For Dawn
Four Ways Starsky and Hutch May Have Visited Neverland
By Audrey
Slash, non-explicit, not betaed.
Summary: A life story, truly!
"Do you know," Peter asked, "why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories."
— "Peter Pan", by J.M. Barrie
"…the Pan stories are in the German-English tradition of the Totenkindergeschichte (roughly, "tales of the death of children"), and the idea that Peter and all of the lost boys are dead in a Neverland afterlife is consistent with that genre…"
— Author Kevin Orlin Johnson on Wikipedia
Hutch's fragmented memories came fast and fierce these days, like the balls that Dodger Don Newcombe whipped at opposing batters every Saturday of Starsky's childhood.
"Remember when we chased the guy in the dress? What was his name?"
"Yeah Hutch, I remember."
"Remember Lisa? Whatever happened to Lisa?"
"She's been in a group home for years now. You asked me that yesterday."
Peter Pan is ten, she had told him, so many years ago. And he never wants to grow up either. He's always happy, and only children can see him.
I haven't seen him for a long time, he had replied. Back in the here-and-now, he sat on the edge of the bed. "I haven't seen her in a long time," he echoed his ancient words back to Hutch. "Since her mom passed. A long time."
"And that car wash guy. What a jerk. Wasn't he a jerk, Starsk?"
"Yes, a jerk." That was his life now. Repeating and reinforcing. Supporting a child's efforts to remember and understand, except this wasn't a child, or even Lisa… it was Hutch. And Hutch was old, and he was old, and while his life had moved forward into a mélange of arthritis and midnight pee-breaks and senior discounts on his morning coffee, Hutch's life had moved backwards. Memories scrubbed clean, along with the ability to shave and dress, the energy to walk or eat, and the desire to connect with anyone (except on a verbally superficial level that left Starsky exhausted with the effort).
"They are dead to me, David and his friend. Dead, " his mother had said to Nicky when the detectives approached Starsky's family 30 years ago, aglow in new love.
Now the irony cut through his heart. He shifted in bed. "Well Ma, you'll be glad to hear we might as well be," he muttered.
A drowsy Hutch offered up a "Guh?" in response. For a brief moment, Starsky could think that his partner would reach over and grab his hand in sympathetic companionship, before the fantasy shattered (as it always did these days) into uncried tears and the painfully piercing "Do you remember, Starsk?…"
"Every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead. "
The first few weeks, the tears would only come late at night.
On the TV, the late show twitched and flickered in the darkened house like black branches against a moonlit sky. Hutch fingered pine needles that the dog had tracked onto the couch from the tree, a tree that should have come down weeks ago. By Twelfth Night, the tree is gone, his mother always insisted. But Starsky wouldn't hear of it.
"You know that movie, where the kid hears the bell ring on the tree and says 'every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.' "
"We don't have any bells on the tree, Starsk."
"No, but it's the principle of the thing. Keep the tree up, and I'll get wings."
And Hutch left the tree up. He believed in angels. And he had to believe that Starsky had wings now. He held up his hand, reaching out to the shimmering darkness. Pine needles wept from between his outstretched fingers.
"Every moment her light was growing fainter; and he knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it."
— Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie.
Rosie Dobey knocked again. No answer. Her keys came out of her purse, jangling slightly in shaking fingers. She unlocked the door with one hand, while fishing for her cell phone with the other.
"Starsky? Hutch?" she called as she entered.
He was in his favorite chair, the fake Queen Anne with the worn-out cushions. His eyes were closed. She could almost fool herself into thinking that he was sleeping except for his pale, still face. At his feet sat Starsky, legs pretzeled under him on the floor, head in Hutch's lap, eyes shut tight.
"Oh no, not both," she panicked.
Then the figure on the floor spoke, eyes still closed.
"I was hoping he'd wait until Christmas."
She walked across the room and sat on the couch. "He made it this long," she said softly.
"He probably didn't want his passing to be part of the whole 'euphoric sentimentalism' thing."
They shared a reluctant smile. She began dialing the necessary numbers on her phone. Starsky opened his eyes and looked up briefly at his partner, before closing them again and burying his face in Hutch's lap.
"If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment…."
"You. What's-your-name. Hold this thing while I read it." Hutch's arthritic fingers handed the book off to one of his nephews.
"Why can't you read us a Christmas book?" asked Sandra's youngest.
"Because we need to finish this one from the last time you visited."
"You know your Uncle Ken," his sister called from the kitchen. "He can't leave things undone or half-way."
"If he started reading you that book five years ago, he'd still be going on about finishing it," Starsky added.
Hutch ignored them both. "'Pan, who and what art thou?'" he read. His niece and nephews snapped to attention, immediately taken in by their uncle's deeply-voiced Captain Hook.
"'I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg.'"
"A little bird?" Starsky interrupted.
"It's allegory. It's metaphor. It's a bunch of things you don't know anything about, dummy," Hutch responded. "Let me read."
The children kept their attention on their uncle throughout his telling of Peter's fight on the rock with Captain Hook, all the way until Peter's near-mortal wounding.
"'Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure".'"
"Not really so awfully big. More likely awfully painful and depressing," Starsky groused.
The children turned to him, eyes big.
"Don't listen to him," Hutch said, pulling their attention back to him. "Once again, Starsk nearly ruins a children's classic with his resistance to metaphor. Now let's see how Wendy reacted when Peter survived and came home."
At midnight, Sandra and the children finally left for their hotel, Christmas Eve presents firmly in their sleepy hands. Starsky and Hutch fell into bed, Hutch snoring before he could even get his clothing off, Starsky just managing to brush his teeth before plopping next to him in a dead snooze.
He had one of his dreams that night, and cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tight.
The End