I find it easy to write as if I am in Hutch's head and feel closer to Starsky that way so I am experimenting with Hutch POV first person stories. Here's another one and in this I am trying to be in Hutch's head immediately after Starsky was gunned down in SR. For all of you out there like me, who can feel Hutch's pain in that scene when he first goes in to be with Starsky and is just totally overwhelmed and somewhat "outside" of the reality of the scene...here is one take on it. If you remember there is no blood on Hutch – his clothes or his hands. That being the case, is this what was happening for him?
This Time, I Have Not Got You.
Chapter 1
"I've got you...it's ok now.."
"I'm here, I've got you, it's all gonna be ok"
"Easy Starsk, I've got you, I've got you now."
How many many times over the years had I uttered those soothing words to my partner as I held him in a tight embrace, warding off any further threat to him, comforting him in his time of emotional or physical pain? Being there for him – being with him – making up the whole that was the two of us?
Those words had no place in what was between us now. Those words could not leave my mouth this time. I had no solace, no protection, no power to rid my closest friend of what was right now pulling him away from me.
Powerless, I was completely and utterly powerless to help him.
The still and almost lifeless body lay inert and broken, swathed in white on the narrow bed. White bandages, white tape, white lights, white sheets, there was so much white. His skin too was white...such white skin. Tubes and needles invaded his arms, his nose, his mouth, and his chest. Beeping, bleeping, pulsing and rhythmic machines and apparatus surrounded and crowded in on his personal space and effectively locked him away from mine. The body that was so ravaged and so brutalised by the recent assault lay quiet and silent, not even able to breathe for itself.
This body, the body of my partner, my closest friend, my soulmate. Starsky's body.
Starsky is going to die. Starsky is going to die, and there is nothing I can do about it. The body...it can only withstand so much...so much damage, so much trauma. This time, Starsky is going to die. This time, I do not have you buddy. This time I haven't got you and it's not ok, and it's not all going to be alright. Starsky is going to die. Oh, Dear God, he is going to die.
I sat rigid inthe hard backed chair. I could not even reach out to touch him. Could not even put my hand in his cold one, could not stroke his white cheek, or squeeze his shoulder or touch the soft,, limp, dark brown curls. This time I could not heal him. This time was different and so terribly, frighteningly, final. For the first time in our relationship Starsky was taken from me so completely, so cruelly, so senselessly. I could not be with him to comfort him, to hold him, to make him better with just my physical presence. Our connection, our bonding was broken. Broken like his poor body. Severed because his spirit and his light had been crushed and extinguished.
So scared Starsk, I am so scared. I can't feel you anymore, can't sense you anymore. Have you already left me?
I could not touch him. Why did I not touch him? My shaking hand just stopped in mid air, half way to his arm. I pulled it back as if his body was molten fire rather than cold whiteness.
If I reached out and touched him I knew that I would touch death, would feel Starsky's life ebbing out of his stricken body. If I didn't touch him I would not have to feel the cold creeping stranglehold that death was mounting on his body. This time my hand in his, my gentle touch, my body's warmth, my transmission of love could not hope to win him back from the clutches of pain and injury.
For there was another force holding my friend now and I could not compete with it's wrath.
This force was cold, it was not gentle and it was so very unloving. The White Knight was no match for the black demon of death. In the past I would have raged against the forces threatening him. I would have fought hard to reclaim his safety and protect him from further hurt. In the past I would have been relentless in bringing Starsky back to me. But this time was different.
From the moment I skidded to a halt around the back of Torino and saw his body blown apart , the holes gaping in his chest and back, his lifeblood pouring onto the garage floor...I knew this time was different. Screams and yells and running feet all permeated my clouding vision as I stood transfixed by the sight of Starsky's limp, doll like body. Everyone was running, crowding him, touching him, assessing him, screaming for assistance and yelling out directives. I had staggered toward him and fallen to his side. Aghast, afraid, annihilated. He and I were a little tableau, frozen in time. He with his blood pumping out of his slumped and blown apart form, me with my useless, stunned and totally shocked face. We were so still the both of us. Totally still amidst a cacophony of noise and a screenplay of total drama.
Everyone was claiming him, wanting a part of him, wanting to make him better. In contrast I could do nothing but slump beside him and look at everyone else for assistance. Never had I seen my partner so ripped apart physically, so dismantled, so fragile. Never had I been so disempowered, felt so futile, so fucking weak, so alone – already. It was if it was I who had been decimated by the bullets, my blood pouring out of my chest, my body weakening with every passing second.
As the paramedics arrived and began to work on Starsky, I felt the shift, the severance...our bond had been broken. I was adrift and Starsky was already in a sphere where I could no longer reach him. As they gently lifted his bloody, pulverised body onto the stretcher – I stood back. The fear mounted and overtook me and I just stood, crumpled and overwhelmed as they loaded him with a great sense of urgency into the ambulance.
No one asked me if I wished to travel with him and there seemed no point in requesting it...such was the magnitude of the operation. He was critically injured and every moment counted. There was no time for emotional considerations. A partner's rights did not figure in the scheme of saving someone's life and at that moment, Starsky's life was hanging by a thread. The doors of the ambulance slammed shut with such a finality. Starsky was inside and I was outside. Starsky was alone and I was not with him.
I just backed weakly away from the vehicle and the crowded mayhem began to disperse. People were enquiring as to how I was, what the hell had happened and making suggestions about getting me somewhere to sit down. Did they not see? Did they not realise the enormity at what had just transpired? Did they not realise as I realised, that I was not with him, I was not beside him as I always was in such terrible times.
As kind hands were bundling me toward the door of the building and holding my shaking form upright, I uttered my first words since the shocking event.
"Who is holding his hand in the ambulance?"
It was not me and never before had it not been.