Author's Notes: I don't own Lick-a-Cricket nor believe it existed in the 70's. This is just a case of weird criative freedom. Oh, and the guys ain't mine, obviously. Hope you enjoy!

Preventing Hypothermia

When he was but a kid there used to be a quick easy solution for this problem in particular: his mom would tuck him in, wait until he went to sleep and bind him to his own bed with elastic bands to keep him from moving too much, send his sheets to the floor and get a cold in the morning.

He'd hated that. He still remembered the feeling of waking up early in the morning, wanting to stand and have to stay immobile, lying on his back, counting the light bulbs in the lamp - which were more than two and less than four - until his mom would finally remember she'd tied up her own son.

“If you were like Nicky, Davey, I wouldn't have to do this,” she used to say with a teasing grin.

Bet she wouldn't say it now that he was an officer of the law while Nick was… Well, he didn't really know what the hell his brother was. Only that he liked it hot-wired, walked on a sharp-razor, hopped between the right and the wrong side of the tracks, as some used to say. Quite frankly, he didn't want to know. Because knowing meant he'd have to do something about it, like busting his own brother.

However - and forgetting all the divagation stuff and back to what was important - he couldn't help wondering that maybe, maybe for once, one of those bands his mother used to use on him, maybe they could become incredibly handy.

He would definitely have to hide them whenever a girl decided to follow him home. Not because he was ashamed of them, but because now and then, some girls would turn out to have some really weird kinky notions about how sex should be preformed. And to be honest, he was kind of fed up of domineering people.

Rubbing his arm to control a shiver, Starsky got in the shower. Yes, he was freezing. This was freaking January, not as cold and snowy as the ones he used to endure back when he lived in New York, but still cold. Maybe he had a hormonal problem, or his senses were more accurate than most people, because he got this feeling that he felt heat and cold more than others.

He rubbed his skin, stroked it with swift movements, took off the dirt under the hot water… until the water began to feel cold.

“No, no…” Brushing the shampoo from his eyes, Starsky looked for the hot water tap and turned it on. “C'mon… Ow!”

Except he'd turned the wrong one.

“What's wrong with you? You sick or somethin'?”

Starsky glanced at Hutch, as he watched him from behind the desk, unblinking, unmoving, un-… every 'un' Starsky could think of, really. Only perhaps not unworried. In fact that crease Hutch had in his forehead was accentuated, seemed almost ready to pop, because that was just how Hutch was.

He worried about everything: about his mom, his dad, his sister, her husband, about their friends in general, about Starsky in particular. But also about the plants he had back at home, about Kiko's gold fish and the neighbor's cat. Hell, he even worried about the fleas crawling up the street mutts' backs.

“Nope, I'm fine,” said Starsky, picking up a cup and cleaning the dust on the inside with the tip of his finger. “What's up with the air-conditioner?”

“Broken.” Hutch kept watching him suspiciously. “What's with the sweater?”

“I'm cold.”

Shish… Why did he always have to know every single detail?

“Cold,” repeated Hutch, blankly. “In this city… How come?”

Moving the cup to his lips, Starsky delayed his morning coffee for two more seconds. “Well, you tell me, country boy. Maybe because it's January, it's rainy outside and I ran out of gas this very same morning while I was trying to take a shower. How about that?”

“Sounds nice,” said Hutch with a grin, his gaze already popping from Starsky to Dobey's office door.

It opened, almost like magic, rather slowly but precise - pretty much like a spring would do - a spring in a heavy slow motion movement. And speaking of heavy, Dobey got out, gazing at Starsky with one of his weird frowns.

“What's wrong with you, Starsky?” he asked.

Starsky rolled his eyes, stuck his tongue out when the coffee hit his taste buds, sending a message to his brain that it was indeed cold and most probably rancid.

“Nothin', captain.” He cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand. “What you got there?”

“A dead guy at the fair,” said Dobey, tossing Hutch a paper sheet. “Stay away from the rain.”

It didn't rain, it poured. Or at least that was what he'd like to say. Because if it poured he'd probably have an excuse to keep his nose inside the car. “I wanna go home.”

“You say that every time, Starsk, and yet you keep comin' back,” said Hutch, jerking the car's door open.

But the truth was that it wasn't pouring or as a matter of fact even raining. It was more like a constant drizzle - a boring and wet curtain of water, sparse, thin and annoying that kept damping their faces and clothes, keeping them soaked and cold, but nothing as normal rain would do. It felt pretty much like swimming inside a lake - a rotten, stinkin' lake.

“Ugh…” Starsky pinched his nose when he had to gaze at the body.

The circus was back in town alright: men and women in spandex scattered around him, just to take a look at the latest attraction. Was it another carrousel, cotton-candy stand or a giant wheel and no one would notice. Yup, they were surrounded by them and no one gave a damn. But this was a horror show, like the ones you see at a brand new haunted house, and that was enough to call for attention.

The guy was curled inside a car's trunk, bluish, whitish, whatever a corpse should be. His wrists and bare feet gathered together showed rope marks, even when the ropes happened to be dumped next to a wheel. So was a black cloth, probably a gag, definitely not a blindfold, since the man's eyes were wide opened, glaring still and steadily into nothingness. He smelled, the car's trunk stunk - he'd probably been there for days.

Starsky crossed his arms and rubbed his side disguisingly - the man was making him fell colder, chillier than before. The slight breeze that came with the rain didn't help. And neither did the annoying gawk of a bearded circus dwarf that decided to stalk him as he surveyed the vehicle.

“I'm cold. Aren't you cold?” asked Starsky, when Hutch finally got out from one of the tents.

“No,” said Hutch.

“What about soggy? You gotta feel soggy.”

“No.”

Starsky let his arms rest down his body. “You really have to answer 'no' to everything I ask you?”

Hutch looked up, thoughtfully. “No.”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “What you got, bozo?”

“Well, you figure it,” said Hutch, jerking his thumb. “That palm-reader says I'm gonna make a large fortune in Las Vegas.”

Starsky glanced at the woman standing outside the orange dripping tent, watching them with a hawk-like dark gaze. Probably a gipsy, by the way she looked and dressed.

“I'd like to see that,” he snorted.

“What?”

“Nothin'… I meant about the case.”

“Oh!” Hutch picked up his notebook. “Well, this car was left here last week and it has been here ever since. Her children got suspicious and decided to open it, with all those articles about stolen cars that have been around in the newspapers lately.”

“Hmm… So they did and found a dead man in the trunk, huh?” said Starsky.

“Yup!”

He stared at the annoying dwarf facing him from behind Hutch, listening to their conversation. “What about the ropes? What's up with that?”

“Well, the kids saw the man's eyes were open, thought he was alive and untied him.”

“Really?” asked Starsky. “You tellin' me the kids didn't freak out when they saw the dude like this?”

“They did, but only when they realized he was dead.”

Letting his mouth open involuntarily, Starsky produced this weird groan.

Hutch chuckled. “They live at the circus, Starsk,” he said. “I'm sure they've seen all the weirdest things there are to be seen.”

So the car was stolen, the blue, white - or whatever he was… - man wasn't the owner and the lady who owned it got really pissed because she had a dead guy inside her trunk. Well, not in her trunk - more like in her car's trunk. She started with discourses about civil rights and how certain individuals didn't seem to bother with other people's liberty anymore: if they wanted to kill someone, why didn't they do it outside other people's property?

A memorable long speech that put Starsky cringing with her aloofness and on the verge of yelling for her to shut up.

“Seriously, some people…,” he started.

“Shouldn't sneak in like that, if ya dig my drift,” finished Huggy, stretching his arm to check the rain.

They joined him nonetheless under a balcony outside an undertaker on the corner of 56th and Main. Hutch showed him a grin. “Sorry, about that, Hug. Thought you wouldn't mind since you're in the streets now.”

“Man, that's what you say all the time. What do you wanna do? Drive away my clientele?” He adjusted the large pack he was carrying to his shoulder with annoyance. “And what's up with you?” he asked Starsky. “Wrapped like that in all that wool?”

“He's applying to be the sheep in the next precinct's theatre,” said Hutch, peeking inside the box.

“And he's the farm's pig,” said Starsky. “What you got in there, Hug?”

Huggy moved the box, took it from Hutch's nose reach. “Ice-cream.”

“In this heat?” joked Hutch.

“Ah, my friend, but there in lies the real deal, the big surprise,” said Huggy, waving his hand like a true modern jester. “For these ice-creams are much more than what they look.”

And taking one out of the box with some more of his weird flourishes, he handed one to Starsky. “What the hell is that?” he asked, peering at the cylindrical tube of blood-red ice. “It's got paws in it!”

Huggy smiled. “Family specialty.”

“You placed a cricket inside the ice-cream!?”

“I'm ready to release a brand-new mark of candies.” He waved his hands in the air, as if he was brushing the gray sky. “Lick a cricket!”

“Lick a cricket?” said Starsky, giving him back the ice-cream with a quiver. “Man, you're getting worse by the odds.” The sight of that bug stuck in there, wide-legged and froze forever was even worse than the ice-cream itself.

“What's wrong?” said Huggy. “Don't wanna try it?”

“Maybe some other time, huh, Hug?” replied Hutch. “Now, we really need your help with another frozen body.”

“Like what?”

“We need to know who's been smuggling cars around town,” said Starsky.

“Why? You turned to robbery now?”

“When there's a deceased guy involved,” said Hutch, “yeah!”

Huggy rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “Man, I tell ya what. You buy me two of these, give me a big tip and the deal's done!”

He licked his lips as Hutch pulled some bills with a grunt and snatched him as soon as they made contact with open air, probably afraid they would get wet.

“Chat with Johnny Humpback,” he said, putting the cash in his pocket. “He's usually into that stealing car's jive.”

“Johnny Humpback?” said Hutch.

“Yeah, he spends his afternoons at the Olympia. Lonely guy, if you know what I mean.”

Hutch stepped into the rain again. “Yeah, we know the type. Thanks for the tip, Hug.”

Huggy hooked another ice-cream from the pack. “Hey, aren't you gonna take the sweets?”

Starsky interrupted his gazing of the entire sky to check out Huggy. Getting wet again after beginning to dry wasn't his favorite thing. He was annoyed, oh yes he was. “Keep them for another costumer, Huggy.”

Up and down and then all around. Boy, that lady sure was some kind of refined and well tuned machine, wasn't she? And that guy, the one he was doing all that stuff to… he sure was a horny hungry chap. The guy couldn't shut up, he had to moan all the way down - or up… - beginning at the bottom of his throat and ending up in his pornographic moustache.

Sincerely speaking, this was one lousy porn movie. He didn't even feel the least hot. Plus, the enormous amount of naked bodies was giving him the exact opposite sensation - was making him feel even more cool than he'd been feeling the entire day.

Slouching in the seat, Starsky fixed his sweater's collar until it itched in the neck. He propped his foot on the chair in front, making the entire row wobble, causing an old man to look at him with distaste. In the darkness of the porn theatre he could only see the man's eyes sparkling against the giant screen and the yellowness of his teeth.

Suited dude, looked like a college teacher - probably went there everyday just to tell the waitress on the popcorn stand that he was doing a study about primitive motivation on humankind.

Dismissing his glare with a shrug, Starsky leaned carefully on the seat, until his elbow rubbed Hutch's, waking him up from his porn movie induced doze for a moment.

“Hey, why do you think they call this guy Humpback?” asked Starsky, taking advantage of this moment of consciousness. He was beginning to feel lonely in there. Cold and bored.

Blinking at the screen, Hutch rubbed his eyes, dropped his soda cup on the chair's armrest and tilted his head back again. “Maybe he thinks he's a camel, Starsk.”

“You mean he may be carrying a water pack on his back?” asked Starsky.

“Yeah, why not?” Yawning, Hutch closed his eyes. “Did Melvis, the Chipmunk keep nuts in his chubby cheeks?”

Starsky snorted, making the college teacher turn in his seat, and one more time he noticed Hutch was at it again. Resignation wining for once, he let the man sleep his way out of that stupid stakeout. He'd been sounding and looking whipped for some time now, and Starsky had evidently, already found a weird sort of pattern in his behavior.

Hutch had been dating Abby for a month now, give or take, and every time they got into their fasting, dieting weird experiments, Hutch would turn up in the morning as if he'd been suffering from a long-lasting hangover.

Starsky was beginning to believe the girl was a fearless mantis or something. Because taken the facts that she didn't let her boyfriend eat for forty-eight hours and probably used that time to… well, you know… the only thing she needed to do next was to slice Hutch's head off to complete the whole deal.

Because no matter what everybody said, the sweetest-looking girls were always the nastiest of the whole bunch. He knew, he'd been with a lot of sweet-looking girls, who were in fact crazy ladies whenever a bed was in sight. He was particularly grateful to Hutch for stealing Abby from him in the first place.

Recollection in mind, Starsky slouched more and more in the seat, leaned against Hutch. Seemed contradictory that being the Nordic type he could always be so warm, but it was how it went. He loved to be alive, he was blond and bright as a flame, and his natural warmth never seemed to cease.

He was almost snoring, his ears almost wholly covered up with his green and white letterman jacket, when one of the theatre's door opened letting in a flash of light. A man walked down the corridor, lumped, his hands buried deep in his pockets, stooped forward like an old man. That sure was one ugly looking and definitely painfully uncomfortable damned hump.

“Hey!” Starsky poked Hutch.

He jerked, glancing right and left and striking his soda with his elbow. “What? Huh?”

Starsky's gaze popped from his lap sopping with non-sugar orange juice, and growled, “Guess he's not the only one who should have a humpback, huh?”

Man, he hated! He hated Humpback for laughing at him because he had a spot in his crotch that made it look as if he'd pissed himself inside a porn theatre; he hated that guy, that perpetrator, that moocher of other people's car's that turned into his partner's slayer all of a sudden; he hated running after him; he hated that it was raining. No, pouring! And most of all, he hated he had to run after that guy when it was pouring!

“Stop! Police!”

Did the guy stop? No. Did he even listen? How couldn't he? Hutch was right behind Starsky, his footsteps drumming the pavement, slashing the water puddles in two, and he'd heard him. So there was no way that guy couldn't have listened. Yet, he kept running anyway.

And Starsky kept following too, avoiding the water that dripped from his forehead to his eyes, his neck to his back, the trashcans and the papers glued to the cement of the alleyways, the whinos that walked in his path - until one pipe, one lousy pipe almost invisibly and strategically placed in front of his feet, decided he'd already run enough.

He stumbled, pitched forward, gave two or three large steps further, unable to get his hands ahead of the rest his body to ease down the fall. He went down with a clunk, right in the middle of a puddle, rasping his ear on the pavement and that dirty urban, street-made, probably acid soup.

When he finally managed to push himself up, Hutch was going round the corner, glancing at him over his shoulder just to make sure. It made him wonder how a couple of seconds could seem an eternity when something unexpected, something like that happened.

When he got to the mouth of the alleyway, it seemed to Starsky that it'd passed an infinity amount of time since he'd last seen Hutch looking at him, when only a minute had gone since then, if hardly that.

“C'mon, spread them!” bellowed Hutch, kicking the perp's foot.

“Hey man, I know my rights!”

“Then you must know you've got the right to shut up and keep your hands on the wall!”

Hutch frisked him, manacled him with the precision of a surgeon. And all the time, Starsky stood against the wall with his arms about his waist in a vain attempt to protect himself from the cold wind that grew up in energy, instead of easing with the rain.

It was always cool to see the nice Scandinavian God lose his temper for a change - see the folksy, gentle, quiet one get rough with the street scum. How on earth Hutch managed to get a menacing expression with that baby face of his was something Starsky didn’t fully understand. But he was damn glad he did.

“You okay?” Pushing the perp, Hutch stopped beside him. “What happened to you? Tripped?”

“Yup. A pipe left on the ground.”

“Foot's okay?” asked Hutch, staring at Starsky's damp sneakers. He'd always had a tendency to sprain ankles easily.

The car thief mumbled something under his breath, something that resembled a lot like 'fuckin' faggots', something that Hutch silenced in no time with a slap on the back of his head.

“Fine,” said Starsky. “But I'm kinda freezing here.”

“Right. We better go.” Hutch walked back to the alley. “A little more time and that drenched sweater's gonna stink the whole neighborhood, anyway.”

“Yeah, thanks for the concern,” said Starsky, following behind.

No cold this time. He could feel them when they were coming - he had a hidden sense for this kind of thing. He would become impossible to stand, he would nag about everything, annoy everyone around him, particularly Hutch who had to spend the entire day with him.

Poor guy… Sometimes he was a real saint. Sure, he had his weird quirks, his cruel streak like everybody else, but it wasn't easy to put up with someone like Starsky. And yet Hutch did it and kept doing it everyday, with joy and care.

“Huh, are we done here?” asked Hutch. He was frowning at him, already dressed and with his par of sneakers in hand.

Staring about him, Starsky realized he was the last one on the precinct's locker room, still taking a shower, most probably using all the hot water supply. Seriously, he couldn't help it. He loved those showers. As much as he dreaded the cold that would await him in the end.

“Going out with Abby?” asked Starsky, trying to put on his clothes as quick as possible.

Hutch followed his movements with bemusement. “Nope. She's gonna hang out with her brother tonight.”

“And you're not joining them?”

“Nah, I figure they need some time of their own once in a while.”

Nodding, Starsky laced up his tennis shoes. When they were out of the precinct he asked, “Hey, you ever did that to your sister? Spend quality time with her?”

“Sometimes,” said Hutch. “But we hardly got the same taste. Wasn't easy to find something we both enjoyed to do. Then she got married, I got married, moved out of Duluth and well… Guess you know the rest of the story.”

“Yeah…” Starsky bit his bottom lip, sure that he shouldn't have brought the subject up. “Hey, you wanna have dinner at my place tonight?” he asked, opening the exit to the parking lot. “I've got these linguini with shrimps leftovers an Italian chick cooked for me, and I tell you, Hutch, they'll be the greatest thing you'll ever taste in your life.”

“Yeah, I bet,” mumbled Hutch.

In the end the stupid shrimps were rotten, 'almost moldy and ready to raise from the tomb' according to Hutch's words. So following good old tradition, he finished up scrambling eggs and both dined breakfast food. Again.

Which led to the eternal issue that Starsky was possibly the worst host in the world while Hutch was probably the worst date. Because even with breakfast food he'd managed to fall asleep on the couch as soon as the late show movie started.

Yup, the guy was really beat. And Starsky, who'd been thinking about his own stupidity of mentioning Hutch's family in the first place, smiled at the idea that the guy had been lying to him all the time. He hadn't gone out with Abby and her brother because they needed some time together. He hadn't gone out because he was too drained and needed a break!

But being the all-time powerful proud man he thought he should be, Hutch came up with an excuse to stay home instead of satisfying his girlfriend's most intimate desires. Probably even told her they had the nightshift that day.

Feeling happier with himself, Starsky blew the hot cracked mug of coffee. For some moments he couldn't help thinking about his brother Nick, the way he was, and how he could be different if Starsky'd spent enough time with him. But then maybe part of the deal came with the person's own character. Hell, his own dad had been murdered in broad daylight, in the middle of the street and that didn't made him a criminal.

In fact it had been quite the contrary. For ages he got this rage canned inside him, rage that disappeared once he realized what he really wanted to do with his life. Maybe if his mom'd tied up Nicky to his bed, restrained him when she could, maybe he would've turned out different. Or maybe he wouldn't. No one knew.

Starsky tasted the coffee, finally feeling warm like he hadn't felt during that entire day. And while Hutch snored, slouched right beside him, he watched the commercials, rubbing his finger over the crack on the mug.

It lastly broke, splitting the mug in two by the handle and sending a coffee spray all over his shirt.

“What was that?” asked Hutch, stirring in the couch.

Still unbelieving, Starsky patted him on the arm. “Nothin', Hutch. Go back to sleep.”

End