Chapter 14

Starsky took a long time in the shower. When he finally emerged, he still looked scruffy with four days of beard growth, but he smelled a whole lot better.

"How ya feeling?"

"Like I went fourteen rounds with a gorilla. The gorilla won…"

"Mind if I take a shower?"

"Mind if it's cold?"

"Trust me Starsk, you're not my type."

"Neither are you, or that broad that shot me up. God, this stuff is awful! My skin is still crawling and I'm never sure of what I'm seeing."

"What do you mean, what you're seeing?" Hutch had gone through hell with his withdraw, but hallucinations had not been part of it. He wondered if his friend had gotten more drugs than he thought.

"Never mind. It's nothing."

"No, tell me."

"I don't want to!"

Hutch paused, looked away from his friend and swallowed. Out with it. He looked at his partner again. "Starsk, do you think you're hallucinating?" His voice even and calm.

Starsky looked down at his hands, which were shaking and then looked up again. Hutch thought he looked frightened. Starsky's eyes followed something up to the ceiling, and then he looked at Hutch again.

"Oh, yeah." He walked over the displaced couch and ran his hand across the cushion before sitting down. "I can't trust anything my body is telling me." He sat down gingerly, as if the couch might not actually be there.

"Just what is your body telling you, Starsk?" Hutch came over and knelt down in front of Starsky, so that he could be easily seen and not mistaken for a disembodied voice.

"Aw, jez Hutch! There are ants crawling around inside my blood. It took everything I had not to take the razor and cut them out." Good LORD! Hutch's eyes got big. Starsky deliberately looked elsewhere as he went on. "The ceiling is alive with snakes. One just dropped behind you."

Hutch had to fight the urge to jump up and look behind him. He did casually glance behind him though, just to verify.

"Nothing there?" Starsky asked in a tired voice.

"Nope."

"It's a fight. On one level I know it's not real, and on another I am terrified it is real. When I woke up, Terry was sitting on the bed looking at me. I thought she was here. I was so relieved. I wanted to talk to her, hold her close. When I went to touch her she became this snake. I'm tripping Hutch! I have no control over it!" The anxiety level just went through the roof.

"Hey, hey!" Hutch laid a light hand on Starsky's knee for reassurance. "It's going to be ok! Give it some time. We'll beat this thing Gordo! Just give it some time."

Starsky took a deep breath and sighed, looking around him. "How long has it been? A day? Two? Hutch, I can't deal with this. I am going out of my mind!" He rubbed his hands over his arms as if he were cold.

"Would you believe me if I told you I know what your talking about? It will get better. You have about 24 hours under your belt. We just have to get you through the next couple of days, and you'll be back to normal, whatever that is." He tried to laugh. Starsky's eyes drifted up to the ceiling again. Hutch lost and gave into the urge to look up too. "Another one drop?"

Starsky continued staring at the ceiling.

"It's alive with 'em." he whispered.

"They are not there you know."

"You sure? Maybe you're the one seeing things. Ever think about that?" Starsky's stomach rumbled. "I hear snakes taste like chicken."

"Yeah? Well then what do hallucinations taste like?" He was thankful his friend was finally hungry. Even if the drugs weren't out of his system, hunger had to indicate that he was getting back to normal. Hutch asked, "You want some pancakes?"

All of a sudden, Starsky burst out laughing.

"What!"

"Remember Bennie, the schitzo?" Starsky said.

"Yeah. What about him?"

"Pancakes?" Starsk's eyebrows went up and he leaned over, looking Hutch in the eye, trying to will him into remembering.

"Oh, yeah!" All of a sudden Hutch joined his friend in a round of laughter.

They had worked once with a very pleasant schizophrenic who was happy to tell them about his hallucinations one quiet night. They had all laughed at the story he told of a nursing student who had made the mistake of standing behind him and talking to him, urging him to eat or they would be late. She later related that she could not understand why he never looked up when she talked to him. They figured it out in a counseling session where he swore that his medicine was not working and he was suffering a setback because he was hearing voices telling him to hurry up and eat his pancakes.

It felt good to laugh. Starsky had to pull on everything he had to survive. The crap in his system might be calling to him for more, but he was going to fight it with everything he had. He was not an addict. He was not going to let this drug win the struggle for his mind. For who he was, what he was. Hutch had beaten this thing, and by God, he would too. Minute by torturous minute. He looked up at the ceiling again. Nothing. He was so afraid. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked at his friend. Hutch's face softened and he said with firm determination, "We'll beat this thing Starsk. You can do it. I'll help you." It was amazing sometimes how his friend could say exactly what Starsky was thinking.

"Yeah." He replied and looked down again. A rat ran under the couch. He sighed and said, "How about some pancakes?"

later

"WHAT do ya mean, she disappeared?"

"Just that. Dobey told me that Julie Bouldin shot up the officers escorting her down, she escaped and has not been found."

"Of all the stupid, brainless things…"

"Yes, I said that all the way here while I was fighting you."

The kitchen was a mess, with plates piled up in the sink. Starsky had folded up on the couch after eating and was concentrating trying to make the hallucinations do what he wanted them to do. They came in waves and were driving him nuts. He tried focusing on something else and was finding that concentrating on the escape of the lunatic girl was giving him some mild success.

"So what now?"

"Dobey has given us a few days off to recover."

"Great, I hope this does not count as personal time off, because this is not how I had my weekend planned."

"Yeah, my date was a hell of a lot cuter than you."

"Any girl is cuter than you, blondie. I wonder what Crissy is doing?"

"Probably found herself a burrito buddy and is headed for Mexico."

"Aw man, I could go for some burritos too. It was going to be a great date." Another sigh. "I may be seeing things, but you know what?"

"What? "

"There ain't nothin' wrong with my nose. You stink! Go take a shower!"

Hutch laughed. A shower sounded really good right now. Starsky still looked anxious though.

"Ok, but what are you going to do?"

"TV?" he wiggled his eyebrows.

Hutch laughed again and stood up to turn it on. One day somebody should come up with a way to turn on the TV without having to get up to do it! He found a mid-morning movie for his partner and went in to take a shower. Hutch paused when he saw the razor on the sink. Cut them out? He'd seen it happen before. He thought about what would be the best way to wash up. He oh so wanted a long hot shower, but if Starsky should decide to bolt or start fighting something that was not there…he resigned himself to a change of clothes and scrubbing in the sink. He was glad he did when he heard Starsky get up and head for the front door. He ran after him and caught him in the hallway.

Starsky was walking purposefully for the outer door. He jumped a little when he felt Hutch's arm on his shoulder and tried to move away from his firm grasp.

"Where you going?"

"Out. I can't take it anymore."

"Not alone you're not."

"I'm gonna get her, Hutch! I want to find her and shoot her up the way she did me!"

"Not now you're not."

Starsky shook off his friends arm on his shoulder and took a few paces. His partner followed. "I can't just lay low. You don't understand…I can't do this!" Starsky's eyes were frantic and were pleading for understanding. The anxiety and the way the room felt like it was closing in on him were just getting to be too much. Thankfully he was with the right person, and his pleas fell on sympathetic ears.

"Come on. I'll get a shirt and some shoes and we'll go for a walk. You can do this. I'll help you through." Hutch again took Starsky's shoulders and looked him in the eye. "I'll help you." he said again. Starsky's anxious look eased and he relented to his partners urging and returned to the apartment.

The long walk helped, and the hallucinations lessened. The two of them found themselves outside more than inside after that first walk. It helped a great deal. Hutch was thankful that there was no one to hide from, no one out to kill him like Forest had been with Hutch. The goon Rob was dead, and nobody had heard from Julie Bouldin. She never returned to her home. Gradually life got back to normal. Dobey allowed them to come back to work, but on a limited basis. He didn't like what he saw at first, but figured a light schedule would help the two work out the kinks. Starsky found that he reacted strangely to sounds for about a week. His skin actually ached when he heard a loud sound or sometimes just when people talked. It took awhile, but gradually that too faded, and the whole ordeal receded into the past.