Category: Fic

December 6th: Written in the Stars by Nicoltyler and Terri Beckett

Early December, Bay City, California, 1970.

John Blaine regarded the young man sitting on his back steps, a half-spent cigarette dangling from his fingers.

Blaine fingered the envelope in his hand. David Starsky was no longer the skinny teenager living with his aunt and uncle. Gone was the wide-eyed young man ready to conquer the world when they’d bid him farewell at 18, only to send him off to the brutal jungles of Vietnam a few years later.

Davey came back after 6 months as a POW. However, he returned an angry young man, scarred in more ways than one.

Blaine couldn’t help but feel that Davey was even more bewildered than when he left. He had no place to call his own and no clear sense of purpose. Back on American soil, Starsky couldn’t seem to settle in one place or hold down a job. The longest job he’d held was the most recent, as a cab driver.

That was until tonight.

With a sigh, Blaine shoved the envelope into his pocket before opening the backdoor.

“You better come in; Maggie will have my hide if I let you catch a cold or starve.” Blaine caught the side-eye glance from dark blue eyes and a quirky mouth twist. Continue reading “December 6th: Written in the Stars by Nicoltyler and Terri Beckett”

December 5th: Always Time for Cookies by Dawnwind

“Rosie,” Edith Dobey glanced at her watch, grabbing her coat and hat. “I have to run over to the church to bring these cookies to the Christmas faire.”

Rosie glanced up from coloring book. She was determined to finish the entire thing in the next two weeks. That way, Santa would notice that she no longer had a coloring book and bring her a new one. Along with the other things she had asked for. “Okay,” she said, feeling all grown up if Mommy was willing to leave her by herself.

“It shouldn’t take half an hour.” Edith crammed two boxes of gingerbread and one of iced sugar into a carry bag. “Starsky and Hutch will be coming by for the other boxes of cookies to bring to Marshall School, so you won’t be alone for very long.”

“Good! I missed them.”

“And Cal should be back from basketball practice soon, too,” Edith added.

“Mommy! I can be by myself! I turned eight last month,” Rosie insisted. Her birthday had been before Thanksgiving. Continue reading “December 5th: Always Time for Cookies by Dawnwind”

December 3rd: Hidden in Plain Sight by ACL

An Advent Calendar story about Hutch’s door.

There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense about Hutch, even if he could come up with some half-assed reason for every last one of them—the tacky red plastic Biorhythm Calculator ‘for the enlightened woman’, the battered astrology magazine lying among the clutter on his dash, the combined blackstrap molasses and desiccated liver in his breakfast smoothies (“It’ll put lead in your pencil, Starsk”).

Top of that list, in Starsky’s estimation, had to be the fact that Hutch only started keeping his apartment key on the ledge above his front door after his place had been broken into. Twice.

Naturally Starsky had questioned the wisdom of the key’s new hiding place, but Hutch had replied that it might as well stay there since they now knew from bitter experience that anyone with a nefarious motive could cross Hutch’s threshold at will, never mind what he did with his apartment key. Continue reading “December 3rd: Hidden in Plain Sight by ACL”

December 2nd: It Was the Third of September by Kath Moonshine

From very far away I hear a tiny voice mumble, “Hutch.” Sweet, syrupy darkness surrounds me. I’m happy. I want to stay deeply asleep, but I have responsibilities. It’s been a year since Gunther. Since everything changed. Everything.

“Mmm?” I answer, my left hand already gently patting Starky down, unconsciously looking for wounds, finding only beautiful, life-affirming scars. Continue reading “December 2nd: It Was the Third of September by Kath Moonshine”

December 10th: The Animatronic Santa by Nicoltyler

In the dimly lit store, Hutch’s imagination played tricks on him. Every shadow seemed to shift; every creak of the building was potentially a deadly step approaching. He had to rely on his instincts, on the trust he had in Starsky, who was out there somewhere. Gasping for breath, Hutch propped himself against the tumbled Christmas display, desperately attempting to maintain absolute silence. Above him, the ceaseless holiday music tormentingly looped a high-pitched rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Starsky, his ever-impulsive partner, had turned a simple holiday job into a harrowing adventure. What was meant to be a chance to make a few dollars now felt like a nightmare. Hutch wondered how they had ended up here, huddled amidst the toppled Christmas decorations, hunted by a murderous Santa Claus.

“It will be fun,” Starsky had promised him.

Hutch muttered under his breath, closing his eyes to discern the telltale sounds of the menacing animatronic Santa and his partner who had gone missing. “He said it’d be a breeze, just a few days as security guards to earn extra holiday cash.”

“Things couldn’t get any worse,” Hutch thought, feeling a chill run down his spine. As he mustered the courage to move, he heard a faint, ominous mechanical whir from behind a nearby aisle. His heart raced as he realized the animatronic Santa was on the move, and it was coming his way. Continue reading “December 10th: The Animatronic Santa by Nicoltyler”