Mothers Know Best

Starsky has a cold. Hutch has a solution.

Written for the twenty minute fic challenge.

“That was cold, even for you, Starsk,” Hutch commented, glancing at him before starting the car.

“Too cold for niceties on a day like this.” Starsky hunched his shoulders, trying to get warm. He twisted the heater control on the dashboard all the way to max, but still didn’t feel a measurable difference. “Fat Rolly is…” He couldn’t come up with any other descriptors than he’s already used. “A slime born of a union between a sewer rat and a jelly fish.”

“We’ll stop at Huggy’s next. His seasonal special is hot toddies.”

“What exactly is a hot toddy?” Starsky shivered. Maybe he had a cold? His head was achy and his nose itched. He scratched it.

“You’ve never had a hot toddy?” Hutch asked in surprise. “That was my mother’s standard recipe when we had a cold.”

“I do have a cold,” Starsky declared, even though he had not completely self-diagnosed.

“Hot whiskey with honey, sometimes she added tea.”

“Bring it on!” Starsky sniffed, and then sneezed.

“You sound stuffed up.”

“Oh, hope I gave Rolly a virus!” Starsky patted down his leather jacket for a Kleenex or at least a hanky.

Pulling around back of The Pits, Hutch multitasked, producing an old fashioned handkerchief while parking.

“It has your initials!” Starsky stared at the elegantly embroidered K H on one corner. “I can’t blow my nose with this.”

“Technically, probably not my initials.” Hutch gestured that he should use the square of cloth to mop his streaming nose.

Starsky squinted suspiciously at him. “You lost your grasp of the alphabet? Kenneth Hutchinson is K H.”

“So is Karen Hutchinson, Kathleen Hutchinson, and Kayla Hutchinson,” Hutch said. “Blow your nose. My grandmother used to embroider ten or so every year for Christmas gifts. Half our family is K H. Since this has pink thread, I suspect I ended up with one of mom’s or my sister’s, or her daughter’s when I went back to Duluth. Mother did a huge load of laundry before I left.”

“She still washes your clothes when you come for a visit?” Starsky blew into the hanky, feeling a satisfying freeness in his nostrils. He could breathe again and hadn’t even noticed how clogged he’d felt previously. He definitely had a cold.

“Of course, doesn’t yours?”

“Yeah,” Starsky admitted ruefully. “And even patched up my jeans—which wasn’t necessary. The threadbare place in front made ‘em roomier.”

“Like you need any more room in your jeans.”

Hutch gave him a look that finally got Starsky hot. “This is a no kissing zone,” Starsky said, scrunching his stuffy nose. “Until I get over this cold. You don’t wanna get sick, too.”

“Starsk.” Hutch sighed. “I’d say that ship has sailed. We were all over each over in bed this morning. If you’re contagious now, you were contagious six hours ago.”

“Then I prescribe hot toddies for both of us!”

FIN