The Hardest Thing He Could Never Do

Flinging his badge into the Pacific, throwing it all away… it was the hardest thing he had ever done. A TWaB AU.

Written for the fan_flashworks’s “Old Friends” challenge and to this prompt on comment_fic: Alternate Ending – Starsky&Hutch, after they throw their badges into the ocean they open a private detective business.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

Since the day Starsky entered the Academy, being a cop had been the only thing he’d ever wanted to do. It had felt right in a way nothing else had, and for all that he’d lost his starry-eyed rookie shine a long time ago, scuffed and tarnished by the reality of life and police work, the feeling of rightness had never truly faded.

So yeah, flinging his badge into the Pacific, throwing it all away… fuck, it was hard.

But not doing it? That would have been the hardest thing he could never do. Because that would have meant letting Hutch go. And that was more than hard, that was… just impossible.

The life of a P.I. wasn’t a glamorous one, no matter what the Bogey movies made it out to be. Cases were thin on the ground, and money was even thinner. Still, the work was less dangerous and Starsky, with his young and stupid years (mostly) behind him, was all for less danger. If he occasionally missed the adrenaline rush of a high-speed chase or a shootout, all he had to do was look across his desk at Hutch: still Starsky’s partner after all these years, still his best friend. They were together and alive, and the odds were now pretty damn good that they would stay that way for a long time to come. The sense of wonder and contentment that brought was its own kind of rush.

And the feeling of rightness? Well, turns out that hadn’t faded either. Turns out, the only thing he’d ever really wanted, he’d never thrown away at all.