Author: jat sapphire
Contact: [email protected]Famous Semi-Legal Disclaimer Thingie: Aaron Spelling produced it; Columbia House distributes it; with the upcoming remake I don't know who owns it for real any more. But I don't. I also don't make any profit and don't mean to infringe on any way on the copyright.
Notes: Part of the Slash Advent Calendar Challenge until December 25, 2002. I revised it, however. Also, it's probably set closer to Thanksgiving, as "The Plague" was aired in November 1977, and this takes place not too long after the end of the episode.
Blondilocks
Once upon a time there was a king and queen who didn't have any kids, and they really wanted 'em. They tried everything fairy-tale people would try, but still, nothing. The queen got so anxious about it that she got sick, and spent the fall and most of the winter in bed, reading magazines and watching bad daytime TV.
[What kind of fairy-tale is this?]
(My kind. Shut up, you're supposed to be resting. Put your head back down.)
One day, she got so bored, she was sewing up little rips in the king's clothes—
[Or darning socks?]
—and she was so tired of that stuffy bedroom that she opened the window a little, even though it was still winter, with snow on the sill and everything.
So, she's sewing, which she isn't so used to anyway, and the sun comes out all'va sudden and kinda startles her. She pricks—shut up!—she stabs her finger with the needle, and then she shakes it, and a little blood falls out on the snow.
[I think I know this story.]
(Nope. You only think you do.)
[I just said that.]
(Just listen, willya?)
"Oh," she says—
[Oh, stop, Starsk, you're killing me. It hurts to laugh.]
(So don't laugh, you big lug.)
[So don't, d- do that falsetto.]
"Oh," she says—
[Now she sounds like Dobey. Oof! Hey! I'm an invalid, here!]
"OH!" SHE SAYS! ... "I wish I had a little baby with my red blood, and skin as white as snow, and hair as bright as the sunshine."
And she did. A little boy. They named him Blondilocks.
[They did not. That's too cruel.]
He preferred to be called Ken. And, um, at his christening—
[Before he had any say in the matter, obviously. ...Hey, where are you going?]
(Get a beer, turn on the game. You're tellin' the story, so you don't need me .... What are you doin' outta bed? And your legs all noodle-y ... after you had to show off, marathon walking all over the airport. You call me a moron. Get on back in, that's right, sheesh—didn't you listen to the lady doctor?)
[Telling me a story, tucking me in—gonna give me a teddy bear?]
(Gonna give ya ... gonna give ya ....)
[Mmm. Best medicine. Oh, yeah....]
(Practically killed me, those two days. Y'know? You behind that window, paler and paler? And me outside? Damn, Hutch...)
[I know. I know. Think I wasn't lying there, trying not to even imagine? And then I did anyway. But it's over. Now come on, lie down, you look as tired as I am. That's it. No, just relax. There. Oh, right there. Where you belong. .... Can I tell the story?]
(Migh's well.)
The witch meant well, but sealing Blondilocks in the tower was a terrible thing.
(Uh, care to, say, connect a little, here?)
The witch was the-last-of-the-magical-people whocametothelittleprince'schristening, okay? And she foretold his future, that a terrible curse would kill him if he, uh, what's fairy-tale-ese for catching a virus? If he ran into the person who had been enchanted to hurt him. So she took him away from his grieving parents and locked him up in a tower for years and years, and she meant well, but it was terrible.
(I think his parents locked him up first. Let me go again, I think I get what you want. In the story, in the story! You gotta rest up before we get to that.)
[I'm not letting you go, though. Oh, yeah, tell the story if you want to.]
The king and queen were just blown away when they heard about the curse, and the king wanted to kill the witch because he thought she did it on purpose. But she said no, she just foretold it. So they wanted to protect that little boy, their only one, so they wouldn't let him meet nobody or do anything that would get him dirty and germy. Migh's well've locked him up, and once when he got out and met a boy named Jack ...
[Don't.]
(Just wish you'da told me before, I woulda been nicer to him.)
[You were jealous, weren't you? Oh, come on, you were. Do you think you would've been less jealous if you knew we'd been lovers?]
(I don't know.)
[It doesn't seem likely.]
(I meant ... it was a raw deal. What happened back then. You were just kids.)
[To be fair, I would have gotten in almost as much trouble if I'd been fooling around with a girl.]
(Oh, yeah, gotta be fair ....)
[Are you telling that story? Or not?]
They —the king and queen— could yell at them and get Jack sent away, but they couldn't really protect Hu-, uh, Blondilocks, from the curse. Not while he was at the castle. So they sent him away, a long way, and, uh, eventually he was locked up in the tower. He pretended to be happy, but I don't think he really was.
And then, one day, a wandering ... um, a wandering ... wanderer. Wandered by. He was dark-haired and very handsome—
[Don't forget modest.]
—and he drove a fiery-red Torino—
[Candy-apple red, isn't that what you always say?]
—and he got out of the car and looked up at Blondilocks, who was sitting at the window, way up at the top of the tower. So the wanderer said, "Blondilocks, Blondilocks, let me in!"
[No, not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!]
(Hu-utch!)
[And he huffed, and he puffed, and he —bwf dw hff nn.]
(Hutch. If you ever. Ever. Want to see these huffy-puffs blow anything again .... Hmm, I think I like that surrender-hands-in-the-air look on you.)
[Thurthkw! Thurt-thkw!]
(And the eyes bugging out. Oh, okay ...)
[You—!]
(Hey, hey! Cut it out! Cut it out, think I wanna hafta call an ambulance when— .... Well, you didn't have to really stop.)
[Oof. I hate to say it, but you're right. I'll have to take a rain-check.]
(You okay?)
[Yeah, yeah, lying down, got it. Finish this work of the storyteller's art.]
(Where was I? Oh, right.)
"Blondilocks, let down your golden hair!"
But he said, "You mushbrain, I don't have hair that long."
(See, you can laugh—a little, anyway. Do you good.)
The wanderer said, "Then open the door."
And Blondilocks said, "I can't. I can't let anyone in. Even the witch who made this tower only comes to the door and sends things sliding up the magical wall of air, and then I can pull them in my window. I'm safe here."
"Aren't you lonely?" the wanderer asked.
"I'm safe," Blondilocks said. "Who are you anyway?"
"Ah-ah-ah," said the wanderer, wagging the finger of doom.
(Thought you were the only one who got to do that, dincha?)
The wanderer said, "I am a far traveler, and I know many things. And I can get you out of this tower, if you will tell me your name."
[Uh, Starsk—that's wrong.]
(Whose story is this, huh? Mine. Right?)
[I just meant, in Rumplestiltskin—]
(This ain't Rumplestiltskin, blond boy.)
"My name?" said Blondilocks. "That's too easy. Of course I know my name. I was christened Prince Blondilocks."
But the wanderer shook his head. "That is the name your parents gave you. They're not here, so you're someone else now. Guess again."
Blondilocks said, "I used to ask people to call me Ken."
But the wanderer shook his head a second time. "Are any of those people here? If no one calls you Ken, you are Ken no longer. Guess again."
Blondilocks thought a long time. Then he said, "When I sit at my window at night to see the stars, I can hear the wind calling me, from far away. It sounds like a name, almost like a name, but I can't tell what it is."
"Let us listen for it together," said the wanderer, and they settled down to wait for night time.
[Starsk—]
(Hutch.)
The wind began to blow, and then the prince leaned out the window and said, "I can hear it. But it sounds different now. It sounds like—"
[Starsky.]
(Yes. I mean—)
"Yes," said the wanderer, "it sounds like my name. Will you tell me my name?"
[Write it on the wall of air.]
"Starsky," the prince said. "And mine is Hutch."
The letters of their names were on the wall just before it shattered with a sound like tiny bells. And the prince came down to the door and opened it and let the wanderer in. They were together.
[They could touch each other.]
(Yeah. And they knew each other.)
[Happily ever after?]
(How do I know? We'll have to wait and see.)
[I think so. A hundred and forty happy years, that's how I want this story to end.]
(Hey, it's all yours.)
*End*