Brother in Arms

Hutch struggles with his fears during the episode, Sweet Revenge. Look at him. He could go any time now, and there’s not a thing I could do to stop it.

Brother in Arms was first published in the zine, Lifeline: A Decade of Sweet Revenge, in May, 1989, on the 10th anniversary of that episode.

Special thanks to Donna F. for helping to digitize this story for the archive.

Life matters… Hutch had to tell himself that, focus on that in order to believe it. Slowly, he approached the narrow bed where Starsky lay, taking in the blinking lights of life-sustaining devices, the clinical smells. Life matters, and we should be glad of it, no matter what the circumstances.

But life was not simply a heart beating — it was the soul that dwelt in the house. To lose anyone was a tragedy past words. To lose this particular soul, he realized, would break him down and take him apart, change his makeup forever. Half his own soul would go with Starsky into oblivion. A man could live without limbs. Hutch could, also, if the cards were ever dealt to him that way. But some men seemed to have the ability to live without souls, and that Hutch had no wish to do. I’m selfish, Starsk. I need you with me.

He sat down. In Starsky’s body lived someone more valuable to him than his own life. Lived still, though suspended between worlds. Starsky was far away, in absentia, a state that was more than sleep — and less; it wouldn’t restore him. If he were awake, he would be in agony.

Hutch looked for a very long time at the unconscious body that still held his friend’s spirit, if barely. His eyes traveled up and down, finding the details oddly unfamiliar. Was that death? A man you knew well enough, and had spent enough time with to take for granted, becoming a stranger, becoming something other than what you knew? Had Starsky always been so fragile? It was startling to Hutch how the sleek muscle covered — concealed — such delicate bone. David Michael Starsky, this tough-guy, was a fake, pretending to a brawn he’d never possessed. There was force of will behind those pile-driver punches he could deliver. If anything, it would be his will that would keep him alive.

You’re not going to die, Hutch tried to order the silent form. But it was no good; his hope was flagging by the minute. He felt as if Starsky was indeed dying, as if the luck in the hourglass had finally run out this time. Hutch knew that the doctors in the ICU believed Starsky had sustained too great an internal insult to live. Their machines burbled on with mindless voices, monitoring sinus rhythm, breathing for helpless cargo. The sounds were stand-ins for a man’s precious existence. But all Hutch could really hear was the heart’s unsteady substitute. Where was Starsky in all this?

It wasn’t as if they hadn’t expected this outcome, for one or both of them. Eventually. Maybe. But not now. It wasn’t fair now, not when there was so much at stake, their personal lives in flux — Hutch couldn’t even let himself think about all of that.

His friend’s death was ice forming in bowels already watery with fear. If he dies, then what? Then, we part. Then tomorrow comes, and that’s the end of it. The living had to go on because life went on.

He didn’t really believe in an afterlife; not the heaven or hell most people believed in. Death was the final thing for the body. What happened to the spirit was unknowable. Except… Maybe there was someplace bright, for Starsky.

I won’t be around to protect you over there, buddy; watch your back. I won’t be there to share it with you, or just be with you so you don’t have to — Hutch looked away, something burning the backs of his eyes. So you don’t have to do it alone. His eye fell to the edge of Starsky’s bed. A fine-boned hand tempted his, but he dared not make contact with it. Dared not…

He glanced at Starsky’s face, and then it hit him, knocked him outside himself. I might as well accept it; it’s happening right in front of my eyes. Look at him. He could go any time now, and there’s not a thing I could do to stop it. No last-minute pardon from the governor; he’d have to watch the indicators go flat-line, watch Starsky slip from his fingers. A wistful anger suffused him. When was he supposed to start saying good-bye? Right now might be the one chance he’d get.

A ceremony, of sorts, sprang mature, spare, unvarnished to his mind; maybe it was for a long-ago brother in arms. It was all he could think of to say in honor. May your trial be swift, David, he prayed. Your passage smooth…

His partner deserved no less.