Work Text:
Roadside Disaster
by TLR
Plot: A late-night drive home from court testimony in Northern California turns deadly.
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They were past the last decent town and the last good diner.
Northern California was behind them in the rearview mirror, the highway now a thin ribbon under pale moonlight, red reflectors clicking by like slow heartbeats. The Torino’s dash glowed low, and Starsky drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on a cold cup of coffee that had one drink left.
Hutch sat angled toward the window with his jacket open, glad to be away from a day of court testimony and legal questions.
“You realize,” Starsky said, voice low and rumbly with fatigue, “this earns us a couple days vacation with Dobey.”
Hutch didn’t look at him. “Not likely. I think he has four more cases waiting for us.”
Starsky made a sound that was half laugh, half yawn. “You know what I’m gonna do when we get home?”
“Sleep.”
“Nope. I’m gonna eat somethin' that isn’t courthouse coffee and vending machine crackers. Then I’m gonna sleep.”
Hutch finally glanced over. His eyes were tired, but warm. “That’s a wild plan, my man.”
Starsky winked. “Stick with me, Bronco, you’ll have a full life.”
They rolled on. The radio was low, a rock station fading in and out, and the road was mostly theirs, which should’ve been comfort and peace, but instead was the kind of quiet that invited introspection.
Hutch shifted, rubbing at the back of his neck. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Fine.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Starsky rotated his shoulder for effect, the one that was shot inside Giovanni's restaurant a month ago. “It’s sore, but it ain’t fallin' off.”
Hutch’s gaze stayed on him for a beat longer than necessary, his mind trying to downplay the fact that his partner almost lost his life in a gangland war four weeks ago.
Hutch’s smile lifted. “Try picturing a steak dinner.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
They crested a low rise, and the highway opened ahead--two lanes, dark trees on either side, a thin shoulder, no streetlights. Just the Torino’s beams and the occasional glint of a road sign.
Then Hutch stiffened.
Starsky felt it before he saw it, that instinctive tightening that happens just before impact.
Headlights coming at them--big, high, and fast.
A semi.
There was a lazy wobble and sway across the center line, but Starsky swerving did nothing to stop the monster truck from plowing into them.
::
Metal screamed, glass exploded, and the world snapped sideways into chaos. Starsky felt his body being thrown hard through the broken driver's side door, and now he was somehow outside the vehicle and wedged between his side of the car and the driver's side of the semi.
He tried to move but his leg was trapped between jaws of metal. At first he felt nothing, then a wave of crushing pain washed over him. The sound of Hutch shouting his name came from far away, even though he knew it had to be close.
“Starsk!”
Thick, stunned silence draped down, broken only by the hiss of the engine dying and the distant tick of cooling metal.
Trapped between tons of twisted metal, Starsky tried to breathe and found it didn’t work the way it should. The air tasted like dust and heat and radiator steam. His ears rang, his leg throbbed.
“Hutch?” he tried to say, but it came out as a hoarse sound.
A hand grabbed his shoulder hard. “Starsk. Oh my God. Look at me. Look at me.”
Hutch’s face was close, half-lit by the ruined dashboard and whatever light was glowing from the semi's cab, blood cutting a line down from his eyebrow. His eyes were sharp with panic that he was trying not to show. One glance at the caved head of the truck driver confirmed the first fatality, and he was determined that Starsky wouldn't be the second.
Starsky blinked slowly. “You... kay?”
Hutch let out a tearful breath at Starsky's selfless concern. “I’m fine. Stay with me.”
Starsky tried to shift and couldn’t. Pain flared hot and white through his left leg, from thigh to ankle, still pinned.
“Hutch,” he said again, and it sounded more like a plea as he looked down at himself and his predicament, as if for the first time. “I'm in trouble, huh?”
“Don’t look down. Look at me.”
Starsky’s breath came shallow. “Truck...”
“I know.”
“Driver...”
“Driver's dead. Let's think about you, huh?”
Starsky's head dropped, and Hutch's hands came up to lift it again.
“Steak,” Starsky murmured.
“You’re concussed,” Hutch said. “Don’t move.”
Starsky's smile was weak and dreamy. “Perish the thought.”
“Okay, dirtball. I'm just going to try to climb into what's left of the truck's cab and use the CB for help. Our radio's busted. I'll be right over there. Don't try to move.”
Starsky’s eyelids felt heavy. He forced them open. “Okay. Hurry, huh?”
Hutch gave his partner's cheek an affectionate pat, then began to back out of the wedged space and head toward the passenger side of the cab.
Starsky tried to focus through the buzzing in his head. “Blond Blintz.”
Hutch wanted to maintain contact with him somehow, so he said, “I hear you, Puce Goose. Just take it easy. I'm right over here.”
As Hutch climbed into the nearly demolished cab, he thought about how ironic it was that they could survive gunfights and alley chases and bad guys, and then almost perish on a black highway because a truck driver had one too many and climbed behind the wheel.
He didn’t realize he was crying until he tasted salt. Starsky can't die this way. I won't let him.
“Hutch,” came Starsky's whisper in the darkness, as if it were a lifeline he had to repeat in order to stay in this world.
“Over here,” Hutch said across the way. Past the truck driver and through the open broken window, he could see Starsky's head dipping lower. Please don't pass out on me. Stay awake. “Stay awake, buddy. Don't go to sleep.”
Hutch had the CB mic in his hand.
“Breaker one-nine, breaker one-nine. This is--” Hutch’s voice was tense but controlled. “This is Bay City Police, Zebra Three. We’re down on Highway... near mile marker 72, northbound. We’ve been hit by a semi. The trucker is deceased, and my partner is trapped in the wreckage. Need ambulance and possibly fire, definitely rescue and whatever equipment to get this rig off my partner.”
Static.
Then a reply, a faint but welcome sound. “Copy, Bay City Police.”
“I'm out. Hurry.”
Starsky let his eyes close for one second, just one second, and in that second the sound of Hutch’s voice became the only thing tethering him to the earth.
Hutch’s footsteps came back fast. He was breathing hard when he squeezed into the space where Starsky was trapped, face pale under his own cut, eyes scanning Starsky for other injuries or symptoms.
Hutch kept his hand on Starsky's shoulder. “Help’s on the way. Don't let go. You hear me?”
Starsky tried to nod.
Hutch checked Starsky’s pulse at the wrist, then checked his pupils, then crouched as far down as he could to check on his trapped leg, and saw blood glistening dark in the light of the truck cab.
Hutch whispered, “Damn it,” then took off his jacket and pressed it against Starsky's thigh as best as he could, causing Starsky to wince as he did so.
“Sorry, buddy,” Hutch said.
Minutes stretched. Starsky felt himself sliding away, but each time Hutch's voice brought him back. Hutch kept talking, steady words like a metronome. Monotonous if you weren't slowly bleeding to death. Heaven if you were.
Then a distant siren started, faint at first, then growing. Hutch heard it like an answered prayer. Starsky heard it like his best friend coming through for him yet again.
“They're here, Starsk. Won't be long now. Stay awake with me so I won't get lonely, huh?”
Starsky made a small sound yes, but Hutch was still holding his head up against his shoulder.
Lights flickered in the trees, then on the road--red, white, rotating. An ambulance and a fire truck, then a patrol unit, then rescue vehicles and extraction equipment, all rolling up with urgency.
Voices rose. Boots crunched on some stray gravel. Flashlights illuminated the wreckage.
“Starsk,” Hutch said patting his cheek again. “I'm going to back out from here so the paramedics can squeeze in. We'll get you out, don't worry. I'll be right here.”
Hutch wriggled out from the space backward, then a paramedic squeezed in with his kit.
“Left leg is pinned,” Hutch told the medic. “Bleeding controlled with pressure. Possible concussion.”
Starsky tried to speak and coughed instead.
“Okay, Officer,” the medic said to Starsky. “I’m gonna put a collar on you. Don’t fight me.”
Starsky's voice was small. “I won't.”
Hutch watched from off to the side, a lump in his throat at the enormity of Starsky's situation. He realized his partner's life was in someone else's hands now, and it worried him.
They slid the collar around Starsky’s neck. Another medic took over pressure on the leg while a firefighter assessed the metal for the best way to free him.
::
Memorial’s ER was loud and busy.
Starsky went into X-ray, then into a room that smelled like antiseptic. They cut away his pant leg, assessed swelling, checked pulses, debated traction and surgery with clipped medical language that sounded too calm for what had almost happened.
Hutch sat on a chair against the wall with a butterfly bandage on his eyebrow, hands clasped so tight his knuckles were white. A nurse succeeded at taking his blood pressure and he barely noticed.
A doctor finally came out, mask hanging loose around his neck. “You the partner?”
Hutch stood. “Yeah.”
“Compound fracture in the femur,” the doctor said. “He’s lucky he didn't lose anymore blood. He has a concussion too. You did good out there with him. He'll be here for a few days, but he'll be fine.”
Hutch felt tension leaving his body. “That's good news, thanks.”
::
When Starsky's eyes opened later, he saw Hutch's butterfly bandage first thing.
“Hurt much?”
“Not really. I'm more worried about you.”
“I didn't lose m'leg, did I?”
“No. Still there.”
“Good. Thanks for savin' my skin.”
“Hey, what was I supposed to do?”
Starsky looked away guiltily. “Sorry I didn't do better. The driver died, didn't he? And--”
“Starsky, that wasn't your fault. He shouldn't have been on the road. And if you hadn't swerved, you and I both might've ended up dead under that truck of his.”
“Yeah, I know, I just...”
“Just nothin'. Just take it easy. Just get better so we can endure more court testimony.”
::
Two weeks later, Starsky came into Huggy Bear’s on crutches, Hutch hovering at his side.
Huggy came over immediately. “Look at you, babe. Back on the beat.”
“Kinda,” Starsky said as he and Hutch took a table. “Just bring us a steak dinner we won't ever forget. Hutch's treat.”
Huggy put his hands on his hips. “That’s a lotta cow. And that means a tip I won't ever forget.”
Huggy turned and left before Starsky or Hutch could retort.
Starsky picked up a cloth napkin and Hutch watched him with a quiet expression that was part relief, part exasperation, and part love.
“My treat again? When is it going to be your turn?”
Later, Huggy returned with two big plates with aromas that turned heads.
Starsky looked at the steak, then at Hutch as he raised his wine glass. “To you, Blondie.”
Hutch lifted his glass. “To you, Starsk.”
They clinked glasses and drank, then ate, enjoying each other's company as if no one else in the place existed.
Outside, Bay City kept moving, loud and bright and unpredictable.
Inside, they were together, which was the only ending that mattered.
The End