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“Think they stood us up?” Starsky asks, his brows knitted together and lips pursed, moody. “We said six, didn’t we? It’s six-thirty. Everyone else at that party will have a date. Maybe we shouldn’t have suggested The Pits.”
“Hey now,” Huggy objects. “I don’t believe I just heard you insult this fine establishment of mine.”
“Is that what you call it?” Starsky bites back. And then, in a conspiratorial whisper, eyes flashing to the side to make sure no one other than Huggy or Hutch is near enough to overhear. “Look, I’ve had a streak of rotten luck with the ladies these past couple of weeks—”
“Longer than that, partner.” Hutch grins at him. He’s nonplussed about their missing dates. Not that it wouldn’t be pleasant to have someone to squeeze on at Minnie’s Halloween party. It’s just fun to see Starsky so riled, and maybe this way they can skip the party entirely. Holidays designed to sell candy and spirits and useless junk like the rubber bats hanging in Starsky’s windows at home offend Hutch’s sensibilities. Starsky’s already given Hutch enough crap about his ‘costume’ (Why would Hutch need to go out and buy something else when he has all the pieces to a serviceable cowpoke outfit ready to go?), and Hutch is just about ready to call it a night. He’d like to go home and lay on the couch, let Starsky put something inane on his TV, maybe drink a mug of tea to counteract the sugary treats Starsky has already coerced him into eating. Change out of their stupid Halloween party getups. Not that Starsky’s excuse for a Halloween costume, a Bay City baseball uniform, doesn’t make his ass look damn good. And the cap forced on over his curls is cute.
Starsky finishes his rant. “—but if these two broads pass on Hutch, they really have no sense.”
“Maybe the Huggy Bear Halloween Special can cheer you two up.” Huggy offers, pointing his fingers up at the ceiling as if he can magic two drinks up that way, and then rushes off to find his bartender.
“Just another beer, Hug-- Hug!” Starsky rolls his eyes.
Hutch catches Starsky’s eye, flustered despite himself. “You think we both wouldn’t get stood up?”
“How often does it happen to you, Blondie?”
Hutch frowns, thinking. “Not often.”
“Mm-hm,” Starsky hums, as if his point is made.
“But you’re…” Hutch makes a gesture with his hands, reaching for words he can’t grasp. “You’re...you look good, Starsk. Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
Before Starsky can respond, Huggy is back with their drinks. He sets a couple of martini glasses filled with a smoking orange liquid down in front of them with an especially satisfied expression on his face. There’s a bright orange flower floating in each glass.
“This even edible?” Starsky asks.
“Nasturtium,” says Hutch. “Tastes peppery. Perfectly safe. But the smoke, Huggy?”
“Dry ice. Just don’t knock ‘em back and it’ll be long gone before you get to it,” Huggy says cheerfully.
“What else is in it?” Starsky lifts his drink up to sniff it and then takes a tiny sip. “Fruit. And whiskey? That’s strong. ”
“I call it our Cognac Cauldon. That's passionfruit you taste. First drink’s on the house, gentlemen, and then they’re one dollar a pop.” Huggy disappears with a wink, turning away to converse with another patron.
Hutch takes a sip, and then two more. The drink’s a bit on the sweet side, for him, but Starsky was right about the alcohol content. There’s already a pleasant buzz at the base of his skull. Hutch loosens the handkerchief tied around his throat.
“You like it?” Starsky asks, and takes a longer drink of his. “It’s growing on me.”
“It’s alright,” Hutch allows, resisting the urge to give his glass a swirl. No matter what Huggy gets up to distilling, he never brews anything that warrants a swirl.
“Are passionfruits orange?”
“Dark purple,” Hutch says, “I grew a vine of them for a while.” A sore point — it had been a failed project despite his best efforts. “The pulp is orange. You’re supposed to loosen it from the skin and then pour it in your mouth.” Hutch mimes the motion, knocking back an imaginary fruit, and then at Starsky’s unconvinced look: “Like an oyster.”
“Oh,” Starsky nods. “Is that why it’s called passionfruit?”
“Hm?”
“Because it looks like....”
Hutch chokes on his next sip. “No. No that’s — oysters don’t—”
Starsky quirks an eyebrow. “Guess you haven’t seen as many oysters as me, Hutchinson.”
Hutch doesn’t bother to hide his reflexive eye-roll. “Maybe you’d keep more dates if you had a little more tact.”
“ Tact ?”
“Respect. Discretion. Class.”
Starsky isn’t chastened in the slightest. He’s smirking, the sort of smirk that threatens to turn into a full-on grin at any moment. “That’s what women see in you? Class?”
It’s bait, but Hutch takes it. “More than you’ve got.”
“Do you tuck a napkin in your shirt before you—”
“Starsk.”
“What? I wanna know how a guy with class goes about it.”
“For the love of—”
“Is there a wine pairing?”
Hutch snorts, his veneer of righteous outrage cracking in two, and then tries to drown his mirth in his drink. When he glances Starsky’s way again over the rim of his glass, Starsky fixes Hutch with those dark blue eyes of his, practically sparkling even in the lowlight of The Pits, and then he looks Hutch up and down, and Hutch swears Starsky’s gaze lingers a little on his lips when Hutch licks them clean of sweet alcoholic residue. Well, Hutch is no coward, so he checks Starsky out right back.
Starsky’s face is more familiar to Hutch than the face of Hutch’s mother. So how is it that whenever Hutch looks too long, those familiar lines make his stomach catch? Like the floor has dropped out from under him. Hutch falters first, turning back to his drink to escape the weight of Starsky’s observation. It’s really not bad, the drink. He might want a second. There’s a crack in the bartop under his glass and he moves it to the side, studying the condensation that’s already pooled in the fissure. The dry ice in his glass isn’t disappearing as fast as Huggy promised, so Hutch bides his time by plucking out the nasturtium and eating that.
First: the taste of the sweet liquor clinging to the blossom, then the soft shearing of paper-thin petals between his teeth, and finally a radish-like punch of flavor. Hutch swallows and runs his tongue over his teeth, ensuring the absence of bright orange plant matter.
“You’re not puttin’ me on, right?” Starsky murmurs, more to himself than Hutch, but Hutch looks up anyway as Starsky lowers his own nasturtium flower into his mouth. And then grunts — a droplet of his drink is running down his hand.
Hutch’s hand closes around Starsky’s wrist and turns his palm up before he thinks it through, before he thinks anything. Starsky’s thumb and fingertip are faintly shiny where he plucked the flower from his drink, and a liquor trail going down the side of his thumb shines in the light, the droplet fat and sparkling almost at the point where Hutch’s hand is clamped around his wrist. Hutch tugs Starsky’s hand close and lowers his face to it. His lips close on the lost drop of Starsky’s drink and then his tongue traces its path in reverse, slowly. Starsky’s sweat goes to Hutch’s head faster than any alcohol, and when Starsky tugs his hand back, Hutch wobbles on his stool, off-balance. And then Hutch snaps back to himself, mortified.
No one else in the room seems to be looking in their direction, all the way at the end of the bar, but Jesus . He might as well have thrown an arm around Starsky and pulled him in for a kiss. A kiss might have been less…less lewd . And public spectacle is truly the least of Hutch’s worries. The sort of professional dressing-down a detective might get for sucking another man’s fingers in the middle of a disreputable bar on his night off would be nothing…hell, being kicked off the force entirely would be nothing compared to the slightest discomfort on his partner’s face. When Hutch meets Starsky’s eyes, heart hammering, his apology dies on his lips.
There is so much smoldering heat in Starsky’s expression it’s a wonder Hutch doesn’t light up like a match. Starsky hauls him up by the front of his shirt, so roughly that Hutch hears a stitch tear somewhere, and people are looking now, watching to see which of the sweaty pink-faced men who just rocketed out of their seats will throw the first punch. The cowboy, or the baseball player? Only Starsky disappoints them. He half-jogs up the stairs at the back of The Pits without a word, leaving Hutch to follow.
Hutch wishes that Starsky would have chosen a different place to hash this out in. The alley, or even his car. He’d prefer an uncomfortable drive home to the apartment above The Pits. Being in Huggy’s room upstairs, just the two of them, makes Hutch’s skin itch. Half-memories surface like sand fleas, pallid and ugly. Too many cups of heavily-sugared coffee, and his own voice yelling at Starsky, yelling and pleading in intervals…this is the wrong place for a serious conversation. For this serious conversation. Hutch doesn’t know if he can bear Starsky spurning him here, where Starsky once held him through withdrawal. How many lingering glances and tender caresses had Hutch pulled back from over the years? All ruined tonight, in an instant of pathetic desire.
Hutch can feel sweat beading on his forehead, and he opens his mouth to plead to leave this room just like he did ages ago, but then Starsky is on him. The door shuts when Starsky heaves Hutch up against it and Hutch remembers doing the same to Starsky in a desperate bid to flee, and for an instant he is afraid that Starsky has decided not to settle this after all and is trying to run, perhaps never to return.
But then Starsky’s right hand clamps down on Hutch’s arm hard enough to bruise, and his left catches Hutch’s wrist and brings that hand up to face level. Pointedly, Starsky licks Hutch’s palm, hot tongue laving over the various lines there — life, head? Heart. Hutch knows one of them is heart — and then up to the base of his index finger. Hutch’s fingers twitch involuntarily, his hand shaking. If Starsky’s grip on his wrist wasn't verging on painful, Hutch might accidentally smack him. Starsky takes Hutch’s index finger into his mouth next, and Hutch gasps. It turns into a strangled moan when Starsky sucks on his fingertip. More. More of that, please.
Hutch jerks his other arm until Starsky releases it and then pulls him in by the waist. Starsky’s cock is a hot, hard line in his baseball pants and Hutch holds him flush against his own body, free hand clawing Starsky’s hip, wanting Starsky to feel his arousal mirrored. He presses the finger Starsky’s sucking down on his tongue until the suction breaks, flexes it there twice, and then slides it back until Starsky chokes, Hutch’s thumb digging into the outside of his cheek, his sudden swallow hitching around Hutch’s fingertip. When Hutch lets him go, saliva coats his finger and runs down Starsky’s chin.
Starsky stares at him as if Hutch has kicked him in the shin, more delighted by having reduced Hutch to such measures than affronted, and then kisses Hutch hard enough to raise the ambient temperature in the room by ten degrees at least. Hutch changes his earlier assessment of the situation downstairs: a kiss would not have been less lewd. Starsky tastes faintly of alcohol and Hutch’s own skin, and strongly of something undefinable Hutch labels simply Starsky . Starsky’s hands are everywhere, mapping Hutch’s body. Hutch knocks arms with him trying to return the favor. Starsky’s palms are hot over his shirt, then under it, squeezing Hutch like ripe fruit. Hutch undoes the button on Starsky’s fly and works a hand in, gripping his partner through his underwear, and Starsky makes a sound like he’s just been shot in the gut.
Hutch breaks the kiss. The both of them are panting like they’ve just chased a perp five miles in an August heat wave. Starsky seems unwilling to put any distance between them, kissing Hutch’s cheek, his jaw, his neck. Hutch’s handkerchief tightens against the left side of his neck and he realizes Starsky has bitten it, tugging on the fabric like a dog with a rope. Starsky’s hands squeeze Hutch beneath his shirt again and he releases the handkerchief.
“Strip,” he grunts.
“Okay.” Hutch says breathlessly. He starts at the top buttons and Starsky meets him halfway up the middle, and then Hutch shucks his shirt and vest off, and as soon as one of his dusky pink nipples appears Starsky latches onto it. Hutch’s hands find Starsky’s hips again and move further back, kneading his ass, crushing their hips together so hard he knows his belt buckle must be uncomfortable against Starsky’s belly, and that Starsky must be craning his neck. Starsky makes no complaint about the angle. Hutch can’t decide whether he’s being ravished or devoured. Maybe both. Starsky’s tongue swirls around one of Hutch’s nipples, then he tries to shuffle to the other and Hutch is holding him too tight, and Starsky whines . The sound goes right to Hutch’s member. He knows Starsky can feel him throb.
“Your pants,” Starsky says, his voice low and desperate. “Take em off.”
“You’re only missing your hat,” Hutch says, but loosens his belt. Starsky yanks Hutch’s jeans down for him along with his briefs, kneeling between Hutch’s boots. The floor must be hard on his knees. The air is cool on Hutch’s flushed cock, standing erect right in front of his partner’s face. The sight makes Hutch weak in the knees. Starsky’s pink tongue flashes between his lips. Hutch’s partner and best friend is about to lick a long, slow stripe up his leaking cock, if Hutch can read the determination on Starsky’s face accurately (and of course he can). Panic rises in his stomach like indigestion, bile in the back of his throat, and Hutch nearly yelps, “Wait!”
“What?”
Hutch tries to speak and his throat only clicks, choking on the fear that they’ve reached the point of no return. That even though the snuff theater on Thirteenth could have charged admission to the searing lip lock they just shared, this is uncharted territory. How could Hutch’s macho partner do this for him and not hate him afterwards?
He could say the same about you , Hutch’s brain supplies.
“Hutch,” Starsky says, and his face is so full of want it makes Hutch throb again, the twitch obvious now.
Hutch nods. It’s the best he can do. And then Starsky does lick him as predicted, and Hutch goes boneless against the door, his eyes fluttering closed involuntarily. Starsky’s movements are inexpert but eager. He licks Hutch from root to tip and then slips his mouth over Hutch’s cockhead, and Hutch’s toes curl in his boots. He cracks his eyes open just in time to see Starsky swallow him down, bobbing at the limit of his gag reflex, barely halfway down Hutch’s shaft. Starsky pumps him with a hand to make up the difference, and Hutch realizes that Starsky is going to make him come faster than he ever has in his life.
Hutch buries one hand in Starsky’s hair, his whole body trembling, and slaps his other palm against the door over and over like a Morse code SOS. It takes all of his concentration not to pull Starsky’s head flush with his pelvis and shoot down his throat. That would be tactless. But Hutch is about to come so hard. Starsky coaxes it out of him, swirling his tongue over Hutch’s cockhead between every burst of suction.
“Starsk—” Hutch gasps, and then he’s out of time for a warning. His hips jerk reflexively as he comes, and Starsky chokes. On semen or because Hutch has poked the back of his throat, Hutch couldn’t say. But Starsky doesn’t recoil. Hutch has to push him off once he’s spent and the sensation turns almost painful. “Sorry,” Hutch says. He pushed Starsky a little harder than intended.
Starsky sprawls back on his elbows, looking mussed and needy and also infuriatingly proud. His neglected arousal tents out the front of his underwear. The red fabric is stained much darker where Starsky’s been leaking on it. Hutch yanks his pants up — liable to trip over his own feet, never mind moving around with his jeans around his knees — and then joins Starsky on the floor, which is cold and hard. Hutch resolves to get Starsky up off it as soon as possible. Hutch curls his fingers into the waistband of Starsky’s briefs, relishing the way that Starsky shivers under his touch….
And freezes. Someone is pounding at the door.
“ WHAT? ” Starsky yells. It’s his bad cop voice, the one normally reserved for interrogations that have passed the six hour mark.
Huggy’s voice comes from behind the door, muffled. “Hey man, y’all better get out here.”
“ WHY? ”
“Starsky! You shut me out of my own apartment and now you take this tone—”
“Just a minute, Huggy,” Hutch cuts in, heading off a fight between his partner and the Bear. He winces, knees creaking as he stands, and then spins around to locate his discarded clothing.
Starsky groans and buttons up his fly. “That bastard.”
“We didn’t ask permission.”
“Yeah yeah. And I won’t ask forgiveness. My place or yours?”
Hutch smiles. It must be a goofy one, because Starsky chuckles at him. Hutch offers him a hand up.
The bar has emptied out some when they emerge back downstairs, Starsky walking in front of Hutch, Hutch content to let Starsky blaze the trail back to his car and get them the hell out of here. Hutch is so shell shocked from the events of the evening that at first he doesn’t register the indistinct orange-purple blur at the door as a person, much less two.
“We’re so sorry,” Rita says. Hutch knows it’s Rita and not Sandra because of her voice— bigger than her hair. She wears the orange dress, Sandra beside her in purple. If they switched he couldn’t be sure he’d realize it until one or the other spoke. “We couldn’t catch a cab. You wouldn’t believe—”
The noise fades into the background, whatever excuse the girls have (Hutch feels mean and disinclined to believe it anyway) unimportant in the face of the realization that he and Starsky won’t be missing Minnie’s Halloween party after all. It feels like a slap in the face now. Although maybe it’s for the best that whatever the hell just happened between them is cut short.
Starsky walks up to Rita with his arms wide and pulls her in by one bare shoulder, and the sight of Starsky’s hand gripping her tanned skin makes Hutch’s blood pressure rise. Then the air comes back into the room, bringing sound with it. Sandra is waiting and Hutch hasn’t even acknowledged her. Kissing her cheek means he doesn’t have to watch Starsky kiss Rita’s, anyway. Sandra is lovely. The lovelier of the two by a thin margin, Hutch thinks. He wonders if Starsky thinks the same about Rita or if it even matters to him. Hutch remembers the mischievous glint in Starsky's eyes when Hutch scolded him about tact, so much more alive than Starsky looks now. As if Rita doesn't warrant his full attention. Hutch wonders if he’s underestimated exactly how much of Starsky’s overblown machismo is a front.
“Starsk,” Hutch says, suddenly stern, and watches Starsky almost jump out of his skin, hands flying away from Rita like she’s burned him, eyes swiveling to Hutch’s face. Starsky looks expectant, maybe even obedient. The way he looks when it’s Hutch’s turn to pick the activity on their day off and Starsky feels no certain type of way about it so long as they’re together. Something frightening wells up in Hutch’s chest at the thought that Starsky would leave the girls here without even a goodbye if Hutch told him to. Hutch swallows that desire like a poison brew and, clapping Starsky on the shoulder, tilts his head toward the bar. “Settle up the tab, would you? We’ll wait outside.”