SERIES: Babylon

PART: 4 of 5

RATING: PG-13 (Adult thematic material, drug content, adult language)

PAIRING(s): LK/LDF; Past LDF/CR; SF/WM

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine.  Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Romance/Drama

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Alternate post-show canon.

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lenny moves to Boston after Squiggy marries.

NOTES: A spin-off of a drabble started for Bethy’s Fingertips challenge.

***

"You sure this is the right address?"  Laverne wondered.

Laverne stares peevishly at the imposing, rotting structure.  The apartments were dilapidated piles once the homes of wealthy sailors and shipping magnates, now flop houses for junkies and the poor.  The rank scent of urine, stale tobacco and pot soaked the streets.  Laverne gulped. 

"You okay?" Lenny asked.  She nodded.  "This is the right place.  Cinnamon said Court Street Place, and this is Court Street Place.  He's supposed to be in apartment five."

Laverne shuddered visibly.  "Pretty name for a place like that."

Lenny watched her carefully.  "You want me to go in there and beat up Carmine for you?"

"What?  No!  I gotta fight my own battles, Len."

"Okay."

She clung to his hand for a moment - uncharacteristically weak and timid.  As suddenly as the mood had struck it dissipated - Laverne straightened her shoulders, and then marched up the stairs, leaving Lenny behind on the curb.  He waited for a moment on the sidewalk, where it was eerily quiet.  It didn't feel like a city street corner, rather a post-apocalyptic landscape.   The sound of a glass shattering on the ground so unnerved Lenny that he ran to the relative safety of Court Street Place.

Instantly he regretted his decision.  Within its crumbling facade, the building was a shamble of faded elegance.  Plaster chips fluttered to the unwashed floor in random intervals from the ceiling - the honeydew-melon colored staircase was rancid with the scent of mold mixed with body odor.  Somewhere in the distance, a woman screamed, a baby cried - the walls were thinner than paper.  A man in ragged clothing lay at the opposite end of the hall, his body curled around the long neck of his beverage of choice, threatening even in repose.

Whimpering, Lenny sought shelter from the images before him - running up the stairs, through puddles of filth and kicking aside old needles, finally huddling against the door of apartment number five.  His relief at finding the right apartment was only temporary, as Lenny heard an argument echoing through the pressboard doors.

"...Didn't want you to be here.  Didn't want you to find me like this..."

"You really think I was going to stay away from you, Carmine?  You robbed me of every cent I had, then took off without even saying goodbye."

"That why you're here?  You want closure?" The bitterness in Carmine's voice made Lenny's skin crawl.

"Don't I deserve it, after the shit we went through together?"

"No, you don't.  Remember how we said goodbye, Laverne?  'The center's real clean, Carmine - they'll fix you up, good.'  Some 'I love you' there.  You treated me like street trash."

Laverne's voice raised an octave.  "If I remember right, your goodbye to me was 'fuck you bitch'.   That's what you turned into, Carmine.  A piece of trash that spent his nights shooting junk on the beach."

"That's right!  And you know what?  I was happy to do it!  You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because when I had a needle in my arm, I felt happy for the first time in years.  I didn't have to worry about my next paycheck.  Didn't have to worry about showing up your father and proving I could take care of you.  Didn't have to ignore the voice in my head telling me I was missing out on my big shot at being a success by not leaving you and going to New York."

"I don't believe you're bringing up my Pop.  He's been dead for a year now, and he was barely used to the idea of us being together before he died.  You turned yourself into a goddamn junkie because you didn't have the balls to tell me you wanted to go to New York?"  She let out a harsh laugh.  "I should have known.  You didn't have the balls to commit when you were with Shirl, and you sure as hell don't have them now."

"You don't think taking heroin requires commitment?  Shooting smack is harder than it looks."

"Still making excuses.  You're sick.  You're so fucking sick you're dying, so sick that you can't even stop."

"And that's the problem.  The problem is I don't want to stop.  Why should I?  My career is over.  Everyone I knew in LA knows I'm a junkie.  I'll never get work unless I'm clean, and I'll never make it in New York  now because I'm too old."

"What about me?  Don't I count as a reason to live anymore?" Laverne's voice warbled.

Silence.

"You know you still love me, Carmine."

"If I loved you, Laverne, wouldn't I have gone into rehab when you asked?  That's the problem.  I  love the drugs more."

"What about Shirley?"

"Don't drag Shirley into this..."

"Why shouldn't I?  She's the only person who could keep your head on straight!  Who got you out of working for the mob?   Who made you stop that stupid Lightening Man thing?"

"That was my idea."

"You ain't never had sense, Carmine.  Even Shirl thinks..."

"YOU TOLD SHIRLEY?"

"Yes."

"How - how could you....how dare you?  She was the only person I never wanted to know..."

"It was her idea that I come here.  She knew thought that maybe I could save you from yourself..."

"HOW DARE YOU TELL HER, LAVERNE?  How dare you involve her in this?!"

"Because she loves you too, Carmine!  We all love you!  Me, Shirl, Squiggy, Rhonda, Lenny!"

"LENNY!  No one's seen Lenny in a year!  Who knows what the hell he's thinking!"

Lenny clutched the doorframe to push back his emotions.  He knew interfering might send Carmine over the edge, but the temptation to stand up for himself was strong.

"I know what he'd want me to say.  He'd tell me that he wants you to get help, before it's too late."

"Or he'd ask me for a quarter for Sen-Sen.  He and Squiggy never gave a damn about me."

Laverne ignored his self-pity.  "We all do love you, Carmine - real love.  It don't matter if we're boyfriend and girlfriend - I'll love you as a friend forever.  I don't want to watch you die this way.  Why are you doing this to us?"

"I'm not doing anything to any of you.  I'm doing this to myself and, as you feminists love saying, it's my body."

"I still can't believe you were my boyfriend.  That you were the man I loved.  You were so handsome, so strong, and you cared so much about your health.  Now you've lost so much weight that your skin's see-through, and you're so weak you can't even get up off of the couch..."

"And I love it.  I love it, Laverne - I love heroin."

"STOP SAYING THAT.  You can't love a drug more than your friends!"

"I love it more than my own mother."

"God.  None of this is getting through to you..."

"I'm thick-headed.  Always have been.  But if you knew me at all you'd remember that, Laverne."

"The Carmine I remember wouldn't do this to himself."

"Maybe you're thinking of a different Carmine."

"I want to see you get better.  I want you to be well again..."

"When are you going to get it through your head that you can't make me well?  That I don't want to be what you think is 'well'?"

"You've got to get better, Carmine - I don't know what I'd do if you died..."

"My death isn't your responsibility."

"If I sit back and watch you die, it's not only my responsibility, it's my burden."

"My life is in my own hands, Laverne - what I do with it is my choice.  And I choose to do heroin."

"I can't let you -"

"Is this about the money?"

"I can't believe you're asking me if..."

"Is it the money?"

"How can you ask me..."

"Is it the money?"

"NO!  It's about love!  DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING I TOLD YOU AT ALL?"

A long pause.  Carmine's voice was suddenly sleepy.  "You're just like your father, Laverne - wish you could see that.  All you care about is money..."

"Carmine!  CARMINE.  Don't go to sleep on me..."

"Want to...hurts...stomach..."

"I'll let you sleep."

"'Kay."

"But promise me..."

"Uh?"

"I don't want you spending my money on drugs no more.  I saved it for years for what I hoped - what I thought was going to be - our future.  I'm not going to let it contribute to your death."

"I can pay you back, Laverne..."

"How?"

"The guy I'm living with knows a guy named Max - he's supplying me...I can work for him..."

"You're not going to start dealing drugs."

"I'll do it to pay you back.  I gotta get things straight with you...."

"I'm not going to accept drug money from you, Carmine!"

"Drugs're all I know."

"Bullshit.  I remember a man who could tap-dance like nobody's business."

"That was before the drugs."

"But he's still in there - I know.  You just gotta want to fight for it..."

Silence.

"Promise me you'll think about what I said."

"Will you leave me alone if I do?"

"No.  I want someone watching you."

"But I won't be alone.  My friend's coming back after rehearsals."

"Promise me, Carmine."

Silence.

"Okay, I promise."

"And you'll think about going to rehab?"

He sighed.  "I can't promise that..."

"Then I'm not going."

"FINE.  Bring over the brochure tomorrow and we'll talk about it."

"You're not saying that to make me feel better?"

"No.  I understand what I need to do.  I just need time to think about it."

"Thank God.  Thank Mother Mary, I thought I'd never get through to you..."

"You know you're impossible to ignore, Laverne."

"It's my gift," she chuckled.  The door suddenly opened, and Lenny backed up.  Her regarded him with confused eyes, then called over her shoulder, "I'm gonna come see you tomorrow at five, Carmine."

"Okay, okay, five," he muttered, already sounding half-asleep.

"Bye.  I love you."

A light snore filled the air.  Over Laverne's shoulder, Lenny could see the rank filth of the outside did not extend to the pleasant apartment within - the only thing it had in common with its familiars was the rank scent of something rotting.  He could not see Carmine's form over the arm of his couch, and Lenny was honestly afraid to bare witness to his destruction.  Laverne slipped shut the door and then leaned against it, breathing heavily.

"How is he?" Lenny wondered.

"In bad shape," Laverne admitted.  "He's skin and bones.  His tract marks are festering all over his arm."

That explained the smell.  "Do you want to bring him some food?"

"It looks like his roomate's feeding him, but whatever he's taking in is coming back up again.  I don't know what else I can do."

Lenny squeezed her shoulder.  "Everything you can, but you already have."

Her expression was sad, but her thin fingers reached over to his and squeezed.  "I know.  And it's not enough."

***

The sun rose in shades of yellow and orange over Lenny's apartment, but the occupants barely noticed the dawning of the day.  Cinnamon had left Chinese take-out for her two companions and retired to bed, according to her note.  After trading time in the shower to wash off the rank scent of the flop house, the two friends ate ravenously.  Lenny knew this was the first real food she'd received in weeks, and Laverne seemed to thoroughly enjoy every bite of her meal.  The conversation was light, and concerned their childhood exploits.

"Remember that strawberry plant your mother used to grow in your apartment?" Lenny wondered.

Laverne frowned.  "I don't remember that."

"I do," Lenny insisted.  "It was in her window box, out in your kitchenette.  I never had berries that sweet since or again.  'Sides, they were fun to throw."

Laverne's eyes bugged out.  "Now I remember!  We used to throw them at Mister Rockmore!"

"And he used to send us to the principle!  Where you'd blame me."

"Well, I should've.  It was always your idea!"

Lenny ended his burst of laughter with a belch.  Shoving himself away from the table, he began to collect empty Chinese food cartons from the table.  "I gotta get to bed," Lenny sighed as he tossed them into the garbage.  "We both gotta be up by five, and I go on shift at seven."

"Oh," Laverne sounded disappointed.  "Yeah, I guess I gotta get back to the hotel." She dabbed her lips with a paper napkin and stood.

"You want me to walk you down?"

She shook her head.  "No, I know the way." They walked across the living room together.  "Thank Cinnamon for me, when you see her..."

"I will." He turned her gently around by the shoulders as they reached the door.  "I'll see you tomorrow."

She stood in the doorway, frozen, staring at him with her malachite eyes. 

He frowned.  "You okay?"

Laverne looked at Lenny as though he had struck her.  The words made impact within her mind, and she burst into tears, throwing herself against his chest.  He held her there - their embrace reminded him of her tearful horror when they momentarily thought Shirley had died during her appendectomy.  He rubbed her back.

"It's gonna be okay.  You gotta know it's gonna be okay."

A fresh round of tears, soaking his neck.  His body began to have dangerously inappropriate reactions to her being so close to him.   He gently pushed her away from him.  "You okay with being alone?"

She shook her head.  "I don't wanna be alone today."

He nodded.  "Okay.  You go to my room, and I'll sleep on the couch..."

"No.  I wanna sleep with you."

Lenny froze.  "Laverne..."

"I just want someone next to me," Laverne explained.  A flicker of her old strength.  "I don't wanna sleep with you, Len.  I don't know why I've been crying so much lately – I’m so tired, and everything’s out of my hands."

He blushed.  "Sorry...but I understand.  You're going through so much with Carmine."

"Will you please take me to your room?"

He nodded, leading her there.  She made no comment about the place - only curled up on the right side of the bed.  He carefully crawled in beside her, trying to leave as much space between them as he could, but she pressed herself against the front of him.  Lenny froze up at the feeling flowing through his body - the desire to follow his old impulses were overpowering.  But he held her in his arms, burying his face into her hair, blocking out the selfish need within himself.  He would be a stronger person.  When her breath began sighing in a regular pattern, she slept, and he slept with her.