Decorated for Death (AU)
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rec50Claim: Starsky & Hutch (TV) – general
Prompt: #15 crack!fic
Title: Decorated for Death (AU)
Author: Beano Smart
Rating: R (WARNING: CONTENT MAY BE VERY DISTURBING)
Length: 900K
Brief summary: Hutch is in his lowest low. He lost everything and what he still had he sold to his Owners. His body, his soul, his past and future. There is only one person who could save him. But it is Hutch’s next assignment – to kill that person and be rewarded with the greatest prize – heroin. The story begins when Hutch kills Starsky.
Link: http://starskyhutcharchive.com/starskyhutchgen/classics/DFD/DFDindex.htm
Excerpt:
The Other leaned back out of reach and the blow grazed by. "Look, you bastard, you've put enough hooks into me to keep me tied to your shadow forever, so don't start lying to me now!" Dark locks strewn over his face, he shouted his anger. "If you lie to me now, I'll walk away because I'll never know what is truth and lies from you. I'll never be sure if you were my partner or not . . . and I couldn't take one more pack of failed promises and hope."
The Champion made to have his say, but the chance was snatched from his lips as the Other plowed on.
"You tell me things I should know. You look like a distant memory. Move like him. Speak like him. You dredge up my forgotten mourning with signs and looks." He scrambled to his feet and pointed accusingly at the blond. "You, Champion of the Territory, you dog my footsteps, save my life, haunt my dreams and gain my confidence! I'm willing to believe you . . . do you hear this, I'm willing to believe my enemy because I have nothing left . . . and I've been alone too long . . . too long!" His face trembled with inner uncertainties and the knowledge that he was revealing many of his secret weaknesses. "But I still value my life and the small measure of freedom I've gained. And no cheap, lying, spaced-out, junkie-butcher from the Territory is going to jeopardize it because of his stinking habit!"
The Champion's head bowed under the torrent of acid words.
"So, if you want us to walk away from here together, you'd better tell me what you're on . . . . Next time, a thing like that could get us both killed!" The Other's voice finally lowered to a more tolerant level and he finished with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer.
The only sound was the harsh rise and fall of their breath and the light breeze that lifted the grit against the shell of the Cadillac.
The blond head stayed bowed for a long time. The chimes were silent. The hands still, unclenched and loose. His voice, when it came, was a shadow of itself, and the strain of anger in it was more for himself than against the silvered man before him.
"I never told you because I thought you'd never need to know." He hesitated, searching for the easiest way that he could bear to say the words. "When I was with the Territory, I was raised, ensnared, manipulated, and finally rewarded with narcotics. All kinds. All mixes. I went out and killed for the drugs -- not for the food, or the shelter, or the gold clasps, but for the drugs. Tiny capsules. Colored tablets. I wiped out a church full of religious fanatics. I even went and killed you for a fix of heroin . . . . That's my price, the hook in my soul . . . ." He looked up, directly into the eye of the Other. " . . . So, if I struggle and falter, it's because I've been alone as long as you have, with no hope and no future. But whereas Selkirk made and programmed you into the Northern Sector Protector, I was led along that path. I was scared in the beginning, then I didn't care anymore. And after a while, it helped dull my awareness, my misery, and I, too, forgot. It became a habit that I didn't want to wake up from . . . . But the twisted irony of it all was that it showed me the way out, and it showed me you. I remembered." His voice lowered to subdued tones of shame. As he stumbled out the answer to the original question, it finally died away. " . . . And-and . . . if you must know, it was LSD."
Head turned away, he looked off toward the horizon, cheek pressed to the singed leather shoulder yoke, and said in a whisper of desperation, "Every word I ever said to you was the truth. I never lied once. I couldn't take the risk . . . but shame makes a man want to keep his own counsel sometimes. I'm not proud of what I am."
Inside, the Champion's heart weighed against his chest with all the inner misery of a truth confessed, and the fear of losing something he had fought hard to regain: his partner.
I didn't want you to ever know for certain . . . . I remember the years long ago, when you held me so tight against the ravages of the heroin. I kicked the habit then . . . but I slipped backward . . . and I didn't really care in the beginning -- but realization came too late, and the Owners had managed to cultivate their treasured, precious killing machine.
The Other thought gravely about the words and judged them to be true. And as the Champion made his speech, a tapestry of put-aside images paraded before his mind, and he remembered the days in a small room of dim lights, one bed, and a door that locked -- where a victim of demented cravings mastered his desires and won through. He remembered the pleading, the body-wrenching spasms of shivers and sweats, the endless cups of coffee, the candy bars -- the sheer bone-aching weariness of a struggle that seemed to have no end, and reduced his partner to a wreck of heart-wrenching pleas and self-blame.
He stared at that same man now. Pale of flesh and hollow of face. Eyes bright with the look of the hunted. Soul laid bare before a man who had just threatened to leave him . . . and who had left him once before.
No more blame, no more shame for either of us. It was me who drove away on the night of The End . . . . It was me who never came back . . . and it was me who helped you fight your habit all those years ago. He never lied to me then . . . and I don't think you lied to me now . . . and you can be free of the needles and capsules again if you want . . . . If you want something badly enough you can have it -- We both wanted answers and we got them; we both wanted freedom and we have it. A man can have much more besides, once he finds the courage for the first step . . . .
Deep within himself, the Other felt these strange, unfamiliar thoughts swamp his mind, and underneath, making tentative cries for attention, was a sensation that could only be described as an unused feeling. It struggled into life as an emotion -- genuine and real. And he felt the stirrings of deep concern for another human being. Not just an interest for selfish, ulterior motives, but a compassion for someone who had suffered to the same degree as himself and was still suffering.
The next words he spoke, he wanted to count. No easy platitudes would do, and yet he was unpracticed in words of kindness and compassion. Finally, he said in gentle softness, "I once helped you fight your addiction -- I can do it again."
Prompt: #15 crack!fic
Title: Decorated for Death (AU)
Author: Beano Smart
Rating: R (WARNING: CONTENT MAY BE VERY DISTURBING)
Length: 900K
Brief summary: Hutch is in his lowest low. He lost everything and what he still had he sold to his Owners. His body, his soul, his past and future. There is only one person who could save him. But it is Hutch’s next assignment – to kill that person and be rewarded with the greatest prize – heroin. The story begins when Hutch kills Starsky.
Link: http://starskyhutcharchive.com/starskyhutchgen/classics/DFD/DFDindex.htm
Excerpt:
The Other leaned back out of reach and the blow grazed by. "Look, you bastard, you've put enough hooks into me to keep me tied to your shadow forever, so don't start lying to me now!" Dark locks strewn over his face, he shouted his anger. "If you lie to me now, I'll walk away because I'll never know what is truth and lies from you. I'll never be sure if you were my partner or not . . . and I couldn't take one more pack of failed promises and hope."
The Champion made to have his say, but the chance was snatched from his lips as the Other plowed on.
"You tell me things I should know. You look like a distant memory. Move like him. Speak like him. You dredge up my forgotten mourning with signs and looks." He scrambled to his feet and pointed accusingly at the blond. "You, Champion of the Territory, you dog my footsteps, save my life, haunt my dreams and gain my confidence! I'm willing to believe you . . . do you hear this, I'm willing to believe my enemy because I have nothing left . . . and I've been alone too long . . . too long!" His face trembled with inner uncertainties and the knowledge that he was revealing many of his secret weaknesses. "But I still value my life and the small measure of freedom I've gained. And no cheap, lying, spaced-out, junkie-butcher from the Territory is going to jeopardize it because of his stinking habit!"
The Champion's head bowed under the torrent of acid words.
"So, if you want us to walk away from here together, you'd better tell me what you're on . . . . Next time, a thing like that could get us both killed!" The Other's voice finally lowered to a more tolerant level and he finished with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer.
The only sound was the harsh rise and fall of their breath and the light breeze that lifted the grit against the shell of the Cadillac.
The blond head stayed bowed for a long time. The chimes were silent. The hands still, unclenched and loose. His voice, when it came, was a shadow of itself, and the strain of anger in it was more for himself than against the silvered man before him.
"I never told you because I thought you'd never need to know." He hesitated, searching for the easiest way that he could bear to say the words. "When I was with the Territory, I was raised, ensnared, manipulated, and finally rewarded with narcotics. All kinds. All mixes. I went out and killed for the drugs -- not for the food, or the shelter, or the gold clasps, but for the drugs. Tiny capsules. Colored tablets. I wiped out a church full of religious fanatics. I even went and killed you for a fix of heroin . . . . That's my price, the hook in my soul . . . ." He looked up, directly into the eye of the Other. " . . . So, if I struggle and falter, it's because I've been alone as long as you have, with no hope and no future. But whereas Selkirk made and programmed you into the Northern Sector Protector, I was led along that path. I was scared in the beginning, then I didn't care anymore. And after a while, it helped dull my awareness, my misery, and I, too, forgot. It became a habit that I didn't want to wake up from . . . . But the twisted irony of it all was that it showed me the way out, and it showed me you. I remembered." His voice lowered to subdued tones of shame. As he stumbled out the answer to the original question, it finally died away. " . . . And-and . . . if you must know, it was LSD."
Head turned away, he looked off toward the horizon, cheek pressed to the singed leather shoulder yoke, and said in a whisper of desperation, "Every word I ever said to you was the truth. I never lied once. I couldn't take the risk . . . but shame makes a man want to keep his own counsel sometimes. I'm not proud of what I am."
Inside, the Champion's heart weighed against his chest with all the inner misery of a truth confessed, and the fear of losing something he had fought hard to regain: his partner.
I didn't want you to ever know for certain . . . . I remember the years long ago, when you held me so tight against the ravages of the heroin. I kicked the habit then . . . but I slipped backward . . . and I didn't really care in the beginning -- but realization came too late, and the Owners had managed to cultivate their treasured, precious killing machine.
The Other thought gravely about the words and judged them to be true. And as the Champion made his speech, a tapestry of put-aside images paraded before his mind, and he remembered the days in a small room of dim lights, one bed, and a door that locked -- where a victim of demented cravings mastered his desires and won through. He remembered the pleading, the body-wrenching spasms of shivers and sweats, the endless cups of coffee, the candy bars -- the sheer bone-aching weariness of a struggle that seemed to have no end, and reduced his partner to a wreck of heart-wrenching pleas and self-blame.
He stared at that same man now. Pale of flesh and hollow of face. Eyes bright with the look of the hunted. Soul laid bare before a man who had just threatened to leave him . . . and who had left him once before.
No more blame, no more shame for either of us. It was me who drove away on the night of The End . . . . It was me who never came back . . . and it was me who helped you fight your habit all those years ago. He never lied to me then . . . and I don't think you lied to me now . . . and you can be free of the needles and capsules again if you want . . . . If you want something badly enough you can have it -- We both wanted answers and we got them; we both wanted freedom and we have it. A man can have much more besides, once he finds the courage for the first step . . . .
Deep within himself, the Other felt these strange, unfamiliar thoughts swamp his mind, and underneath, making tentative cries for attention, was a sensation that could only be described as an unused feeling. It struggled into life as an emotion -- genuine and real. And he felt the stirrings of deep concern for another human being. Not just an interest for selfish, ulterior motives, but a compassion for someone who had suffered to the same degree as himself and was still suffering.
The next words he spoke, he wanted to count. No easy platitudes would do, and yet he was unpracticed in words of kindness and compassion. Finally, he said in gentle softness, "I once helped you fight your addiction -- I can do it again."
no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 01:33 am (UTC)"A 250+ page, one-story zine . . . . What happens to Starsky and Hutch and LA after the holocaust? Who wins, who loses, who survives? Are you strong enough to read the legend? Can you bear to learn the story of the man of silver and the man of gold?"
It is not a death story, it is a Life story. Gut-wrenching, to be sure,
but a powerful saga that stands the test of time. The illustrations are by the author's sister, and her uncluttered, simple line drawings are a perfect counterpoint to her sister's ornate writing style.
Paula S., in her review of the zine, said it was "a super-duper story,
suspenseful, fascinating, detailed, and damned hard to put down." Melanie R.'s review begins and ends with the statement: "Buy this and read it." Terri B.'s review says, in part, "Anyway you slice it, it is going to have a place in S&H history. . . This reviewer recommends it."