Work Text:
Denied
by TLR
Plot: Life and death after the Gunther shooting. Triggers.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The recovery had taken longer than Starsky expected. Gunther’s bullets had done more than just tear through muscle and bone, they had shattered something interior, the kind of trauma that didn’t show up on an X-ray but was there just the same. In his hands when they trembled too much to hold a coffee cup, in the way his heart seemed to skip whenever he heard a gunshot or a siren wail.
The hospital was a memory he couldn’t shake, and it wasn’t just the pain of the wounds, it was the helplessness. Being stuck in a bed for so long, first in the hospital, then his own home, dependent on others for things, was a lesson he never wanted to learn again.
It had been several months since he’d been released from the hospital, nearly recovered, with Hutch helping every step of the way. The pain of physical therapy to get him back on his feet was nothing compared to the dread of the department's physical and psychological exams that would determine whether he could return to the force.
Hutch tried to play it off. "Hey, if you don't pass the physical, we'll just go off and join the circus."
"Yeah," Starsky had agreed half-glumly. "Been living one anyway."
Secretly, Hutch wanted him to fail. He couldn't bear to see his partner hurt again. And if Starsky couldn't go back, then he didn't want to either. It was Me and Thee, not Me and Some Other Partner.
Secretly, Starsky doubted himself, and he knew that if he couldn't be one-hundred percent on the streets, he couldn't protect Hutch the way he needed to.
Those months following discharge had been a litany of daily routines and uncertainty. Hutch tried to make it okay for him, but it affected him too.
"Everything is changing," Hutch found the courage to tell him one day. One of them had to start saying it, so it might as well be him.
Starsky held his hand palm out as if he didn't want to hear it.
"Not yet," he said softly.
Right. They had to wait for the results of the physical. Captain Dobey was present to lend moral support.
"Starsky, no matter what happens, I've got your back."
Starsky knew this to be true.
But it wasn't Dobey's emotional support he needed when the doctor and psychiatrist told him he was unfit for duty, it was Hutch's.
Unfit? That word. It felt like another bullet. It felt ugly and dirty.
Hutch didn't say anything, just pulled his best friend into a hug and held him.
Starsky easily qualified for retirement disability and social security disability, so income wasn't a problem. It was the time on his hands. What would he do with his busy mind now? What would he do with his sometimes overactive imagination?
Hutch bought him a WordStar word processor and told him to write.
Starsky just blinked at the machine. Write? Then a lightbulb came on and he said yes.
"But," Starsky said with all the vulnerability of a six-year-old, "what will you do, Hutch?"
Hutch was ready with his answer. He couldn't for one minute let Starsky think that his life-altering wounds were affecting him in an adverse way.
"This," Hutch said pulling out his wallet and showing him his new Bay City College ID card. "I'm going to finish my teaching degree."
They developed new routines, new habits, created a new life for themselves, one without bad guys and bullet holes, except for the ones Starsky wrote about. The writing came easily, crime stories, detective novels, true crime, the kind of things he knew about firsthand and could relay with an insider's feel, but with a little noir twist he loved so well:
~ Bay City Blues
David Starsky
Chapter One
The city has a way of chewing you up, spitting you out, and then making you come back for more. Nights are the worst. Bay City after dark is a shadowland without warning. You learn to keep your eyes open and your back to a wall.
I’d been off the force a year. Long enough for the scars to fade to pale lines, but not long enough to forget how I got ‘em. The badge was gone, the department-issued piece tucked away in a drawer. The world had stopped calling me detective, but trouble didn’t care about titles, and it still knew my number.
That night, rain slicked the streets like a cheap mirror, bending the light into weird shapes. I was two bourbons into forgetting at a choice local dive when she walked in.
She wasn’t the kind of woman you see in Bay City every day, not unless you read the magazines or have the kind of friends who charge by the hour. Dark hair pinned up loose like she didn’t care if it fell, a trench coat the color of desert sand, and blood orange silk beneath. She slid into my booth like she’d been invited.
“Drew Stanley,” she said. Not a question.
“Lady, you got the advantage,” I told her, though the way she said my name made it sound like we’d met in another life.
“Name’s Lila. Lila Vance.” Her voice was low and husky, as if it held secrets. “You were a cop.”
“I was a lot of things.”
She leaned in, the faint trace of perfume drifting my way. “My brother’s dead. Cops say it was a robbery. I say it wasn’t. I say he was murdered, and the man who did it is walking free.”
I didn’t answer right away. The last thing I needed was to go chasing phantoms for someone I didn’t know. But the thing about phantoms is, they follow you whether you want them to or not.
“What makes you so sure?” I asked.
“Because,” she said, eyes locked on mine, “the man they say robbed him left his wallet. And his watch. And every cent in his pocket.”
I felt the hook slip in. Not deep, but enough that I wasn’t walking away clean. “You take this to the police?”
She smiled without humor. “You think they’re interested in another dead dockworker? You think they’ve got time to poke holes in a case that’s already wrapped in a nice, neat bow?”
I knew that tune. I’d heard it in back alleys, in waiting rooms, in the stale coffee air of the squad room. Sometimes the system didn’t care. Sometimes it cared too much about the wrong things.
I slid my glass aside. “Tell me everything.”
She did, and it wasn’t pretty. Her brother, Tom Vance, had been running cargo manifests down at Pier 19, stuff that wasn’t always on the official ledgers. One night he doesn’t come home. Next morning they find him in an alley behind the Blue Gull Tavern, head cracked, body cold. Case closed before the ink dried.
By the time she finished, the rain had stopped but the streets outside looked no cleaner.
“You want me to find the guy?” I asked.
“I want you to find the truth.”
That was worse. Truth was heavy. It could crush you if you weren’t ready for it. But I nodded anyway. “First thing, you stay put. I’ll ask around.”
She slid a folded envelope across the table. “First thing, you take this. It’s not charity. It’s an investment.”
It was thick enough to make me think twice, but I didn’t count it. “Alright, Lila. You’ve got yourself a detective.”
She stood, buttoned her coat, and left without looking back.
I stayed there for a minute, letting her perfume fade and the reality sink in. I didn’t know if she was telling me the truth, or if I’d just agreed to step into something I couldn’t step back out of. But in Bay City, the line between the two was as thin as a razor, and I’d been cut before.
When I finally got up, I slipped the envelope into my coat pocket and stepped into the wet night. Somewhere out there, someone thought they’d gotten away with murder.
I was about to ruin their evening~
::
He and Hutch were still close, hanging out at Huggy's and at each other's homes just as they always had. It was just that now they talked about different things. The distance between the life they led then and the life they had now was growing miles wider.
A milestone of success in the romance department came to them both at about the same time. Starsky fell in love with his editor, Sally. And Hutch fell in love with his classmate Corinne, who hailed from Hutch's home state of Minnesota. She'd come to California to make it as an actress, and when that didn't work out, enrolled in college because she loved the weather and the beach. Her only complaint was the crime.
The four of them had lots of good meals and outings together. There was talk between Starsky and Hutch of a double wedding, but Corinne said, "Don't you think that's a little juvenile?", which more or less put a damper on that idea.
So Starsky and Sally eloped to Las Vegas, while Hutch and Corinne had the perfect wedding she'd always dreamed of, back in Minnesota.
The double wedding hadn't happened, but a double pregnancy did, completely coincidental, and it was cause to celebrate. Sally and Corinne became more acquaintances than friends. Sally was a very outgoing and friendly person, sometimes oversharing to a fault; the opposite of Corinne's introverted and reserved manner, which could come off as aloof.
It surprised them all when Corinne reached seven months into her pregnancy and announced over a Scrabble game that she wanted to move to Minnesota and have their baby there so it could be raised around her family.
"I'm so tired of the crime in Bay City," she said. "I don't want to expose my child to riffraff."
Like the mugger who stole her purse and shoved her into a brick wall when she was obviously heavy with child. Her father, owner of a string of Minnesota factories and the richest man in her home county, guaranteed them both teaching jobs in her hometown.
This without discussing with Hutch, obvious from the startled look on his face when she announced it in front of the foursome.
Hutch couldn't argue about the crime. He didn't want his wife and child harmed any more than she did.
She smacked of Hutch's ex now-deceased Vanessa, in Starsky's mind, and he should have said something to Hutch, but he let it go, figuring with a baby on the way, it would all work out for the best.
Saying goodbye to Hutch when he and Corinne left for Minnesota hit Starsky like a sudden punch. He didn't expect the tears to rise or his heart to melt. Even Sally's eyes were wet as they said goodbye at the moving vans in front of Venice Place and promised one another they'd call, write, visit on holidays, and take time for vacations.
"Oh," Hutch said taking something from his hip pocket before climbing into the driver's seat of the moving van. "Before I leave... "
Starsky looked down at what Hutch was holding. Starsky's first published paperback detective novel, Bay City Blues.
"What?" Starsky asked.
"Sign it, turkey."
"Huh?"
Hutch gave him a pen, and Starsky just looked down at it and his own book as if he'd never seen either one before. "Um... "
"Well?"
Starsky searched the air. "Gee, I don't know... "
"What?"
"I don't know what to say."
"Good grief. We're best friends, now write something."
"Hm," Starsky said putting pen to the inside flap, but still hesitating. "First time I ever had writer's block."
"First time you're ever at a loss for words."
Starsky thought a few more seconds, their pregnant wives waiting patiently, then he wrote a few lines and handed it over.
Hutch read the lines... ~Thanks for being there~ ... and gave him a hug and a pat.
::
They talked for hours at a time on the phone, both running up impossible phone bills that Sally and Corinne complained about.
Sally gave birth to Matthew, the adorable image of Starsky, and then a month later Corinne gave birth to cherubic Bella.
That's when their separate lives really got busy. They did meet for their babies' first gigantic birthday party held in Starsky and Sally's backyard in Bay City. There was enough cake and ice cream to feed a neighborhood, and enough presents to fill a toy store.
"How's the teaching going?" Starsky asked.
"Just fine. I hear your second book's coming out."
"Yeah."
So they sat there in lawn chairs like two family men shooting the breeze, and if they were being honest, they had mixed feelings about it. Gone were the days when they chased thugs down alleys and took a bullet or a knife wound now and then. Sometimes Hutch would re-read Starsky's novel just to savor the memories of crime-busting with him and the closer life they shared.
Now it was culture shock in more ways than one. New jobs, new families, not spending every day in each other's pockets. But those things did nothing to diminish their friendship, it just took on a different shape, the way water takes the shape of whatever vessel it's poured into. They still had each other.
"So," Hutch said holding up his beer. "You and Sally and Matty will have to come out to Minnesota sometime."
"Sure," Starsky said clinking bottles with him. "We'll do that. Say, um, Hutch... "
"Yeah?"
Starsky gave him a close look, trying to read between the lines. "Are you happy?"
Hutch offered his half-smile. "Well, sure, I mean, yeah, of course."
"You and Corinne okay?"
"Yeah. We have our differences, but it all washes out. I just want to make her happy, you know? I messed up marriage twice. This one has to work. And Bella... man, she's my pride and joy."
Starsky smiled across the yard at Bella and Matty playing together in the sandbox. "Yeah. Matty's my world. And Sally's my dreamboat."
::
The years rolled by quietly for the most part. Hutch’s new life was one of structure--teaching, family, and the quiet rhythms of small-town living in Minnesota. He couldn't help but watch the black and white units whiz past whenever he heard sirens, a Pavlovian response which made him laugh.
But Starsky’s life, even without the rush of police work, never seemed to slow down. Along with being a dedicated family man, he poured restless energy into novels, book signings, and interviews. The cases and characters he created weren’t too different from the ones he'd known in Bay City.
The partners stayed in touch a lot, still feeling like partners but in a different way, still best friends, neither willing or able to live lives without their friendship. The familiar rhythm of those conversations was a lifeline, a thread between the young life they left behind and the older one that lay before them.
They were still family, and their reunions were always full of reminiscing and rumination, but not in a sad way. Most of the time they laughed, and Corinne, Sally, and their kids were the beneficiaries of their stories--or victims if you asked Corinne.
::
Part 2
::
"Where does the time go?"
This spoken by Hutch when Starsky told him on the phone that his son Matt and his wife Megan were going to have a baby.
"I don't know, man, but I'm gonna be a gramps, can you believe it?"
"No. It's hard to believe I'm almost retired. I mean, I've been a teacher and you've been a writer longer than we were cops."
"Hell, that is hard to believe. Doesn't feel like twenty years though, huh?"
"No. I wish time would slow down some."
"Time waits for no man, Hutch."
"Don't I know it. That's why you need to come out here to Minnesota to see us."
"Mm. I'd like to, but... "
"But what?"
"Nothin'."
"Well, okay."
"Say um, thanks, huh?"
"For what, Starsk?"
"For being there, when... when I lost Sally. It... kinda gutted me."
"I know, Gordo. I was happy to be there for you, I know it was tough. I'm always a phone call away. You know that."
"Same here. Corinne and Bella doin' okay?"
"Yeah, I think they're off to the prenatal clinic today. If the test comes back positive, I'll be catching up with you in the gramps department."
"What? How do we get the timing thing just right, Blintz?"
"No idea. Written in the stars I guess. Hey maybe you should write about us one of these days."
"Wouldn't know where to start."
"Just start at the beginning. Before you forget."
"Hey watch it, I'm only a few months older than you. You'll catch up soon enough."
::
Now it was time for the grandkids' birthday party. Again, held in Starsky's backyard. It felt a little sad without Sally's perky presence, but the laughter and play of little Ben and little Rose somehow made it easier.
In time, toddler Ben and little Rose grew to be two youngsters who couldn't stay away from each other, much like Starsky and Hutch. They insisted on chattering on the phone like two little squirrels, sending hand-drawn greeting cards and tiny toys to each other through the mail.
They also insisted on having birthday parties together each year, always at Starsky's, until Rose asked her grandmother Corinne just before her thirteenth birthday, "Gran, why don't you ever invite Benji out to Minnesota? Mom said it would be nice. We have a guest house, and Matt and Megan can come and there's always hotels and--"
"Rose, the Starskys... I'm sorry but they just aren't our kind of people. And I think you should spend less time with Benji."
Rose went as pale as her white-blond hair. She sat down hard on a kitchen stool at the breakfast bar.
"What?"
Corinne lifted her chin in subtle defiance. "It's something I'd rather not talk about, and don't you dare speak to your grandfather Hutch about this conversation."
Rose looked at her grandmother, waiting, waiting, waiting for an answer or a reason as to why her grandmother felt that way about the people she loved best besides her own family, especially Ben.
Maybe she didn't want to know.
Bursting into tears, Rose ran for her room and threw herself crying onto her bed. Her stomach hurt, her heart ached. What was the big secret?
::
Ben Starsky could barely make out her words on the phone.
"Benji, I don't--I don't--please explain. I don't understand. She was so hateful. Why? Why? Why?"
"I have no idea, Rose. None at all. Just calm down. I can't even understand you. I don't care what anyone says, do you? We're best friends, and I think... I think I love you."
::
Rose was so tempted to speak to her grandfather Hutch about this, simply because her mother forbade it, and for another reason: He would know the answer.
The closest she came to bringing it up was when she went to the living room one night when he was reading the newspaper, his reading glasses far down on his nose.
The way she approached and pulled up a soft footstool, he could tell she wanted to talk about something, and lowered the paper. "Hi there, Rosey girl, how are you?"
"Fine, Grampa. I just... have something on my mind. A question."
"Well, okay, let's see if I can answer it."
She put it a different way, and whatever answer he gave, was the one she would accept for life, because she trusted him more than anyone in the world.
"Grampa Hutch, what if... what if you love someone so much, and they're a very special person, and they've done nothing wrong, but someone says you shouldn't love that person and they don't even give you a reason for it?"
Hutch wasn't sure where this was coming from, but he could see by the tears in her clear blue eyes that it was personal, and so his hand went out to cup her cheek. "Rose, if you love a person that much, then you need to follow your heart."
She felt a smile come through her tears, but only partway. She nodded in earnest. Yes. He told the truth. It was all she needed to hear.
She was much calmer the next time she spoke to Ben.
"Benji, maybe it's puppy love, or something more, but, but I love you too."
She turned on Video Call, and he did too.
"I just need to look at you," she said.
He smiled. "I know. Me too."
::
The warm glow of late afternoon light filtered through the trees as the birthday party carried on in the backyard. The air was filled with the sound of laughter, clinking glasses, and the steady hum of conversation.
Starsky sat in his usual spot near the grill, which Huggy helmed this year, where the aromas of burgers and kabobs mingled with the scent of fresh grass. Beside him, Matt and Megan were chatting with Hutch about the second family restaurant they just opened, and Bella and Ted were sharing pictures and videos from their cellphones.
Rose, standing just beyond the circle of conversation, was helping Ben finish setting up the picnic table. As he handed her a stack of plates, their hands brushed, and for a split second, neither of them moved away. Rose felt a flutter in her heart. It was getting harder to pretend that their teenage crush hadn't grown into something more.
“Everything okay?” Ben asked, his voice soft as he passed the last plate into her hands.
Rose blinked, a little caught off guard by his tone. His handsome looks made her pulse quicken. “Yeah, just, uh… not used to the crowd.” She gestured toward their families, who were all talking over one another and joking around.
Ben raised an eyebrow. “Or are you just not used to seeing me in person?”
Rose’s smile faltered for a second. “Well... it shouldn't matter. We've known each other all our lives--”
"You look beautiful today."
She stopped, nearly dropping the plate. "Benj... "
He leaned across the table to kiss her, and she met him halfway.
"Nice," he said stroking her hair.
She felt her cheeks flush, her smile easy and natural, the kind they used to share when they were younger, when everything between them was spontaneous and innocent.
"After we eat," he said, "want to go for a drive to the beach?"
"My favorite place."
"I know. I'll bring blankets and wine. We'll spend the night."
Rose looked around, as if expecting to see someone.
"Rose," he said cupping her cheek. "Your mother isn't here. And you're grown up now."
"I know, but... "
"No buts. Now is it a date or not?"
She looked into his deep blue eyes and couldn't deny him. "Yes, Ben Starsky. It's a date."
There was no going back. She was all in.
::
Nearby, Starsky glanced over at Hutch, who was leaning against the back fence, watching the party unfold with a quiet smile.
“Hey,” Starsky said walking over to him and lifting his beer in a casual salute. “How’s Corinne doing? She's missed the last couple of birthday parties.”
Hutch turned his gaze toward him, his smile genuine but with a slight mystified look on his face as if searching for the right words. “She's been having migraines off and on the last few years, but... she’s strong, you know? She'll be all right. I felt kind of bad leaving her home, but she insisted I come. Not that anything could've kept me from their twenty-first birthday.”
Starsky looked around at their families. "Looks like we're makin' it so far, Blondie."
Hutch touched his grayish blond hair. "I think you need to call me something else, like Graylocks or Silverfox or something."
Starsky laughed. "Nah. You'll always be Blondie to me."
::
Part 3
::
March 2020.
It started small. Whispers of a new virus from far-off places--China, Italy, maybe elsewhere. At first, it seemed like something distant that couldn’t touch locations like Bay City or Minnesota. But soon, it wasn’t just news reports on TV or whispers among the staff at the grocery store. It was everywhere. People wore masks, then gloves, and soon, it wasn’t enough.
The world turned upside down as people scrambled to make sense of the unknown. Hospitals filled to capacity, health officials scrambled to make sense of the virus, and experts gave out conflicting advice, unable to fully grasp the scope of what was happening. The rules changed every day--what you could and couldn’t do, where you could and couldn’t go, who you could and couldn’t see. The lines between normal and abnormal blurred into something frightening.
States closed things down, cities locked their doors, and businesses shut their gates. The usual hum of society, one that had taken for granted the freedom of movement and connection, came to a screeching halt.
Hospitals were the epicenters of this new battle. Patients were isolated, and doctors and nurses became heroes in every sense of the word. But even they were overwhelmed. And those who were vulnerable or had preexisting conditions or age, faced the harshest odds. Nobody knew what to expect or believe, causing a quiet panic to take hold and families to fracture.
It was the uncertainty that was hardest to bear, the fear of something unseen and unknown, and so easily transmitted. It felt like the world was holding its breath.
Given that Hutch had almost been taken by the Bay City Plague years before, Starsky worried. He tried texting and calling him in Minnesota a few times, but he didn't answer, and neither did Corinne, nor did Bella and Ted.
When he got through to Rose, however, she said in a tearful whisper as if she didn't want anyone around her to overhear, "Granpa Dave, I... Granpa Hutch is dying."
He tapped off the phone. He was sure it wasn't Rose's fault, but why in the hell didn't anyone call him? Yes, there were health rules. No, no one wanted it to spread. But this was Hutch.
Helpless, he unleashed his outrage and pain with a sob and a punch to the wall.
::
Benjie watched his grandfather pack with conflicting feelings of alarm and love. Alarm that this older man was flying alone to Minnesota to possibly expose himself to a deadly and not fully understood virus. But love that he was going to see Hutch, perhaps for a final goodbye.
"Pops... "
Benjie could do nothing except clasp his arm.
Starsky kept packing. "I have to. Before more flights shut down."
"Then," Benjie said. "I'm going with you."
Now it was Starsky's turn to look at his grandson, which was like looking into a mirror, both physically and emotionally. He wanted to go for Rose, because she loved her grandfather Hutch dearly and if she lost him, she would need her best friend too.
::
They went together, neither asking the question out loud.
On the flight, Benjie said, "I think I know why they didn't call you, Pops."
Starsky didn't say anything, just kept his eyes out the window of the plane, focused on the dark sky.
"Pops... they don't want you to get it. I can see that, can't you? I mean... can you?"
Even though his grandson knew how close he and Hutch were, Starsky could never in a million years explain his pain of watching Hutch die one breath at a time in an oxygen tent during the Bay City virus. He could never explain to him that his own life didn't matter at the time... only Hutch's did. Nothing or no one could stop him from exposing himself then, and nothing or no one was going to stop him now.
::
Corinne and Rose were standing outside Hutch's room in the hospice wing of the hospital when Starsky and Ben arrived.
"No," Corinne said, the dark circles under her eyes prominent. "He's too weak for visitors, David. I'm sure he knows you care."
"Gram!" Rose cried hoarsely. She lost her voice, and Ben took her into his arms.
"Don't touch her," Corinne said. "You aren't right for her."
Ignoring her, Ben led Rose away, toward a waiting area.
Starsky had the goodness to touch her arm, for he knew she was hurting too. "Corinne... "
Then came her whisper of, "Don't," as she stepped away.
"Have I done something, said something or... I don't understand why you've never liked me. And now... my family too? Benjie? What'd he ever do to you? Or any of us for that matter?"
She folded her arms and turned red eyes to him. "It's nothing personal, David. It's just... you people. Your kind."
Like a slow, meandering worm, realization dawned on Starsky, paralyzing his brain and weakening his voice. "You're an anti-Semite."
And then disbelief entered his voice. "You can't stand that I'm his best friend, that he could love me so much. That's why you wanted him to move here, live here. And you knew if he found out how you really feel about me, he'd leave you in a heartbeat, and take Bella with him."
She raised her hands in a near shrug. "I know he loves you more. What difference does it make now?"
They stood in the silence for a long time, then somehow Hutch must have heard his voice, even as low as it was, or knew intuitively with that psychic connection they sometimes had, that he was here.
"Starsk... "
She said nothing as he moved around her and went inside Hutch's room.
::
But it was too late. As Starsky approached his bed with love and dread, he could see that Hutch's chest was silent, and he was no longer breathing, but his eyes held an ethereal blue light that told him he'd known Starsky had arrived, and he could then let go.
The end