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crack_van2013-06-19 10:39 pm
flamingoslim.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-06-19 10:39 pm
Entry tags:
Only Being Friends by jen (R)
Fandom: STARSKY & HUTCH
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Length: 4,285 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jenoofer
Author Website: jen's Starsky & Hutch fiction on LiveJournal
Why this must be read:
As I mentioned in my last rec, this story is a mirror-image in theme to Kate Roman's Been Thinking. And yet, the stories are very different. In Been Thinking, Hutch was the POV character. In this story, it's Starsky. Like the last story, the events are internalized, focused on the POV character's view, and especially on the issues that are troubling him. In this story, we are somewhere in fourth season, and the partners are out of sync. Something's wrong, but neither of them can verbalize it nor get to the root of the problem. When Starsky is surprised to find Hutch in a bar drinking by himself, he's concerned that this is just another symptom of what's gone wrong between them.
The writer paints an amazingly vivid picture, filling it with color, sight, and sound: "Brake-lights smeared red on the road ahead, a glowing trail that Starsky followed half blind. On his right, the sky was gradually darkening, one last streak of red and orange as the sun blazed its exit, turning to lavender and grey overhead and blue through the left hand window... ...if he hadn’t been watching the roadside (roofs silhouetted in the glow of the sunset, neon bar signs glowing faintly in the failing light) he might never have seen the pile of beige flotsam that was Hutch’s car, parked untidily in the lot of a bar he had come to know well..." (How can you not love that description of Hutch's car: "beige flotsam"! "...Discoloured walls were hung with black-out curtains to ward off any sunlight that might dare try to creep through the windows, and a haze of blue smoke hung lazily just a couple of feet above the heads of the few drinkers seated inside. This was not a place Bay City’s residents came to drink: it was a place they came to hide."
Finding Hutch in this place upsets Starsky on many levels: "Being unable to judge Hutch’s mood and motives was disturbing somehow, a reminder of just how off things had felt during the past few months... ...For Starsky, who had spent much of the past year at odds with the one constant in his life, the bleak sensation of isolation that somehow struck in a room full of people was deeply unnerving. The sudden and disarming realisation of his loneliness descended like nightfall in winter: quick and cold."
When he reveals himself to Hutch, he's relieved when Hutch doesn't turn him away. Hutch seems to be there to hear the singer and is immersed in the music. When Hutch is ready to leave, Starsky instinctively follows: "The obvious thing to think about was what would happen when they reached whatever destination Hutch had chosen. Although Starsky could not say what would happen, there was no escaping the knowledge that it would be something earth-shatteringly final. He drove through a wilderness that held no promise of hope at its end, only the promise that it would end tonight."
Both men are traveling to a place they've never been before. The only question is whether or not they'll arrive together or at all. This hauntingly beautiful story is a must-read!
Only Being Friends by jen
Pairing: Starsky/Hutch
Length: 4,285 words
Author on LJ:
jenooferAuthor Website: jen's Starsky & Hutch fiction on LiveJournal
Why this must be read:
As I mentioned in my last rec, this story is a mirror-image in theme to Kate Roman's Been Thinking. And yet, the stories are very different. In Been Thinking, Hutch was the POV character. In this story, it's Starsky. Like the last story, the events are internalized, focused on the POV character's view, and especially on the issues that are troubling him. In this story, we are somewhere in fourth season, and the partners are out of sync. Something's wrong, but neither of them can verbalize it nor get to the root of the problem. When Starsky is surprised to find Hutch in a bar drinking by himself, he's concerned that this is just another symptom of what's gone wrong between them.
The writer paints an amazingly vivid picture, filling it with color, sight, and sound: "Brake-lights smeared red on the road ahead, a glowing trail that Starsky followed half blind. On his right, the sky was gradually darkening, one last streak of red and orange as the sun blazed its exit, turning to lavender and grey overhead and blue through the left hand window... ...if he hadn’t been watching the roadside (roofs silhouetted in the glow of the sunset, neon bar signs glowing faintly in the failing light) he might never have seen the pile of beige flotsam that was Hutch’s car, parked untidily in the lot of a bar he had come to know well..." (How can you not love that description of Hutch's car: "beige flotsam"! "...Discoloured walls were hung with black-out curtains to ward off any sunlight that might dare try to creep through the windows, and a haze of blue smoke hung lazily just a couple of feet above the heads of the few drinkers seated inside. This was not a place Bay City’s residents came to drink: it was a place they came to hide."
Finding Hutch in this place upsets Starsky on many levels: "Being unable to judge Hutch’s mood and motives was disturbing somehow, a reminder of just how off things had felt during the past few months... ...For Starsky, who had spent much of the past year at odds with the one constant in his life, the bleak sensation of isolation that somehow struck in a room full of people was deeply unnerving. The sudden and disarming realisation of his loneliness descended like nightfall in winter: quick and cold."
When he reveals himself to Hutch, he's relieved when Hutch doesn't turn him away. Hutch seems to be there to hear the singer and is immersed in the music. When Hutch is ready to leave, Starsky instinctively follows: "The obvious thing to think about was what would happen when they reached whatever destination Hutch had chosen. Although Starsky could not say what would happen, there was no escaping the knowledge that it would be something earth-shatteringly final. He drove through a wilderness that held no promise of hope at its end, only the promise that it would end tonight."
Both men are traveling to a place they've never been before. The only question is whether or not they'll arrive together or at all. This hauntingly beautiful story is a must-read!
Only Being Friends by jen
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