WARNING: Rated T for a hell of a lot of language and just generally being depressing as fuck. Yes, I came right out of writing the story, hence the language here. At least now you are duly warned.

"Go to fucking jail," Starsky muttered to himself. Then for some reason he thought this was funny and started chuckling. Hutch snorted, and then they were engaged in a bout of raucous laughter.

Once it had dissipated, Starsky said, "If this ain't jail, I don't know what is."

Two weeks since Terry had died, the gifts were opened, tears expelled, and both men were rip-roaring drunk.

"What's jail?" Hutch leaned forward as if the two were sharing some great secret.

"Loneliness." Starsky took another swig of his glass and placed it sloppily next to him on the floor. "Roll the dice, Blintz."

"Fucking loneliness." Hutch raised his own beer shakily in the air. "Let's drink to it."

"Sorta like drinking to the conqueror, isn't it?" Starsky said dryly. "Nobody ever wins at The Game of Life. Lies."

"Lies," Hutch echoed, and he downed his drink.

And the laughter had made their heads pound, so they both felt a little sick.

"Hey Hutch, you keep drinking the way you are I might beat you this time."

"You never—" hiccup "—beat me at Monopoly, Starsky. It's cosmically impossible."

"Nothing's impossible."

"Ah, don't start with that again."

"Do you think Gillian was happy when she was alive? Like Terry was?"

"Sh—" Hutch winced. "Fuck, Starsk. Don't talk about her."

"Sorry. It's just, I gotta think Terry was happy, and she was, but even if she wasn't I'd gotta. Just in case the world is—what you were telling me about a few years ago—nat'ralist."

Hutch played around with a few pieces on the board. 'A few years ago' had been when they were just out of Academy, at least in this instance. Hutch had been bummed after divorcing Vanessa, and he just sort of forgot about heaven for a little while. "Surprised you remember that," he muttered.

"Think about it all the time. With everybody dying on us, I think about what happens after." At this, Starsky paused. "Y'know, did I ever tell you about this swell little girl I used to live with? Well, not exactly. We were neighbors in Brooklyn. But we saw each other so much that it was almost true."

"You keep with her in touch—" Hutch closed his eyes and shook his head, "—in touch with her?"

"She died in a car crash the year before I moved."

"Shit, Starsky."

"What?"

"Are we just gonna talk about dead people tonight?"

"Well I only thought—"

"That I'd like to hear about it? A little girl? That's more fucking depressing than everything else put together."

"Sorry, Hutch." There was no hurt in his voice, only resignation.

A heavy silence followed.

"Did you see it?"

"What?"

"Did you see the car crash?"

"Fuck no, Hutch. Morbid, aren't ya?"

"Well, tell me about her, then."

Starsky smiled wanly, but it lit the whole of him up nonetheless. "She was the sweetest little kid, a year younger than me. We played catch together, cards together, anything together. Everything together. She even forced me to play hopscotch with her once or twice. Always outside, too, so the neighborhood boys had a lot to say about it."

"Have you ever tried to play hopscotch indoors, Starsk?"

"No, but I only thought that since I'm… wait a minute. You played hopscotch, too?"

"Yeah. My sister made me play, and she'd cry when I didn't and our parents wouldn't do anything about it."

"Really? Ma did everything about it. She'd yank my ear and say go play with that little girl or you're going to your room without supper."

"Your mother said that? Sarah Starsky? She'd keep you from your food?"

Starsky laughed. "Considering it now, I don't think she meant it. But I'd get so scared I'd run right over."

The thought of Starsky getting gypped of his food, at the hands of his very loving mother, no less, was enough to send Hutch into mild hysterics.

"And she fucking died."

Hutch stopped laughing, and if the words wouldn't have done it, Starsky's stricken face would have.

"It's still so, so looming and real sometimes that I have to think that I carried that feeling with me for all these years, the one where Ma came in and let the screen door sorta fall behind her and just tell me without any overture that Davy, sweetheart, the little girl next door was in an accident."

"Her parents must've been devastated."

"They were in there, too."

Piece by piece of experience over the years gave Hutch more insight into the extent of Starsky's losses, and now he snapped. "How, how can you be so fucking cheerful all the time, Starsky? Huh? All these things in your life, they don't make you feel like a pile of shit?" Because Hutch honestly did, and he wasn't the one who lost his girl. Not this time. His thoughts caused his speech to derail, and it took some time for him to remember where he was. "It's… it's like you're that fucking Brady dad or something, horrible perm and all."

Starsky had tried to keep a straight face during the comparison to Mike Brady but found that he couldn't.

Hutch was indignant. "I was being serious."

"I know, Hutch, but do I really have any choice?"

And he could've been referring to laughing over the Brady reference, but Hutch knew that he wasn't.

"There's this thing I remember most about her… that she had this very trenchant way of doing and saying things. If I'd get mad at her and say something like I was never coming over again, she'd just cock her head a bit and say, 'Sure.' And it wasn't sarcastic at all. It was sort of all-knowing, like she guessed that I'd change my mind later on, and she'd just let me say those things, get them off my chest. And if I came back, she knew it all along. That was Laura," he laughed.

Hutch froze, eyes small in contemplation.

"What's wrong? I ain't remembering the death now. I'm remembering the good times."

"What was her name again?"

"Laura. Laura Anderson."

Hutch snapped his fingers. "Wasn't, wasn't there a song, went like that?"

"Like what?"

"That was Laura."

"Aw, yeah," Starsky said nonchalantly. "That was Laura, but she's only a dream," he sang. "Seems like it's right up your alley, come to think of it."

"Yeah."

"Hang on. I've got it around here somewhere. Dad loved this record."

Hutch winced. So they were just talking about dead people tonight.

As it turned out Starsky didn't remember exactly where it was, and the drinking didn't help. After a while Hutch tried to absolve him of this responsibility, but Starsky was adamant.

"Sorry, Hutch. It's gotta be here. I know because Ma let me have it when I left. One of the many things to remember Dad by."

"I told you—"

"Nah, I'm going to find it."

Hutch sighed as the curly dark head descended into yet another dusty pile. This wouldn't be a problem if Starsky just left things where he last used them. It was so much easier to find things in a messy room. Mess didn't have to be unruly. Most of the time it was logical.

"Aha!" Starsky brandished the tiny album high above his head.

Hutch wondered wryly if the record was even in the sleeve.

It was, though, and the 45 slid easily into Starsky's palm before he lumbered over to his player and turned it on.

"Memories, eh?"

"What did you listen to when you were a kid?"

Closing his eyes, Hutch found that no definitive answer came to him—only swatches of songs like That'll Be The Day when he first heard his parents fight, Mack the Knife on his first day of high school, Sh-Boom when he met his first girlfriend, All Summer Long for the end of freshman year at California State, stuff he couldn't make sense of as they coalesced and crashed inside his head.

Now another joined it as new-old music filled the room and softened its edges, bringing Hutch near sleep. Starsky's singing along didn't help with consciousness. He was more accustomed to that than any damned song. For when he heard a song he liked, or truthfully just simply knew the words to, he began to sing along. He didn't say anything while the song ran and instead listened to the shaky baritone rise and fall, swell on the longer notes. Starsky really did have a nice voice when he wasn't fooling around… nice for nights like this.

The dim lights of the apartment gave way to images, near-transparent shapes and forms that hover around the room like icy shadows. Their grayness hurt his eyes, and he tried watching them as most of the song passed him by.

"'She gave your very first kiss to you. That was Laura,'" his voice grew, leaving no inch of stale air in the apartment vacant, "'but she's only a dream.'"

Hutch badly wanted a cigarette.

"You sleeping, Hutch?"

"No, I'm not sleeping."

"Oh."

"S'at Bing Crosby?"

"Sinatra."

They fall into a comfortable silence. They can't talk all the time, not normally, not even when one of them is Starsky, and a third of the time it's silence. Starsky stretches and leans on his elbow for support. Monopoly is abandoned.

"Strange, all the you's," Hutch says finally. "In the… uh, second point of view. Suppose it's because everybody's had someone like that."

"Yeah, has to be. It's good because he only gives part of the story. You know what Dad said happened in the movie?"

"What?"

"Laura wasn't really dead. Turns out it was somebody who looked like her." Starsky laughed and shook his head. "Movies. Can't get anything right. Don't even get close sometimes."

"They aren't supposed to be realistic, Starsk. They're art."

"Yeah, and how can we relate to them if they're not even a little bit real?"

"Wishful thinking."

"Yeah, suppose. I like the ones that don't even try."

"That's why you like sci-fi, huh?"

"Yep. Or silly ones. Like Duck Soup. The stuff that doesn't try to copy real life, just make you laugh."

"We should see something next week."

"Yeah, if we have time."

Long enough without talking, and the cheer died sliding through the soles of their shoes.

"Fuck, this is hard."

Hard to what? To think stuff up that's fucking brilliant and worthy of saying the whole fucking time they're sitting here?

They looked at each other.

Try that with a pair of inebriates.

"I'm not ever going to love anybody the same way I loved Terry, am I?" Starsky spoke again.

"You don't know. You could meet someone," Hutch offered.

"Yeah. I'm not saying I won't, but it won't be the same. It'll be different. It's different every time, and not in a bad way, but I miss her. I missed the way I got to love her. And it is different… was different. I really would've married her, you know? I hadn't thought about it before, but I'd been thinking about it even before she was dying, and I really wanted it. Maybe if she wouldn'ta—"

Hutch leaned forward and grasped Starsky's hand in his own, patting the back of it with his other.

Starsky blinked. "Anyway, I'm not saying I'll never feel that way again just because I didn't feel like it before, but when I do, it's not gonna be the same. And goddamnit, I want her back. I want Terry back."

"I know you do, Gordo. You loved her so much that it's not gonna be easy."

"There's something I've been thinking about."

"Yeah?"

"Next time I love somebody that much, I'm gonna quit the force."

Hutch looked up sharply. "But Starsky, you—"

"S'okay, Hutch. How many times have I loved somebody that much? And how long is it going to take me to get over somebody I did?"

"I don't like it."

"I'm sorry, Hutch, but someday I'm gonna want a family, and I'm not gonna be a cop when that happens. Can't have any chances of leaving them behind. Who knows? If a girl likes working enough I could be a stay-at-home dad, not have to worry about switching tracks."

All of a sudden Starsky's likeness in an apron, wearing his crooked smile came to Hutch, and he too smiled.

The same thought appeared to hit Starsky, who grinned a little and sat up a little straighter and said, in realization, "Hey, it doesn't sound that bad."

"I hate to break it to you, Starsk, but we know who's the better cook between us."

"Hey." Starsky frowned. "I'll have you know that Ma taught me a thing or two."

"Someday I'll call that bluff."

"No. Someday we'll have a cook-off."

"Whatever you say, Starsk, whatever you say. We'll invite all your closest friends and—" Hutch winced. "Sorry."

"Ah, no matter. We're gonna keep coming back to the same thing, aren't we? I should've known."

"Well, you're gonna make it through, Buddy. I know you."

"Yeah. Besides, I've done all the crying tonight I can."

"How about something else, then? What's on the old TV?"

"I dunno. Let's go look."

They stumbled through the door to Starsky's bedroom, each supporting the other as Starsky flipped the television on and they watched for a while with a thousand-yard stare. Whatever it was they forgot about, falling asleep with the lights and TV blaring, curled around each other with Starsky's head on Hutch's chest and one of Hutch's arms around his neck and the other holding his back. A few times Hutch sneezed, his nose full of curly hair every time Starsky moved his head and mumbled something unintelligible.

It was the only time they shared a bed, and neither remembered it. Neither remembered anything, as a matter of fact, Hutch forgetting hearing about the girl Starsky never had and Starsky forgetting relaying it. The next morning they woke in a haze and with Starsky on the floor thinking he'd started there.

Both hung over long into the afternoon.

Neither caring if the hours of laughter amidst tears were limited to the night before—just taking it while it lasted—and bracing themselves today for the confrontation of what lay behind false levity.

I wrote Hutch a bit more drunk than Starsky because he seemed a bit more drunk in the scene. :P You can read the ending any way you like… I don't really think it's slashy myself. Cuddling is something I do platonically… and why not for boys if for girls? And if two guys ever cuddled, Starsky and Hutch would definitely be the ones who first crossed my mind as the most likely to do so. The next S&H story I write will be happier… I promise. :)