Once Bitten
By TLR
Plot: Starsky and Hutch's camping trip goes awry.
(Parody based on the Stiller and Wilson movie Starsky and Hutch)
::::::::::::::
The Hutchinson family had a nice vacation home in deep Southern California, and it was this wooded area next to a lake that Starsky and Hutch decided to spend a weekend.
"We can fish, hunt, explore, cook over an open fire," Hutch said wistfully as he drove his camper truck toward his dad's cabin. "Relax our minds, play some guitar, sing some songs..."
Starsky jabbed his thumb backward behind his shoulder. "We could do that in your camper truck parked in front of your house, or at my beach."
"Right. But then we wouldn't have the space, the quiet, the camaraderie. Nature helps us unwind."
"Ah, phooey," Starsky said as he fixed his gaze out the passenger window. "I can unwind with a beer at Huggy's, or on the dancefloor. Why do I let you talk me into these things?"
"Because you like me." Hutch's happy expression grew stormy as he glared at something up ahead.
"What?" Starsky asked. "What is it? A wooly mammoth? A saber tooth tiger? Or whatever animal stalks these woods?"
"The two-legged kind, partner," Hutch said as he abruptly brought the truck to a halt in front of his dad's cabin and peered through the trees toward a motorboat on the lake. "Trespassers. I've told Dad a hundred times to get a house sitter."
"Guess that's where we come in," Starsky said testily as he jumped out of the passenger side drawing his gun.
"Whoa," Hutch said jumping out and reaching to lower Starsky's shooting arm. "We can't just-"
"Oh yes we can," Starsky said, but before he could say or do anything else, the occupants of the boat fired their own guns at them, and the partners scrambled to safety behind the camper truck. "What the-"
"Hey!" Hutch shouted toward the interlopers. "You're tresspass-"
Blam!
The boat sped off, but the partners got a good look at the departing watercraft, and the pile of six-foot-long marijuana plants stacked in the back of it.
"No!" Starsky yelled at them angrily. "That's illegal!"
"Hmmmm," Hutch mused. "Wonder if they left any behind? I mean, well, for evidence, you know."
"Hutch! SOME DRUG DEALERS HAVE BEEN GROWING MARIJUANA ON YOUR DAD'S PROPERTY! WE NEED TO CALL THIS IN! WE NEED-"
Just then Starsky slapped at a flying insect that landed on his neck.
"Ow!"
Hutch moved his hand down. "It's just a bug bite, tiny camper. Don't worry about it."
"Easy for you to say. It felt like a knitting needle going in."
"Let's get our stuff inside. We can use the phone to call the authorities, and my dad, about the weed."
But they didn't even make it to the cabin porch. Starsky began to wheeze, choke, and hold his throat. His eyes rolled back and he slumped against Hutch.
Hutch caught him with a look of alarm on his face.
"Partner! What happened?! Are you all right?"
"No," Starsky gasped. "Do I look like I'm all right?"
When he started to tremble in a seizure and appear to lose consciousness right there in his arms, Hutch scooped him up and hurried him to the passenger seat, then jumped in and sped to the closest hospital as fast as he could.
"Don't die on me, partner. I just had this thing detailed."
::
The doctors and nurses threw Hutch out of the emergency room while they worked on Starsky. This wasn't Bay City Hospital, so Hutch wasn't on a first-name basis with the staff like he was at Bay City, nor had he dated any of them, so his charm didn't work the same way here. He was left to walk the floor in the waiting room.
About an hour later, the door opened and a panicked older doctor stepped in.
"Detective Hutchinson, is it?"
"Yes," Hutch said nearly pouncing at the doctor. "How is he?
The doctor shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it. What kind of insect bit him?"
"I don't know. Maybe a mosquito? He didn't really say. I don't think either of us saw it."
"Whatever it was, it's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. We had to move him to Isolation."
"What? Why?"
The doctor suddenly paled. "He's rapidly aging. And so am I. Do I look forty to you?"
"No offense, but you look about sixty."
"It's some kind of virus he has, spreading like wildfire. Not everyone is affected, and those that are, are aging at different rates. It's baffling. We sent them to quarantine. You've already been exposed. I suggest you stay as far away from him as you can. We don't know what this virus will do."
"How old do I look, Doc?"
"About thirty."
"So far so good."
Hutch looked mystified as he went with the doctor, but did stay about a foot away from him as they walked down the hall to an elevator.
::
Standing as far apart in the elevator as they possibly could, the doctor and Hutch rode up to the tenth floor to Quarantine.
Looking through the observation window, Hutch could see Starsky lying in the bed looking a bit older, with a few streaks of silver in his hair, and a few lines in his face.
"Wow," Hutch breathed as he raised his hand to Starsky. "Partner... oh my God."
"There's a research lab ten miles from here," the doctor said. "They've been working on airborne toxic weapons. Their experiment must have escaped, and now it's being spread by flying species. We have an epidemic on our hands. I'm going to alert the media. You-"
Hutch opened the door to go in and see Starsky, but Starsky raised his head. "No! Get the hell out of here now!"
The doctor jerked Hutch back, and motioned for security guards to come over.
"Take him outside," the doctor told them.
"No!" Hutch said as they grabbed his arms. "You can't make me!"
They picked him up by arms and legs and carried him to the elevator.
::
Hutch was tossed out the front door of the hospital with guns in his face and a stern "If you come back in here, we're going to throw you in a jail cell."
Knowing that being in a jail cell would not help Starsky in the least, Hutch bit his tongue and began to pace the parking lot.
::
Several hospital staff members aged and died in mere hours, and, as the doctor described, at different rates. Hutch could see the dead patients being rolled out in body bags by hospital personnel in HAZMAT suits.
The authorities came and cordoned off the area to try to confine the virus and those infected, making sure no one new entered, and those that left, left with a death certificate.
Hutch stood alone next to the passenger door of his camper truck, the side his partner should be on at this moment but wasn't. He looked upward at the tenth floor with a lump in his throat.
"No way," he whispered, then marched over to the side of the hospital building and began to free-climb the side of it, going up and up the concrete blocks, higher and higher, each fingerhold, cement crack, and toehold at a time.
"Hold on, partner. I'm coming."
::
Starsky found himself quarantined in a hospital room, his only company the sterile white walls and the relentless tick-tock of the clock, each passing second a stark reminder of his fate.
"I feel so alone," he murmured to himself. "And that makes sense, since I'm in Isolation."
It was then that a loud crash from his window to his left startled him. Glass shards flew in every direction as a window exploded inward. And there, climbing in headfirst, framed by the sunlight, was Hutch.
"What the-" Starsky growled. "What are you doing here? You'll get sick too." But his voice couldn't hide the relief and love in his eyes.
Hutch smiled as he climbed into the hospital bed with him. "We're best friend bros, partners in everything. I can't let you grow old without me."
"But Hutch, I can't let you do this. You don't understand. It's my time. Not your time. You got a whole life ahead of you."
Hutch ruffled Starsky's silver-streaked hair and nestled even closer to him. "Are you kidding me? I've already lived a whole lifetime with you, partner. Who could ask for more?"
::
The news had reached Bay City of course.
The situation seemed hopeless, a grim tale of despair written in the sands of time. Doctors were searching for a cure, including the researchers at the lab who accidentally released the virus. But no luck.
Then hope glimmered from an unlikely source.
Known for his eccentric personality and his talent for mixology, Huggy decided to try a new drink. His creations were known to soothe aching souls and revitalize tired minds, so maybe they could do more, maybe even reverse the effects of this aging epidemic.
His two best friends were dying. What was there to lose?
Everyone was looking for a miracle.
And so, with a sprinkle of audacity, a pinch of hope, and a generous serving of his unique intuition and style, Huggy Bear crafted a cocktail. Just as his comrades-in-arms were reaching their 100th birth-minute, he announced, "I think I found it!"
He named it "Timeless," a befitting tribute to the enduring friendship of Starsky and Hutch, and told the hospital he would be bringing it in a HAZMAT suit.
When Captain Dobey heard of the plan, he called Huggy.
"Huggy, I know where your heart is, but you can't go in there. It's suicide."
The media flooded into the bar and a mob tried to rob and kidnap Huggy for more information, but he eluded them out the back door, unrecognizable in a HAZMAT getup, and headed for the hospital.
::
The security guards, also in protective gear, let Huggy inside the hospital, because he was the only hope. He carried the cocktail disguised in a half-gallon milk carton.
"Greetings, my brothers," Huggy said when a nurse let him into the quarantine room. "Good to see you still have your hair and teeth."
Starsky and Hutch were still lying in bed, looking old and weak, but happy to see their friend Huggy.
"Cheers," Huggy said as he passed the carton of elixer to them.
"You drink first," Hutch said to Starsky.
"No," Starsky told Hutch. "You go first."
Huggy quickly found two cups and poured them, giving them the drinks at the same time.
"Drink up before you expire."
The partners looked at each other.
Starsky said, "Hutch, if this doesn't work..."
"Partner, it's been fun."
"I like your moves."
"I like your style."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
Together they drank the cocktail, then closed their eyes and held each other, waiting for whatever.
The hospital staff was crowding in at the observation window to view the results, good or bad.
Second by second, minute by minute, the aging process was reversed, the lines in their skin softening, the silver in their hair fading to its former color. What remained was two strong young men in each other's arms.
"Hey!" Hutch smiled as he got out of the bed. "It worked!"
"It did!" Starsky said as he jumped to his feet. "Huggy! You're a genius!"
Huggy wore a broad, wry smile. "The grim reaper loosened his grip today, my fine gentlemen friends."
Then he took a drink too.
::
News of the miracle spread as fast as the plague, and Huggy's bar was soon swamped with people from all corners of the world, seeking the magical drink. Huggy Bear, with his newly acquired title of 'The Miracle Mixer,' spent days and nights churning out the 'Timeless' cocktail, each glass serving as a vaccination, returning the afflicted to their normal age and protecting the healthy from the aging plague.
And so, the world was saved, not by a scientific breakthrough, but by an unusually gifted bartender's cocktail.
The End