Behind Door Number Three

Hutch admits the truth to Starsky and awaits the fallout.

Originally published in the SHareCon 2008 zine.

One look at Starsky’s face when he came through the door of the squad room was enough to warn Hutch that his partner was thoroughly pissed off. The way Starsky threw himself into his chair, grabbed up a pen, and hunched over the report he was working on as if his life depended on every word he scrawled, just confirmed it.

Knowing he was the only one who could get away with it, Hutch leaned over the cluttered desk between them and tapped Starsky’s arm. “You only went to the john for five minutes. What’s up?”

He was rewarded with the trace of a chagrined smile, but there was still plenty of temper residing in the blue eyes.

“Later, okay?” Starsky asked, as if he really expected Hutch to start opening him up with an emotional can opener right there in the squad room.

“Whatever you say,” Hutch agreed, and went back to working on his own report. The last one—thank God—before they could get back out on the streets where they belonged. But he kept a wary eye on Starsky, and anyone who happened to get within striking distance. Never mess with a man’s partner went both ways for him and Starsky. Like siblings, they might quarrel between themselves, but the rest of the world better watch their step.

Less behind in their paperwork than usual, it wasn’t long before they signed the last triplicate copies with a flourish, grabbed their jackets, and beat a hasty retreat before anyone could dump a new load of tedium on them.

Hutch waited until they were on the road before prodding his partner again, judging by the double-time rush down the stairs and the squealing-tire exit from the parking garage just how mad Starsky still was. Simmering, Hutch decided, with a definite potential for imminent explosion. It seemed much safer to trigger it, since Hutch didn’t seem to be the cause, than to let it boil around and gain momentum.

“So, are you planning on telling me how a trip to the men’s room took all the sweetness and light out of your day? Somebody use up all the paper towels again?” Hutch asked.

“No,” Starsky snarled, and hung a right just a little too fast.

Hutch grunted as he slid up against the passenger door, right hip connecting sharply with the armrest. It was definitely time to draw the heat out of Starsky before he battered them both around inside this tin tomato. “Then what happened?”

“Not what, who,” Starsky clarified less than helpfully. “Or is it whom?”

Sarcasm. Not usually a good sign. That was Hutch’s weapon of choice for holding the world at bay; one Starsky seldom tried to wield. And, unless Hutch missed his guess, though he didn’t really want to check the speedometer to confirm it, he would be willing to bet they were doing at least fifty in a thirty zone.

“Come on, Starsk, don’t let it curdle the root beer you had for breakfast. Whatever it is, spill it,” Hutch advised, keeping his tone mild.

Starsky laughed. There was still some pollution in it, but Hutch could tell his strategy was working. And he could feel the deceleration, too. Forty-five. Forty. Thirty-five. He was happy to settle for that. Driving the speed limit was really too much to ask of Starsky, even on the best of days.

“How can Simmons be such a smart cop and still be such an asshole?” Starsky asked, a certain edge of plaintiveness to the question, as if he had expected better of their fellow officer and had been bitterly disappointed.

“Give,” Hutch prompted for the third, and, he decided, last time. Even at 9:00 a.m., it was already too hot to play twenty questions with a quarrelsome partner. If Starsky insisted on wallowing, so be it. As long as he kept the lead out of his foot, of course.

“Usual shit,” Starsky finally admitted with a sigh that sounded like the release of steam from a safety valve that Hutch had been hoping for. “Comes in the john and sees me. Starts making cracks about where are you. How he thought we did everything for each other.”

And what already promised to be a miserable day thanks to the weather took an abrupt nosedive into a potential for truly awful. This was uncertain ground indeed. When you were tiptoeing around the edge of a cliff, you were well advised to forget the sweat gluing your shirt to your back and keep your mind on the crumbling edge of the abyss.

“You ought to be used to it by now, Starsk. People have been talking about us for years. Behind our backs and to our faces,” he observed mildly, hoping he wasn’t putting his heel down on a rock that only looked firmly lodged.

This time, Starsky’s sigh was just a sigh. That deep-breath expulsion a guy makes when he lets go of his anger and starts letting reason take its place. “Yeah. I know,” he admitted.

Stable enough, Hutch decided, and leaned back against the door. With an arm stretched out across the back of the seat, he watched Starsky’s face, read each flicker of emotion on the familiar features as Starsky put it into perspective.

“Only one way to stop it, buddy,” Hutch reminded him. “No, two. Hands off or split up.” He tapped Starsky on the shoulder to emphasize his point before returning his hand to the smooth leather of the seat back.

“No, thanks,” Starsky said, the certainty and immediacy of the rejection easing Hutch’s precarious stance on the edge a little. “You can keep what’s behind doors number one and two. It’s just….”

Maybe the ground wasn’t quite as solid as it felt. Hutch hesitated, tempted to leave this conversation right where it was, withhold the question Starsky was obviously looking for. But that wasn’t really an option. What was on Starsky’s mind wasn’t going to go away just because Hutch didn’t give him an opening to air it. It was his turn to sigh now, at the inevitability of it, but he refrained. “Just what?” he prompted reluctantly.

“I wonder sometimes,” Starsky admitted, the quick glance he cut Hutch not doing anything to reassure him. “Since we’ve got the name, why not play the game?”

Landslide, Hutch thought, and sincerely wished he had left Starsky to stew in his own speculation. Inevitable or not, Hutch was in no hurry to take this rocky ride down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon he himself had carved between them. “You mean we might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb?” Hutch suggested, hoping against hope that Starsky would just laugh, agree, and postpone this particular trip.

As if he had read Hutch’s mind—hardly an unusual occurrence—Starsky did laugh, and he did nod in apparent agreement with the ludicrousness of it all. But the laugh was tight, the nod curt, and there was a battle-ready tautness to the deceptively relaxed sprawl. “Sometimes I wonder what I’m missing out on by not knocking on door number three.”

Hutch knew how it was going to look, knew how Starsky was going to interpret his abrupt withdrawal. The way his spine straightened as if he had been suddenly strapped to a backboard, and his arm slid down off the seat back, his hand coming to rest, curled into a fist, at his side. Defensive and self-protective. Hardly a false impression. “Nothing, Starsk,” he hissed, completing the rejection. “You aren’t missing anything.”

Hutch could feel Starsky’s eyes on him, but he couldn’t look. Could only stare at the red light hanging in front of them and pray that it would turn green so that Starsky would have no option but to take those eyes off him. Eyes Hutch knew were full of questions, but that also, thanks to his own big mouth, held too much knowledge.

Knowledge Hutch himself had given his partner. Words he had spoken that, up until this stinking hot morning, Starsky had given him little reason to regret. Right now, it looked like honesty hadn’t been the best policy after all.

“How do you keep a secret like that from people who love you? Why? Does it mean John didn’t trust me enough to be honest?”

Hutch looked away from the hopeful expectancy in Starsky’s eyes. Starsky was waiting for answers, answers that would ease the pain, and put John Blaine’s apparent betrayal into perspective. He was looking for those answers from Hutch. The way he always did when he couldn’t find them himself. The way Hutch looked to Starsky for the same when it was Hutch floundering in a sea of uncertainty.

Hutch had the answers. Unfortunately. He wished he was as out to sea as Starsky was right now. That, instead of studying the condensation-dripping beer can in his hands and mentally squirming on the sharp horns of a dilemma of his own, he could just look Starsky straight in the face and claim an equal ignorance.

He should have done this years ago. Back at the Academy when they had first met, or, certainly, when they became partners. Many people claimed they lived inside each other’s heads, and they were almost right. But, close as they were, there was one corner of Hutch’s mind, mostly undisturbed and carefully guarded, that he had never been able to find the right moment to reveal. And even though it was a corner Hutch himself seldom visited and hadn’t acted upon since before he entered the Academy, Starsky had the right to know it existed. Especially now.

John Blaine’s murder, the circumstances of his death, the revelation of the double life he led and Starsky’s heartbroken reaction left Hutch with little choice. He could no longer put off to a tomorrow that never seemed to come, offering Starsky the trust Blaine had failed to give.

“Maybe,” Hutch finally agreed with Starsky’s plaintive speculation. He forced himself to quit being a coward, to lift his head and give his friend the truth, to accept whatever that truth did to them. “Or maybe he just couldn’t risk what the truth might cost him.” He wanted to reach out and secure a grip on Starsky, to somehow physically hold on to what he was afraid would soon be blasted out of his reach. As if he sensed the need, Starsky leaned forward, half lifting his hand, but then let it drop back into his lap, the gesture truncated when Hutch shook his head.

“The same way I’m afraid of what it’s going to cost me when I tell you that I understand John. Understand how he can look at another man and feel desires that the rest of the world would condemn him for,” Hutch confessed.

And then Hutch waited. Waited for Starsky to understand that he wasn’t talking about intellectual understanding. That the knowledge didn’t come from a liberal determination to accept the vagaries of his fellow man, but from within. From eyes that could see beauty in a masculine form, hands that could want to caress a male body, lips that longed to taste a male mouth, and a cock that could rise to another man’s bidding. The understanding came eventually, painted across suddenly taut features, carved into the granite statue Starsky’s body became, and settled into shock-darkened eyes.

“Christ,” Starsky finally cursed, exhaling the blasphemy as if it had been trapped in his lungs for days. And maybe it had. All the days since Blaine’s secrets had been revealed. “Don’t I know anything about the people I love? Am I that fucking dense?”

“Not dense, but maybe a little blind when it comes to the people you love, Starsk,” Hutch said softly. He felt as if he had set off an explosion between them with enough power to crack gaping fissures in the common ground they had always stood on together. And yet, as the dust settled and he saw that gap reflected in Starsky’s face, he also saw, in the way Starsky’s eyes continued to meet his, that there were two by fours thrown across that chasm. Bridges of friendship and caring and understanding that remained undamaged.

“I think John Blaine sold you short, babe,” Hutch offered into the silence, watching in wonder as Starsky took this new knowledge like a previously overlooked piece of a jigsaw puzzle and turned it around in his mental fingers, his gaze touching on Hutch’s face again and again as he sought the place this new piece fit into the picture he had already thought complete.

“Dunno,” Starsky finally said, shaking his head as if that could rattle all the new information into some pattern he could recognize. “He didn’t give me the chance to find out.”

The expectant silence closed in again while Starsky studied him, the thoughtful scrutiny making Hutch feel that his partner touched each one of his features as if he was testing to see they were all still the same as they had been, still arranged to form the familiar face of the friend he hadn’t known quite as well as he thought.

“I’m glad you told me, Hutch. Glad you didn’t let me find out some other way,” Starsky offered.

The drawn tension within Hutch began to ease. This wasn’t over. Starsky had questions, a million of them maybe. Hutch could read that without having to resort to clairvoyance. But now he knew the answers he gave could be accepted in the same thoughtful way as his confession. Me and thee had survived, altered perhaps, but survived, his verbal TNT.

Altered definitely, Hutch amended his previous mental conclusion. Although it took only a few days for Starsky to seem to find a place to store his new knowledge and settle back into their comfortable and familiar ways of relating to each other, there were differences that made a difference.

One of them was that Starsky could no longer seem to see the humor in the occasional teasing the men they worked with subjected them to. He usually did a good job of acting the part of unconcerned victim with a good sense of humor of his own, but Hutch could tell the easy acceptance was forced. And sometimes, like today, Starsky let it get to him.

And there had also been those knowing looks. Or, worse, the speculative ones. Although as infrequent as Starsky’s offense to the teasing, there were times when Hutch found himself resisting the need to squirm beneath those eyes that seemed to pin him, examine him and, not finding what they were looking for, move on. But Hutch had to admit that if he had told Starsky the whole truth, the looks would have likely gone unnoticed. The one question Starsky never asked him—aloud—was ‘do you want me?’ So Hutch had kept that part of the truth tucked away. Lied by omission. Lied by every look, every touch, that he allowed to go so far and no further. Lied every time he saw that question in Starsky’s eyes and pretended he couldn’t interpret it.

Just as, realizing that Starsky was waiting for an answer to his oblique proposal, Hutch was now going to finally make it a spoken lie.

“If that’s an invitation, gracious as it is, partner, I’ll have to decline,” he said and demanded, by this light dismissal, that Starsky read his mind. We are not going to mess with that, he broadcasted along whatever mental connection it was they shared.

Either he wasn’t transmitting at a high enough gain, or Starsky’s receiver was turned way down, because the message didn’t seem to be getting through. Starsky continued to watch him with greater attention than he had ever given a stakeout suspect, expectancy drawing the tension between them tighter than one of the strings on Hutch’s guitar.

The car behind them let loose with its horn, snapping the taut moment with a near audible twang. Hutch jumped, and Starsky stomped on the gas so hard that the car shot forward into the intersection with a tire-smoking squeal.

“Hutch, this isn’t—”

Zebra Three. Zebra Three. Ocean Four requests 914. 28 Prospect Street. Suspected 187.

Hutch snatched up the mic with the enthusiasm of a drowning man grabbing for a life preserver. “Zebra Three. We are responding,” he acknowledged into the receiver while he silently completed Starsky’s interrupted warning. No, this wasn’t over, and Hutch feared, it wasn’t going to be over until Starsky had his look behind door number three.

***********

“Are the days getting longer or am I getting older?” Starsky groaned as he settled in behind the wheel of the Torino.

Already sitting sideways in the passenger seat, Hutch didn’t bother to comment, just picked up the mic to call them, finally, off duty for the night, then swiveled until he could pull his legs into the car and wearily close the door. The start of the day, catching up on paperwork and anxious to get out on the streets, felt like it had existed in some other decade. “Home, James,” he groaned. “And don’t spare the horses.”

“My place is closer,” Starsky pointed out, turning the key that brought the big engine to growling life. “Pizza and the late movie?” he suggested. “Don’t know about you, but it’s going to take me a while to gear down out of overdrive.”

Double shifts were a bitch, Hutch had to admit, and nodded agreement to Starsky’s suggestion. But at least the case that had kept them working long past quitting time was closed, and they had the day off tomorrow. He leaned his head back against the seat and let his mind wander, wondering, in this heat, if they really could count on having the next twenty-four hours off or if somebody’s flaring temper would rob them of even a semblance of a normal life. Deciding to worry about that when and if Dobey called them in, Hutch put his brain on hold and simply enjoyed the cooling breeze that came in the open windows.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

Starsky’s voice roused Hutch from his near stupor. He opened his eyes and saw they were parked under the street light in front of Starsky’s apartment. He turned his head to find Starsky watching him with fond amusement. “Yeah?” he tried to reply, the single word stretched out and mangled by the jaw straining yawn he couldn’t suppress.

“You sure you don’t want me to just drive you out to Venice?” Starsky asked.

Hutch pointed through the windshield at his car parked in front of them. He had driven in from Venice this morning, but had given in, as he often did, to Starsky’s insistence that they use his car. “You promised me pizza,” he reminded his partner.

Half way up the stairs, Hutch was beginning to regret his decision. However, the staircase was just as long at his place and the promise of food and a cooling shower just a few more steps up tipped the balance in favor of climbing the last few risers.

Claiming guest privilege, he shouldered past Starsky as soon as the door opened, and headed straight for the bathroom.

“Hey,” Starsky called after him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll leave you some hot water,” Hutch promised as he pulled his t-shirt off over his head.

“You’re all heart,” Starsky complained.

Hutch turned at the bathroom door to find Starsky had followed him as far as the bedroom doorway where he leaned against the frame. “You wanted to play host,” he reminded his wilted partner. “So be a good one and go order the pizza. No anchovies.”

“What about hot peppers?” Starsky asked hopefully.

“On your half,” Hutch conceded graciously, and closed the door between them.

The cool shower felt like heaven, and though Hutch would have liked to stay under the spray for an hour or so, he took pity on his equally overheated partner, and made short work of washing and rinsing. He took one more, self-indulgent minute with the water turned cold enough to make his teeth chatter, then Hutch reluctantly cut off the flow. Shivering a little, he dried haphazardly, then went in search of something to wear.

“Next,” he called through the bedroom doorway as he pulled open the bottom drawer of the dresser where he kept at least one change of clothes, the same way a few items of Starsky’s wardrobe could always be found on the shelf of his closet.

It wasn’t until he had opened the drawer that he remembered he had worn the last pair of running shorts he kept here last week when they had decided on an impromptu game of basketball. The game had lasted only twenty minutes before Dobey had paged them. The shorts were, Hutch was almost certain, crumpled on the floor of his locker. All he had here was a pair of jeans.

“Shit!” Hutch exclaimed, eyeing the heavy denim in disgust. It was too damned hot to wear jeans.

“Problem, partner?” Starsky asked.

“No shorts,” Hutch explained succinctly.

“So wear a pair of mine,” Starsky suggested.

Hutch turned to face Starsky, wanting to be sure that, just in case his sometimes oblivious partner missed the sarcasm in his voice, he would be sure to read it on his face. He found Starsky, already shirtless and barefoot, once again lounging against the doorframe as if he were holding up the building.

“Oh yeah, that’s going to work. You’re poured into them as it is. I’m a little bigger than you, Starsk. In case you haven’t noticed.”

Starsky’s eyes started at Hutch’s already-drying hair and made a slow sweep, as if he was memorizing the scene of a crime, all the way down to his feet, pausing on the damp towel that clung to his hips long enough to, without uttering a single syllable, remind Hutch of the cliff-edged conversation of that morning that he had deliberately pushed to the back of his mind.

“Oh, yeah, Hutch. I noticed,” Starsky purred, pivoted on his heel, and disappeared into the bathroom.

Hutch stared at the door until the sudden thunder of the shower broke his focus, then turned to pull the jeans from the drawer. “No damned way, Starsky,” he muttered as he yanked the heavy material on over his feet and dragged it up his legs. He glared at the door as he secured the snap and zipper, then pulled a fresh t-shirt over his head. “No damned way,” he repeated, softer and a little more desperately, no longer certain whether he was talking to his partner or himself.

***********

Hutch had the late movie turned on, the just-delivered pizza and two cold root beers on the coffee table, and his ass planted in a corner of the couch by the time Starsky reappeared, damp and barely dressed in his white shorts, from the bathroom.

Hutch had been hoping for a comedy. Something like the Three Stooges or an old Wally Stone to distract Starsky, but no such luck. It was Thursday night. Classics’ night on channel 5. All he could hope for was Casablanca or maybe The Maltese Falcon. For the first time in his life, Hutch prayed for the sound of Humphrey Bogart’s voice, hoping the long-time favorite might distract Starsky, but feared that even the local station was conspiring against him.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Starsky plunked down in the other corner of the couch, selected a piece of pizza and began to eat. It took him a few minutes to realize that Starsky’s hunger was only offering him a brief reprieve. Not even that, because, even without looking, Hutch felt that deep blue gaze never once stray from him. He was doomed. He knew it.

Nevertheless, Hutch tried, groped for nonchalance as he worked his way through two slices of pizza and tried to pretend that Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant were of more interest to him than the fact that Starsky had him pinned to the couch like a bug on a pin. An absolutely fascinating bug if Starsky’s lack of interest in both food and the movie were anything to go by. When Hutch reached for his root beer and nearly knocked the bottle flying, he decided he had had enough.

“Would you cut it out,” he demanded, forcing himself to stop ignoring Starsky like a piece of familiar furniture and look at him.

Starsky didn’t pretend to misunderstand, but he did drop his gaze to the hands that rested in his lap.

Hutch wasn’t fooled. He counted nine seconds before the dark head came up and he was once again held captive.

“Forget it, Starsky,” he commanded, resisting the urge to scramble out of harm’s way. Grab up his keys, get in the car, and keep on driving. North, maybe. Keep his foot on the floor until he hit ice and snow. Starsky hated the cold. He wouldn’t follow Hutch to Alaska.

“Why?” Starsky asked, his tone weather-conversation polite.

Because it would mean too much, Hutch thought, but didn’t dare say. Because he couldn’t keep lying by omission with Starsky in his arms. Kiss him, make love to the body that, every day, tempted him to cross the line. Because he couldn’t bear it, when all Starsky was looking for was a peek behind door number three with someone he could trust not to slam his fingers in it. He had known that, eventually, inevitably, they would come to this. Starsky’s curiosity would get the best of him. Hutch just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

Hutch put everything he had into keeping the panic from his face and investing his voice with the indifference that was the last emotion Starsky aroused in him. “Forget it,” he repeated.

“Not your type, huh?” Starsky asked with a little self-depreciating shrug that ripped at Hutch’s heart.

Hutch looked away, unable to bring yet another spoken lie to live between them. “Forget it,” he echoed himself one last time, hearing the plea in his voice.

“Huh?” Starsky insisted, relentless.

And suddenly, Hutch was tired of retreating, of running scared, and angry in his own defense that Starsky wouldn’t just accept and back off. It made him crude and reckless. “If you’ve suddenly decided you want to fuck a guy, look up Nick Hunter,” he challenged, and watched as Starsky ticked through his memory for the name and face to go with it.

“Nah,” Starsky denied the suggestion with a disinterested shrug when the connection was made. “My ego isn’t that inflated.”

That pulled Hutch up short and froze spiraling emotions for a moment in mid-swirl while curiosity took center stage. “What?”

Starsky shrugged again, his gaze moving to the back of the couch, drawing Hutch’s with it to where the fingers that Hutch had so often fantasized caressing him, picked at a loose thread. “He looks like me. If I want to make it with myself, I’ll jerk off in front of a mirror.”

“Hunter doesn’t look like you. He’s slick and sleazy, and you’re—” Hutch cut himself off, but knew, fatalistically, that it was already too late when Starsky’s head came up with a snap.

“I’m what?” Starsky whispered, his fingers stretching out along the back of the couch, but falling short of contact.

Gorgeous, Hutch thought, feeling the heat of those fingers even through the inches that separated them. Beautiful. An appellation he had applied, but never dared to speak aloud, even when he was alone with no one and nothing to overhear him but his plants.

This conversation had to end now. Hutch had seen Starsky on the make and knew just how successful at seduction his partner could be when he put his mind to it. Hutch swallowed down the hysterical laughter that tried to bubble out of his throat. Starsky wouldn’t have to put his mind to it, he admitted. The son of a bitch could seduce him with a sleepy, grouchy ‘good morning’. There had to be a way out of this that would convince Starsky, once and for all, that what he offered just wasn’t something Hutch had any interest in. Would ever be interested in.

Inspiration struck at long last, and Hutch grabbed for it. “You’re the Paul Muni type,” he reminded Starsky.

The intensity went out of Starsky then, taut lines of muscle softening visibly and even the emotion-charged blue of his eyes seeming to fade back a shade or two. He laughed, another mocking chuckle at his own expense. “I never should have told you about that.”

Hutch let a little air into his lungs then, and tried to take some of the edges off his blunt rejection. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me,” he promised, realizing belatedly that he had just put his foot down on a very unstable rock indeed.

“So are yours with me,” Starsky reminded him, the intensity back to about the power of ten. “No need to snap the arm off my couch, babe.”

Up until then, Hutch had been so busy trying to keep some semblance of a coherent connection open between his brain and his mouth—and failing miserably—that he had lost track of what the rest of his body was doing. Starsky’s mild observation made him realize that he was backed up into the corner of the couch, pressing hard enough into the arm to make it creak. He tried to force himself to relax, to push a depreciating croak of laughter out of his throat.

He had been so blind, so stupid, thinking he was only standing on the edge of an abyss, but this was far more dangerous. He was reacting like a cornered, frightened animal. Frightened of Starsky and hiding behind his half-truths and lies. And he couldn’t let it go on. This was a question of trust. Either he trusted Starsky with his truth, the whole truth, or he didn’t. And if he didn’t, the sundering he feared his love and desire might cause if he ever revealed them would happen anyway. It might happen years or months down the road instead of hours if he resisted Starsky’s blandishments now, but it would happen. Dishonesty would breed dishonesty until what they shared became no more stable than a delicately-balanced house of cards.

“If I was just lookin’ for a guy to fuck, I wouldn’t pick you, Hutch,” Starsky confessed with the honesty Hutch had been denying both of them. “I wouldn’t do that to us. I thought you knew that.”

And while Hutch was still groping through a brain turned to mush by panic, Starsky stood up and walked away. In a few moments, he was back to lay the extra pillow and blanket on the end of the couch he had vacated. “Night, buddy,” he said, voice still soft, eyes telling Hutch that the ball was now firmly lobbed into his court, and then he left.

Slowly, Hutch leaned forward, caught the edge of the pillowcase and dragged the blue material across the cushions until he could pull it into his lap. Everything he wanted, everything he had been denying himself, was only a few yards away, waiting for him to make what he knew could be the most important decision of his life.

Starsky knew. Even if Hutch hadn’t found the courage to give his partner the spoken truth, to lay it all out on the trust they had built over years of protection, compassion and caring, Starsky knew he was loved and wanted. There were no more secret places in his mind for Hutch to hide. Accepting the invitation to explore the possibilities, to learn in reality, in pleasure given and received, whether friend and brother could also truly be lover was, in the sudden way of such unexpected opportunities, within his grasp.

Hutch pulled the pillow to his chest, embracing the familiar scent of Starsky as it puffed from compressed down, the way he longed to embrace the man himself. Draw that personal aroma, and the mundane chemicals that tried to mask it, into his lungs, and let it overpower his senses. He could have it all, maybe only for tonight, but the offer had been made.

“For a sheep as a lamb,” he murmured, lips pressed against the cool, blue material while he listened to the soft sounds Starsky made in the bedroom. Sounds he had heard so many times in the past, sounds that had seemed to take the lumps out of the couch beneath him and eased him to sleep. The soft shush of discarded clothing falling to the floor, the crisp snap of the sheet, pulled back and discarded on such a hot night, the muted protests of metal springs as Starsky’s weight came to rest on the bed. Familiar sounds, with all new erotic meanings.

Discarding the pillow, replacing it with a two-handed grasp on his wavering courage, Hutch left the couch. He made it as far as the bedroom door, took in the tableau of Starsky waiting, propped on elbow and hip, unashamedly naked, an expression of wary welcome on his face, before Hutch’s courage began to squirm in his fists like a worm on a hook.

“The couch too much for your back tonight, babe?” Starsky asked, that same soft invitation in voice and eyes that had coaxed Hutch this far.

And yet, Hutch realized, Starsky was also offering him an out. One last bolt hole for Hutch to escape through. No questions asked. No recriminations in the morning. His eyes fell from that temptation, glanced off the long torso, ricocheted from flaccid genitals pushed to prominence by sturdy thighs, and came to rest on the chasm of carpet between him and the bed.

“It’s only a few feet, Hutch,” Starsky told him.

“Huh?” Hutch grunted, aching for a bridge, a tight-rope, anything that would carry him from here to there. He found the courage to look up and there was the offer of safe passage in the hand Starsky stretched out toward him.

“From where you are to where I am,” Starsky elaborated. “You need some help getting across?”

Hesitantly, Hutch stretched out his hand, moved on legs no longer taking direction from his brain but from his heart, until their fingertips brushed. Understanding that on this other side, whatever happened now or in the morning, this was the safest place he could ever hope to find, Hutch allowed himself to be reeled in, drawn down into arms that held him with delicate security against the body that was being entrusted to him.

“Are you sure, babe?” Hutch asked, his breath held so hard in his chest that the whisper of sound was all he could manage.

“Think so,” Starsky replied, giving Hutch all of his truth, the certainty and the hesitancy that seemed such a dichotomy and yet dwelled together quite comfortably on features Hutch had grown to hold dearer each day of the years they had spent together. “Sometimes it seems I’ve done nothing but think since you told me. Running around what it means to me until, you know, sort of out of the blue, it hit me. There’s only one place I’m ever happy in this whole world.”

“In the Torino?” Hutch asked, in nervousness of his own, and in a habit acquired to protect Starsky from the discomfort of a soapy scene, even one of his own creation.

Starsky gave him a crooked grin, his fingers finding a grip in Hutch’s hair that held him fast and yet caused no pain. “No. Right here, Hutch. Right where I am now. In your arms. It’s the only place where, no matter what, I know I’ll always be safe.”

“Starsk, I….” Hutch let his objection fade into silence when Starsky’s hand left his hair, settled on his shoulder and squeezed hard, just once, and then eased.

“Hey, come on, Hutch,” Starsky admonished gently. “I might never have been down this road before, but I’m nobody’s fool. I know there’s a world of difference between feeling safe in your arms and wanting into your jeans. But you make me feel things I never knew I could feel for another guy.”

The hand left Hutch’s shoulder, traced a feather-light caress up his neck and settled, flat-palmed along his jaw. “I’m scared, Hutch, but I need you to show me what’s behind door number three.”

The last of Hutch’s hesitation faded. Whether he was opening the door into a new future entirely or only upon one night when fantasy could become reality, he wasn’t about to play the self-sacrificing fool any longer. He slid his hand into in Starsky’s hair and used the tender grip to tip the stubborn jaw up so he could attack the prominent Adams’ apple that had so often tempted him. He followed the peak with his lips as Starsky swallowed, down to the shadowed hollow beneath where he savored the iron salt tang of sweat on his tongue. Craving more, he lapped a trail along the cleanly shaven throat, until he could brush aside damp curls with his nose and lay claim to the too-often hidden lobe of Starsky’s ear. He latched on, feeling the effect of the sweet suction he offered in the sudden arch of Starsky’s body against him, hearing the sting of the edges of his teeth in Starsky’s deep-throated groan in his own ears.

He could have lingered here an hour, leisurely seeking out each tiny morsel of response before mapping a route to the undiscovered island of the nerve juncture hiding behind the lobe, but his hands had plans of their own. While his lips were busy charting ear and throat, his fingers had found satin skin over the hard bone of Starsky’s shoulder and the curving hill of the pectoral muscle. The discovery tempted his lips to this new playground, his tongue foraging a damp trail through the forest of silky hair to the sudden rough patch of the crinkled areola. He circled it, memorizing each tiny bump, anticipating the moment his lips would close over the hard peak at its center, his teeth….

“Hey!” Hutch protested, yanked from anticipation into denial as Starsky pulled away, but allowing himself to be pushed onto his back.

A hand planted on either side of Hutch’s ears, Starsky loomed over him, then the mattress swayed at his waist as Starsky swung a leg over him, straddling his groin and then settling the lush naked ass on Hutch’s denim clad thighs. Fingers tugged at his t-shirt, pulled it free from his waistband. Obligingly, Hutch arched his back and then lifted his arms to allow it to be dragged over his head.

“Think you’ve forgotten how to kick down a door, partner,” Starsky complained as he tossed the t-shirt aside. “You thinkin’ it to death again, babe?”

The memory telegraphed between them as their eyes met. An air-tight room. Hutch calculating the remaining minutes of their lives, while Starsky went about the practical business of setting them free.

“So impatient,” Hutch chastised gently, as Starsky grinned his cocky smile.

Then Starsky reached for his jeans, fingers brushing his belly, and Hutch realized the confidence was a sham. Those fingers were trembling, the thumb hesitant as it rubbed a warming circle into the metal snap before fumbling it free with a tiny, sharp pop.

“Got a plan, babe?” Hutch asked gently.

“Kinda winging it,” Starsky confessed, thumb and finger gathering up the tab on the zipper and hesitating again. “Think I’m a little outta my league here.”

Hutch covered the hand that waited at his groin with his own. “It’s just you and me, Starsk,” he reassured him as he slowly pushed down, feeling the zipper scrape against the sensitive skin of this trapped cock as it was eased open, tooth by tooth.

“Nothing to prove?” Starsky asked, anxious nerves retreating in the face of the unity Hutch was evoking.

“No tape to break,” Hutch assured him, taking his hand away as the zipper hit its stop, waiting patiently for Starsky to decide whether to take the next step alone, to turn the fingers whose backs rested against his now bared cock and grasp it, or to let Hutch continue to lead. Waited and waited. Letting Starsky’s gaze slip away from his, feeling it flow downward over his naked torso to where his cock filled the gap in his jeans.

“Outta briefs, too?” Starsky asked, eyes wide, quick, panting breaths tickling warmly on Hutch’s belly, making him want to squirm.

“Guess you had me pretty rattled,” Hutch confessed, a gasp punctuating the admission mid-way as warmth brushed up his cock delicately and then circled its girth in a deliberate grip on the down stroke. He forced himself to stay still as Starsky explored his erection, inexperienced fingers seeking out sensitive nerve junctures, testing and retesting the familiarity of the turgid shaft and the unknown quantity of his retracting foreskin.

Fantasy come to life. Starsky stroking the center of his need until, finding a store of impatience of his own, Hutch reached out and found an equal grip on hard flesh, explored in tandem what he had only before imagined. A fantasy too far removed from him.

Deserting the throbbing cock, demanding the same abandonment of his own, Hutch found an uncertain grip on Starsky’s sweat-sleek shoulder and drew him down, arching up to meet the heat and weight, the thrust and glide, as Starsky settled over him. They found a rhythm of push and press. Laboring lungs panted a melody of sensation while the percussion of bed springs sang a counterpoint. The music abruptly silenced as Hutch felt the first pulse, deep inside him, heralding, echoing the same heady beat that throbbed against him. Backs arched, breath stilled, the edge of the abyss Hutch had so feared crumbled away and they fell into the mindless pit of climax together.

Hutch couldn’t breathe. And he loved it. If he never again took a deep, lung-filling breath in his life, Hutch wouldn’t care. Not if it meant Starsky would stay right were he was, his dead weight pressing Hutch into the mattress that could yield only so far. Forever. Forever of being surrounded by Starsky, securely pinned, every nerve still twanging with pleasure shared.

Forever, that predictably, given Starsky’s restless nature, lasted only a minute or two. Hutch tried to prolong it with a two-armed embrace and a husky reassurance. “It’s okay. I like your weight on me.”

“Lay on you next time,” Starsky promised. “Gotta let me move, Hutch, ’cause your zipper is trying to castrate me.”

Hutch released him as if his arms were spring loaded, holding himself very still as Starsky eased off to the side, carefully removing precious, threatened organs from harm’s way.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, sitting up, unsure whether to try to refasten his jeans or struggle free of them. Uncertain, now that he had opened the door and let Starsky delve into the mysteries behind it, whether he was supposed to stay or go. He felt a hand encircle his wrist and found the courage to let his eyes caress the arm up to Starsky’s expectant face.

“Next time,” Starsky said, the emphasis he placed on the two words reminding Hutch that they were an echo from only a moment before. “Get naked first.”

Laughing, Hutch broke free of the gentle grip, hurriedly shucked out of his jeans, and went into the arms that were opened to him. Face to face, limbs entwined in an intricate Chinese puzzle and sticky, lax organs nestled together again, Hutch let himself revel in the reality of Starsky in his arms. Not for comfort’s sake, but with their bodies still tingling with spent passion, stroking fingers and the smooth slide of skin on skin whispering their own unspoken promises.

“Can I ask you something, Hutch?” Starsky murmured, breaking the question into several, single-word parts with kisses like commas to Hutch’s shoulder and throat.

“Just did,” Hutch teased, and felt the brief retaliation of sharp teeth on his skin before Starsky eased back to look at him.

“Doesn’t…?” Starsky hesitated, teeth catching at his bottom lip.

Gently, Hutch pried the trapped lip free with his thumb. “Doesn’t what?” he asked, no longer fearing what might be let loose by his prompting.

“You didn’t kiss me,” Starsky pointed out. “Do I hafta knock on some other door for that?”

Hutch slipped his hand into the curls at the back of Starsky’s head, securing what he suspected would quickly become a favored grip. But no force was necessary to tip Starsky’s chin, no coercion needed to part the willing lips in expectation. Slowly, Hutch claimed them, tasting a moment’s hesitation and then the eager blooming, as what perhaps should have been their first act of sexual intimacy, became a loving and tender exploration, free of the urgency of passion. When he eased away uncounted minutes later, Hutch was glad they had saved this special promise for last.

Next time, Hutch thought with satisfied expectation. And the time after that, and the time after that. Heaven didn’t hold anything Hutch could think of that he didn’t hold in his arms right now.

“Ah, Hutch. I can’t sleep on my right,” Starsky complained.

“Hmmm. Trouble in paradise already,” Hutch said with only a small degree of surprise. “Neither can I.”

“S’Okay,” Starsky reassured him, rolling away, but reaching back to drag Hutch with him, taking uncompromising possession of his hand and tucking it comfortably against his belly.

“TV’s still on,” Hutch reminded him as he caught the murmur of sound from the living room. “And the lights, too.”

“Won’t be the first time it’s played all night,” Starsky countered. “And the lights, too. You aren’t getting up. And neither am I.”

“Pillow’s out there, too,” Hutch teased.

“You aren’t getting up,” Starsky repeated, the hand that held Hutch’s captive tugging at him. “Come on over here and you can share mine.”

Hutch let the insistent pull draw him through the few inches that separated them, feeling the slight hesitation as his cock settled against Starsky’s ass, before the imprisoning fingers weaved into his and squeezed.

“That curtain number four?” Starsky asked, an easy blend of uncertainty and anticipation in his voice.

“Well, maybe five or six,” Hutch cautioned.

An eloquent, full-bodied shrug telegraphed Starsky’s opinion before he set himself more firmly against Hutch. Silence settled in with him, easing Hutch toward sleep, the deepening rise and fall beneath his hand assuring him that Starsky was drifting with him.

“Hutch?”

Hutch roused himself enough to hum a sleepy, “Uhm hmmmm?”

“Am I really the Paul Muni type?”

Hutch burrowed through the matted curls until he could kiss the vulnerable nape of Starsky’s neck. “Uh, huh.”

“Oh.”

Hutch smiled, knowing Starsky could feel the curve of his lips against his damp skin. “Didn’t I ever tell you, Starsk, I love Paul Muni.”

Starsky was still for a moment, even the press and release of his breathing against Hutch chest stilling. Then, soft and assured, “I love you, too, Hutch.”

The End