New Double Drabble:Simon Marcus prompt

Trying again to post this.....



At the hospital, the doctors lather Starsky’s burned face with antiseptic and wrap his wrists in white gauze. When they start to make noises about keeping him overnight, Starsky makes a few louder noises of his own, and Hutch agrees to take him home. In the car, Starsky is quiet, staring down at the bandages. He starts to ask about Gail, then stops, surprised by the realization that he hates her just as much as the rest of them.

Hutch follows him up the stairs and into his apartment – he hasn’t stopped smiling since he found him, like a man holding a winning lottery ticket he doesn’t remember buying, and he keeps touching Starsky’s arm, his face, his hair. Starsky understands it, he’s been on the other side of the missing partner equation himself, but he wants to tell Hutch to knock it off and just let him be.

Instead, he follows Hutch’s orders. He eats the scrambled eggs, drinks the scotch, lies on the couch. Later, when Hutch finally asks what they did to him, Starsky can hear the fear in Hutch’s voice – they’ve both worked the Marcus case too long not to know the answer.

So he lies.