Savior
by rae
It wasn't the
screams that haunted Starsky, it was the moment that they stopped.
He stood in
the dark, silent, shaking. Trying to find somewhere else to send his brain. His
body. His guilt and shame. There was nowhere for any of it to go. So he shook.
Somewhere behind
him, Hutch waited. "Tell me what I can do," he said.
"Nothing."
Starsky waved a hand at him, a keep-away motion he'd never used before.
"There's nothing." He wished Hutch would go.
"There's
nothing you could have done, Starsk. No way you could have known."
Starsky
turned to look at him. "I know enough about that bastard. I should have
known what he would do. I could have saved that little boy."
"I
should know a lot of things, too, buddy. No one knows everything. No one can
think of everything." He took two steps toward Starsky.
"Don't,"
Starsky said, voice tight. "Don't."
"Don't
what?" Hutch said. "Don't tell you what you already know? Don't tell
you all the screams I've got in my head?" He took two more steps forward. "Don't touch
you? Like this? Like this?"
Hutch's
hands on his shoulder, on his face, in his hair . . .
Starsky
didn't want that. Didn't need that. He tried to push him away, but it was like
trying to push a building over onto its side. Couldn't be done. So he stopped
trying. He let his hands drop, let his shoulders drop, let his head fall
forward.
"See?"
Hutch said. "This is what I can do."
Inside
Starsky's head, the screaming stopped.
Go to the
sequel: Travel Plans
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