Clay

Life is, Starsky has decided, entirely too much like balancing a checkbook.

Life is, Starsky has decided, entirely too much like balancing a checkbook. The problem being, of course, that it’s so much easier to bleed than it is to replenish, and the list of deficits grows as time marches on.

The losses started early on, and it’s relentless: good guys always, eventually win. Family never lets you down. Being tough makes you strong. But there’s usually something to make up for it, something that Starsky can pour back in to restore the balance, or at least make life just a little less of a shitshow. The fight is always worth fighting. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, even if it kicks your ass in the process. Family can be who you find.

Right now, it’s overdrawn, and he doesn’t know how to make up for it. Harmon has thrown everything out of balance. Women are not violent. They can be cold, calculating, callous, ruthless, but they aren’t violent. They aren’t predators, killers. Not like men. And well, that was another lie Starsky had held on to a whole lot longer than he should have, and Hutch is going to have a scar to add to his collection as a reminder.

But it’s not really her fault, and not just because she’s not mentally well. This one is all on himself, Starsky thinks as he watches Hutch putter around the green house, using his good arm to carefully mist his remaining plants.

I’m a good cop. I have my partner’s back. Always. It’s a gaping, yawning hole that he doesn’t know how to fill up.

“I’m sorry.” He hasn’t said it yet, not properly, the previous days spent watching minutes eaten up by worry, by case reports, by trying to return to some semblance of normal.

The light is dim in the greenhouse, but Hutch’s eyes seem to pierce right through it. He waits.

“I didn’t listen. I told you to ignore your instincts.”

“You came. You came in time.” Hutch puts the water down, and he’s moving slowly, either from injury or because he’s sensed the need to be tentative, to shift carefully, as if Starsky is a fractured bone.

“I was almost too late.”

“This is life Starsk. There’s no scoreboard.”

Starsky just looks down at the toes of his sneakers. They should be ripped or worn through, the laces should be untied. It would match his mental state. It would also match the exhaustion, the kind he can feel like tiny pricks against his eyes. But they aren’t; the laces are tight and the canvas is strong.

Hutch sits next to him, his weight so reassuring that it almost sends Starsky into a panic at the thought of how closely he came to losing it. He remembers the feel of Hutch’s strength leaving as he sagged to the floor and he has to swallow the lump in his throat.

“If there were, it’d be tied. Pretty much all the time. It’s why I know I don’t need to keep track of the score, which I’m not much interested in doing anyway.” He knocks his shoulder against Starsky’s lets it stay there. The light is almost entirely faded by the time he speaks next. “Besides, you and I? We’re on the same team, Gordo. No matter what happens, we’re on the same team.”