Coming Down

He’s arrested Gunther. Starsky is going to live. What does Hutch do now?

The challenge was to write a 20 minute fic that is episode related. It was supposed to be an ep you don’t watch often or one that isn’t your favorite but the muse didn’t want to cooperate (I have very few eps I dislike). I do love Sweet Revenge but I want to see Hutch suffer just a bit more–okay he isn’t shot but oh my, the angst he goes through. So why not let him come down from that adrenaline that’s been driving him all episode. Surely lots of things happen between Gunther’s arrest and that glorious tag.

He stood in the locker room at the station. The bandage around his wrist was fraying and he picked at the stray thread.

“Detective Starsky is sleeping. No. You cannot stay past visiting hours. He needs his rest. You may come back tomorrow.” The nurse’s voice still rang in his ears. “Yes, I will tell him you were here if he wakes up. Now go home and get some rest.” That had been said with a maternal air that reminded him of his mother and grandmother.

But, of course, he didn’t go home. He was still high on the adrenaline of arresting Gunther. Gunther who was now sitting in a jail cell in San Francisco waiting to be sent to Bay City.

“Let go, babe.” Hutch swore Starsky was in the locker room. He sat down on the bench in front of his locker and bent to take off his shoes and then stripped quickly. His hands were shaking, he noted with a strange detachment. He pulled open his locker and peered in with dismay. It was nearly empty. Shampoo, soap, deodorant, even a toothbrush and toothpaste along with shaving cream and a razor. But no clean clothes.

He stared at it for a few moments, unable to think of what the next step should be. He pulled open Starsky’s locker, saw the red hoodie that seemed to gravitate from his apartment to Starsky’s and back again. He grabbed the shampoo and soap from Starsky’s locker and headed to the shower.

Hutch turned the water as hot as he could stand and let the spray beat onto him. It was ten minutes to shift change so the pressure was higher than it would be later. Water hit the knots in his neck, his shoulders. He closed his eyes, not moving from the spot.

Metal ground against metal, and he yelled “Starsk. Get down!” and there was gunfire and he was shooting after the cop car and he ran around the front of the Torino hoping and…he couldn’t move.

His partner, his friend, the man he loved with his heart and soul was dying, his blood pumping out so fast Hutch wouldn’t be able to put it back and he couldn’t bring himself to take the few steps towards him. There were sirens coming and people yelling and sirens going and Starsky was going to die and he couldn’t stop it but he couldn’t move his feet one goddamned step closer.

There were other voices—laughing, talking, and the sound of metal doors banging open and shut.

His breath caught in his throat and it was hard to swallow. He tried to take a deeper breath, open his mouth, but all that came out was a strangled sob.

“Hutch.” Someone said his name, and then he heard that voice retreat and say something to other voices.

There was only the water and his sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure if he was saying it out loud or only in his mind.

“I’m alive. It’s okay. Let go.” Starsky’s voice again even though he knew Starsky wasn’t there.

He reached for the shampoo blindly, squirted it into his hand, and scrubbed the stink of Gunther away, replaced it with sandalwood and Starsky.

When he finally emerged, clear-eyed and clean from the shower, the locker room was empty. There was a pile of cards on the bench in front of Starsky’s locker. He pulled the hoodie on, put on his old jeans, jammed the cards into a duffel bag.

His heart felt as if it would keep beating for the first time in nearly a week and he smiled in the warm night.