Prompt fill Week 29: Starsky and Hutch - Exhausted
Losing it in Las Vegas
Starsky:
"I'm sick of your stinkin' loyalty to your friends!" I groused.
"Present company included or excluded?" Hutch threw back.
His eyes shot blue lasers right through me. I'd seen that look plenty of times over the years. It was the look my partner reserved for the lowest of the low. Until that moment I had never thought to see it directed at me and it seared me like a blow torch from the inside out. It was nothing more than I deserved, though. Because that's exactly how I felt after my outburst. Like the wad of gum that melts on hot asphalt then sticks to the bottom of your shoe.
Hutch's loyalty was one of the things that made him who he was - the best friend I'd ever had. The only partner I'll ever want. Only my complete and utter exhaustion caused me to spout such a reprehensible thing. I hadn't slept in over two days. Sandbags weighed down my hands and feet. My brain cells had been replaced by packing peanuts.
A few days in Vegas with a wad of cash to blow had sounded like the perfect assignment. Until we discovered the catch – Jack Marshall. Hutch's buddy from high school. Not that I'm the jealous type. The bond that ties Hutch and me is unbreakable. It's pretty much always been us against the world. But I didn't like the way Jack was playing on Hutch's good nature, leading him around like he had a ring through his nose. Sometimes Hutch only wants to see the good in people, even an old friend who is a prime suspect in a murder investigation.
After a few days of keeping up with the whirlwind that was Jack, helping out a gorgeous showgirl with her handicapped daughter, and worrying about how Hutch's personal feelings were affecting the case (or vice versa), I felt like I was caught in one of those rotor rides - pressed up against the wall with the bottom dropping out. The only thing that was keeping me upright was the spinning.
Hutch thought I was crashed out on the couch in the hospital waiting room, and I pretty much was except that I was still conscious enough to hear the doctor tell Hutch Jack was dying. But Hutch didn't say a word about it to me. Not right away, anyway. It wasn't like Hutch to keep things from me. I guess I was a little resentful at being left out of the loop like that. More than likely he was just as exhausted as I was and not thinking clearly. So I didn't push him on it.
"You know what I mean." I softened and we moved on.
Hutch:
Jack and I said our goodbyes at the airport, pretty sure we would never see each other again. He had released his rage at his fate in Vegas, as good a place as any to take a step outside of reality. Now he was on his way back to his family in Duluth to mend fences in the time he had left. I almost envied him. Almost.
I don't blame Starsky for being short tempered at the hospital. And I shouldn't have snapped back at him the way I did. He had been chasing down leads plus helping out that pretty showgirl, Vickie, and hadn't slept in days. He was concerned about Vickie's head injury but, more than anything, I knew he was worried about how my feelings for Jack were affecting my judgement. Yet he still backed me up all the way. Talk about loyalty.
Seeing Jack broke open a box full of painful memories. He was one of the few friends I had growing up. It wrenched my gut to know he was dying. And not from a bullet wound or knife blade either, but from something you couldn't protect against. Something unexpected and unavoidable. I had looked at Starsky sprawled out on the couch and thought what it if was him? I don't think I could live with that. The thought pricked me like a thorn and kept me from telling him about Jack's brain tumor until later, when my head wasn't so full of packing peanuts.
The cord that bound us together had frayed a little in the hospital. Whether from illness, injury or misunderstanding, I wasn't willing to lose Starsky. Jack was a good friend and I will miss him. But Starsky is something more and I had my own fences to mend. The car ride back to Bay City was a good time to start.
"Starsk?" I began. But when I turned to look at him he was slouched down in the seat, sound asleep.