BARE NECESSITIES
by
Ellis Murdock
7 January, 2003
Profoundest thanks to Sam Grayson and Paula Wilshe for their ideas, suggestions, support, and remarkable editing skills!
This was written for
entertainment purposes only and is not meant to infringe in any way upon the
rights of the legal owners of Starsky and Hutch.
*~*~*~*
Starsky paused in his efforts toward untangling the Christmas tree lights, wincing as the sound of the fifth sneeze in a row emanated from the "den" across the hall. Little more at present than a storage place for moving boxes, it was, nevertheless, trying to be a den. Someday. He sighed, left the coiled lights in just slightly more order than that which he had found them, and made his way to the "den's" doorway just in time to be greeted by the sixth sneeze—this time accompanied by a curse.
"Geshundheit number fifty-two."
Hutch sniffled, blew loudly into a tissue that had already served far beyond the call of duty, and closed the box he'd been leaning over. "Thanks. Damned dust. It's like an asbestos factory in here." He swung around, his expression something between baffled and what preceded the accusatory Hutch Finger. "How is that possible, anyway? We just packed these a week and a half ago. They've been sitting here, what? Four days? How can they get this dusty—" he blew on one to illustrate the point, sending up a cloud of fine particulate that triggered three more sneezes. "This dusty," he continued through pinched nostrils, "in that amount of time?"
Starsky leaned against the doorway and crossed his ankles. "Well, there's old dust and there's new dust. We've been doing a lot of renovation to this whole house over the past few days, and there's no tellin' what we've stirred up. It'll settle, but in the meantime…."
"New dust?"
"New dust."
Starsky stared thoughtfully as Hutch launched himself wholeheartedly
into the exploration of another, smaller box, and attempted to formulate a plan
to save his partner from himself.
Cheerful reassurances, bribery with liberally spiked eggnog, pleas…none
had had the least effect. Deciding the
time had come for the unfettered truth, Starsky straightened and headed for the
living room. "C'mere. There's something I want you to take a look
at."
"Can't it wait? It's right here; it has to be." Hutch made an expansive gesture at the room's contents. "I packed it myself, damn it! I have to be getting close."
"What? You think the box is gonna sprout legs and beat a path to the back door while your back is turned? Come here, just for a minute. Okay? If nothing else, it'll give your sinuses a break."
It took every ounce of willpower he possessed, but Starsky took up his position in front of their Christmas tree without betraying even a hint of the grin that wanted desperately to break free. Waiting patiently until Hutch emerged from the den and drew up close alongside, Starsky threw an arm around him, and pointed to the current centerpiece of their living room. "You see that? Now, whaddya see when you look at that?"
"Starsky—"
"I see a great little tree. Yeah, it's only four feet high, lists toward the east, and is shedding worse than Aunt Rachel's Persian, but I like it. It's a good tree. It's our tree."
"It was the last one on the lot," Hutch began, apologetically. "It was either this or a wreath that said, 'Jo To The World,' because the "Y" fell off."
Starsky laughed. "Better than losing the 'J,' I guess, although Ma would say you couldn't get much more appropriate than that." He snapped his fingers. "Hey, too bad you didn't end up with whatshername. Y'know, the one who thought macramé was a religion? Joanne? It would've been perfect."
"Jolene. And—" Hutch tried to stifle a sneeze and failed. "And there wouldn't have been anything perfect about it."
Not even close. Starsky squeezed Hutch's shoulders a bit more tightly before reaching out and tugging on a tree branch, swallowing a laugh as the entire tree shuddered. "I know what you went through finding a tree on Christmas Eve, and it's fine. It's better than fine, but…" He pointed once more at their spindly little Douglas fir. "Look at it closely, then think about that box of ornaments you've spent the past two hours digging for. Honestly now, what do you think is gonna happen if we take even half of those things and put them on this tree? Huh?"
Hutch opened his mouth as if to protest, but clamped it shut again almost immediately. "It—"
"Uh-huh?"
Hutch's shoulders sank in obvious defeat. "It would disintegrate," he said honestly.
"Exactly. Look, you wanted the first Christmas in the house to be memorable, right?" He tugged at the tree again. "I'd say we're already there." Ducking to avoid Hutch's playful swat, he added, "What do we need all that stuff for, anyway? We'll do our own."
"We'll do what?"
"Our own. Back in my grandparent's time, homemade was the rule, right? Bare necessities. If it was good enough for them, it's gotta be good enough for us."
Hutch's expression remained depressingly unconvinced. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but your grandparents never even put up a Christmas tree, did they? Wouldn't that have been, I dunno, un-kosher?"
Starsky headed for the makeshift table he'd set up about an hour earlier, shooting what he hoped to be a suitably chastising scowl at his partner in passing. "You know what I mean."
Hutch answered with an audible sigh, followed by a brief period of unintelligible snuffling. "Okay." He looked regretfully back at the den, and shook his head. "Okay, at this point I'm an easy sell. What have you got in mind?"
"Knew you'd see it my way." Starsky rubbed his hands together, hoping that some of the enthusiasm he was projecting would rub off on Hutch. "Well, we could try one of those paper chains, but that might be a bit over-the-top for such a ti—um, vertically challenged tree. I was thinking maybe tissue roses." He fluffed a tissue, demonstrated the technique, then handed it over before the next sneeze struck. "Maybe that could be your project—decorate and nurse your allergies all in one handy package."
"Tissue roses? Just how much eggnog have you been imbibing out here, anyway?" Hutch's grin was just this side of evil. "Where exactly did you learn the art of making these? And why? And why didn't I know about this talent before now?"
"My cousin's prom, we needed hundred's of 'em for the float, and take a wild guess." Starsky tapped on the box of tissues, and warned, "Make so much as one smartass comment, and you and your Kleenex will experience a violent parting of the ways."
Hutch held up his hands in mock surrender. "Didn't say a word. What are you planning to contribute while I'm languishing back here in kindergarten?"
"Thought I'd try my hand at a popcorn string."
"I can see the attraction, but the logistics might be a bit tricky."
Starsky folded his arms. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that unless you've got a sewing kit hidden somewhere in the recesses of your wallet, you're gonna have one helluva time getting the popcorn to cooperate with your plan."
"Oh." Starsky paused, permitting his fairly well-lubricated mind ponder this unexpected roadblock. "I don't suppose you…."
Hutch shook his head firmly. "I'm going to grab an allergy pill and another cup of eggnog. You need a refill?"
"You're not supposed to take those with alcohol, are you?" Not expecting an answer, Starsky held out his empty punch cup and leaned against the chair with a huff. "Some Sea Scout you are. Aren't you always supposed to be prepared?"
Hutch snorted, dipping into the half-empty punchbowl and filling both their cups. "Hard as it might be to believe, we didn't spend a lot of time sewing."
Starsky accepted the drink with a good-natured shrug. "Too bad. Just think what you could've-- Hey!" He slapped his hand against the table as an idea formed, evolved, and took on a recognizable shape. "We may not have string, but we've got a glue gun."
"You're going to…what? Glue the popcorn together?"
"No, dummy. I'm going to glue the popcorn onto the tree." At Hutch's incredulous look, he added pointedly, "Look, it's not gonna be a permanent part of the living room, anyway. What've we got to lose?"
Hutch paused for several beats, seemed either unwilling or unable to produce a viable counter-argument, and finally nodded. "The glue might even keep the tree in one piece. Worth a shot."
Abruptly and rudely banished from his self-appointed position of tissue rose instructor, Starsky spent the remaining time prior to the glue gun achieving optimal temperature in exile beside the tree. Shoving one of Hutch's earlier, rejected flower attempts under a stand leg in a futile attempt to force their shedding house guest to stand up straight, the more ludicrous aspects of their present endeavor began to sink in. "Weird custom, isn't it?" he mused aloud. "Cutting down a tree and bringing it into the house?"
"So is hanging a sock on the mantle and expecting someone to fill it with candy." Hutch glanced up. "Then again," he held up a tissue and pointed to the newly heated glue gun, "we probably don't have much room to talk."
"Yeah." Starsky dabbed a bit of glue onto the nearest branch and felt an unnatural sense of satisfaction when three kernels of popcorn adhered, forming a neat, miniature snow drift. "So, what was your tree trimming job when you were little?"
"What do you mean?"
"Y'know. Tinsel, icicles, putting the star on the top…doesn't everyone have a job to do? I thought that was part of the fun." The ensuing silence was unsettling, and Starsky turned around to find his partner staring at…nothing in particular. "Hutch?"
Starsky's voice seemed to return him to the here and now, and Hutch shook his head, focusing immediately on his pile of tissues. "Not in our house. Mother and father did all the decorating on Christmas Eve after Kirsten and I went to bed. We weren't allowed to look at it until Christmas morning. The tree was always…tasteful."
And impersonal, Starsky added silently. Hastily changing the subject, he asked, "If you had to choose just one, what Christmas would be your all-time favorite?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew the answer. It would, he guessed, always be the answer.
"Seventy-nine."
No hesitation, no thought required. Now, it was Starsky's turn to squirm.
"Fair's fair. What's yours?"
"Not seventy-nine," Starsky replied softly.
With the stealth of a cat, Hutch strode to Starsky's side and hung the first of the roses. "Things were still upside down for you then, I know. No matter how much I might have wanted it otherwise, I was in a perpetual state of euphoria. Couldn't come down to save my life."
"You're the only guy I know who could feel guilty about bein' happy." It was a conversation better saved for a more serious occasion, and Starsky hoped the gentle teasing would keep the mood light.
"Not guilty," Hutch corrected, his voice nearly inaudible. "I hated the separation."
"What do you mean?"
"You were just…in another place, and I didn't know how to reach you anymore. It almost seemed like the happier I was, the further it pushed you away. Problem was, I didn't know how not to be happy."
It would be easy enough to make a quick joke, Starsky knew, and Hutch would dutifully drop the subject. Easy, but unfair. That had been a particularly rough patch—full of uncertainty and the harsh realization that recovery only went so far, that change was inevitable. "Half-empty-dom," as Hutch had termed it. It wasn't something often discussed, and deserved far more than a brush-off now. Drawing a deep breath, Starsky assured, "You reached me. It probably didn't seem like it at the time, but seeing you like that was a lot of what kept me together. It's hard to explain—a little like looking up from the bottom of a swimming pool. I could see you, but everything was distorted, out of whack." He shrugged, trying to put words to something that stubbornly defied explanation. "You were the only thing that made sense back then, and it was hard to feel anything most of the time. Seeing you like that—giddy, almost…it made me feel alive when not much else did." Starsky cleared his throat and concentrated on a new popcorn cluster. "Doesn't make much sense, does it?"
"Perfect sense," Hutch replied softly, as he returned to his box of tissue. "Which means you're getting better at this, I know you too well, or the eggnog's pulling double duty."
Somewhat relieved that the moment of stark seriousness had past, Starsky laughed. "My money's on the eggnog."
Hitting a sort of stride as he went, time passed largely without Starsky's notice. Lost in the task of gluing clumps of snowy popcorn onto strategically chosen branches, it was only in retrospect he became aware of the silence that had overtaken the room—after the sound of Hutch's voice had made him jump and send kernels spiraling to the floor like so much white confetti.
"The shamash," Hutch announced quietly. "You should be the first."
Starsky turn around and felt his jaw drop. Apparently having reached his rose quota for the evening, Hutch must, at some point, have set his sights on a far more ambitious project: the creation of a simple menorah.
Starsky approached the mantle as a warmth that had little to do with the effects of the eggnog seemed to originate at soul-level and spread throughout his entire being, all but banishing the aches and pains that had long ago become his rainy weather companions. It was crude—votive lights, foil, and one gaily decorated central taper, but the thought itself was nothing, if not the definition of a gift.
"Better late than never?" Hutch lit the taper and extended it to Starsky. "I thought one of us ought to focus on something meaningful, and since you seemed to be contenting yourself with the secular…." The tone conveyed no trace of harshness, and Hutch's face reflected obvious pleasure at Starsky's surprise and delight.
Accepting the shamash, Starsky lit the first candle, ceremoniously handed the taper back to Hutch to light the second, and fought to clear his mind enough to come up with the words to the Al Hanisim. A prayer memorized in childhood and not recited for more years now than he cared to remember—surprisingly enough, it all came back with little in the way of effort.
"Thank you," Starsky whispered. He leaned into Hutch and allowed himself to be temporarily mesmerized by the multiple flames dancing to an ancient, unheard rhythm. After a few moments, Starsky gently burrowed his elbow into Hutch's side. It would be far too easy to get lost in a flood of memories, and now wasn't the time—not before he'd had the chance to show off his own handiwork. "My turn now. Come take a look at our tree."
Hutch's first reaction was hysterical laughter, which was to be expected. As he made his way around the tree, however, the laughter was replaced by something else. Amusement? Pride?
"Well," he announced, after a thorough study of the object in question, "it's definitely a Starsky and Hutchinson original."
"I like it."
"You want to hear something really amazing? So do I."
*****
Hours later, the punch bowl was empty, the candles blown out, and a series of photographs taken with Starsky's Christmas present—a camera with a timer—preserved for posterity the ascending scale of zaniness that had defined their evening.
Hutch had long ago succumbed to the combination of alcohol and allergy medication, and now effectively pinned Starsky to the couch—a welcome enough weight, as Starsky had no intention of rising, anyway.
Absently ruffling the blond strands that spilled onto his shoulder, Starsky found it hard to imagine any holiday exceeding the joy of this quirky, decidedly non-traditional Christmas. Twisting until his lips were nearly brushing Hutch's ear, he whispered, "This Christmas. Never answered your question earlier, but it's definitely this Christmas…at least until next year."
Though hardly the stuff of House Beautiful photo spreads, they were finally, fundamentally home—right down to the decorated tree and old-family-recipe eggnog. More than anything, he had Hutch. "Jo" could have the world, Starsky mused, allowing his chin to rest lightly against Hutch's temple. Mine's the better deal by far.