Title: Lazarus
Author: Still Waters
Fandom: Starsky & Hutch/The Professionals
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.
Summary: Crossover with The Professionals. Starsky meets Bodie on a drug bust and finds an unexpected connection.
Notes: This piece is made up of a lot of 'firsts' for me. Not only is this my first crossover, but it is my first journey into writing for both Starsky & Hutch and The Professionals. I'm relatively new to both fandoms and wasn't planning to write in either of them until I felt the characters more strongly…..until this idea came out of nowhere and demanded to be written. I hope I was able to do the characters and emotions justice. This piece is unbeta'd and I am an American English speaker, so please excuse any blatant missteps in Bodie's dialogue as well as any missed grammatical errors. Italicized lines in quotations are from the S&H pilot episode. Other italicized lines are from Shakespeare's "Lady Macbeth." Thank you for reading.
Another day, another alley.
Starsky inched along the garbage-strewn corridor, right shoulder scraping along the building's decaying stonework, tissue-thin curls of dark red paint fluttering down and sticking heavily to his hand. He rubbed the dirtied appendage along the outside of a denim clad thigh - a familiar, desperate gesture.
Out, damned spot.
The ancient paint blossomed and bled anew, staining a path from his knuckles to the outside of his thumb - an unnecessary reminder of the harsh cruelty of the mundane. The sun caught on a scattering of fragmented glass, highlighting his hands from the crimson smear to the barrel of his weapon - a silent chastisement, as if Mother Nature herself were preemptively scolding him for shattering her beautiful day.
A rattling of bottles up ahead flattened Starsky against the prickly wall with a muffled curse, weapon held high and ready. A familiar figure shuffled into view and he let out an adrenaline fueled breath. "Elijah!" he hissed, poking his head out from the shadows.
The older man looked up.
Starsky glanced further down the alley and saw a dark clad figure crouched alongside another garbage can. He sighed heavily. "'Lijah, you and Charles need to get outta here. Now!" he whispered harshly.
"That's not Charles," Elijah's voice rose half an octave, wondering how anyone could make that mistake, yet he simultaneously heeded Starsky's warning and increased his shuffling pace to safety.
Starsky frowned, inching toward the shadowy form. He caught the silhouette of a gun hanging from the figure's hand, the outline of a holster.
Simmons was up front.
Starsky's mind whirled with possibilities. He could try and take the man by surprise. He could announce himself and most likely screw the entire bust. He could signal Simmons. Or he could just…..
Fuck it.
"You're not Charles," he said calmly, stepping right into the shadow's space, weapon focused in the weathered flesh between two dark blue eyes.
Just as an equally steady weapon focused between his own.
The man straightened with a slow, soft creak of leather, even his jacket understanding the fragility of the moment. "Knew a Charlie once," he offered with half-raised eyebrows and an even more half-hearted shrug. British, yet….global. Stiff London propriety like a forced mask over working class towns and the barest hint of an Irish lilt, darkened by muddy jungles and muddier causes.
"Yeah?" Starsky replied, eyes searching the man without shifting, reading his story within the silences and stillness.
"Yeah," came the succinct reply, dark eyes fixing fearlessly on Starsky's.
Out, damned spot.
Starsky swallowed. Not fearless.
Indifferent.
Expectant.
And almost a little….
…hopeful.
Starsky's gun wavered as the dark haired man lowered his weapon.
Here's the smell of the blood still….What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Starsky dropped the Beretta to his side. "Starsky," he said thickly.
"Bodie," the other man returned.
"BCPD."
"CI5."
"What does London want with these creeps?" Starsky jerked his head toward the building.
"Trampling the lavender," Bodie replied, the barest ghost of a wistful, ironic smirk on his still face.
Starsky frowned at the obviously private joke. "They been selling all the way over there?" he made a guess.
"Isn't that far, mate," Bodie said, turning his full attention back toward the rear door, hunching tighter against the dented metal of his rusted, overflowing cover.
"You got anyone up front?" Starsky asked, double-checking his Beretta with an almost absent-minded casualness – detached, yet…..focused. If only through sheer repetition.
"One." Bodie didn't turn.
Starsky crouched at the agent's side, mirroring Bodie's renewed focus on the thin wooden line between bullets fired for law and bullets fired for profit. Cops and drug dealers. Us and them. He raised his weapon. "Ready?"
Bodie gave a short nod.
Not fearless.
They stood as one, rushing toward the final position.
The silence broke as muffled gunfire signaled the frontal assault. One final sprint….
The alley spoke.
Two dogs barked in sharp unison, worn pads and cracked nails clacking along the stained pavement as they bolted down the alley toward the two men.
Starsky and Bodie flattened against the bleeding wall, just around the corner from the door. "Bloody dogs," Bodie growled. "Where….."
The world exploded.
They threw themselves into a low crouch, turning backs and collars to the heat and debris. Two men came barreling through the fire, the sound of gunfire a staccato syncopation to the steady crackling of the splintered door. The dealers ran for the alley fence, gun hands batting hungry flames from hair and clothing. Shorn stone plinked along pitted metal, shattered wood snapped on its death bed, ancient paint scattered into a red haze.
The dogs were silent as lead barked.
Two drug dealers, deceased.
Two civil servants, living.
One gray man, homeless.
Two dogs, mismatched.
…And a metric fuckload of surprise.
It sounded like the recipe for a bad joke.
"Bodie, you all right?" Murphy began breathlessly. "I tried….."
Simmons cut in. "Starsky, why the hell didn't you answer your radio? We tried to warn you…..they rigged all the doors except the front…..blew 'em as soon as we….."
Starsky and Bodie looked to one another, pulled out their respective radios, and tested them.
"Two radios, with fresh batteries. S'all right? S'all right."
Not s'all right.
Murphy and Simmons's eyes widened. "Then how did you know to stay away from the door?" Murphy finally spoke, tearing his gaze from the dead radios.
Starsky and Bodie turned to the calmly panting dogs sitting directly behind them. As if they didn't belong anywhere else.
"It was their angels," Elijah replied, staring at the dogs he had followed with reverent awe. "Their angels warned them."
"Our angels, eh?" Bodie whispered to Starsky, eyeing Elijah dubiously.
"'Lijah here thinks the world has already ended….that we're all in hell," Starsky offered quietly from the corner of his mouth.
"Got something there," Bodie muttered.
Starsky's quick agreement went unspoken as Elijah's continued stare really started to freak him out. Sort of reminded him of…Henderson. Of driving the district and getting those looks…..
"Like we were Lazarus. The day after."
"'Lijah, what are you lookin' at?" Starsky demanded, hoping the break in his voice could pass as adrenaline crashing exhaustion rather than the sudden squirming emotion currently lodged deep in his chest.
"Lazarus," Elijah breathed, pointing straight through Starsky and Bodie.
To the dogs.
Starsky's gut shot into his throat. He turned slowly to find a blue-eyed golden lab watching him with grave seriousness. A detached part of his brain told him that kind of dog couldn't even have blue eyes….but then the dog stopped panting, the genetically impossible eyes softened with an almost palpable joy, and Starsky could have sworn he heard…..
Bodie suddenly tore his gaze away from the green-eyed, scraggly brown terrier that had locked on him. Dark eyes fixed on Starsky – not fearlessly, but identically.
Haunted.
Uncertain.
And almost a little….
…hopeful.
Starsky swallowed first, Murphy and Simmons forgotten. "Buy you a drink?" he asked Bodie.
"Gonna need more'n one mate," Bodie murmured.
"Mi hermano from across the pond-o!" Huggy greeted Bodie boisterously at Starsky's introduction. "I'm afraid this fine establishment is not accustomed to the more discriminating tastes of our British brothers," he offered by way of apology, sweeping his hands around the bar.
"Forget it Hug," Starsky cut him off with a weary, but genuine smile. "Two beers. Please."
"Two beers for the man with the manners," Huggy grinned, sliding bottles and a single glass into place before leaving the two men to their quiet corner of the bar.
Starsky lifted his bottle. "L'Chaim," he sighed with a fragile, bitter rush of air that might have once, a lifetime ago, been a chuckle.
Bodie reached for the glass that proved Huggy knew a lot more than he let on. He poured the beer into the smooth glass, reveling in the small comfort of routine, and mirrored Starsky's action. "Cheers," he said, voice dark and heavy under the slight sneer. He took a sip. "How do you drink that?" he sputtered, planting the glass on the water-stained wood with an offended huff.
Starsky shrugged.
In the far corner of the bar, Huggy winced at the memory of normalcy.
"Terrible, that is," Bodie glared at the beer again before taking a long swig with a resigned shrug.
Silence fell.
Starsky fidgeted with the beer label, shifting restlessly on his stool. "Murphy isn't your partner, is he?"
Bodie stiffened. He had expected this conversation, even though it would be pointless redundancy, an unnecessary voice to what their eyes had shared in a split-second connection.
Out, damned spot.
"No." Bodie twisted the glass along the cushion of its watery ring. "Simmons isn't yours," he stated.
"No." Starsky's eyes clouded. He picked deeper at the crumbling label. "When?" he asked softly.
Bodie stared down into the amber abyss. It wasn't deep enough. "Year and a half."
Starsky flinched as a wad of soggy paper wedged painfully under one fingernail. "How?"
"Natural bloody causes! How'd you think?" Bodie exploded with a dark laugh that barely covered his shattering control. His fingers clenched the glass spasmodically. The silence stretched, a pause seemingly without end, until he looked up and met a reflection of his own grief. "Four years ago, this Chinese bird shot him right in the heart…..and he survived." Bodie let out a huff of air, a ghost of a dark laugh colored with a stubbornly irrepressible fondness. "Tenacious little git, him." He took a quick sip of beer, letting the glass linger a hair's breadth from his lips for several seconds before returning it to the sodden table with a muffled thud. "Year and a half ago he got himself gut shot pulling me out of one massive cock-up of an op." He shrugged. "Heart couldn't handle it."
Starsky shuddered. "A year and a half," he repeated disbelievingly. "I can't….I mean does it….."
"Get better?" Bodie supplied, wincing on another gulp of beer. "Not a damn bit mate." He watched Starsky process that thought. "How long?"
"Eight months," Starsky's voice trembled. "Eight months and every day I…."
"Wait for some bastard in an alley, or some drug bust gone wrong to just…." Bodie stared down into the glass. "Yeah, I know."
"I'm….." Starsky began hopelessly.
"Me too mate. All the time," Bodie nodded, draining the last of his beer. Huggy placed two new bottles in front of them and stepped away without a word. Starsky began picking at the new bottle's label, eyes distant. "How?" Bodie asked.
"Some kid tried to put a hole in his heart three years ago. She missed…..by this much," Starsky held up his fingers. "Eight months ago someone tried to do the same to me." A pause. "Again," he amended, as if responding to an unheard prompt. Starsky sniffed. "He pushed me outta the way." He bit the inside of his lower lip, hard. "They missed me," he chuckled darkly.
"Didn't miss him," Bodie finished quietly.
"Didn't miss," Starsky's strangled voice echoed.
The silence returned, Starsky's restless hands scratching the edges of Bodie's stillness. Grief hung heavy and fresh in the air.
"Again?" Huggy's voice suddenly carried over the weight of memory as he strode purposefully toward the two men. "Starsky, what is it with you two and dogs in my bar?" Huggy stopped short, swallowing hard against sudden nausea. It hadn't been "you two" in eight long months.
Starsky didn't notice. "Whaddya mean 'dogs?'" he asked breathlessly, dropping the seemingly endless label scraps into a disorganized heap.
"Dogs, as in members of the canine species," Huggy said. "Particularly the two who just appeared out of thin air to watch your backs," he punctuated the last three words with a pointed finger behind them.
Starsky and Bodie whirled around to meet familiar blue and green gazes. Starsky felt his face soften as he considered Huggy's choice of words. "Watching my back, huh Blondie?" he asked the lab, voice shaky with a mixture of deep-seated grief, memory, and the wildest promise of hope.
The lab didn't make a sound. Instead, he trotted up to Starsky, stretched up onto his lap, and laid his head against Starsky's abdomen. Starsky swallowed desperately at the memory of a gentle hand in that same place, strong reassurance in a quiet touch.
Bodie eyed the terrier warily. "Keeping an eye on me, are you?" he asked.
The terrier barked loudly.
Bodie burst out laughing. "Haven't changed a bit mate," he couldn't help but grin. "Mouthy little sod." The terrier's focus never wavered from Bodie's eyes as his tail began to wag. "A bloody terrier," Bodie chuckled. "Always were a single-minded….."
An elderly woman bustled in the door, locking eyes on the dogs with relief. She rushed up to Huggy, apologizing profusely. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what's come over those two. This is the second time they've run off today….they've never done anything like this before. I am so sorry. Did they disturb anyone?"
"Not. At. All," Huggy said with a slow smile as he watched Starsky and Bodie drinking in the sight of the two animals.
The woman followed Huggy's gaze, eyebrows raised in surprise. She walked tentatively to the two men, unwilling to break whatever connection was in place. "Sirs?" she asked quietly.
Starsky and Bodie looked up.
"My dogs….."
"Right," Starsky pulled himself from his thoughts, patting the lab's stomach gently in return. "Hey, uh….." he ran his fingers through his hair, unsure. "Thanks," he finished simply.
The elderly woman frowned. "For what, young man?" she asked.
"Just….thanks," Bodie said.
She faltered under the combined weight of their gratitude and a growing feeling she still couldn't place. With a small smile, she whistled for the dogs. "Come on boys."
The dogs didn't blink.
The woman sighed. "Sunshine, Blintz, time to go," she tried again.
Starsky's heart froze in his chest.
Bodie was silent.
And that growing feeling blossomed into a sudden understanding that brought tears to the elderly woman's eyes.
"Go on Blintz, ya big lug," Starsky shooed the dog toward the woman with a shaky smile and even shakier voice. "It's okay."
"Off you go Sunshine," Bodie replied in turn.
The dogs gave the two men a final, piercing look before glancing at Huggy, wagging their tails, and trotting off with their moist-eyed owner.
Huggy grabbed a beer and leaned into Starsky and Bodie's memories. "So gentlemen, who're we drinking to?"
Bodie closed his eyes for a long moment. "Doyle," he finally said, the sound rusty on lips that, for too long, hadn't been able to see past the stain on his hands to the light of what he had. He raised his glass, swallowing hard. "Ray," he amended softly. What he still had.
"Hutch," Starsky whispered, the love finally overshadowing the pain in that one raw syllable.
"To Ray and Hutch," Huggy echoed. "And their partners."
Four hours later, Starsky and Bodie stood at the doors of the two patiently waiting cabs Huggy had procured.
"You gonna be okay?" Starsky asked.
"Don't know," Bodie replied honestly. "But I'm better'n I was yesterday," his face lightened.
"Yeah, me too," Starsky smiled. He shook Bodie's hand. "You leaving tonight?" he asked.
Bodie glanced down at a cracked, brightly colored watch. "This morning," he clarified, noting the time before confirming, "Yeah."
Starsky opened the taxi door, fidgeting in place. "Hey," he called out to Bodie just as the CI5 agent was ducking into the other cab. Bodie stuck his head back out. "What do you think….of all this?" he asked, waving his hands aimlessly.
"I think I'm going to try for a few hours' kip," Bodie replied with a practical shrug. "You?"
Starsky was silent for a moment before a wide grin lit his face. "Sort of thinkin' of gettin' a dog."
Bodie chuckled as Starsky ducked into the taxi. He watched the red lights melt into the dark promise of morning.
Four days later, Starsky was in the middle of his weekly phone call with his mother, when she suddenly asked him if he had gotten a dog.
"A dog?" Starsky's breath caught in his chest. "No, Ma," he managed. "Why?"
"I don't know," Mrs. Starsky laughed self-consciously. "It's just that I had this dream a few nights ago that you had a dog…don't know how you could with the hours you work…" she trailed off for a moment before pulling herself back from the rambling tangent. "Anyway, what was really strange was that the dog had an old Hebrew name, really obscure."
"A Jewish dog, Ma?" Starsky tried to laugh through the growing pressure in his chest.
"Shush, you," Mrs. Starsky laughed. She sobered quickly. "I haven't dreamed in Hebrew since your father died," she said so quietly, Starsky wasn't sure she had even spoken. Her voice rose again as if shaking itself back to the present. "I had to look it up. El'azar – 'my God has helped.' Not exactly a common name for a dog, is it now?"
Starsky couldn't speak.
"He didn't stay either," Mrs. Starsky continued. "It's like he just sat, watched you, and then…moved on. It was the strangest dream, David…..and forgive me, I know it hurts, but just for a moment, when I woke up, I felt like you were okay…." She choked back a sob. Starsky swallowed desperately. "Because that dog just reminded me so much of Hutch and how much I loved him for loving you."
Starsky let go.
El'azar.
Lazarus.
As he hung up the phone an hour later, swiping tiredly at red, but lighter eyes, he looked at the photo of him and Hutch that he had finally returned to the bedside table.
"All right buddy," he thought with a tentative smile.
Another day.
Another day to live.