Work Text:
Yellow Ribbon
By TLR
Plot: Starsky is coming home from the war. What's next for him?
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Starsky sat on the plane, duffel bag in his lap like it was the only possession he owned, and for the time being maybe it was except for his camera, and a watch he'd bought off a villager as he was leaving Vietnam.
The plane was populated with other soldiers, all in uniform except for him. His was rolled up in his bag, but he wasn't sure what to do with it. Maybe give it to his mother or his brother. It wasn't that he was ashamed that he'd worn it. He was just bothered by what it had taught him in the jungle, and he still hadn't sorted it all out yet.
He still found it hard to believe he was on the plane. The war was ending. Times were different. Life was different.
He hadn’t slept much the night before, or the week before that.
Across the aisle, a woman browsed through a magazine, laughing softly at something on the page. Her husband leaned over to look. Normal. Everything was normal here. It struck him like a foreign language he used to know.
He pressed his forehead lightly to the cool window and watched the clouds peel back.
He’d imagined this moment a dozen different ways.
He’d imagined his mother at the gate, crying and hugging him, his brother Nick hanging back pretending not to care. But they were back in New York. Rachel had called, her voice thick and proud and worried all at once.
“We’ll come soon, David. I promise. Things are just… tight right now.”
He’d told her it was fine, not to worry, whenever they could make it was okay by him and he'd send money for the trip.
Hutch said he wanted to be there but didn't know if he could make it, since he was knee-deep in final exams for his sociology degree and his young wife Nancy said she was leaving him for another man.
“Call me when you get into the city,” Hutch had told him over the crackling line. “I'll come to wherever you are and we'll catch up.”
Starsky couldn’t blame him if he didn’t show. Things happened. That was life.
The plane banked slightly, and the sunlight caught the wing. For a second the flash of brightness pulled him somewhere else entirely--a flare in the jungle, a blast of white, the air split open with heat and dirt and the metallic scream of something tearing apart like a dying beast.
He shut his eyes. Don’t go there.
He’d been behind the camera most days, as a combat photographer, but it wasn't safer, and it didn't create distance or make him immune. If anything, he saw more than most.
The plane hit a pocket of turbulence and jolted. Starsky’s hand flew up before he could stop it, as if bracing for something worse. The man beside him stirred but didn’t wake.
Starsky swallowed hard and forced his hand back down to his lap.
You’re not there anymore.
He looked down at his own reflection in the scratched window. Thinner face. Lines that hadn’t been there before. He didn't look like an innocent teenager anymore.
He thought about what might come next. Maybe a job, something steady. He could always go back to being a cabbie.
He’d always pictured himself with a family someday, a wife and kids. Would that even be possible? He hoped what he needed for that hadn't burned out. Maybe he had more growing and learning to do.
He thought about Hutch and what his future would be like now if Nancy left it. He'd still have his teaching goal.
The landing gear dropped with a heavy thud, and his stomach tightened.
This was it.
The runway rushed up to meet them. The tires hit hard, bounced once, then caught. The engines roared in reverse, pressing him forward against the belt.
Home.
The word felt strange in his head.
As the plane taxied toward the gate, Starsky stared out at the line of terminal windows. People moved behind the glass and the fencing, indistinct shapes waiting for someone; soldiers mostly.
He tried not to imagine walking through those doors and seeing no one he knew, but it would have to be all right. He learned to live by himself and for himself in the army. Even though there were hundreds of guys around, he still felt alone, and lonely.
There, he didn't care. Wearing a shield of armor, a mask of indifference, was what got him through.
Now he was back home in California. He told himself he didn’t need a crowd or banners or speeches.
He tried not to care about who or what was or wasn't waiting for him, but he failed miserably. He just needed one steady thing. One person who’d look at him and see past the uniform, past the horror of whatever was trying to change him on the inside.
The seatbelt sign blinked off. Passengers stood, reaching for bags, eager to get on with living.
Starsky stayed seated a second longer.
He ran a hand over his face, squared his shoulders, and picked up his duffel.
Whatever was waiting on the other side of those doors... or whoever wasn’t... he’d handle it. He'd been a soldier and a street kid, and had handled worse, like holding his dying father in his arms when he was just a youngster.
As he followed a few uniformed soldiers off the plane, he couldn't help but look around, seeing a few yellow ribbons wrapped around poles and threaded through fencing. Hope was his nature, and his nature was rewarded, for standing at the gate with a bright smile, waving his arms and wearing a white shirt embroidered with yellow satin ribbons down the front and around the cuffs and collar, was Hutch, his blond hair swirling in the breeze and standing out from all the others.
Today, Hutch was his yellow ribbon.
“Starsk! Starsk!”
Starsky couldn't stop the tears that rose inside and threatened to spill.
Hutch jumped over the chain-link fence and ran toward him. Starsky dropped his bag and they caught each other up in a big tearful hug.
“Welcome home, man!”
As Starsky clung to him, he suddenly knew he would be all right, and that whatever life held for them, they would live it together.
The end