Pretender (Starsky & Hutch story)
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Pretender |
| Author(s): | Chameleon |
| Date(s): | early 1980s? |
| Length: | 17 chapters |
| Genre(s): | slash |
| Fandom(s): | Starsky & Hutch |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | |
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Pretender is a slash Starsky & Hutch drawerfic by Chameleon who wrote The Chameleon Universe.
The story includes seventeen parts.
Despite the intense inner voices and situations, the story's characterizations and only brief mentions of their jobs means it feels more like original fiction than Starsky/Hutch fanfiction.
Story Summary
It begins when Davey Starsky is fourteen and a somewhat rough and troubled kid. His father, a cop named Zach, has just died. Starsky is miserable and lonely in his confused grief.
There is a lot of description of his extended family in New York, including his brother Nicky, his Uncle Issac, many relatives that speak Hebrew and Yiddish, and his Uncle Thad. It is Thad who gets into Starsky's bed one night and has sex with Starsky. The sex is not violent but not welcome. Thad leaves that morning, before Starsky wakes up.
Starsky has conflicting feelings about girls, and boys, and sex. He gets a job at a deli to help support his family. He begins a clumsy sexual relationship with a friend named Jake. Starsky and Jake have anal sex, and are caught in the act by Jake's mother who throws both boys out of the house. Starsky's mother also angrily scolds Starsky, and her rabbi makes her send Starsky to Uncle Al and Aunt Rosie in California.
Starsky, grown and now a cop (though there is hardly a mention of his job), begins a complicated relationship with a much younger man named Stephen. Stephen appears to become a dentist at some point. There is infidelity, fighting, pining, yearning, and complications.
Starsky gets a new partner called Hutch in a very off-stage, anti-climatic way. Stephen is jealous and puts on makeup to make Starsky jealous at a bar while Hutch is there. There is drama.
Jump ahead a year: Vanessa has left Hutch and it is Christmas time. Hutch is depressed, but Starsky is happy. Then Vanessa calls and says she's coming home. This makes Starsky go to a bar to pick up strange men for sex. Then he goes back to Stephen...for about two days.
Hutch appears at Starsky's door, very drunk. Starsky cradles him and wishes Hutch was his lover. Stephen comes over unexpectedly, sees Hutch on the couch, and he and Starsky have a fight. Starsky throws Stephen out.
Hutch explains that Vanessa threw him out after they argued and Hutch hit her hard enough to knock her down. Starsky says:
- "It's bad but it ain't the end of the world, probably isn't a husband in the city hasn't slapped his wife at some point -- and you had provocation..." So, maybe you're both at fault. Who the hell am I to judge?"
Hutch and Starsky continue to be partners and date women, including Kathy and Helen respectively. They are both canon characters. Starsky, however, is still sleeping with Stephen.
Starsky begins a serious relationship with, visits her family, and there is a lot of domesticity. Starsky starts thinking about marrying her, and plans to continue his relationship with Stephen. But he still mostly wants Hutch instead.
Starsky asks Helen to marry him. She says she needs time to get to know him better, and she wants to know all his secrets as she thinks he doesn't share enough with her. Starsky then tells Helen he is gay, and well, it turns out she doesn't want to know all his secrets after all:
- "Come on, don't play games with me," she heard her voice, brittle, smile wavering as she faced the bleak eyes. Images surfaced -- her lover, her David -- one of them... one of the sordid, ugly group hanging around the baths and bars -- an she shuddered. "No," she whispered the denial. "No, you have to be making fun of me. It isn't possible. After... after the nights you've spent here, you expect me to believe something like that? I mean, I'd have known!"
- One brow raised slowly. "Would you?"
- "I've worked vice," she snapped. "Dammnit, I don't think all the guys on Santa Monica are waiting for buses."
At this point, Starsky and Stephen have been having a on-again, off-again sexual relationship for six years.
Stephen goes off to Mexico to work with the Huichols, the topic is pottery. He comes back to visit, and Starsky mentions some canon characters and situations, though this is all off-stage and barely an afterthought. Some of these characters are Frank Malone, Rosey Malone, and Terry Roberts.
Starsky tells Stephen he loves him and they talk about buying a house together. Stephen insists, though, that Starsky tells Hutch he is gay before this happens. Starsky agrees to do this within three months, after Stephen returns from another trip to Mexico.
At this point, canon-wise, the story is taking place during the end of the fourth season, and everyone is crotchety.
Ten days before Stephen is to return from Mexico, he, along with dozens of other people, is killed in a hotel fire. Drugs are involved.
Hutch knows something is up, investigates Stephen, and figures things out. Hutch also recollects how he and Jack Mitchell had a sexual relationship in high school.
Hutch does a lot of heavy thinking. He and Starsky fight and have mean, angry sex. They fight some more, and then admit they love each other.
Parts
- Forth to Exile
- First Moves: Stephen
- Stephen: Doubts
- Stephen: Question of Fidelity
- Stephen: Admission
- Stephen: Making Up for Lost Time
- Stephen: Stupidity
- Sylvia: Intervention
- Priorities
- Refuge
- The Winnowing
- Words Once Said
- Stephen: Full Circle
- Ten O'Clock News
- An Ye Shall Find
- A Peak in Darien
- The Angel and the Dreamer