The Frog and the Mouse

842

Starsky went a-courtin’…

 

Inspired by the M&T Frog Challenge. Thanks to CC and LS for their super beta skills.

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“Froggie went a’courtin and he did ride, mhmm.”

Starsky was drunk.

“Froggie went a’courtin and he did ride, mhmmm!”

Not only was he drunk, he was an obnoxious drunk.

“Froggie went a’courtin and he did ride, Froggie went a’courtin and he did ride…”

More than to any other persons, obnoxious drunks appear most obnoxious to their less-inebriated counterparts. Especially when said counterparts got stuck driving the obnoxious drunks home in their even more obnoxious vehicles, which just so happened to resemble large, striped produce.

Hutch attempted, yet again, to tune out Starsky’s enthusiastic, if not entirely on-key, serenade. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, as somewhere between 5th and Temple his partner had decided to introduce choreography to the performance. Composed of a series of complicated hand gestures that resembled nothing so much as a lot of flailing (in Hutch’s own, unbiased opinion), the frequency of their successful execution appeared to relate in direct inverse proportion to their elaborateness, which had led to Hutch nearly getting his eye poked out.

Twice.

He’d been listening to his own personal troubadour (stuck on repeat) and ducking the occasional errant limb for a good twenty minutes now, which was approximately the time it took to get from the bar to Starsky’s place.

Sometimes Hutch thought Starsky should think about moving closer to the bar.

“Fe-r-r-roggie went a’courtin and he did ride, ohh yeah!”

Hutch sighed and pulled into the lane in front of Starsky’s building. It was going to be a hell of a thing navigating his partner up the stairs if Starsky didn’t have full command over his own appendages. Judging by how well he was currently expressing his musical message via the corporeal arts…he did not.

He stared for a moment at the staircase, attempting to formulate a plan for just how, exactly, he was going to transport both himself and 170 pounds of uncooperative – if not fully incapacitated – flesh up at least fourteen steps, when the car’s sudden silence filtered through to his awareness.

A glance to the passenger seat revealed that his partner (who had proclaimed, earlier in the evening, “Me ‘n him, we’re unstippab- unstabbab- we don’t quit. Ain’t that right, Hutschh?”) had finally, finally, quit, and was now curled against the door, head tilted against the glass, lazily blinking out into the welcoming arms of slumber.

Oh no, you don’t. Not ’til we’re upstairs, at least.

He reached out to nudge Starsky awake. “Come on, buddy. Can’t get you up there without some help.”

Starsky wrinkled his nose and turned further toward the door. “Sure…can. You’re big ‘n shh…” he trailed off, murmuring something indistinct against the window.

Hutch rolled his eyes and prodded Starsky again. He’d be damned if he was going to have to carry the man. “Fine, I can get you up there alone, but I’m gonna feel a lot less friendly if you don’t help.”

“Not fren’ly, huh?” Starsky blinked again, once, twice, then slowly shifted into a sitting position, where he paused, slightly wobbling. “Not good when friends aren’t friendly. ‘S not…”

Hutch had, for one brief, shining moment, the sincerest hope that Starsky would be able to stay upright.

Then Starsky flopped over into his lap.

Hutch managed to throw out a quick arm to prevent Starsky’s head from connecting with the steering wheel (despite any conflicting thoughts he might have had about whether or not it would be deserved if it happened, he was, after all, a good friend), which resulted in him ending up with both arms full of the warm, boneless weight of his partner.

“Whooops.” Starsky didn’t seem very concerned with his sudden change in position, and simply tipped himself the rest of the way onto his back, grinning happily up at Hutch. His shoulders wiggled over Hutch’s thigh, pressing in with tempting heat and solidity until he seemed to find a more comfortable position, where he relaxed into full sprawl. Then he started humming a familiar tune.

“Christ, Starsk, get off.”

He wasn’t going to spend the night in the car with Starsky’s head in his lap.

Wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t.

Hutch struggled to push Starsky back into his own seat, but the body in his arms, pliable though it was, proved impossible to move.

“But ‘m comf’table. I mean, you are. Somebody’s comf’table…” Starsky laughed and wiggled again, as if to prove his point.

Hutch sucked in a quick breath, and tried to think of a reasonable explanation as to why his partner couldn’t spend the night using him for a mattress. Beyond the obvious, that was.

For the love of…

“Comfortable or not, you can’t spend the night here. Think of your neighbors…they come down tomorrow morning, see you dozing in your car…. What’ll they think, huh? You want to look like you’ve been evicted?”

He should have known better than to try to use logic when Starsky was in this state. Hell, he should know better than to try to use logic on Starsky in any state, but logic and a drunken Starsky were an especially useless combination.

“Screw ’em. Prob’ly jus’ jealous…don’ have a pillow this big.” Starsky turned his head further toward him, looking like he was about to snuggle his face in against Hutch’s stomach.

Oh, Jesus, no. This wasn’t happening to him.

“Hey, hey, buddy, eyes up here,” Hutch snapped his fingers in the air, desperately hoping to distract Starsky into being more awake and moving away from the dangerous territory he was already in.

Starsky didn’t take the bait, instead starting to nuzzle his nose into Hutch’s belly. Hutch could feel Starsky’s breath through his shirt, hot against his skin.

Christ.

Knowing he’d probably regret it, Hutch asked the only thing he could think would capture Starsky’s flagging interest in remaining conscious. “What happened to your song, pal? You were having a fine old time with it a few minutes ago.”

That seemed to grab Starsky’s attention. He turned back up to squint at Hutch’s snapping fingers, briefly pawing at them with a lazy hand before blinking widely, as if trying to wake up. The effect was slightly compromised by the accompanying yawn, but Hutch couldn’t complain. At least Starsky wasn’t trying to nestle against him anymore.

“Hey, Hushhh-” Starsky paused, looking confused. He tried again: “Hutsch. You know any of the other verses?” His gaze drifted away from Hutch during the question, floating along the ceiling of the car before settling on his own hands, which he seemed startled to find in front of his face. Once the surprise passed, Starsky started humming the godforsaken song again, turning his hands in slow, careful shapes through the moonlit dark.

“Sure hope you don’t,” Hutch muttered, trying again to move Starsky up and off. His efforts were futile. The man had somehow grown even heavier since the last attempt, and seemed unbothered by Hutch’s motions to displace him. He just kept humming and moving his hands.

After several more attempts, each as useless as the last, Hutch finally gave up.

He bowed his head over the too-welcome weight in his lap, draping an arm across Starsky’s chest. “What am I gonna do with you, huh?”

Starsky looked up from his hands, tilting his head back so he could look at Hutch.

Hutch had expected Starsky’s gaze to be unfocused, bleary from the drink and want of sleep.

It wasn’t.

Something flickered behind Starsky’s eyes, and then he was reaching up with one curiously steady finger.

The finger rose before Hutch’s face. It hesitated only briefly, then softly touched the tip of his nose.

Oh, don’t…

The gesture was odd, strangely meaningful, and uniquely Starsky.

Hutch fought not to close his eyes and give in to it.

The finger did not retreat, hovering against his skin with the lightest, gentlest pressure.

Starsk, don’t do this…

“Miss Mousey, will you marry me?”

It should have been a joke. Any other time, place, it would have been a joke, and Hutch would have known what to say, what he was supposed to do.

But Starsky’s voice was low, the words quiet and unslurred, and Hutch suddenly forgot to breathe. He swallowed hard against the spark of something that flared up in his chest. Starsky didn’t sound drunk, but he knew…he knew that if….

They stared at each other for a long moment, until Hutch remembered he was supposed to say something.

Not here, not here, not like this -I can’t, you don’t…

The words died in his throat.

“I don’t, I don’t think Dobey’d, uh, be as lenient as Uncle Rat, buddy,” Hutch forced out the joke, stumbling over what he didn’t want to say, what he knew he had to.

Starsky’s eyes held him for a minute, searching, and then the Something behind them flickered again and disappeared completely. The hand dropped.

“Yeah. Guess you’re right.” His face smoothed back into a drunken blank, and the spark in Hutch’s chest went out. Starsky turned his head away, muttering something down into the footwell.

Hutch thought it sounded something like, “Never heard of a frog and a mouse bein’ happy, ‘nyway.”

The quiet stretched on in the dark of the car for several long minutes. Hutch could hear the muted chirping from the crickets outside. Neither of them moved.

Then, abruptly, Starsky was struggling up into his seat, bringing a hand to his forehead with a wince. “Jesus. My head.”

That was enough of a signal for both of them.

Hutch helped Starsky out of the car and up into his apartment. He found the bottle of aspirin and a glass of water and gave them both to Starsky, who took them into his bedroom with a quiet nod and a closed door.

Hutch slept on the sofa. Just in case.

In the morning, he made eggs, and Starsky, cursing all the while, drank a lot of water and tried not to be sick. They chatted about any number of things to which frogs and mice could be in no way relevant, and things seemed to go back to normal.

More or less.

—

Froggie went a-courtin’, and he did ride
Sword and pistol by his side
He rode up to Miss Mousey’s door
Where he had often been before
He took Miss Mousey on his knee
Said, “Miss Mousey, will you marry me?”
“Without my Uncle Rat’s consent
I would not marry the president.”

-Traditional folk song