Work Text:
Rafferty and O’Brien
Hutch is already sickened by day one of this particular charade, so when Starsky wordlessly steers him into the gaudy interior of their crappy eastside motel, presses him up against the bathroom door and turns on the shower, he’s right on board.
He wants to wash off this dirt. Take a breather. A pimp and a tacky hustler tycoon who apparently lives up to all the expectations of that Southern twang he picked out for himself, and now regrets fiercely: not people to carry around full time.
Hutch tosses the ten-gallon hat onto the nearest bed with relief, and runs a hand over his sweaty, oily hair with a grimace. O’Brien in a nutshell.
‘Hey,’ says Starsky, leaning his back against the door frame, standing close, and running a hand down his chest till it reaches the one and only buttoned button. It lingers, as Starsky sucks on his bottom lip.
Hutch waits, uncomfortable and not sure why.
Then Starsky rolls his head lazily on his neck towards Hutch, eyes hooded, fingers now ghosting upwards again to toy with the gold chains at his neck.
No: not Starsky. Rafferty.
Hutch swallows noisily as Starsky keeps looking, eyes dark and dangerous, stepping even closer into his space as the steamy air in the room heats up. Hutch drops his gaze.
‘Don’t do that,’ Starsky says softly, with an edge of command to his voice.
‘Do what?’ Hutch protests.
But he’s still looking at his boots, and Starsky – Rafferty – waits till he looks up again before smirking devilishly.
‘Pretend you don’t want to look.’
Starsky places a palm against Hutch’s chest, rubbing at the embroidered fabric; at the nipple beneath that is peaking under the assertive attention.
‘A curious guy might wonder why you picked these clothes out for me, O’Brien. This slippery shirt. Plenty of manly hairy chest on show. And – these pants? These pants are too tight, O’Brien. Tight, white pants. On a guy with an ass like this one… it’s hard not to make the assumption that you wanted a show.’ He places his other hand on his own skin, sliding it under the satin to thumb his own nipple, lips parted. ‘You want a show, O’Brien?’
Hutch feels the thumbnail flicking at his sensitive skin through the shirt, arrowing sensation straight to his own unnecessarily tight pants.
It’s infuriating. He keeps a rein on this: they both do. They have a spark, chemistry, whatever. But one drunken kiss, one sloppy fumble way back in the academy and they sat down the next morning and swore off it, because they’re cops, and friends, and they’re gonna fuck women and get married some day and it’s not worth it.
But that’s Starsky and Hutch.
This is Rafferty and O’Brien.
Hutch figures it’s good enough, and if it’s his dick doing the thinking, so be it. He juts his chin; juts his hips; lets that dirty boy back in.
‘What do you got to show me, boy?’ says O’Brien.
He’s rewarded by a flicker of triumph and desire in the dark, low-lidded eyes observing him.
‘Unzip me and find out.’
*
Hack and Zack
Hutch knew exactly what he was doing when he packed the black zippered jumpsuit. It’s so tightly tailored to his figure he can’t possibly add underwear, and the zipper at his neck has a tendency to slide down, and down. All he needs is one game of strip poker and - jackpot.
‘If they cast Redford as James Bond,’ he hears a girl coo behind him, and his strut picks up along the deck as he hurries towards the raucous sound of Starsky in full flow on the bullhorn, wearing shorts that on anyone would be an eyeful, and on him are positively indecent.
Hutch wants to say something smart and sexy and flirtatious.
He says – nothing, as a surge of demanding tourists insist on a completely different form of fun.
The absurd burgundy sombrero get up is no less tight, but no one’s going to be mistaking him for 007 in this; especially not Starsky, who appears to be relishing the opportunity to put on his dance hall act to a truly captive audience. Hutch resigns himself to jerking off in the shower later.
Except it turns out Starsky knew exactly what Hutch was doing when he packed the black zippered jumpsuit too; same reason he packed those damn shorts, and those white bell bottoms – white again, dear god – and is, apparently, every bit as revved up as Hutch by the time they actually get a second in private between murders and knocks on the head. Locked into Helen Carnahan’s cabin. Trapped in each other’s company. Unable to leave.
‘You know, technically speaking, there are some people on this boat who know our real names,’ says Hutch, reluctantly. ‘So technically, we’re not completely undercover.’
‘Shut up and get naked,’ says Starsky, pulling the drapes closed.
*
Charlie and Ramon
‘You think they taped you last night?’
‘Captain, if they didn’t? They should have.’
Hutch keeps his head tilted back, eyes half-closed as if too fucked out to open them. It also just happens to avoid the searching gaze of his partner who, he’s pretty sure, has been watching his every move on the dancefloor with something other than just interest in his technique.
Starsky bristles, unhappy with Marianne Tustin’s determination to insert herself into the dance studio, and Hutch lies limp in his chair. He’s imagining it. Starsky just wants to get the job done. The fact that he’s getting it done in form-fitting black, body pressed close to every girl who walks through the door, hips moving in an irresistible rhythm as he purrs into their ears –
He opens his eyes to Starsky dropping McCabe’s hat into his lap, and a glare from Dobey. Miss Tustin is nowhere to be seen.
‘Think you can stay awake long enough to get to the car, stud?’
Hutch coughs, fumbling the hat over his crotch as he realizes he’s now sporting a presumably highly-visible semi. He ducks his Captain’s gaze, hoping for the best, and follows Starsky out into the hall, willing his dick to cool it. He’s so distracted he doesn’t see his partner stop, and turn, and suddenly they’re nose to nose, his hat still in his hand and his knuckles now brushing up against that tightly-wrapped pair of pants he’s been ogling all week as Starsky steers him through a door into a janitor’s closet.
It’s dark, and silent, except for his own heavy breathing – until Starsky snaps on the light, curls his lip and speaks in a familiar accent.
‘Something I can help you with, Senõr McCabe?’’
Hutch steps backwards but when he does Starsky follows, stepping into his space and keeping contact between them right there until Hutch’s back is bumping up against a wall lined with buckets and cleaning supplies.
‘Starsk – ’
‘Shhh.’ He feels a finger on his lips, then hands on his waist; a little grind against his hand, that removes any possibility of his own situation getting any less uncomfortable. ‘I know you were running, putz, so don’t give me that. We both know what’s happening here, and I don’t want to fight it any more than you do. Senõr.’
Ramon tugs the hat away, placing it onto Charlie’s head with an intense look, and crowds even closer, grinding harder now.
‘I heard you had plenty of moves. And I’m not talking about your work on the dancefloor.’
It takes a moment for Hutch to catch up to the meaning.
Fuck.
He heard the tape. The humiliating, awful tape in which Charlie McCabe half-heartedly tried to turn down a blowjob, conceded defeat and then yelled his damn head off. He might have played it up in Dobey’s office but it felt vile, even knowing she was using him just as much as he was using her. To know Starsky had heard it –
‘I want to hear you make that sound again. For me.’
Lips attack his neck, a stubbled chin scraping in the wake of soft wet kisses that grow more frantic as they slip lower. At the same time, expert hands work at his fly and slide pants and briefs down to his knees in one easy movement. And then there’s a mouth on his cock, when he’s not even fully hard, and he moans, low, helpless, and wanton as his prick responds with a speed that leaves him light-headed.
The job moves too fast after that for more than a quick mutual handjob on the back seat of the Torino.
Until after, when they’re in Dobey’s office and when Hutch finds himself dipped, dipped and breathless and hopelessly horny.
Ramon’s eyes burn with lust, his confident hands happy to begin sliding from waist to ass, those hips rocking with such assurance that all Hutch wants is –
‘No,’ whispers Hutch, suddenly afraid.
There’s a flicker of confused dismay in Starsky’s eyes, and then Hutch is upright, being set firmly back on his feet.
‘No?’ Starsky murmurs, and there’s not enough of the word there for Hutch to tell whether there’s an accent there or not.
Then there’s a thump at the door, the one behind the desk, followed by a familiar bellow of rage.
‘Si, Senõr McCabe,’ says Starsky, patting his cheek with a dark, alluring smoulder in his gaze – before he swings into action. ‘On it, Cap, hold your horses!’ he yells, dragging the desk back across the floor quick smart.
Hutch is left dazed by the switch, by his Captain’s rage, by the quietness of his evening.
He misses being Charlie. No one sucks like Ramon, either.
*
Starsky
Their brother cops, dirty. Not exactly the time to get distracted.
Hutch already hates this plan and when he finds his partner mouthing off at the bar, eyes glittering as he takes his swing at Hutch’s jaw, he hates it even more.
Starsky’s pure, smart, honest; everything he could want in a partner, so this cover as a corruptible, embittered version shouldn’t be a turn on. Getting smacked in the mouth by his partner shouldn’t be a turn on – especially when he was meant to lead with the right. But angry Starsky, all turmoil and feelings, sweat, glinting eyes and stalking gait: turns out, is a turn on.
Inevitably, the whole thing drives off the rails.
Then there’s nothing but paperwork and an awkward atmosphere in the squad room. Not everyone’s happy at the clean up. Not everyone liked being duped by their own. Starsky, who wants to be everyone’s pal and doesn’t do well with no, is antsy in his seat, plainly unsettled.
Hutch wants to take him home and replay it, see his partner let that fire into his eyes and let loose with that coiled-spring strength he has. He wants to be pinned to the wall by that wildness, slammed breathless, wrists gripped too tight as he fights to get away – this time not from a punch but a bruising kiss. Then flipped around, face pressed into the wall, hands at his belt and -
‘You wanna get blind drunk?’ asks Starsky.
‘Fuck yeah,’ Hutch says, and puts down a tab at The Pits, drinking to forget.
*
Spaghetti and Meatballs
The scene is humiliating, it’s past ten-thirty at night, and Starsky’s buoyant mood when they knock off does nothing to help.
‘What’cha so mad about?’ he asks, tugging off his cowboy boots in their makeshift dressing room.
‘What do you think? I’m a cowboy who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. About a hundred people just watched me fail to say a sentence. And when this picture goes out, who knows how many millions will. This is not my idea of a good time.’
Hutch is so flustered he can’t even unbutton his shirt without getting his sleeve caught on his belt buckle.
‘OK, so it’s not been the best day so far. Still a couple of hours on the clock.’
Starsky tugs his shirt over his head then comes to the rescue, carefully unbuttoning Hutch’s sleeve and freeing it with a jog of his belt.
Hutch sighs. ‘Don’t tell me. We’re wanted for a late-night shoot getting smacked in the face? Falling off a horse? Getting knocked down by a runaway wagon?’
Starsky’s hand is still resting on the belt buckle, two fingers slipping inside his jeans to softly stroke at the smooth skin there. His eyes glitter as he looks at Hutch, a light smile on his lips as the fingers find the elastic of Hutch’s non-period-accurate shorts, and snake their way under there too.
‘I was more thinking of the other perks of undercover work.’
Hutch swallows and then gasps as Starsky’s hand slides lower, his wrist rotating to let him wrap fingers around what he’s found. They still haven’t talked about it, this thing. Starsky’s the one that makes the moves – well, whoever Starsky is at the time – and Hutch figures that’s what makes it ok. If Hutch made a move, he thinks he might mean it. This: it’s just a play act. A game. And after, they go back to work. Back to who they were before.
Nameless stuntman Starsky smiles as nameless stuntman (with speaking part) Hutch’s eyes widen.
‘A little improvisation? Off-script?’ whispers Hutch, his voice strained.
‘No script,’ agrees Starsky, extricating his hand carefully before the situation in Hutch’s pants cuts the circulation off for good. ‘Just what feels good.’
It’s the easy, familiar twinkle in his eyes that does it. Hutch cups the back of Starsky’s head with one hand and pulls him into a kiss, fingers knotting in his curls as he presses their lips together without letting himself think. Starsky jerks under him, resisting, lips stiff. Then he makes a tiny high sound and suddenly Hutch finds himself kissed back, urgently, wet tongue in his mouth as Starsky’s hands find his face and hold him there, fingertips stroking at his sideburns, licking and tasting and loving.
When they break off Starsky looks shocked, and Hutch’s day of fuck-ups floods back in. He can’t do a damn thing right today.
Hutch closes his eyes, ready for the awkward brush-off – but instead Starsky finds a light laugh.
‘Come on, cowboy,’ he drawls, taking Hutch by the hand and leading him out. ‘Time for a roll in the hay.’
*
Night and Day
Hutch wonders, because it’s still a thing, and he likes the thing it’s become, but also voodoo and no backup and, well –
Starsky taps his arm smartly before they enter the airport, face set.
‘Before you ask? Even I wouldn’t do me in this get up, and I got low standards. Pin it, ok? This gig is problematic enough already.’
And that’s that.
*
Hansen and Skylar
Hutch has been under as Hansen for four days and the absence of human warmth is already beginning to seep into his bones. Hospitals are clinical, fine. Care doesn’t have to be, even if you’re caring for people who don’t make it easy. But his job is to blend in: be at minimum invisible; at best, ingratiate himself. Orderly Hansen is therefore exactly like his colleagues: incompetent, distant, and nakedly eager to please his boss.
Every time he puts on the crisp white uniform he feels the high collar snap around his throat like his old school tie. Superiority. The proper order. It comes easily, and he’s too exhausted by the end of a 12-hour shift to examine that too closely.
So when Starsky appears on his doorstep on day five, just as he’s collecting his keys to head in for the day, he grimaces at the effort of becoming a human being again.
‘That bad?’ asks Starsky, reading him at once.
‘Uh,’ Hutch mumbles, still holding his keys. ‘Can’t say I’m planning to switch careers. What are you doing here – did someone pull the plug?’
Starsky shakes his head, brow furrowed. ‘No. I’m coming in tomorrow morning, first thing. I just – ’ He flushes, hands on his hips, then scratching the back of his neck as he looks at the floor. ‘I know we… undercover, you know, it’s gotten to be kind of a…’
He trails off, unusually tongue-tied.
‘Oh,’ says Hutch, finally.
‘This time, I don’t think – ’ says Starsky.
‘Trust me. It’s not going to be crossing either of our minds in there.’
Starsky pales, and Hutch wonders exactly how bleak he must look; wonders if it’s bleak enough for Starsky to know what he’s letting himself in for.
‘Cool. Just so’s we’re on the same page. Didn’t want you thinking I was holding out on playing doctors and nurses with you.’
Hutch nods.
Starsky’s lips twitch up into a half-hearted smile.
‘Though you do look cute in uniform. Maybe we play a little dress-up after, huh? Figure I could do with something to look forward to.’
‘Not the only one, buddy.’
Starsky’s smile breaks out in full as he pats Hutch’s belly and hurries out.
As it is, they’re both taken out of Cabrillo State by ambulance.
*
Starsky and Hutch
Hutch waits for after. The move, the call, the flirty look out of the corner of his partner’s eye that says: I didn’t forget what I said.
Then John Blaine dies, and Hutch realizes that now, it’s never going to come.
Watching his partner process it is like keeping a tiger. He’s hungry, angry, ready to fight – then a pussycat, needy, wanting affection. Tamed one moment; volatile the next. Not just because John was married, and he cheated. Not just because John picked up a trick, some exploited vulnerable kid. Not because Starsky didn’t know.
Because John was gay. Because John fucked men.
And Starsky never did that. Rafferty, Ramon, all the rest: they could. Just another kind of undercover. Those men wearing Starsky’s face and Starsky’s body, they took or gave what they wanted: no fear, no consequence.
Hutch thought it was what they both would’ve wanted, if they could have it. If they weren’t cops, and friends, and gonna get married one day. A taste of what they could have if they were free to be together.
That’s what it meant for him.
He expects to feel sad, disappointed; a little used; a little disgusted at himself settling for scraps. Instead he’s mad as hell.
Hutch is done taming the tiger when he reels out the stats: 75% of the time together, and why the hell shouldn’t people make assumptions?
‘And you’re not even a good kisser!’ he snaps.
‘How’d you know that?’
Starsky’s honest look of affront is enough to make Hutch grind his teeth.
‘I don’t know! Rafferty was hot and heavy, lots of tongue, a little teeth. Ramon never kissed me on the lips, but the neck was real nice. That stuntman cowboy now, he was perfection, that guy could give lessons, but – that’s not you, right? You never kissed me. Even when you wanted to. You never kissed me.’
Starsky drops back into the back seat, looking wounded.
‘Don’t do that,’ he murmurs.
‘What? Acknowledge what it is about John that scares you to death? Trouble is, I’m the guy on the other end of your delusion that you’re still mister pure red-blooded heterosexual male. From where I sit, I can tell you, it feels like shit.’
Starsky doesn’t answer. Hutch watches him in the mirror, a frown carved deep in his brow, chin low. When Hutch drops him home, he still doesn’t say a word, and the escape from the inevitable hole-digging explanations and justifications is, to be honest, a relief.
At his apartment Hutch roams his plants and sips a beer, hoping it’ll take the edge off whatever combination of angry, horny and self-recriminating he’s brewing. It doesn’t work, and he’s boiling water for tea when the knock comes.
‘If you let me in, promise not to knock my block off?’
Starsky looks a picture of penitence.
‘No, but I’ll try to make it quick and painless,’ Hutch says, resisting the pull of those soulfully lowered eyes. He abandons the tea and grabs them both a beer, then stays standing, not ready to cede the higher ground.
Starsky notes it, and ruefully takes a seat in an armchair.
‘I thought – ’ he says slowly, eyes on his hands around the bottle. ‘I didn’t – I thought I was keeping us safe. Figured we’d made the right call back in the day, that what we got as partners was worth giving up having you how I wanted. But it didn’t stop me wanting it.’
I noticed, Hutch thinks and doesn’t say. He’s still angry, but hearing desire said out loud, from the person he’s always known could never say it, makes it suddenly hard to breathe.
‘Undercover, you know,’ says Starsky, frowning as he switches tack as if that much honesty all in one go needs walking away from. ‘I always liked that feeling of being someone else. Being me all the time: that gets tiring, you know?’
‘As the person who spends 75% of the time with you, I’ll bet.’
It’s throwing a bone, a taste of their usual back and forth, and it makes Starsky smile. His shoulders drop, and he takes a swig of beer as Hutch perches on the arm of the couch.
‘You know what I mean, though, huh? I got a lot of stuff that I picked up over the years that makes me the guy who can go out and throw punks around, drive like I can’t lose, shoot and believe I’m aiming at the right asshole. Strut up to some woman in a bar and take her home five minutes later. Eat burritos for every meal. That’s Dave Starsky. That’s who I gotta be.’
Hutch wants to award himself some points for prompting this unusual journey into self-reflection from his partner, but now’s not the time. He waits.
‘That guy doesn’t want his partner. Not like that.’
‘Except that he does.’
Starsky looks suddenly grim enough to bolt, and Hutch slides across the couch to sit close, turning his hips so they’re face to face.
‘Starsk, since apparently you need reminding there are two of us in this thing, you mind if I point something out?’
He waits for a nod, then finds himself smiling at how simple it suddenly feels.
‘You’re the Rafferty who pushed me into a shower half-dressed because you couldn’t keep your hands off me long enough to take my pants off. You’re the Ramon who wrapped your mouth around me in a closet while you jerked off, who wanted to dip me again and again. You’re that talented cowboy who meant wardrobe had to find me new gear the next day after you ripped my zipper and tossed my boots in some barn never to be seen again. You’re the Dave Starsky who drives like a maniac, nails girls like one day they might run out, eats burritos, and is here, in my apartment, reminding me that while you’re a complete idiot, I love you, and I want you, and you’re the one who wanted after and I know you want me too. It doesn’t matter what suit you’re wearing, what accent you use. It’s all you. It’s always been all you. Because it was always me. There isn’t a Charlie, or a Hack – or a Zack – and I’m sure as hell no cowboy. It was always you, and me.’
‘That’s scary, Hutch,’ Starsky whispers.
‘No it’s not. We practiced this already, remember? Call that the rehearsal. This is the show. Now kiss me, stupid.’
Hutch drops onto his knees between Starsky’s legs and pulls him closer, one hand on Starsky’s cheek, one on the back of his neck. Starsky’s lips part in surprise and his eyes are still wary, until they drop closed and he presses in for a kiss: slow but hot, lips plush against one another, tongues and hands and a low moan of pleasure that Hutch feels in his spine.
Starsky drops to his knees too to get closer, one arm around Hutch’s waist to pull them together, one fisted in his hair to crush them into another kiss, this one breathless and hungry and endless.
‘Oh god,’ breathes Starsky, pulling back for a moment to gaze into Hutch’s eyes, stroking his eyebrows, one thumb teasing at his lower lip. ‘You’re – god – shut up – ’
Hutch laughs into the next kiss, fixed on the memory of that familiar face now pink with need and fearless enthusiasm. There are hands on his ass now, a knee slipping between his to press a growing hardness against his own.
It was a lie, Hutch realizes. They’ve done this before, sure, but he’s never kissed this Starsky. The man in his arms isn’t slutty, or ridiculous, or playing a part. This man is in love, with him, and every touch is fraught with meaning it.
He means it right back as he unbuckles his jeans and then his partner’s, hauls them both to their feet, and takes this beautiful scene to his own bed, where it’s always belonged.