Hidden Damage

1.9K

Quadromania missing scene.

 

Written in 2005. Unpublished. Written for fanfic auction.

K. Hanna Korossy is a prolific fanfiction writer who has written stories in multiple fandoms, including Starsky & Hutch. You can find more of her fan fiction at Archive of Our Own at this link and at fanfiction.net at this link.

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It was the sight of his hands that did it.

Relief swallowed most of my fear as we drove into that alley, KC with her horn blaring and my eyes only for Starsky. I was sure we’d find him passed out somewhere, or worse, with that homicidal nutcase following him. So the sight of him sitting on that crate, dazed but conscious…well, our standards have gone down after the last few years. I was just glad to see him in one piece.

We traded some stupid back-and-forth — I can’t even remember what it was now, something about ice cream — but Starsk was focused on Fitzgerald, his would-be killer. Not that Lionel even knew we were there at that point; he’d slipped into his own little world. But Starsky kept staring at him until a black-and-white finally came and took Fitzgerald away. Still afraid of the guy, or just some kind of morbid fascination? I wouldn’t wonder about it until later. All I know is, he didn’t look at me again until Lionel was gone, and by then it was evident he wasn’t seeing me clearly, either.

“Let’s get you down from there,” I suggested, let that sink in, then added my strength to his as he made some weak shuffling movements toward the edge of the crate. Actually, it was mostly me because he was as wobbly as a newborn colt. I’d been a little stingy with sharing those last three days — my strength, my encouragement, my sympathy — but there’s nothing like wondering for a few minutes if your partner’s dead to bring your priorities back into crystalline focus. At that moment, I only had one: taking care of Starsky.

For all his lucidity when I’d arrived, though, he was starting to fade on me, I could tell. The increasingly unfocused gaze, the hand that kept slipping off my jacket like it couldn’t quite grab on, the wobble of his head were all bad signs I knew from experience. “Starsky, stay with me!” I ordered as I tugged him off the crate, holding onto his hand and arm.

He slid off the crate and kept right on going, heading for the ground.

“Starsky!” I yelped, and grabbed for him, supporting him. Also something I hadn’t been doing much those last few days.

He protested he was trying, and I knew he was. He was just running on empty. I’d known that when I’d teased him into taking one final passenger that morning, the one who’d nearly killed him.

Why is it we don’t keep track of all the times we’d been there for each other, the last-minute rescues and each other’s blood on our hands and the sleepless nights of worry, but we tally and remember every detail of every failure? It was that list that kept me up at nights, not the near misses.

He made some crack about wanting time off from Dobey, and I humored him as I lowered him to the ground. I’d given up hoping the ambulance would get there soon to help, and would just have to start first aid myself. Starsky shuddered, moaning as it rattled his head, and I tried to be even gentler as I eased him down against me. That gave me access to press the tail of his shirt against his oozing head as a makeshift compress. It hurt, that was obvious, but he didn’t complain, just insisted I promise I’d talk to Dobey. He never complained when he knew I was trying to help him.

I promised him anything he wanted if he’d stick around to collect.

His body started convulsing then as he began retching. I flinched: there are few things as wretched as throwing up when you’ve got a concussion. Between the violent heaving and the trouble breathing and the writhing in your gut, all you want is to be put out of your misery. I wrapped myself around him as best I could to at least ease the spasms, molded one hand around his damp forehead and the other around his middle, and tried to talk him through it.
“Take it easy, buddy, take it easy. It’ll be over in a minute, just hang on.”

Words don’t say nearly enough. I mostly just rubbed his stomach and tried to absorb the worst of his pain.

He sagged into my hands when he was done, almost unconscious, and I carefully rolled him back against me, settling his lolling head against my shoulder. The compress was a lost cause, blood already seeping into my jacket. But at that point, I’d stopped caring about anything except keeping him comfortable and getting him to the hospital.

“Almost there, Starsk,” I murmured. He still heard me at some level, I could feel it, but beyond exhaustion and sickness, he didn’t respond. That was okay. I knew he knew he was safe and with me, and that was enough.

His arms were akimbo, one resting on the ground, the other jammed between us. I coaxed it free and folded it into his lap, then lifted the other from the alley filth.

And that’s when I saw his hands.

The fingertips were raw and bloody. Deep, leaking scratches scored his palms, and wire cuts crossed the insides of his finger joints. The marks of someone who’d clawed and scratched and climbed hard to get away from approaching death.

Oh, God. Now I felt sick.

I hadn’t even thought to look for other injuries, the head wound so obvious. Never thought he might have hurt himself trying to get away, although his taxi was almost two blocks away. Didn’t even consider he might have struggled for his life instead of just resignedly sitting on that crate and waiting for Fitzgerald to arrive. I was so busy thinking of him as the victim and blaming myself for having helped make him one, I’d forgotten what a fighter he is.

For the first time since we’d pulled into that alley, I truly felt the weight of what I’d almost lost that morning, and it scared the heck out of me.

I was still kneeling there, my head bent against his, when the paramedics arrived and pulled him away.

 

Starsky woke in the ambulance on the way in, confused and sick but conscious. I held on to his shoulder the rest of the trip, trying to stay out of the medic’s way but wanting to make sure Starsky knew he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t crane back to see me, but he reached up once to pat my hand with his scratched and bloody one. He knew.

Then came the long wait in the treatment room, Starsky on his good side, facing me but mostly dozing. I was clasping that battered hand now, very carefully, but his grip tightened and loosened as he slipped in and out of sleep.

A gurney with a squeaky wheel going by in the hall outside made him jerk suddenly awake.

“It’s fine, Starsky, you’re safe. You’re in the hospital,” I said, low and calm, and stared into his eyes. He stared back, then the corner of his mouth tugged sheepishly. Unbelievable. He was actually embarrassed about feeling skittish and disoriented an hour after being attacked. I returned his smile with one of fond exasperation, and our little corner of the world secured again, he went back to sleep.

His grip didn’t ease, though. I could feel the heat and dried blood and forming scabs against my skin. I didn’t want to dislodge his hold, but I teased open his other hand where it was tucked near his chin, and leaned in to examine it more closely.

There were traces of brick powder visible, which explained the scraped fingertips. Scrabbling for support, maybe, when his legs threatened to give out? Or clawing for some exit from the approaching Lionel?

I swallowed and kept going.

The cuts were probably from a chain-link fence, too neat to be anything else short of a cutting surface. A fence seemed likelier. To press hard enough to cut into flesh like that, he’d had to have been hanging off it or climbing it. Again I had visions of Starsky trying to desperately flee for his life, and grimaced.

The deep scratches could be anything: box edges, rough wood, rusty metal. It was a good thing we were up on our tetanus shots or he’d probably need another. As it was, the injuries were just another souvenir of a case that had nearly ended horribly instead of just badly. After they took care of his head, they’d clean up the hands, stitch the deepest gashes, bandage the whole thing, and in two weeks there would only be fading lines to show for the whole ordeal.

Again.

I couldn’t help thinking back to, what, just a little over a year ago? Another case gone bad, Starsky kidnapped by cultists in revenge for our arresting their leader. Another last minute save, too, just as he was about to be sacrificed by the cult. He’d been a lot worse for wear then: burned, drugged, and shaken up about as badly as I’d seen ever seen him. There had been the requisite trip to the hospital then, too, followed by me playing nurse and lots of sleep, some tears, and more than one late-night talk. It had taken us both a while to find our footing after that one.

And ten days or so later, just when I thought he had gotten past it, after the end of a regular back-to-normal day he’d suddenly shown up on my doorstep at two o’clock that night.

“Starsky, what the — what’s wrong?” His eyes were everywhere but on me, even as he stood there shivering and round-shouldered at my front door.

He didn’t say anything. My frown deepened as I practically yanked him inside. And recoiled from his icy hands.

“You’re freezing! Starsk,” I stared into his face, “if you don’t tell me what’s going on here, I’m calling Jace.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure what he needed, but it was starting to seem like a doctor was a good place to start.

I grabbed a couple of blankets while I waited for him to put the words together, and got him out of his jacket and bundled on the couch. He finally mumbled something, and it took two tries for me to make out what.

“I didn’t try.”

“What, Starsk?” I asked, sitting on the coffee table in front of him. A hot cup of tea would probably have done him good, but just then I needed to be there, close enough for our knees to touch. “Try what?”

It took courage for him to look me in the eye, I could tell, but he did. “To get away.”

It was obvious what he was referring to, but it still didn’t make sense. “I thought that’s how you got burned, when you were trying to get away.”

He nodded, almost impatiently. “Not that time. After. They kept…leaving these openings so I’d make a break for it, and then…”

And then they’d grab him or stick a torch in his face or something else just as nice. Yeah, I knew; he’d told me already in halting words and hushed tones. It was just another form of torture, letting the prisoner think he was going to escape, only to yank him back at the last moment. Break the spirit instead of just the body. It made me furious to think about it then and it wasn’t any better now.

But I still didn’t get it.

“You did try to get away, though, they just kept stopping you,” I said carefully.

He shook his head, frustrated. Upset, and I wasn’t sure if it was at him or me. “I gave up. They left me alone after that, before the ritual.” The one where they’d strung him up to butcher him. “I coulda run for it, Hutch — they didn’t even tie my hands. But I…”

“You didn’t,” I finished softly, understanding now. “Starsky, it was just another trap. You quit playing their game — that’s beating them, not giving up.”

The curls shook, half-obscuring his face. The burn on his cheek was nearly invisible now. “I shoulda tried, Hutch. I had a chance and I didn’t take it. If you hadn’t’a gotten there…”

Believe me, we’d both had nightmares about that one.

Starsky usually was too smart for undeserved guilt trips, but torture has a way of messing with your mind. And I could see where he was coming from. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been wondering if I would have made it, if I’d been in his shoes. That’s why what-ifs get to us, because they can never be proven wrong, the road not taken that we always wonder about.

But not me. I knew.

I reached out to take his two hands, only slighter warmer than before, into mine. I gently pushed up the sleeves to expose the white lines of healing skin around his wrist, then turned them palm up to trace with my thumb the knobs of scars from one of those failed escape attempts.

“You know how I know you didn’t give up?” I said quietly. “This.” I traced the scars again, then turned his hands back over. “And this.” The pale marks were becoming more obvious as the heat of my hands seeped into his and turned them pink. “You were injured, tied up, and beaten, but you still tried to get away, how many times? They had the deck stacked against you, Starsk — they weren’t gonna let you get away. You kept trying because you weren’t giving up, and then you stopped trying because you weren’t willing to jump through their hoops anymore. That’s just another way of fighting back, partner.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. I wasn’t sure if he was thinking about it or still working himself over, but I waited. When I saw him swallow, I knew he was at least grappling with the idea. I tend to be the one who’s harder on himself, but we take turns in almost everything, including being human. Then he gave me a reserved, wobbly half-smile and I relaxed. I gave his hands a squeeze, tucked them back into the blankets, and went to make some tea.

By the time I got back, mugs in hand, Starsky was asleep. And by next morning, he was back to what counted as normal for him. I did catch him looking thoughtfully at his hands a few times that day, and smiled inside, knowing he’d be all right. We’d be all right.

We’d be all right this time, too.

The nurse finally came in to clean Starsky up, and by then he was drowsy enough that he only flinched a few times. Dull blue eyes stared at me from under drooping eyelids, and I had no idea if he saw me — he wasn’t giving much of a hint — but I smiled sympathetically each time he made a face.

The nurse finished up his head and started to turn away, ready to go call the doctor for stitching. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, uh…Miss Meyer? His hands?”

I guess they hadn’t noticed that part, either. She looked surprised to see the extent of damage, but gave me an apologetic smile and came around to gently start cleaning up his palms and fingers. Starsky’s eyes sank all the way shut, and I sat back to get out of the way.

Two hours later, we were free to go. Starsky had been x-rayed, stitched, bandaged, and released into my custody with my solemn promise to keep checking his mental state. Considering he slept through most of those two hours, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I wasn’t exactly in a complaining mood. Sometimes I resented the drain of time and energy a case or our job in general was taking. Other times, like now, I was on a high just from the fact that we were both still alive. Reality would settle in later on, when he would wake up long enough to feel the pain and get cranky, when stitches itched and bandages had to be washed around, when we had to fill out our reports, when Fitzgerald would have his competency hearing. But just then? I was feeling no pain, and neither was Starsky. He was out before I’d even buckled his seatbelt.

It took some creativity and muscle power to get him inside when we got home — his place, not mine, purely by virtue of less stairs — and stripped down and into bed. The bloody jacket and shirt went into a pile for me to work on later. I fixed him some tea when he mumbled he’d like some, but by the time I got back with the mug he was, again, asleep. We end up wasting a lot of tea that way. I didn’t much care about that then, either, just tucked him in and pulled the shades down.

And then I just stood there next to his bed, my eyes moving between his face and his hands.

His face was still; he was too tired to dream. The exhaustion I should have noticed earlier that morning when I’d teased him about it, was plain in his face now that there was no hat nor animation to hide it. It was probably accumulated fatigue of months, actually, of having hit his head in that car accident only a few weeks ago, a recent vacation full of Satanists, then my nearly losing my badge and being arrested for murder. It all had a way of piling up without my realizing it, until something like this made me stop and take a real, long look. I didn’t like what I was seeing.

But his hands… they were the hands of a survivor. Scarred wrists, pale, shiny marks from old injuries, bandaged palms now. Even when there didn’t seem to be any way out, or when that the apparent way out just meant going deeper into the maze, he kept fighting. My partner was a survivor.

It wasn’t always enough, but like I said, I wasn’t being too demanding that day.

“Sleep well, Starsk,” I whispered, pressing his curled fingers between two of my own and my thumb, and feeling them twitch in response even in his sleep.

I tiptoed out to let him sleep, and get some sleep myself before our long night began.