Kid’s Game

3

A fight between Starsky and Hutch brings Hutch to a realization that he can’t wait to share with Starsky.

 

Originally published in the zine Nightline, a slash Starsky and Hutch anthology edited by April Valentine in 1986.

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It was a kid’s song,  but he knew it.

One, two, buckle my shoe

Eight years since I first met you.

Three, four, shut the door

Six years ago, we needed more.

Five, six, pick up sticks

Lovers, yet we had our tricks.

Seven, eight, lay them straight

No more games, you are are my fate.

The high, childish voices faded behind him as he continued up the street, determined to finish his run, feet pounding on the pavement in rubber-soled rhythm.

No more games; you are my fate.

If it was so easy to make alternate rhymes of their lives, why was he out in the street running off his anger? Habit, he conceded wryly. Developed during those vicious fights with Van, forgotten during the years of living alone, but ingrained enough to reappear at the first sign of trouble.

He smiled and slowed his pace a little. He wasn’t even that angry. The damned apartment was just too small for the two of them, and after five months of living together, it was no wonder he and Starsky were both a little edgy. It had been his own surprising thought that maybe they should start looking for a house that had panicked him.

Eight years of loving and six years of being lovers should have brought them to that point sooner than later, but it had been so easy to just keep on keeping on. Every once in a while one or the other of them had gotten involved enough with a female to make the idea of commitment ludicrous; but inevitably they had always come together again, sharing a passion that neither could find with anyone else. Why shouldn’t they live together, make it official by buying a home?

Why not?

He shrugged and headed back. Only halfway to the park, and ready to go back and pop the question. He felt slightly sorry for poor Starsky, who was probably impatiently waiting to take up the argument where they, or more accurately he, had left off. Certainly not expecting a marriage proposal.

One, two, buckle my shoe.
Come live with me and be my love.

It didn’t rhyme, but that was what he wanted.

He slowed briefly, checking out a peculiar pair of day-glo tennis shoes attached to the bus stop bench occupant. The owner, seen mostly as a pair of outstretched legs, had to be a relative of Starsky’s. How many men would wear such garish footwear and raggedy jeans?

Hutch jogged backward, suddenly interested enough in the footwear to qualify as a shoe fetishist. Those shoes were exactly like Starsky’s favorite sneakers, and they were certainly small enough to fit.

They were small enough. The jeans were faded enough, and the sun-reddened curls were tumbled enough. Hutch just stared down at the bent head for a moment Lately, it seemed as though he could never get his fill of looking at Starsky. Somehow the man, never exactly hard on the eyes, had turned beautiful. Always too thin—after the shooting, never able to keep the needed weight on—but always beautiful.

Even now, mouth set in a sulky line, head obstinately lowered, clearly avoiding Hutch’s gaze, he was beautiful. Everything about him—except for the small duffel bag tilting awkwardly off the side of the bench.

“What’s this ?”

Stubborn silence, and Hutch prodded the bag with a size 13 Nike. “I said, what’s this?”

“It’s a bag., dummy! What’s it look like?” Starsky stared down the empty street, ostentatiously searching for nonexistent transportation.

Hutch eased down onto the bench, judging to a nicety just how close he could sit before his partner would edge away.

“Waiting for a bus?”

“Yeah,” Starsky snapped, chin jutting belligerently and, in Hutch’s admittedly biased opinion, adorably. Hutch wanted to pick up the rigid body and cuddle it on his lap, but even his sudden lack of concern for the proprieties wouldn’t allow that. Instead he turned sideways, resting one arm along the bench back behind Starsky.

“Going anywhere in particular?”

“Nope.”

“Just running away from home?” Hutch teased gently, and was rewarded with a sudden flush of color. He couldn’t resist pushing aside the tumbled curls to see whether Starsky had blushed all the way to his ears.

He had, and the longer the silence endured, the darker the blush became.

Hutch tilted the shamed face toward him, and watched the tear-suffused eyes carefully until the familiar turned up smile curved crazily toward one cheek. Starsky swiped at his eyes, managing only to bead the thick lashes, and sniffed. Then he grinned and nodded.

”Yeah, but I’m not allowed to cross the street.”

Impossible not to touch then, and one hand brushed over a cheek, a gentle stroke that somehow turned into a caress. One finger crept out to trace the trembling lips…and to hell with what the world would think.

“You could come home with me, little boy.”

Dark lashes flickered down demurely, almost hiding the laughing glance, as Starsky shook his head.

“Can’t. My mother told me never to go anywhere with a stranger…’specially a mean stranger.”

Hutch nodded in agreement, solemn expression matched by the “never again” promise in his eyes.

“Oh, I’m not him.” His wayward hand had managed to tangle itself in the sun-warmed hair, so he tugged at one curl until Starsky looked up at him. “He had a temper tantrum—”

Low mutter of: “No shit!” but Hutch ignored it.

“Held his breath, turned blue, and died,” he finished smugly.

If it was possible to have straight-faced giggles, Starsky was doing it and trying to avoid that inquisitive hand all at the same time.

“We’re in public,” he hissed. “Somebody’ll see you!”

“So?”

“So, you aren’t comfortable anyplace but in the closet.”

“No.” Hutch felt a stab of guilty regret for all that he had put Starsky through, for all the silly baggage of the past that he had carried into their lives, but there was no way he was going to break this special mood they had created just to indulge in one of his instant depressions. “He did, but he’s dead, remember?”

“Forever?”

“I don’t know, my love. Right now there doesn’t seem to be any way for him to come back, but that son of a bitch shows up at the damndest times.”

“Oh, well,” Starsky nipped at the finger circling his lips. “I s’pose I can always keep runnin’ away.”

“I suppose,” Hutch agreed slowly, suddenly frightened.

“Unless—” wicked sapphire gleam, “—I can find a policeman to take me home. My mother said a policeman would always help me. Do you know where I can find a cop, Mr. Man?”

“How about an ex-cop.”

“I don’t know,” Starsky replied, sober gaze indicating that the joke was over for the now. “Ex-cops don’t seem to like the way I live. My music’s too loud, my TV shows are stupid… Don’t seem like I’ve got the smarts to hang out with some ex-cops.”

Hutch tried to still the trembling of his hands. For all his bright, sunny temperament, Starsky could go into tailspins that shut out the world Hutch included. The trauma of the shooting had sent him into a downward spiral that had excluded almost everyone, but Hutch had been allowed to stay, allowed to be there and hold Starsky when he was hurting. Yet, it wasn’t impossible that he could lose his David Michael over one lousy ABBA album.

“The days get real long, Hutch,” Starsky continued seriously. “I can’t drive, can’t work a job, can’t—” Starsky paused and looked away. “I get—to the place where I hate that damn apartment…and everything in it. I know what I do irritates you sometimes and I know you’ve got to study. But…god, Hutch, I can’t even go for a run! Maybe we should—”

“So,” Hutch interrupted quickly before Starsky could say anything that might make matters worse, “how’d you like to spend some time house hunting?”

Starsky’s head jerked around, disbelief and complete astonishment in his eyes. “A house?”

“Only if…if,” Hutch stammered, not quite believing that this could be so hard. “If you’ll promise me—”

“Promise you what?” Starsky coaxed, voice husky with tears.

“Forever.” Come live with me and be my love. “I’m asking you to marry me, David.”

“Marry? We…it’s not legal,” Starsky protested in bewilderment. “We can’t have that.”

“We can have everything but the paperwork,” Hutch offered shyly. “In sickness and in health…forsaking all others…til death do us part. We can have everything but a family—”

“You’re my family,” Starsky whispered. “You always have been.”

“Then—?”

“Let me look at you.”

It was strange to feel those eyes staring at him, through him, as though Starsky could see into his soul. Strange and vaguely frightening—there were things in him he never wanted anybody to see.

Starsky sighed deeply, body going so limp it seemed as though he might slide off the bench; then he smiled, a smile of contentment so strong it was unmistakable. As he opened his mouth to speak, the bus roared up, noxious fumes enveloping the bus stop. Over squealing brakes and squeaking doors, the driver roared, “Step on it, buddy—haven’t got all day.”

“I do,” Starsky hollered back, waving the bus off. He turned to Hutch and said it again.

“I do.

“And,” he said briskly, abrupt tones totally negated by the shining happiness in his face, “if you take me right home, I’ll show you how much I really do. It’s gonna be strange though,” he continued, “havin’ to come back to a bus stop every year to celebrate our anniversary. What made you choose this place?”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Hutch replied, hearing the children’s voices more clearly as they headed back to the apartment.

Patty cake, patty cake
Baker’s man
Make me a cake as fast as you can
Pat it and prick it and mark it with a D
And put it in the oven for David Miahael and me.

“You really wouldn’t believe it.”