New Drabble: Crusoe

[sjames_centre]

Blame this on JoJo. Because she wrote a death drabble and made me want to write post-SR again. And it's a triple drabble, so it's probably not a drabble at all. But it's definitely deathfic- so be warned.

Crusoe


Although Hutch feels like Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked and alone, he is surprised when he glimpses his reflection in a darkened window, and finds he looks nothing like him. It also seems  that he spends all his time in Starsky’s small, sterile room, but he must eat, because he is not starving, he must shave, because he has no beard, he must bathe, because he is clean.

 

The second week he begins to count the days, marking them off in the black notebook he carries with him.  He rips out the other pages—barely legible notes that hint at his previous life—and creates a new first page.

 

Day 1 he writes. Then crosses it out because Day 1 was when the ship went down. All hands lost. Save one.

 

Day 10

Pneumonia. Fuck.

 

The book is half-filled when the doctors explain about the blood clot. Three-quarters full when the ventilator reappears. The doctors talk to him quietly of probabilities and outcomes and “being realistic.” When they leave, Hutch removes the notebook from his back pocket with shaking hands, thumbs to a new page and writes:

 

Day 98

Hope fading.

 

There are no days after that, only hours. Hutch is miserly with them, spending each carefully, until finally, there are none left.

 

 

 

Three months after it’s over, he finds the notebook in the pocket of his leather jacket. When he drops it on the bed, it falls open to the last page and he sees something written in an unsteady left-handed scrawl that wraps around his heart like barbed wire.

 

end game begins

love you

s

After a moment, he wipes at his eyes, tears out the page and folds it into his wallet. Then he drives to the courthouse for the opening statements in State of California v. James Gunther.