Applesauce

Fanfiction
Title:	Applesauce'
Author(s):	Paula Wilshe
Date(s):	2004 (print)
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Starsky & Hutch
External Links:	online here
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Applesauce' is a gen Starsky & Hutch story by Paula Wilshe.

It was published online and then in Shining Through.

Reactions and Reviews

I'm not an h/c fan myself, but I've heard many a fan complain about being shortchanged in the SH 2-part episode, The Plague. One minute Hutch is hovering near death and Starsky is running all over creation to find a cure, and the next minute, Hutch has recovered, and he and Starsky are delivering Hutch's pretty doctor to the airport. After all that hurt, what happened to our comfort? Paula Wilshe's "Applesauce" gives us some of the moments we missed. Hutch, still hospitalized, is out of danger, but pretty sick. He asks Starsky for some cold applesauce to soothe his throat, partly hoping that Starsky will go home and finally get some sleep himself.

Paula Wilshe was one of the first authors I read in S&H, and I immediately fell for the fandom largely due to her generous warmth and affection for the guys. Many people rave about her one novel-length story, Tandem, but my personal favourite is Applesauce. It's labeled as a gen story, and technically speaking that's absolutely correct, but there's so much love and intimacy in the small details that it could easily be read as a "slash without anybody doing it" story, if you're so inclined. Hutch is in the hospital recovering from the plague, getting to the stage where he's well enough to be grumpy, but not well enough to do anything. Starsky is torn between worried sick and high on relief that it looks like the worst is over. So when Hutch asks for some applesauce, because he's having trouble eating, Starsky goes and makes it for him. And that's basically the whole story. There's no big plot, some gentle h/c, but what always grabs me about it is the total devotion to each other the guys have, without in any way being maudlin.