Title: "One more step"

Author: IROS

Fandom: Starsky & Hutch

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights, I don't get money and this is for entertainment only. Oops! Errors are entirely mine.

Starsky felt utterly limp and wrung-out, every muscle in his body aching and sore but he felt surprisingly okay… just really, really, really tired. Did that mean it was over? Was it all? He thought about opening his eyes but simply couldn't sum up the required energy. Then the old familiar blond's aftershave greeted him a silent welcome back. Just trying to turn his head towards the source of that comforting smell required a huge effort and his voice came out as little more than a sigh as he breathed roughly, "How'd...it ... go?"

A hand patted his shoulder reassuringly and Hutch's voice, sounding oddly rough and breathless, told him, "You did fine, man."

"Hutch... huh... need... dzee... ra--bies..." . He really wanted to open his eyes and sit up and find out exactly what was happening but his body was feeling stubbornly dull. He felt a restrictive hand on his stomach. After all Hutch could finally let out a relieved sigh. That was the Starsky he used to know, the one always trying to be ahead of things, not cool at all times, but thinking for good.

"Don't worry, pal. It's done. They gave you the first round of rabies shots a while ago and you got infiltrated all around the bites. I've got the second and third rabies dose vials with me. Got them in my pocket. All is being taken care of. You just rest now, we would need to be moving in a little while."

"It's... gonna... be... huh,... okay... then, right... hein...?"

Hutch glanced down, a little surprised. He'd never heard such a note of uncertainty, of fear, in his friend's voice. He wondered again what it must have been like for him, wounded, trapped, bleeding out, feeling himself getting slowly weaker and not being able to do anything so as not compromise their delicate situation, waiting for him to make heads or tails of it.

"Yeah," he reassured him, feeling Starsky's stomach muscles tense under his hand. Casting a quick glance at the medical team and seeing them readying themselves to go, he took on himself to gently clean away the smearing traces of blood all over Starsky's body. "You need some serious rehab," he qualified distractedly as he worked, adding as he straightened, "but you should, you know, live to fight in the streets another day and all that." Hutch dropped the bloodied cloth onto the tray and grabbed a fresh gauze pad, taking a moment to soak a little antiseptic onto it from a small bottle to take care of the little cuts and scrapes that apparently had been left untreated. "I'll take good care of you. Rest some, buddy."

Starsky nodded and Hutch saw the tension in his body relax just a tiny bit, a sigh of relief lost in the too-rapid shudder of his breathing, The curly's head felt incredibly heavy and the exhausted lethargy of his body was rapidly turning into drowsiness. He wanted to stay awake, to find out what had happened with the bullet inside him, but it seemed his body had other ideas. He was distantly aware of Hutch's hands gently rearranging his limbs; he felt oddly embarrassed at that but couldn't summon up the energy to protest and just indulged himself in the welcomed warmth of the blanket that his friend used to cover his body.

Voices were murmuring somewhere and he could hear Hutch's voice and the doctor's and maybe the aide's too but he couldn't pick out the words. Something was clicking nearby, a slow, regular beat, and he let the rhythm lull him into sleep.

"We are running out of time here, sir. We have to leave. We'll help you get your friend to the bed, and take with us the stretcher and our instrumental. The rest you should take care of yourself. It's not included in what was agreed on. By the way, you have to be out by tomorrow evening, it's all we could do. We have done our part."

"You did. Give me some more morphine."

"No, sir. This is something you do not need and we are not going allow any unnecessary risks."

"I need it to leave him out of the count for a few hours if necessary. He needs to rest. You have seen how quickly he's got out of the anaesthetics. You hardly had time to finish the surgery on him. There is no risk for you. Nobody will know you gave it to me."

"Nope. We've risked too much already with the second dose. Your friend here does not respond well to usual anesthetics that's the point—"

"That's why I am going for the morphine."

"Your friend's awkward response before... morphine might as well kill him depending on his vitals at a given moment and we won't be here to monitor him. You said you had some medical training yourself, then you must understand. My brother and I agreed to help someone in distress but that doesn't imply we won't act in the best of the interests of him as a patient. We do not do harm to others."

"OK. OK. Got your point."

While having the final assessment from the medic team, Hutch had turned their attention back to Starsky's only exposed wound, bending low to look closely at the tearing of the raw flesh. "What about this one? Are you gonna leave it just like that?"

"This is gonna stay as it is. Right the way it is now, it will be the one wound that will give you and your friend here more trouble. Not the bullet one. This is a big animal bite. It is almost sure it is infected and deep as it is I cannot suture it as I would have only concealed the future infection. And that could be fatal. The right thing to do is wait for the infection to set in, and then go on pressing hard or using a lancet to empty all pus pouches cleaning the wound in depth. Push in a little gauze when you are finished and that's that. You would have to repeat the procedure once and again several times until the infection recedes. Follow the penicillin protocol all along." Hutch covered again his partner leg, his face composed, fiercely trying not to let go yet all his bottled emotions until those two were out of sight. "Quite a painful procedure for your friend, I understand, but the best course of action. You can pour some lidocaine over the wound before you proceed, that will dull it a bit. In time, the flesh will well up and it will be healing just fine. Believe me. It's the best you can do for him."

"But that's a procedure you will only use if you get lost at the Rocky Mountains. Are we really having this conversation?" Hutch pressed.

"It quite looks like your friend had been some place wild if not in the Rocky's by the way he is chewed up. No pun intended," the young aide intervened before the older one called him to order with one single commanding look.

"Sir. We wouldn't we talking just here, just now, if you were in a position to use "civilized" resources. But if you feel your situation has changed, then go to a hospital and get your friend treated properly there. It's your call. I am just giving my advice on the best course of action if you'd rather keep your present low profile. Understand we are here to repay someone who I understand has some dues to you too, so let's leave this "chain of favors" situation end here and now, and forget we ever met."

When the door finally closed and after he made sure Starsky was comfortably set on the main bedroom bed, Hutch hurried to shut off all lights leaving only the dim clarity of a nearby street lamp bath the apartment. He needed badly the cold balm of shadows just then, the words of the aide still resounding on him, the sudden realization that those two long but shallow cuts along Starsky's stomach could have been made on purpose as an appetizer to trigger the whole set of little and not so little bites all over his friend... And then, his first attempt to answer a simple "why" dropped the bad news like a bomb prematurely. Oh, Starsk... What did you do? What did you do? Nobody knows what he is capable of before he's pushed into a corner, he thought bitterly. Nobody.

TBC