left untasted.

Face pale in contrast to the red shirt, Starsky awaited his decision, his calm demeanor belied by the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. Without conscious direction, Hutch’s hand stretched out to brush back the tangled curls, then slid down to cradle one narrow cheek in an unplanned caress. He heard the hiss of indrawn breath, felt the quivering tension in the man, yet Starsky remained unmoving under his touch.

“What am I going to do with you?” he murmured helplessly. He took another step closer, and his other half was there to meet him, reaching with both hands for his shoulders in the instant before their lips met.

The initial contact was hesitant—almost chaste—an experimental brushing-together of mouths that was over before Hutch’s stunned senses could absorb it. But before he had time to decide if he was relieved or disappointed, Starsky was back again, warm lips pressing firmly against his, clinging sweetly this time, tasting him with delicate eagerness.

His partner’s mouth was shockingly different, unmistakably male—totally new and yet strangely familiar. Vacillating even as his body responded, Hutch’s rational mind registered the smell and taste of the liquor, Starsky’s unique scent and the solid strength of his body. The well-known, suddenly mysterious mouth was velvet persuasion against his, breaking away only to return again, compelling his response. The kisses were already becoming addictive. Starsky’s throaty rumble of appreciation stirred his blood, and when the searching lips parted and their tongues touched for the first time, his thoughts scattered like storm-driven clouds before the onslaught of pure sensation. Not a good kisser? Dear God…. The man could seduce a statue.

Panting, shaking with the intensity of his emotions, Hutch made a last-ditch grab for sanity. He broke away from the hypnotic contact, protesting weakly. “This is crazy.”

“Maybe.” Flushed with the heat, wide-eyed and breathless, his compatriot was irresistibly attractive. His hands shifted from Hutch’s shoulders to grasp his head, fingers sliding around the back of his skull to hold him in place. With disconcerting confidence Starsky sampled his mouth, unhurriedly exploring all the nuances of pressure and texture—drinking him, filling him with reciprocal need. Shivering in the heat, Hutch surrendered to the inevitable. His arms slipped around Starsky’s back to draw them closer together, merging them into a single, yearning being.

The sense of completion was overwhelming.

So good to hold him…. The reality of Starsky in his embrace was incredibly, wonderfully superior to his recent barely-acknowledged fantasies. For long moments they shared the intimate communion, learning one another, strengthening their bond with neither seeking to dominate. More of Hutch’s uncertainty faded away with their closeness.

When they broke the kiss at last and stood leaning against each other, he spoke in a husky whisper. “What do you want, Starsk? Where do we go from here?” He waited, contemplating the butterfly-beat of pulse in the sweat-dewed throat with bemused fascination, while his companion searched for words.

“He could have killed you, that guy today,” Starsky blurted abruptly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, y’know?”

“And I thought about… a man choosing another man.”

The indigo gaze seized him, electric with emotion. “I love ya, Hutch,” he declared fiercely. “Can’t see myself ever loving anyone more. Who else is gonna be my… partner... but you?”

Starsky’s eyes skittered toward the bedroom, then returned to hold Hutch’s again. “I love you,” he repeated. “Don’t wanna lose you without…. Want all we can have.” A familiar edge of defiance entered his tone. “I don’t care about anything else. We can handle it.” Having summarily disposed of society’s opinion and his own former prejudices, he hesitated for the first time since beginning all this. “…But…. What about you? Do you want…?” His voice trailed off.

Hutch looked at him, intrigued by his changeability. Not too late? Always too late. With no will left to deny a choice that had been years in the making, he nodded. “Yes. I want.”

Dark lashes swept down, while the catch in Starsky’s voice completed the chameleon-switch from aggressive self-assurance to shy vulnerability. “I was scared….”

Of rejection? Of losing his best friend to the dangers of their vocation? Of the consequences of this course they were undertaking? Giving free rein to the protective instinct Starsky engendered in him, Hutch wrapped his arms around his comrade, right hand cradling the tousled head. Starsky melted against him, burying his face in his shoulder, a willing accessory to the cuddling.

Brushing his lips against the silky curls, Hutch spoke his own truth. “I’m still scared.” Doubtful eyes rose to his, and he anticipated the question. “But I still want it.” They clung together in the sultry estival half-light, drawing courage from the incredible truth they read in one another’s faces.

Starsky smiled crookedly. “‘Who do we trust’ time?”

With the familiar catch-phrase, matters slid back into perspective, and Hutch found himself able to grin back as he delivered the perennial response. “Same as always. Me and Thee.”

Thoughts aligned once again, they adjourned eventually to the bedroom, where they began their new journey. Together.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
–Robert Frost