Descry!

Fanfiction
Title:	Descry!
Author(s):	Elizabeth Lowry
Date(s):	1991 (print)
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Starsky & Hutch
External Links:	online here and here
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Descry! is a slash Starsky/Hutch story by Elizabeth Lowry.

It was published in It's Love, Cap'n and archived online.

Reactions and Reviews

Meet Mr. Hartman, the foolish mortal who's been hired by a man with an axe to grind to hurt, maim, and/or kill Starsky. He's got a role to play, and here's his motivation:

The success of his campaign would depend upon his knowing both their schedules intimately. And it was to be a campaign...a campaign of surveillance, a campaign of terror; a stalking, a preying, a hunting. A gradual realization on the part of the victim that someone was after him and would hurt him when he was caught.

You've gotta love a man with a plan.

So, Mr. Hartman starts his campaign. He's very good at what he does, and I was a bit in awe of some of his Gaslight-esque tactics.

However, we are talking about Starsky and Hutch. They should wear shirts that say "Never mess with a man's partner".

To his credit, Mr. Hartman realized that messing with Starsky would unleash "I Will Not Rest Until I Kill You" Hutch, but he failed to factor in just why Hutch is so protective of Starsky. (All the slashy girls in the house nod knowingly.)

This story intrigued me because it's told from Mr. Hartman's perspective, and it packs a punch. Seeing the guys through the eyes of someone not intimately acquainted with them makes for damned good reading. Descry, indeed. I loved the slightly voyeuristic feel to this story, and hated when it ended.

And what an ending! I won't spoil it, but since it is a slash story, let me leave you with this tidbit from Mr. Hartman when he realizes he's made a big mistake:

Stupid. Hartman was stupid. This was much more dangerous than he'd expected... If Hartman had been afraid of Hutchinson before, he was panicked now. It was one thing to mess with a man's partner. It was another to mess with a man's - lover.

Repent in leisure, Mr. Hartman!

Read and enjoy!

Descry is one of those situations where the fans either love it or can't see an ending such as that. Personally, I can see the ending happening. It's a good story and it shows a mirror of what happens alot of time in canon.

It didn't occur to me that the ending might not go over well with some folks... the curse of the newbie, I guess. The reason I liked it was the ending, and the unconventional-ness (yeah, that's not a word)of Hutch's actions. Proportionate response? Maybe not. S&H like? Maybe, maybe not. When it's your partner, your kids, or your lover, the tendency is to act first, then think. At any rate, I liked the edginess of Descry, but I'm kinda twisted when it comes to my fiction prefs... I do enjoy the sweet and light and romantic, but I like dark stories, too... pages and pages and pages of hurt and torment, then comfort.

I love this. It's from an outside perspective of the duo, which I adore, and it's got Hutch as raging and rabid in his protection of Starsky. Also the tiny little details get me, just the brief one line mentions like the water-fight and the shower curtain..really make the fic for me.

I enjoyed reading everyone's responses to this story, one of my many favorites. I remember thinking, when I first read it, that this guy, the killer, was such slime, that when he talked about his kids getting sick, I'd assumed it was something he *did* to them, though the writer assured me that wasn't the case, and question the deviousness of my own mind. ;-)

I think the ending allows for numerous possibilities so that the reader, largely, can decide how things happened from the pov of the guys. Was the killer so rattled he miscalculated the time Hutch was supposed to return? Did Hutch return early -- for seconds (yum!), or because his shoelace broke (yawn)? Or because he forgot to tell Starsky something he just thought of about something at work? It's definitely food for thought, and having things to mull over *after* a story ends, for me, is a real pleasure. It extends the power of the story beyond its page so that it's not just a pleasant memory, but something that makes you think, that lives in your head for an extended period later, extending, to me, the pleasure of the story.

My questions were less, why did they shoot the guy -- did any of us *not* want them to shoot him? -- but my concerns more hover around the *after effects* of the shooting.

S&H were in bed together -- this is obvious to anyone who came onto the scene. The shot (or shots) have been fired. Someone will call the police before *they* do. (Of course, it could be argued that with Hutch for a neighbor, the people in his neighborhood are so blase about the break-ins, shootings, maimings, that they could care less. ;-) ) Clearly, they're not "out" about this affair, and it would be very stupid, in 1978 or thereabouts, for cops to be "out". How do they explain the scene, where the dead body is, how it got shot where it is, who was where, how did it happen? If they both fired the shots, it will be obvious at the crime scene that Starsky (with his distinctive gun) was in or very close to the bed, and Hutch (with his distinctive gun) was near the bed. It's *Hutch's* bed. Hutch's apartment. There's nothing too weird with Starsky being in Hutch's apartment, especially since their lives have clearly been threatened and everyone at the station would know it. But what was Starsky doing in Hutch's bed? This guy came in from the greenhouse...is there any possibility they shot the guy, even after he showed them he was unarm, to ensure he couldn't testify that he witnessed them screwing? I'm not saying I think that's why they did it -- I think the moment was too heated for that kind of calculated reasoning, and I think Hutch especially was on hyper-protectiveness with Starsky s vulnerable in the bed -- but they have now turned Hutch's bedroom into a crime scene, which will be examined *very* carefully. I don't think hurriedly making up the couch and rolling around in it for a few minutes is going to do anything but conflict the crime scene. With all the other things in this story that tweaked my brain and made me read and reread this story, this concern has always been the one I came back to.

How did they protect their relationship? Did they come out of the investigation okay? Yeah, I have a weird idea of fun.

I don't *need* a real detailed explanation. I don't even want one, and I surely wouldn't want the writer to tack one on. I enjoy the speculation, and keep thinking about it. That's fun for me. And talking about it is fun. The fact that the story has enough depth to support that kind of speculation speaks to its quality and complexity. I wouldn't want a word in this story to change. But I love talking about all the what-ifs the writer leaves for us to ponder.