Backwards, Forwards

268

A drugged Starsky is very confused.

 

A challenge to write an alphabet fic–and just for fun when I got to Z, I then wrote the rest of the story using the alphabet backwards.

---

Afraid. Big and blond and blood-curdling.

“Captain!” a voice yells.

Dobey—Dobey’s here. Enough—enough already. ‘Fraid I can’t get up.

“Get over here with that! He’s drugged or something. I don’t know what with! Just get him to the hospital.”

Kettledrum thunder in my head. Lemme go, lemme go.

“Manny Bleeker,” the voice says loud before it gets soft. “No, no, Starsky. Okay?”

Please. Quiet, please.

“Right here, Starsk. Stay with us.”

Twirling, twisting, topsy-turvy. Underwater somersaults. Vomit spews, vile.

Who am I and where? Xylophone sounds bright, hard, piercing.

“You’re gonna be okay, Starsk,” the voice says again.

Zzzz…

“You’re fine,” a voice I should know says to me and then adds, “Xeri.”

“Whaszat?”

“Very bad for you. Upset me, ya know? The newest designer drug,” the voice fades in and out.

“Sorry,” I say and look at the man by my bed.

Red-eyed, he looks back at me and smiles. Questions are in his eyes.

Patient, he waits for me to say something.

Oceans shine in those eyes that I should know. No name comes to me. My mind swirls with images of him by my side. Laughter echoes from far away, a distant memory. Keep trying, I tell myself.

“Just give me a minute,” I tell him, wanting to wash away the dawning fear I see in him.

“I know you,” I say. “Hutch.”

Golden joy lights his face, a smile that could power the whole city. Fear, mine and his, recedes into the shadows where it stays, unable to hurt us.

“Everything’s all right,” I tell him and he nods, that smile still incandescent bright.

“Damn it,” he says. “Can’t let you go on any assignment alone, ever again.”

Big and blond and beautiful and brave and beloved—that’s my Hutch.

All is right with my world again.