Drowning

Hutch tries to reinstate boundaries after Starsky leaves the hospital. It doesn’t last long.

A/N: Written for the S&H FB twenty-minute fic challenge, prompt words ‘bail’ and ‘steal,’ although I may have cheated slightly on the time in the interests of transparency. This is kinda very different to my usual writing style, but I suppose sometimes that’s what happens when you make yourself write flat-out for twenty minutes?

They end up in the same bed after Starsky’s shooting. More than once while he’s still in the hospital, of course, because after the first time Hutch takes any chance he can get to squash into the uncomfortable single mattress and prove to himself that Starsky’s alive and he can safely do this, be the one that monopolizes his space instead of the ten thousand lines and tubes dedicated to keeping him breathing and functioning; this way he can feel Starsky’s breathing and won’t jerk awake every five minutes from a fitful doze in the equally uncomfortable chair to look at the machine steadily beeping out a pulse, and then turn Starsky’s wrist over and check it himself because he can’t trust the machines as much as he can the actual effects of Starsky’s healthy, beating heart under his fingertips. Once Starsky is warily discharged, though, after the surgeries and the infection that every medical professional had seemed to predict as an inevitability and the treatment and the very first physio sessions, Hutch tries to stop. The first couple of nights, he sleeps on the couch, and pretends his back isn’t aching because there’s no way in hell he’s going home. Starsky lets him pretend, although Hutch couldn’t say whether it’s because Starsky is trying to reestablish the few, weak boundaries between them that had been eroded by the shooting or because he believes Hutch wants to. He couldn’t say whether he’s doing it because he wants to or because he believes Starsky wants to.

Then comes the time Hutch jerks awake in the middle of the night, briefly confused. He thinks it was a call from his own head, his own nightmares, until he hears a strangled cry. It’s mostly incomprehensible noise, in a beloved voice laden with enough distress that he’d be moving reflexively even if weren’t for his own name, clearly audible in the middle. He almost breaks his own leg and Starsky’s entire record collection running into the bedroom, but Starsky—too pale, too thin, something Hutch doesn’t even notice in the day anymore but is magnified in the darkness painting shadows along his cheeks—quiets without waking as soon as Hutch kneels by the bed and grasps his hand. Eventually, his eyes drift away from Starsky’s face and he falls asleep like that, twisted awkwardly to lean against the side of the bed, never letting go of Starsky’s hand. Starsky wakes him up in the morning with a tug and a muttered, “Hey, blondie, what’re you doing down there?” and Hutch rises stiffly to his feet and waves it off.

Starsky, again, doesn’t question it when Hutch pushes a chair into the bedroom later that day. Hutch would be worried about that if he weren’t so grateful. He doesn’t want to argue with Starsky about this, and he doesn’t really know how to justify it outside of his own brain. He lies down on the couch as usual that night, keeping up a pretense to himself as much as Starsky, but as soon as Starsky’s breaths even, he’s in there. He successfully falls asleep on the chair; compared to the previous night’s floor excursion, it’s even comfortable. Although he wakes before Starsky, he doesn’t doubt that Starsky knows he was there – his body is not so lenient to him yet as to allow uninterrupted sleep, and even if it were- the thought of Starsky being unaware of Hutch’s presence is as absurd as the reverse. Still, Hutch repeats the process the next night, and the next, with no protest or even comment. It distantly occurs to Hutch to wonder if Starsky is afraid commenting will push Hutch back to the couch, and whether he’s as fearful of that distance as Hutch is.

He’s been in the chair for a week, his back cursing him every morning but not paralysing him yet, which is all he needs from it, when he wakes to a groan of pain from Starsky. That’s not unusual, whether it’s muscles in rictus or headaches from his meds or just unidentifiable pain from a body that was ripped apart by metal and gunpowder barely five months ago. What is unusual is that Starsky’s eyes are open, clouded and half-asleep, but looking straight at Hutch. That when Hutch meets his gaze, he whispers, “Hold me, Hutch. Make it go away.”

In the face of that, Hutch cannot even conceive of an alternative to standing up, reaching out. Sitting on the edge of the bed, and letting himself be pulled down by the tide of Starsky’s hand on his arm.

Hutch lays down next to Starsky, and Starsky feels like he can breathe properly for the first time since the last time Hutch was in his bed. Each point of contact with Hutch is its own distinct analgesic, smothering the pain with familiar warmth, but it’s not enough. He tugs Hutch closer, until Hutch’s arm is across his back and their chests are pressed together above the point where the blanket separates them, Starsky below and Hutch above. He’s stealing Hutch’s strength; his body is a leaky ship sinking into waters of aching discomfort, and Hutch’s touch is the only thing bailing it out, bucket after bucket, never letting it drown him.

He turns his face into Hutch’s shoulder, but it’s not enough. Still too asleep and too sore to coordinate effective movement, he tugs impatiently, uselessly at the covers.

Hutch removes his embrace and stands up, all in one movement, and Starsky makes some kind of whining noise, reaching after him, but a moment later he’s lifting the covers and sliding under. Starsky sighs in relief. Hutch resumes his former position, one arm around Starsky’s back, firm grip against his shoulder-blades holding him afloat, and as Starsky curls into him, his chin settles on top of Starsky’s head. Starsky settles a hand on Hutch’s hip, fists the other in his shirt, the softness of the cotton secondary to the warmth imbued it by Hutch’s skin, tangles their legs together as much as he can while Hutch lays still and lets him direct both their bodies. When Starsky can finally feel Hutch all over him, not a point left for the pain to get in, he presses a kiss against Hutch’s collarbone on a soft outward breath. Hutch makes something akin to a gasp above him, but Starsky has been reclaimed by blissful sleep before he can spare any thought to it.

The next night, it takes one pointed look from Starsky for Hutch to abandon the chair and slide in next to him. There’s no true need to talk about it, but eventually they do anyway; neither of them ever sleep alone again.