Still Life with Beer and Pretzels

Hutch is mourning Gillian and wondering what to do next. Starsky is right beside him.

Written for twenty minute challenge. Prompt words nurse and suck.

Starsky crunched a pretzel, watching Hutch nurse his long neck bottle like a starving infant at the breast. In under a minute, he’d drunk the whole beer.

“Got something on your mind?” Starsky asked, feigning casual.

“I don’t get it.” Hutch sighed. “I miss her like crazy. Mourn the woman I was in love with, but that wasn’t Gillian, was it?”

Trying hard to stay in a moderate space, Starsky shook his head. “I think you loved who she wanted to be.”

“This happens over and over again.” Hutch looked down at the empty bottle and signaled Huggy’s waitress for a second round.

Starsky had barely touched his first. He felt like it was better to have one of them stay sober.

“I see a woman—a gorgeous woman.” He sighed as Anita slid another cold one under his arm. “With the works; brains, beauty, poise—but none of them are…” He sucked the beer down, half the contents disappearing in a single swallow. “The person I thought they were. Not Van, Jeannie, Abby, Gillian… and probably half a dozen others. Is it my fault?”

“Maybe…” Starsky shrugged, breaking a pretzel in half and placing part in Hutch’s open palm. Maybe a little salt and dried bread would soak up some of the alcohol. “You’re looking in the wrong place?”

“Where…” Hutch raised his head, blue eyes widening as he stared into Starsky’s eyes. “How can I…” He seemed to notice the pretzel for the first time and chewed for a moment. Taking more, he stuffed them into his mouth.

Starsky did the same, waiting him out. Didn’t do to push Hutch for answers. They were both sad that Gillian was murdered, but, he suspected, for entirely different reasons. Hutch had been in the classic romantic aura he got when he was in love. He and Gillian had spent the last month entwined, yet apparently not always in sexual bliss. They’d communed—but it had been barely thirty days. On top of Abby’s less than frequent appearances. Starsky wasn’t sure if she and Hutch had actually broken up or if Hutch had replaced her. Only time will tell, but he felt that Abby was on the way out, too.

Was this the time to establish his claim? He and Hutch had spent far longer than a month together. Had endured long nights crammed in the car on a stake-out, talking about every subject under the sun. He’d never really liked Gillian, if he were to confess honestly, although he couldn’t have explained why.

Jealousy that she had Hutch and he didn’t? He hadn’t felt that way about Abby. Probably because he never really saw Abby and Hutch as a long term couple. The less said about some of Hutch’s other conquests the better.

So what made him think he had a chance here? Being male seemed to be the biggest draw-back.

Or maybe not?

“You?” Hutch said very softly. Bruce Springsteen warbling on the jukebox nearly drowned him out.

“Me, what?” Starsky asked, the pretzel he’d been toying with shattering when he tightened his fist. Crumbs littered his jeans. Hutch’s eyes compelled him and he was undone.

“Maybe, I look somewhere else?” Hutch whispered. “At you?”

“Me.” Starsky inhaled, the edge of whatever he was standing on a dangerous fall into another world.

“Thing is.” Hutch placed a pretzel into Starsky’s hand. A present. “What if I fail? What if you—” He sounded choked up. “What if you’re hurt, you di…”

“Won’t happen.” Starsky clasped his hand, the pretzel crunching between them. “Because we already know we’re together. This would only change things…”

“For the better,” Hutch promised. “Cause I think it’s you I need.”

“I already knew I needed you.”

FIN