Pay Off The Fiddler
By Missy

SERIES: Pay off the Fiddler
PART: 1 of 1
RATING: PG
PAIRING(s): L/L
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
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"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: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: California-era.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: One day you will open your eyes and you will see her...

****

"Don't leave me."

It's not a scream of remorse or a cry of condemnation, just a desperate request. She clutches his hands between two of her own and is shocked at how cold it is.

"Nothing...left." It's hard to say.

"You big dope!" It's all she can manage. She is falling apart. He had crawled out onto the roof, saying something about wanting to end it. She had called him crazy. He had jumped.

The sunnuvabitch had jumped.

"No." He says, and brushes her tears. She can't stop crying; her weight is a stone, bearing him downward.

"Why?"

"No place for me." His breathing is raspy. "She-didn't want me, Vernie. No one ever wanted me."

The tears spill over, and she rocks against him.

"Karen..."

"I hated her! I always hated her!"

"No," He whispered. He handed her something. "Give her this." She turned over the necklace in her palm. A tooth glowed up at her.

She could hear the ambulance, rolling up the manicured streets. It strikes her that they've never belonged here. "Len...keep breathing. Keep breathing. You're gonna get better and we're gonna..."

"No..." His hands cup her face. "Loved you best. Always loved you best."

And he fell back into the gutter with a sigh.

***

A girl swathed in golden rays watched the girl wailing over his body. It's gotten to the point where the pain of others no longer touches her. It's sad, but it happens more than once a day.

It's past midnight now. She walks to the beach and holds open her earthenware job.

A thousand flecks of gold fly into the sky, like fireflies into the light.

One hovers over Laurel Vista a little longer than it should before being consumed into the unforgiving light.


the smart money's on harlow...and the moon is in the street...and the shadow boys are breaking all the laws...you're east of east st. louis...and the wind is making speeches...and the rain sounds like a round of applause...the band is going home...it's raining hammers, it's raining nails...it's true, there's nothing left for him down here..so put a candle in the window...and a kiss upon his lips...as the dish outside the window fills with rain...just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart...and pay the fiddler off till i come back again...and it's time...you learned to love...and it's time, time time
-Tom Waits,
Time


























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