Sneeze Me

By Rae (2005)

Hutch's favorite shorts were too big on Starsky, so when he stood up, they fell right off. He stepped out of them without looking down, and continued reading out loud.

"Listen to this," he said. "Sternutation'—that means sneezing—'is the body's response to an irritant.'"

"And the synonym is starskytation, right?"

"Very funny," Starsky said, and bopped Hutch's head with the magazine. "I'm serious. Listen. It says 'there is a build-up of tension and sense of strong need, followed by a sudden explosive discharge, in turn followed by a sense of pleasure, relief, and satisfaction.'" He dropped the magazine on the couch, but it landed on the edge and slid off. "Remind you of anything?"

Hutch looked up from his book. "Nope. Should it?"

"And it says that when you sneeze it's like a little death. All the body systems just focus on the one thing, and for that moment, nothing else gets done. Remind you of anything?" He walked into the kitchen and started poking around in the cupboards. "Where'd you put your pepper?"

"I'm trying to read, here. Can't you find something to do?" Hutch looked up, and it was a mistake, because his eyes latched onto Starsky's bare butt, and after that, his book wasn't so interesting anymore.

"I did. I'm doing it." He shoved something at Hutch's face. "Sniff this."

Hutch pushed his head back from Starsky's hand and whatever was in it.

"Get away from me, you lunatic."

"Come on, sniff it. See if it happens. How it feels."

"I know how it feels. I've sneezed before." But he sniffed, and, though he actually meant to oblige, nothing happened.

"Huh." Starsky found some scrap paper by the phone and scribbled. "Pepper. That's a no." He went thoughtful. "You got any allergies I don't know about?"

"Yeah. I'm allergic to you." He picked his book up off his chest and pretended to read again.

Starsky disappeared into Hutch's bathroom and came out with a fistful of jars and bottles. He unscrewed a tube of something and stuck it under Hutch's nose.

Nothing much happened except that Hutch began to feel that little tingle just above his heart that meant "get out before you die of apoplexy." Whatever the hell apoplexy was.

"Starsky, I use that stuff every day and I don't sneeze. What exactly is the point here? I'm trying to read."

"The point is to see what will make you sneeze." He took his loot back to the bathroom and came out empty-handed. "If I can figure out how to make you sneeze, maybe I can make you do it when you're having a, a, well, you know. A double whammy."

He grinned in that way that always got to Hutch, and his face looked so funny that Hutch smiled back and put the book down again.

"See," Starsky said, "it's all for you, dear. I do it all for you."

"Did you just call me 'dear'?" Hutch rolled his legs off the couch and got ready to stand up, to make a running tackle, to shut Starsky up with the one method guaranteed to work. "Who are you, my mother?"

"Not your mother, no. Not even close." Starsky began to back up toward Hutch's bed, slowly. He pointed downward. "Do I look like your mother?"

About to get to his feet, Hutch groaned, and fell back. "You shouldn't have said that. New rule: no mentioning mothers when the sail's unfurled and halfway up the mast."

"You raised the issue."

"Yeah, well, you lowered it." Finally he stood, and looked down. "See? Down. Around my ankles by now."

"Hah, ankles. You wish. And, see, with sneezing, talking about your mother wouldn't matter. Might even help."

A step forward, a menacing glare, but Starsky stood his ground.

"What are you gonna do, blondie? You tryin' to scare me?"

"I don't need to try." Another step forward. "All I have to do is look behind you." He demonstrated. "And open my eyes wide, like this." He took another step. "And then I tighten my jaw, like this—look—so my mouth opens, just a little."

Starsky stepped back and he didn't look behind him.

So Hutch said, "Then, I pull my arms up in front of me, right here in front of my chest, and make fists, see? And if I tense up the muscles in my forearms, then my hands will shake. Watch." He made a gasping sound. "You have to look, because now you don't know if I'm just trying to scare you, or if something's really there on the bed, behind you. Something big and slippery, and moving slowly, so slowly toward you, toward your bare ass, something silent and pale and really scary. You better look, Starsky, because something might really be there, something big, something really—"

A quick look at Starsky's face, and then fast back to the same spot behind his back, and a little sound in his throat, not much more than a tiny squeak, and Starsky turned fast, as Hutch had known he would, known he'd have to. Hutch was ready, and made his move.

Later, after Starsky'd gone home, Hutch wandered into the living room, feeling a little lonely. The magazine still lay on the floor where Starsky had dropped it. He picked it up and flipped through it, found the article and rolled his eyes.

"Starsk," he said to the empty apartment, and let out a short bursting laugh. He tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and went to bed.

******

Three days later, Starsky talked Huggy into lending him a feather he had that was supposed to be from a peacock. It didn't look like a peacock feather to Hutch—more like a pigeon feather—but he let Starsky flit it around his nose for a while, squinting his eyes to protect them, wrinkling up the skin around his nostrils.

Nothing happened.

So Starsky flitted it around a few other places, which was better, but still, the results were minimal.

"You done?" Hutch finally said.

"Yeah. What kind of a person doesn't sneeze when their nose is tickled? Huh?"

"This kind." He got a handful of Starsky's hair and pulled him down on top of himself, so he could lift his head up and tug on Starsky's lips with his own.

Starsky dropped the feather.

In the morning, Starsky called and told him to find the thing, he had to return it. It was important. So Hutch was late to work.

******

A few days later, Hutch cut his hand, and had to go get some stitches. Starsky kept trying to play doctor while they waited for the nurse to come in, and Hutch tried not to laugh. Then Starsky found some jars of stuff on the steel-topped counter and he kept waving them around under Hutch's nose. It got a little irritating, but still, Hutch sniffed at each one. Nothing.

The nurse came in and shooed Starsky out, and Hutch got distracted and forgot all about sneezing. And Starsky.

Most of the next few days were difficult, and neither of them felt like playing games.

And then Starsky met Rosey.

******

The plan was to ride it out, like they always did when this sort of thing happened, until eventually life got back to normal. But Starsky said he really dug her, and Hutch had a cold moment there in the hallway at Metro during which he worried that he might never sneeze again.

But soon she was gone, and Starsky got more inventive and found some pretty disgusting things to try. Hutch didn't mind, he just sniffed each concoction, and raised an eyebrow, and shook his head. But by now, even he was wondering why nothing was making him sneeze.

******

The whole time they were under cover at Cabrillo State, neither one of them gave a single thought to the experiment.

And then there was Johnny Blaine. They went to the funeral, and Hutch stood near some flowers—camellias, he noticed—and felt a twitch. A definite, and pretty strong, twitch. He just moved away from the spot, and said nothing. It wasn't a good time.

******

A few weeks later they got stuck with a reporter on a mission. As soon as she got in the Torino, Hutch was pretty sure the gig was up. Whatever perfume she had on, it was making him feel weird, kind of lightheaded. It was definitely a contender for the project, and he almost asked her what it was. But then she turned into a bitch, and was exiled to the back seat, and the danger passed.

A week after that he almost died.

******

After Hutch got out of the hospital, Starsky stopped trying to make him sneeze. Anything even remotely resembling a cough or sniffle or sneeze had him scurrying around trying to stop it. He knew sneezing would hurt, too, which was not the point of the whole thing, and that his respiratory system was still fragile, even though he'd told Judith he was healthy. Hutch knew that Starsky knew he'd have told her anything to get her to stay, but healthy he was not, and Starsky knew that, too.

So instead Starsky kept trying to make sure he had enough to eat and drink, that there was water on the nightstand and on the coffee table, orange juice in the fridge, and plenty of goat's milk and organic fertilized eggs and decimated fly livers for Hutch's health shakes. He checked constantly that the phone was in easy reach. He brought over books and magazines, some of which were even interesting, and he called from work every couple of hours to see if the invalid needed anything.

After a while, when Hutch began to feel more like himself, he thought that Starsky was just going to make him crazy, just completely insane, and if he didn't knock it off soon, well, he'd sneak out some night and head south to the border. Disappear to some hidden cove somewhere in Baja, and Starsky would never find him there and he could have a little peace.

About three days after that, he went back to work, and not many days later, Starsky picked up the crusade, and started in on him again.

******

"I think she let you win," Starsky said, after Anna had gone and Hutch had recovered. "She looked pretty strong to me."

"Oh really? I suppose you think you could take me, too?"

So they arm wrestled.

"Okay," Starsky said, "how about two out of three?"

He produced some new hair products in the bathroom, and Hutch noticed he spent a good part of their shower watching for signs of reactions to them. If Starsky was disappointed, he didn't let it show.

******

The barn was full of dusty straw, but with that hole in Starsky's leg, and the girl unprotected and running for help, Hutch didn't spend much time thinking about it. He couldn't believe it, though, when (once he'd gotten his belt tightened around Starsky's thigh and the bleeding stopped) Starsky looked thoughtful, and actually picked up a handful of the stuff and squinted at it. Hutch gave him The Look, and he dropped it, and said nothing.

******

Starsky bitched and moaned and complained the entire three-hour drive to Dobey's cabin. Hutch nearly pulled over and threatened to put him out, the way his mother used to when he or his sister got too annoying. But then, when they got there, Starsky stepped out of the car and looked around, and apparently saw all kinds of interesting possibilities in the pine needles and undergrowth, and shut up.

He made dinner, and let Starsky have a pre-meal taste, and suffered through a round of oregano and thyme in his face. Starsky ate it all, even if it really might be bear meat and acorns, and even though it hadn't furthered the cause.

They pretended that the flickering torchlight across the lake didn't exist, because neither of them really wanted to deal with it, so they just ate, and drank their Coors, and teased each other, and talked about nothing much.

When they were done, Starsky lit a candle.

"Stare at the flame," he said.

"Why?" Hutch stared, but nothing happened.

"I read that some people sneeze when they look at a bright light."

The tiny flame wasn't exactly bright, but he tried.

"What did you do, go to the library?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"This is some kind of obsession with you. It's turned into a fetish."

Starsky shrugged, and blew out the candle, and went away into the bedroom.

And then he came out in some unbelievable red longjohns, buttoned up tight to his throat, and Hutch nearly choked. He stared at the bottom button, a big white button just so strategically placed that Hutch felt drawn to it, to undo it, see what was behind its door. The buttons occupied him for a while, one by one, and then Starsky reached around his waist and pulled them into each other, and that was the end of pretty much everything else for that evening. Starsky never even heard the owl hoot, nor the rustling just under the window.

The firelight across the lake woke them up a few hours later.

"Who are those guys?" Starsky said.

They went out again to look. Hutch had no great desire to investigate in the middle of the night, but now he was wide awake.

"Want to play some rummy?" he said.

They played until Starsky fell asleep mid-hand on the couch. Hutch picked up the fallen cards, threw a sleeping bag over him, kissed his forehead, and went to sleep in the little bedroom in the back.

******

After Van's murder, they just kind of hung out, trying to get over the shock of it. Not only what had happened, but the idea of Vanessa turning out like that, doing that to him, and all that it had almost cost him. And Starsky.

Lately Hutch had felt like he didn't care if he ever saw another woman again. Ever. One night he said so to Starsky, and Starsky had said, "Something to think about."

That had floored Hutch. He hadn't dared ask Starsky to elaborate. He wasn't sure he was ready for that. He'd just grinned and changed the subject, and Starsky had lifted his eyebrows and waggled them, and had let him avoid the issue. And soon things got back to the usual run of frustrating dead ends, brain-numbing stakeouts, and piles of paperwork. Blood covered corpses and endless interviews with grieving parents and daughters and sons. Once in a while there was a good collar, and a subsequent celebration.

Starsky was the most persistent, make that unbelievably persistent, human on the planet. If he even was human. Sometimes Hutch had to wonder. Most days there was some kind of horrific odor or substance, or fresh cut grass from someone's private front lawn, or some damn thing, and Hutch began looking for ways to be alone and free. Starsky seemed to be oblivious, or he just didn't care, or maybe he simply had nothing else to occupy his pogo stick of a mind. So Hutch started throwing out ideas.

Sailing lessons.

"You get seasick," Starsky said.

"I do not. I was a Sea Scout."

"Hah, a Sea Scout. You know you get seasick."

"I didn't say I was going to take the lessons with you."

"What's the point, then?"

That was kind of flattering in its way.

Rock climbing, then. He had a brochure.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I'll do it with you."

"What is it with you lately, anyway?" Starsky sat down and even put on his serious "wanna talk about it" face.

"I'm just trying to broaden your horizons. It's been a rough year. I thought maybe you needed something to think about."

Starsky sat back. "This is about the Quest, isn't it?"

"The Quest?" Hutch stared at him. "The Quest? It's a quest now?"

"You could have just said something. You don't want me to do it anymore, I won't do it anymore." He dropped his eyes and put his fists loose in his lap. He hung his head.

"I guess," Hutch said, "I just, well, no, I don't."

"Fine. I won't. The Quest is officially abandoned." He stood up fast, and wiped his hands together like he was getting rid of the last handful of moldy bread, or dust bunny, or household cleansing product. "It's over."

"Starsk—"

"It's okay, Hutch. It was all for you, anyway. No big deal."

Starsky knew how to make him feel bad quicker than any other person on the planet. But this was his big chance and he didn't want to blow it, so he didn't take it back.

"Come on, I'll buy you a burrito." He expected to see Starsky brighten up a bit at the offer, but he just looked like someone had told him his dog had died.

"No, thanks." He dredged up a dim smile. "I'm going to head home. Hit the sack early." He put his jeans on, and his shirt, and stepped into his sneakers, but he didn't bother to tie them.

For a whole minute after he left, Hutch felt like whooping and shaking hands with people. It didn't last, though, and then he just felt ashamed for taking away Starsky's Quest. He shoved it down deep and went to bed.

******

Sometimes he surprised himself as to what depths he was willing to go to teach Starsky a lesson. Like it was his duty or something. But they could have been killed, both of them, and maybe that's what Starsky had even been trying to do. He'd been so distant and untouchable ever since he'd gotten his feelings hurt.

Pretending to have amnesia had seemed like a good idea at the time. But Starsky had said, "I could kill you!" And maybe he'd even meant it. The look on his face, well, Hutch felt even worse than he had when he'd killed the Quest. He began to try to make amends.

He heard about a Bela Lugosi festival, and offered to spring for the tickets, and didn't correct Starsky when he pronounced Lugosi wrong.

He tried to go a whole week without disparaging the newly repaired and restored Torino. He made it only five and a half days, but still, that was a big one.

He agreed to go to an auto show, and didn't ogle any of the models, not even the tall leggy one at the far end of the showroom, the one with the long blonde hair who looked familiar. Starsky pulled him away before he could get near her, anyway.

He wanted to go camping, but he didn't ask Starsky to go, He thought that one was especially altruistic, because Starsky never even knew about the sacrifice.

******

It took Hutch a long time to get past feeling responsible for almost getting Starsky killed. Starsky kept telling him to cut it out, it wasn't his fault. But if he hadn't teased Starsky into taking the poor little old lady's fare, then he wouldn't have had his head bashed in by a serial killer. When Hutch closed his eyes, he could still see the crack in the cab's driver's side window, and feel the dread when he'd realized what it had meant.

"Wouldn't have caught the guy, otherwise," Starsky said.

"Maybe not, but at least you wouldn't have had another concussion for your collection."

"Would've missed all your guilt-trip care of me." Starsky grinned. "Worth it. It's always worth it."

He got up and crossed over to where Hutch was sitting, and sat on the floor in front of him.

"I'm feeling kinda bad right now, matter of fact," he said, and Hutch forgot all about feeling guilty.

******

Starsky had a rough time after the shooting of Hector Salidas. It didn't matter that he knew it had been a good shoot. That he'd had no choice, and that he'd saved the lives of three people. Or that Hector had already been on the one-way boulevard to Hell, and nothing Starsky did or didn't do was going to have changed that. Starsky didn't like to shoot people.

"You think I like it?"

"No, Hutch, no. Of course not. It's just the way it went down. I can't explain it. It just feels bad."

"You just didn't have enough pie."

"You just didn't have enough Laura."

"You gonna make it up to me?"

Starsky tried, but in the end he said he just wasn't in the mood. Hutch tried to talk him into staying over anyway, but he went home. Unsettled, Hutch puttered around with the plants for a while, and ate some leftovers, and watched TV until he fell asleep on the couch.

And then, near the end of July, he almost got them both killed.

******

By the end of August, Hutch's ribs no longer rebelled when he took a deep breath, and Starsky had started talking to him again. The trouble was, every time he did speak, it was to jab Hutch with the horribleness of what he'd done. He was tired of it.

"I'm sorry, Starsky. I'm so sorry."

"You just say that like you've got it on a taped loop. You don't mean it."

"I did when I started saying it three weeks ago."

Starsky started to glare at him, but instead, just slumped back in his chair. "It's not about the ambush, or the fight, you know." He rubbed the top of his shoulder where his newest scar, he pointed out for the fiftieth time, still itched. "It's—oh, just forget it."

"How can I when every time I turn around you're stabbing me in the gut with—"

"I'm stabbing you?" He got to his feet and began pacing. "I'm stabbing you?" He pointed at his shoulder and made some very convincing stabbing motions toward it. "You're the one stabbed me, remember?"

"Oh. for the love of . . . Starsky, I didn't stab you, for crying out loud."

"No? What the hell is this, then?"

He practically trotted over to Hutch, bent over, and pulled down the neck of his T-shirt. He shoved his left shoulder up under Hutch's nose, so that Hutch had to lean his head back to avoid getting bashed. Without thinking, he changed his mind, and leaned forward instead, and licked the small scar, hard, the way a dog licks an itch out of its fur.

"Uh," Starsky said, and didn't move away. So Hutch did it again, but softer, like a feather dropped from a wing in flight.

"I'm sorry, Starsky." He put the tip of his tongue to the still-red scar, and traced it. He looked up. "I'm sorry."

"Uh."

"If I had it to do over again, I'd have stabbed Cavanaugh, like I meant to." He leaned back. "He was going to whack you on the back of your head. I had to stop him somehow, didn't I?"

Starsky nodded. He lifted his shoulder up and down, just a little, and Hutch took the cue and went back to work on it. He started making circles, bigger ones and smaller ones, up and down. Back and forth. Starsky's skin smelled good—it reminded Hutch of things he'd never done, things he might do someday, if Starsky would let him. He found the ridge of a vein, and followed it down the front of Starsky's arm to his elbow. There the skin was smooth and salty, and Hutch forgot he was supposed to be apologizing.

Starsky hadn't.

"It wasn't about that, you know," Starsky said. "I know you didn't mean to get me, and it worked out anyway."

Hutch had a flashing memory of Starsky's yell when he'd felt the jagged edges of the broken bottle, and of his resultant arm swing, and the sound his fist made when it had connected with the side of Cavanaugh's face.

"That guy dropped like a stone when you walloped him."

Starsky rubbed the back of his left hand where the bruise had finally faded, and peered at it like he was sad it was gone because now he couldn't torture Hutch anymore with how much it hurt.

And they still hadn't finished paying Huggy for the damage done to the Pits, nor gotten their stolen weapons back from Evidence.

"Yeah it worked out." Hutch said. "I shouldn't have gotten us into a situation like that, though."

"It was my fault as much as yours."

Hutch sat back, abandoning the little spot on the inside of Starsky's forearm that he knew was particularly sensitive, particularly responsive.

"Really? You mean that?"

"Yeah. Neither of us expected Cavanaugh to bring reinforcements, or that he'd sample his own wares and be high as a kite." He pushed Hutch's legs apart and knelt down in front of him.

"You're forgiving me?" He took Starsky's face in his hands and looked at his eyes.

"For stabbing me, yeah."

"I didn't . . . All right, what does that mean? There's something else." He tried to make eye contact but Starsky just looked down at his own hands. Hutch waited.

Finally Starsky spoke. "It was because you sneezed, Hutch." He sat back on his calves, and put his hands on Hutch's knees. "All that time I spent trying to make you sneeze and you never did, and then you asked me to stop trying, and I did, and then you go and do it there, right in front of Huggy, and if you hadn't, well, they wouldn't have known we were there and it wouldn't have gone down like it did."

That last bit wasn't entirely true, and Starsky knew it. Cavanaugh, high on God knows what, and with pals toting semi-automatic rifles, and Huggy to consider—it could never have ended peacefully. But if he hadn't sneezed, well, maybe they wouldn't have had to hand over their guns to arms dealers, and he wouldn't have gotten his ribs pulped, and maybe Cavanaugh wouldn't have gone for Starsky's head.

And all Starsky had come away with from the whole fiasco was that Hutch had sneezed. Without his help, and in front of others.

"Oh, my God." He put his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes. "You need help, Starsky."

"You just don't get it, do you?" Starsky pushed himself upright against Hutch's knees, adjusted his T-shirt, and headed for the kitchen.

Hutch had a feeling that if they had been at Venice Place, Starsky'd be stomping out in a huff. He had a better idea. He looked up and waited for Starsky to turn around, and met his glare.

"Sneeze me," he said.

"What?"

"Make me sneeze. The double whammy. See if you can do it."

Starsky came back fast, and knelt back down in front of him. "Really?"

"Yeah, go for it." He tried not to grin, but the look on Starsky's face—he had to smile. Sometimes Starsky could be very easy to please.

Starsky leaned in, and gave him a short hard kiss. "Wait right there. Don't move." He was up again and turning away. "Or, well, yeah, move. Take off your pants."

"Any more orders?"

"Yeah. Shut up and take off your pants. I'll be right back."

"You're in serious trouble, Hutchinson," Hutch said. Starsky had switched gears so fast that Hutch felt like he needed a little time to catch up. But he kicked off his shoes and did as he'd been told. Was he supposed to leave his shirt on, or take it off, too? He left it on.

"What?" Starsky yelled from the bathroom.

"Nothing! What are you doing?"

"What?"

"Oh for the love of . . ."

All Starsky returned with was a handful of tissues, and one that was rolled up into a stiff little point. He brandished it in front of Hutch's face like a saber. He looked down along Hutch's body, nodded approval, and grinned.

"I went about it all wrong from the start. I thought it was about the smells of things, or finding something you were allergic to. But then I realized it was all about mechanics, and then I knew what to do. But by then you'd already put the kibosh on it." He held up the little spear. "This is going to work."

Hutch didn't want to admit it, but he already felt a little bit of a stirring deep inside. Something about the intensity of Starsky's wish to make this happen, because he thought it would feel good to him, because he thought it would be something he'd like. "Starsk . . ."

"Put your head against the back of the couch and close your eyes."

Hutch gave it all up. He was in it now, whatever the outcome. He put his head back and closed his eyes, and let his arms relax on the cushions beside his thighs.

He felt Starsky take the same position he'd been in before, kneeling between his legs. He closed his knees and felt the roughness of Starsky's jeans against the insides of his legs, and the press of his crotch against his own. He almost groaned. He put his feet on the backs of Starsky's calves.

A sudden sharp sensation inside his right nostril made him twitch.

"Don't move," Starsky said.

The little spear pushed upward, slowly, slowly. It felt oddly cold, but it had a certain erotic feel—of something long and foreign entering him, piercing him where nothing like it had ever entered him before. It seemed a lot longer than it had looked, and it kept moving upward, slowly, and then out again, and then back in, further this time. A tingle began deep inside his nose, and he felt the first hard clenching of his stomach muscles, the first gasping intake of his breath, and then Starsky twirled the thing, up there deep inside, and Hutch sneezed, hard and strong, and then again, and again.

Starsky withdrew. "Huh," he said. "That worked really well." He looked down between their bodies at Hutch's rising cock. "Better than I expected."

Hutch sniffed hard, and wiped at the corners of his eyes. Starsky handed him a tissue.

"So, how'd it feel?"

"Believe it or not, pretty good. I liked the feel of it way up inside like that. It was strange, but I liked it. And the sneezes, well, they were sneezes."

"Ready for part two?"

"You never give up, do you? On anything?"

"Don't tell me you're callin' it off again?"

"No! No. I'm in. Go ahead. Sneeze me again."

"Not just yet, fella." He handed him another little spear of tissue. "Here. You're in charge of that. Don't lose it."

"I won't."

"Close your eyes."

He had no idea of what to expect next, and nearly lost it all when it happened. Starsky had made himself another little spear, and had touched it to the end of Hutch's cock. It was the tiniest touch possible, but it set him to making fists and arching his body upward. And then Starsky put the thing inside the opening, just a little way in, and Hutch lifted himself up to meet it.

"More?" Starsky said.

"God, Starsk."

And Starsky pushed it in just a little farther, backed it out and moved it in a little circle, and then in, and out again. Hutch tried to make himself think of something else, go somewhere else in his head, otherwise the whole Quest was going to end in a sudden and premature eruption, and neither of them wanted that. Nothing else but the feel of that thing on and inside his cock could make it through into his brain.

Starsky must have had an inkling. He backed it out, slowly, Hutch involuntarily trying to follow it, and sat back again. Hutch put his legs around Starsky's thighs, and tried to pull him forward, and when he wouldn't be pulled, Hutch opened his eyes and took hold of Starsky's ears and dragged him in close to his face.

"Do that again."

"You liked that?"

"Starsky. Do that again."

"Beg me."

"Please, Starsky. Please do it again."

Starsky didn't do it again, but he pushed Hutch's hands down to his sides, and he bent himself sideways somehow and put his tongue hard to the base of Hutch's cock, just above the swell of his balls, just put it there, pressed hard against the skin.

"Oh, God, Starsky. Please."

Starsky lifted himself away. "Put your spear inside your nose, and then I'll do it again."

Hutch could barely lift his arms, so Starsky took it away from his fingers and put it where he wanted it, pushed it up where it made Hutch's eyes begin to water.

"Don't touch it," he said.

"I won't," he said, and sneezed. He felt the pressure of it down deep in the middle of his head and at the base of his cock, where Starsky had just had his tongue, and now had his fingers dancing in its place.

"Close your eyes."

Hutch sneezed again, and they closed tight anyway.

He felt the little spear enter his cock again, and as he sneezed, felt the pressure again, deeper inside than he knew it was. He sneezed again. His brain began to misfire—it couldn't do this, this couldn't work. It couldn't happen. He sneezed again.

Starsky seemed to have grown extra hands. He played with the spear, twisting and moving it, stroking it across the outside of the opening, and he played with Hutch's skin at the base of his cock, and with the fast-tightening skin around his balls. Then he got his fingers around the base of the shaft and started squeezing it like a tennis ball, and then he started licking, up and around inside the tight foreskin, down along the veins on the underside. Every time Hutch sneezed, Starsky squeezed hard, or twisted the spear, or nipped at his skin or touched his tongue wherever he could reach.

Deep inside, a rushing sensation began, with two separate focuses. His brain flitted back and forth between his nose and his cock, and back again, and again, until Hutch could no longer tell what part of himself was where, or what part was going to do what, or how. He stopped trying to control himself.

The thing inside his cock went away, and was replaced with Starsky's tongue. Somehow Starsky had figured out the rhythm, and had matched his movements to the timing of the sneezes, and when a new one began, he started to pull with his mouth against Hutch's cock with something like a vacuum lock, that Hutch had no power to resist.

"Oh, God, please, Starsky. Make me come. Please Starsky." He was going to die otherwise. He sneezed.

It began in the center, rushing upward and downward, every muscle drawn in tight, every nerve strung tight between his nose and his cock. He could even hear it begin. From somewhere in his center something seemed to open outward, to overflow, with nowhere to go, with everywhere to go. He had just time to think that maybe the line between life and death felt like this, and then he crossed over. And came harder than he ever had, sneezing and pulsing together, his body locked up tight, his face burning. His cock seemed like it was shrieking. He made a sound that couldn't possibly have come from inside himself. It couldn't be his voice.

It was over, and he fell back, and Starsky reached up and took the thing out of his nose, very slowly, very gently. He began to kiss Hutch's face, cleaning away the reflexive tears from the corners of his eyes like a cat with a kitten, pressing his lips to the sides of his nose, and finally, to his mouth. Hutch tasted himself, and Starsky, and tried to open his eyes, but he had no power left to do it. He let them be.

"You okay?" Starsky said. "Talk to me, Hutch."

The best he could offer was one barely-raised eyelid, and a tiny lift to the corner of one side of his mouth. Starsky laughed.

"So I bet you wish now you hadn't stopped the Quest. I could've been doing this all summer."

"You want me dead?"

"That good, huh?"

He moved himself onto the couch next to Hutch, shoulder to shoulder, and put a light hand on his thigh. The skin under it fizzed.

"God, Starsk. It was amazing." Strength began to return to his limbs, and he moved himself a little, so he could open his eyes and look at Starsky's face. "You're amazing."

"I'm just glad it worked. Didn't wanna say, but I wasn't all that sure."

"It worked."

"Want some water?"

"Yeah."

By the time Starsky brought it back, and he'd downed almost the whole glassful, he felt a little more like he was still himself, and still tethered to the planet. He had an overwhelming need to sleep.

He woke up sometime later, in the full dark, alone. He switched on the lamp by the couch, and squinted at his watch. Starsky must have gone to bed, and left him alone to sleep where he was. There was a blanket over him, and there was a note, carefully placed on the crotch of Hutch's folded-up jeans.

"Tomorrow," he read, "you're going to sneeze me."

"You got a deal, partner," Hutch said.

Going home was an unappealing idea. He laid back down on the couch. "Love you, too, Starsk," he said.

And sneezed.

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