The Time Lords of Bay City

by Rae, 1/2008

Happy Birthday, Dawnie!

SPOILER WARNING

This story contains one-liners from and references to S2 ep 1 of Torchwood.
If you don't want to be mildly spoiled, you might want to hold off reading this story.
I don't think I've given away any major plot points, but still, proceed at your own risk.

Disgusted, Starsky tossed two tens, one jack of spades, one three of hearts, and one lovely lady onto the table. He glared at Hutch's triumphant grin, but as agreed, took off the last sock.

"This may be southern California, but it's still January. You gonna make me watch TV in my birthday suit?"

"Yup," Hutch said. "Sorry." But he was obviously unrepentant. "Hey, it snowed the other day in Marin County. You should be glad it's in the 60s down here."

Starsky stood up, unselfconscious, and muttered something about global warming not being much help to the loser of a game of strip poker. He noticed the once-over Hutch gave him and had the same response he always had, that gut-level response that—thirty-six years down the line—still meant there was more to look forward to that evening than a card game and Torchwood. He scratched his belly, then turned toward Hutch and scratched his balls. Hutch grunted and turned red. So he'd had that same reaction, too. Starsky leered for a moment, then turned around to give him a nice rear view.

"Popcorn?"

"I thought we agreed on baby carrots and yogurt dip."

"You agreed to that. I'm making popcorn. Extra butter." He padded off toward the kitchen.

"No time! It's almost 9."

"I thought we were going to let it get ahead so we could fast forward through the commercials."

"Well, in that case, Gordo, I guess we've got time for a presnack snack. I'll take a hotdog, extra long . . ."

The popcorn never got made. Starsky didn't care.

Twenty minutes later he'd gotten permission to put on his sweat pants, and had the show ready to go. Hutch was still in the bathroom. Starsky got impatient and started without him. Hutch came out and caught him redhanded. In the twenty-first century, everything changes . . .

"Starsky! Back it up!"

So Starsky started at the beginning again, and got to say the first line along with Gwen: "Excuse me, have you seen a blowfish driving a sports car?" Except he said "blowjob" instead, and Hutch nearly choked on his baby carrot. It helped that the sports car was Torino red. It added to the effect.

Baby carrots made too much noise. He dug around for the remote so he could turn up the volume, and just as he found it where Hutch had hidden it, Jack spoke. "You don't mess around with this level of perfection."

Hutch nodded. "Yeah, baby," he said.

Starsky assumed that he referred to himself, not to Jack. Either way . . .

"Hey, that's Spike!"

They watched, rapt, as Spike dispatched his first victim and walked off. "Thirsty now," he said.

"That's so Buffy," Starsky said.

"You're such a girl," Hutch said.

"Oh, like you weren't thinking the same thing."

"You're the one who won't let me tell anyone we even know who Buffy is."

"You're the one who named the cat Spike."

"Did I mention I'm armed?" Spike said.

Hutch reached over and patted Starsky's crotch. "So are you," he said fondly.

Starsky started the process of exorcising Spike to make room for John. John was nothing to sneeze at, too.

Jack and John strode across the bar to each other, stared, snogged. Starsky leaned back, hadn't even realized he'd been leaning forward. They began to clobber the shit out of each other. Starsky got squirmy. In the good way.

He said, "Can you imagine a liplock like that between Sonny and whatshisname . . . Tubbs?"

"Or Cagney and Lacey?"

"Nope. Well, yes . . ." He grinned without turning away from the TV. "Times sure have changed."

Starsky looked at the remote control under his hand. He held on to it so he wouldn't lose it, and so he could fast forward through the commercials. It had eleventyseven buttons, it could buy a movie that they could watch instantly, it could practically make espresso, and he still called it the clicker.

And he still could get a rise out of his partner even with thirty more pounds on his belly and a good five pounds less hair on his head.

"Do you call me your 'partner' when you talk about me?" he said.

"No. I call you my wife."

"You're the wife, Blondie."

"And I'm a good wife. You can't mess with that level of perfection."

Starsky just patted Hutch's knee. The bad one, so he was careful. "Shhhh," he said.

"I got a question," he said a few minutes later.

"What?"

"If he's kissing her to get the paralyzing lip gloss on her, how come he ain't paralyzed?"

Hutch just gave him that sideways look. Then he said, "What did he say?"

"I dunno. Rewind it."

"You have the clicker."

So Starsky rewound, which really meant backed up a few bits, or bytes, or something, but he still didn't catch it. "Something about the efficiency of wood."

"The keyword being 'wood' of course."

Starsky nodded. "Of course." He ate a carrot. "Hey, if we hadn't retired we coulda gone in and photocopied our butts on Monday."

Hutch gave him The Look again.

"I'll write 'Eye Candy' on the bottom of yours if you want."

"Starsky, will you please shut up and let me watch."

"Be careful or you'll get more wrinkles around your eyes."

"Those are laugh lines, moron."

But he said it like "lawf loines," which made Starsky grin. "I got another question."

Hutch sighed. Starsky didn't know why he was so annoyed. They were going to watch it again anyway. They always did.

"What?" Hutch said.

"If Gwen got paralyzed, how come she can move her eyes?"

"It only paralyzes from the nose down."

"Oh." He watched for a while, appreciated the eye candy. "LOL 'that's a poodle'!"

"LOL?" Hutch groaned. "I can't believe I just heard you say 'LOL'."

"Times change, pal."

"And you're my passport to survival, all through time," Hutch said. "You know that, right?"

"I know it. No hard feelings."

"Well, not necessarily," Hutch said, and Starsky got that little inside twizzle again.

"Start it over. I'll go get some more carrots which in English translates to popcorn. Extra butter." He started to get up but his knees creaked, and Hutch had to give him a shove from behind to get him standing.

"Press pause," Hutch said. "I've got a better idea."

"See that's the thing about being a Time Lord. You can press pause, or anything else you want to press, any time you want to."

"We aren't Time Lords."

"But we can still press anything we want, any time we want to." He wasn't going to get popcorn. Again.

Hutch just grinned, and pulled him back down.

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