Red Flowers in Winter

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“I love you, Starsky … you know that … you know that, right?”

Starsky doesn’t say anything, at all.

 

I admit it, I wrote this just so I could have a Starsky AND Hutch major hurt/comfort fic under my belt. Also, I challenged myself to write each and every part of the story with exactly 300 words, no more, no less. It was fun!

This is also my first pre-Sweet Revenge story. Feel free to insert this story at any spot in the S&H timeline before that episode.

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Red flowers are blooming in the snow.

“Hutch?”

A red flower is blooming on Starsky’s white shirt too. It’s the biggest flower Hutch has ever seen, with a near-black heart that fades to red and then to watery pink tendrils that grow downwards to Starsky’s belt. It’s pretty. He should get one for his garden.

“Hutch? Hurts.”

Starsky is sitting up against the hulking, coarse trunk of a tree. Starsky’s not wearing a jacket, or his holster. His gun’s gone. And there’s that red flower, blooming on Starsky’s right side, inches from the kidney.

Did Starsky plant those smaller red flowers in the snow around them?

They’re pretty.

“Hutch … please … ya gotta stay with me.”

Starsky’s voice is so soft. So frail, like the last whisper of an autumn leaf as it crumbles to powder in the soil. Starsky is touching his face now, cold fingertips grazing his right cheek. Four lines of ice from below his eye to the corner of his lips. Wet ice.

“Starsk?”

Starsky’s hand drops to the snow. Its fingers are as red as the flowers on the snow and on Starsky’s side. When Hutch glances downwards, he notices for the first time that he’s kneeling on the snow, that there are also tiny red flowers dotting his pants, some larger than others. They’re just as pretty.

“He’s comin’, Hutch … ya gotta get help … ‘fore he shoots you too …”

Another red flower springs forth on Hutch’s pants, from a droplet of onyx that plummets from his chin.

Shoots?

Lightning dashes through his skull, razing a path from crown to his left temple, exploding there like a bomb clogged with broken nails and glass. He winces and groans, and then, his eyes snap wide open.

Macaulay. Fucking bastard’s got their guns.

& & & & &

Starsky is a dead weight upon his back. Starsky hasn’t said a word to him in a century. How he knows it’s been a century is beyond his comprehension right now, but he knows it’s been a century. It’s not right when Starsky’s quiet for that long. Starsky always has something to say.

“We’re going to be okay, babe … We’re – we’re going to be okay.”

Well, if Starsky won’t say anything, he can hold a conversation for both of them.

“I don’t know what I was thinking … coming up here … You were right, okay? You were right.”

Starsky doesn’t say anything. Starsky’s arms are dangling over his shoulders, swinging like pendulums with each of his slow, wobbly steps through the snow. It’s not supposed to snow so much in November. Shouldn’t even snow like this until January, at least.

Mother Nature must have a vendetta against them this winter.

Either that, or Hutch’s fucked up again in some way or another and pissed off the gods again to land them smack in the middle of their situation.

“That bastard Macaulay … wasn’t enough that we already threw him in jail once … how desperate is he to go back there … that he’s hunting us like animals in the mountains, huh, Starsk?”

Starsky doesn’t say anything. The big, red flower on Starsky’s side is soaking into his shirt, the light blue one with the guitar stitched onto the back. It’s one of Starsky’s favorites. Starsky told him so after they made love for the second time, in his apartment, on his bed, surrounded by his lush garden. Starsky had smiled so widely at him, like a breathtaking supernova.

“I love you, Starsky … you know that … you know that, right?”

Starsky doesn’t say anything, at all.

& & & & &

A cabin. A lone log cabin, enclosed by towering, snow-bogged trees.

A safe haven.

It’s dank inside. Dank, dark and dusty. It hasn’t been occupied for a long time, but there are still-functional amenities. A couch, upon which he lays a limp, unconscious, ashen Starsky. A fridge with nothing in it. A sink with running water in a tiny kitchen. A bedroom, a wardrobe with some shirts, jeans and two winter coats. Another sink, in an even tinier bathroom, with an oval mirror hanging above it.

In it, Hutch sees red vines creeping down the side of his face, from his hairline to his cheek to the edge of his lower jaw. Down even his neck, to the collar of his shirt. The vines are wet, just like the red flower on Starsky’s side.

This is for locking me up, Hutchinson!

Hutch grimaces as he gingerly pats the top of his head. It feels squishy. Warm. Throbbing.

Who knew the handle of a bulletless Magnum could be so dangerous?

“No … no, guns … don’t kill. People do.”

Yeah, he should share that with Starsky. He’s got oodles of these tidbits of wisdom.

He rips shirts to strips. Takes also two woolen blankets and a pillow off the sole bed, and staggers to the living area, to Starsky’s side. Starsky’s eyes are open to slits. Starsky’s lips are colorless, like white marble. The red flower on Starsky’s side is flourishing. Sapping Starsky of his life.

And THIS is for robbing me of my freedom!

Starsky had screamed when Macaulay sowed that red flower into him with the tug of a trigger. Hutch never wants to hear Starsky scream like that, ever again.

“Hutch … ya gotta take it out.”

No, Starsky. Don’t make me –

“Hutch … ya … gotta.”

Please.

& & & & &

Starsky’s breath smells of whiskey. Scotch malt whiskey, from a cabinet in the kitchen.

“I’m so sorry, babe …”

There is fresh wetness spilling down Hutch’s face, salty and scorching. The deluge had commenced when Starsky started to scream, when his fingers burrowed into the near-black heart of the red flower in Starsky’ side, digging for its parasitic seed. Sitting with his full mass on Starsky’s thighs hadn’t stopped Starsky from lunging up, from writhing like a rabid, caged lion. Starsky’s red flower had birthed new petals then, a torrent of them over Hutch’s right hand and down Starsky’s flank to beige cushions.

So much red. So much red, everywhere.

“… did good, Blondie …”

Starsky’s whole face is colorless, like a morgue shroud. Starsky’s voice is like stardust. So far away, so infinitesimal and yet, the building block of Hutch’s world.

“I got it. I got it.”

Starsky’s trembling fingertips upon his cheek dries the flood, and his sore eyes see the onyx-coated seed on his palm. It is a thing of evil. He hates it. He hates what it forced him to do to Starsky, his best friend, his lover, his everything. He hates that Starsky’s damp, agony-glazed gaze brims with nothing but love for him, despite what he’s done.

“Must stop the bleeding.”

Starsky doesn’t reply, and is quiet throughout his gentle administrations of the red flower on Starsky’s side. The flower will die now. Starsky will live. Starsky has to.

“So sorry, Starsky. So sorry I hurt you.”

He sounds like a lost child who can’t find his way home.

“… saved me …”

Hutch, he’s got my gun! HUTCH, GET DOWN!

“You saved me,” Hutch rasps, another rivulet coursing down the channels of age on the landscape of his face, and Starsky’s eyes flutter shut.

& & & & &

Fever. Raging and hot.

“No … Hutch … Hutch …”

It grips Starsky like the talons of an eagle, clawing into Starsky’s pain-ravaged body and mind, claiming Starsky as its feast of the night. The wooden headboard of the bed is an indifferent friend to Hutch. It is rigid and cold against his shoulder blades. The cabin’s heating is wretched.

“Sshh, I’m here. I’m here.”

“Hutch …”

Even with two blankets swathing them, Starsky is shivering, a butterfly suddenly so fragile in the winter gale, but he burns like a terrifying star on the cusp of death.

“He’s comin’ … he’s comin’ …”

Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are –

Hutch strokes the back of Starsky’s head. Kisses Starsky on the forehead once, twice.

“I won’t let him get you. I promise.”

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky –

Starsky clutches at him when he shifts from under Starsky and off the bed. He bundles the blankets around Starsky’s shuddering form, then kisses Starsky’s sweltering forehead again.

“I’ll be back real soon. I promise.”

When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon –

Hutch becomes a violent force of nature in the kitchen, yanking out drawers and flinging open every cabinet to find something, anything he can use to kill that sonofabitch before it’s too late –

Then you show your light, twinkle, twinkle all the night –

In the drawer next to the stove, a Bowie hunting knife. It has a nine-inch long, stainless steel blade that gleams in the moonlight. Its black handle fits perfectly in his hand, and he grins mirthlessly as he tests its heft and sharpness. Oh yeah, this’ll do just fine.

Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.

“Come on, Macaulay. I’m ready.”

& & & & &

A bullet shatters the bedroom’s one window.

“HUTCHINSON!”

Hutch rolls himself and Starsky off the bed and onto the floor, shielding Starsky with his body. A chilly blast of air raises goose bumps all over his body, turns his senses razor-sharp, his teeth gritted.

“He’s here.”

Starsky’s voice is stronger. Those big blue eyes, encircled by dark rings of infirmity, are open, lucid.

“HUTCHINSON! COME OUT AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN!”

Macaulay’s gruff voice booms like the beat of war drums. The bastard’s somewhere in front of the cabin, in front of the only door out. Starsky’s still too weak to walk, much less climb out a window and make a run for it across miles of pitiless snow. Fuck!

“Hutch … listen to me.”

Starsky’s left hand is fisted in the lapel of his shirt. He glances down at Starsky, at Starsky’s beautiful eyes and their thick, sweeping lashes.

“Ya gotta leave me … go for help … lemme distract him.”

No. Unthinkable.

“Hutch, please … ya gotta go … or he’ll hurt you.”

“No. I’m not leaving you. I won’t leave you.”

“Got no other choice.”

Starsky’s hand is now cupping the back of his neck, pinning him in place. Demanding acquiescence to a foolhardy, fatal plan.

No. Unthinkable.

Another gunshot, shattering another window. How many shots does Macaulay have left after shooting Starsky and then shooting at them as they fled from him through the forests?

Two bullets are enough to slay them both.

“Hutch, please, run.”

Oh, Starsky. His brave, sweet Starsky who loves him so much.

“It’s me he wants, isn’t it?”

Starsky’s lucid, alright, lucid enough to comprehend the message between the lines.

“No … no, Hutch, NO!”

Starsky’s cry of horror follows him and his gleaming blade into the long good night.

& & & & &

Macaulay looks like a deformed, mad bear. Squat, wide, hairy, bulging muscles from head to toe. Macaulay’s wearing just a t-shirt and jeans and boots, like he’s part of the lethal cold. Like death incarnate.

But Hutch be damned if he lets Macaulay know he’s scared.

“Gee, Macaulay, you’re such a man that you have to face me with two guns, huh?”

The blade of his hunting knife glints beneath the moonlight. He twirls it in his grasp, drawing Macaulay’s blood-crazed eyes to it.

“You gonna shank me with that, pig? Are ya? Think you’re man enough for that?”

Hutch clenches his hand around the knife’s handle.

“How about you face me like a man, and we duke this out mano-a-mano with only this knife between us?”

Macaulay sniffs, like a famished beast seeking the scent of perishing prey.

“Mano-a-mano, huh? Where’s your partner? What, is he dead already?”

Hutch clenches his hand even tighter and snarls, his face a rictus of fury and grief.

That’s right, Hutchinson. Put that acting experience to good use. Avert his attention from Starsky.

“Aw, piggy lost his little piggy friend.” Macaulay’s grin slashes Macaulay’s lower face like a gaping wound. “But don’t worry, you’ll be with him soon enough.”

Hutch almost crows with triumph at Macaulay hurling the guns in hand  – his Magnum and Starsky’s 9mm – far into the snow.

“Just so ya know, pig, I was born and bred in Louisiana. I grew up dancing in the bloody guts of black bears and elk that I killed myself, and I’ll dance in your guts too, when I’m done with you.”

Hutch steps down from the cabin’s front door onto the snow.

“I was born in Minnesota, motherfucker. When I’m done with you, there’ll be nothing left.”

And with a roar, Hutch charges.

& & & & &

A red flower is blooming on his left side. It’s a different flower from Starsky’s. Instead of a near-black heart, it has a black-and-silver heart, one that protrudes from his body like a stalk reaching urgently for sunshine.

“Goddamn, piggy … you are tough.”

Red rivers flow from Macaulay’s nose and mouth. Macaulay’s right arm hangs from the shoulder like a rotten thing, drowning in more red rivers that drip off it and onto the snow. Macaulay’s yellow t-shirt is now frayed and spattered with streaks of red and brown. One long gash from the left shoulder to the sternum yawns open like a black, toothless mouth.

“Haven’t enjoyed myself … like this for … so long.”

Macaulay’s left hand is wrapping itself around his neck. Squeezing it. Squeezing all the air out of him.

“You’re good … I’ll give ya that … but not good enough, huh?”

Iridescent spots frolic before his eyes. Macaulay’s face is distorting, rippling into something otherworldly, something from the very depths of hell.

But Hutch isn’t scared anymore.

Starsky, look, we have the same corsages now. Let’s go dancing.

“Tell ya what … I’ll dance in your guts … after you’re dead.”

Come on, Starsky! Don’t play coy! I know how much you love to dance and show off your gorgeous body for me.

“And then, pretty piggy … I’ll -”

Macaulay’s head abruptly transforms into a massive eruption of crimson flowers, flowers that bombard the air like eye-popping fireworks on the fourth of July. Some of them rain down on Hutch’s face and neck, prickling his cold, cold skin.

Starsky is calling his name.

Yeah, babe, I hear you. Yeah, you’re all mine.

There are so many stars in the sky tonight.

And I’m all yours. Forever.

Starsky is … calling … his –

& & & & &

Starsky is painting Mother Nature’s white canvas with an expansive band of red. It trails behind Starsky as he crawls, inch by inch across the snow towards Hutch. Hutch watches as he sprawls against the rough trunk of a tree, unable to move or speak or even blink.

Starsky is about eight feet away when Hutch realizes that what he’s hearing from Starsky’s lips, echoing across the silent mountain ranges, are sobs.

Oh, Starsky. Oh, babe.

“Hutch … Hutch …”

Starsky grabs his nearest thigh with both hands, then pulls himself up next to him, that curly head level with his belly.

“Oh no, Hutch, no … no, no, no …”

Starsky is staring at his red flower and its black-and-silver heart. Reaching for it with one quivering hand, but not touching it.

It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.

He says the words, but his lips do not move.

“Hutch … you gotta … you gotta stay with me … ‘kay?”

He yearns so much to brush the tears away from Starsky’s face, to chase away the anguish from those beloved features.

Of course I will, Starsky. Didn’t I tell you we’re forever?

He feels Starsky’s thick curls caressing his cheek, his lower jaw. Starsky’s head is on his shoulder, where it should be.

“Stay with me, Hutch … don’t leave me …”

I’m not leaving you. I won’t leave you. Ever –

Like a crack of thunder, the crunch of snow underneath boots. It engulfs Starsky’s sorrowful murmurs. Starsky doesn’t seem to hear it.

Starsky, there’s someone else! It must be Macaulay!

Starsky has wilted, gone boneless against him.

Oh, Starsky, you have to escape! Macaulay’s still alive! I can hear him!

More crunching of snow. Then, light, blinding Hutch.

Run, Starsky! RUN!

Then, utter darkness.

& & & & &

When Hutch opens his eyes again, he sees the face of god.

“Thank the good Lord.”

The face of god is a very familiar one. An imposing face. A face of benevolence and love masked by stern frowns and incisive, brown eyes under bushy eyebrows.

“Hutchinson? Are you really awake this time?”

There is a brilliant halo around the head of god, dazing Hutch. Is this the same light he saw before the darkness consumed him?

“Well, the doctors did say you won’t be interested in talking much for a while. Not with all the painkillers they’re pumping into you.”

Talking? Painkillers? What does he need painkillers for –

“A forest ranger found you and Starsky near one of the cabins in the Big Santa Anita Canyon. In Winter Creek. Heard a gunshot while on night patrol.”

Gunshot … gunshot. Oh, fuck, Starsky was shot, Starsky was shot by that bastard Macaulay and then Macaulay pursued them on foot and then stabbed him in the –

“According to Starsky, he dragged himself out of the cabin and shot Duncan Macaulay in the head with your gun as Macaulay was strangling you.”

“… Captain?”

“So you are awake this time. Yeah, it’s me, Dobey. How you feeling?”

“Starsky?”

Dobey gestures with his head to Hutch’s right, and Hutch turns his head to see a reclined figure tucked into a bed identical to his, a motionless figure with a head of thick, dark curls propped upon a plump pillow. A nasal cannula snakes across Starsky’s pallid face and under Starsky’s prominent nose. Starsky always did hate having those cannula prongs stuck up his nostrils.

“… Captain … is he …”

“He’s okay. Everything’s okay now. You can rest easy.”

“… ‘M taking him dancing.”

Dobey doesn’t bat an eyelid.

“You will, Hutchinson. You will.”

& & & & &

Starsky’s face is smooth, shaved by a comely nurse fifteen minutes ago. The nurse had shaved Hutch’s face too, and although she is exactly what he’d once lusted after in a woman a lifetime ago, he only sees beauty in the bed next to his.

“Hutch? What are you doin’ all the way there?”

Starsky’s voice isn’t quite at its normal volume yet. Starsky’s smile, for now, is akin to a little, twinkling star in the cosmos, but no less exquisite.

Hutch carefully maneuvers himself from his bed to Starsky’s, shuffling across the distance in disposable hospital slippers and baggy scrubs, lugging his IV pole with him. Starsky makes sympathetic noises as Hutch lays down on his right side beside him, and kisses him long and satisfyingly on the lips once they’ve settled under the blankets. Starsky’s mouth tastes like blueberry. Must be from the pudding they had for dessert.

“Can’t stay long,” he murmurs into Starsky’s cheek. “Nurses will catch us.”

“Fuck the nurses.”

Hutch snickers, then says, “Yeah, we used to do that.”

“Used to.”

“Yeah. Till we found something better.”

“Way better.”

“Yeah.” Hutch kisses Starsky’s cheek, basking in Starsky’s expression of contentment. “The best.”

“Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

Starsky is stroking his forearm beneath the blankets. It soothes him, like a steady, robust heartbeat.

“I know, Hutch.”

Hutch gazes into Starsky’s half-lidded, happy eyes.

“Know what?”

“I know,” Starsky reiterates, and when Hutch gets it, when Hutch remembers, a star rises within Hutch, a bright, life-giving star that glows all the more when Starsky whispers, “I love you too. Love you forever.”

When a nurse does eventually enter their room to check their vitals, she finds them fast asleep, snuggled under the covers, facing each other, enveloped in each other’s embrace, and she leaves soundlessly. With a smile.

 

Fin