Author: Missy
Title: The Clearing
Email: lasfic@yahoo.com
Rating: Low-PG
Parts: 1/1
Pairing: Lavenny
Type: Vingette
Distribution: To My Site
Disclaimer: Not Mine.
Belongs to
Summary: L&L deal with the aftermath of a few blurted
words while searching for Missus Kolcheck's lost cat
in
Dedication: For Ashely
***
He picks her up off of the ground and dusts away a snapped
twig. "How do you know you love
me?"
She pulls away, walks a step, turns right around and blocks
the dirt trail with her small frame.
"That's a dumb question."
His features soften, his shoulder
dipping slightly as he makes himself a little smaller against the brush. "No, it ain't."
The words resonate in her mind. It really isn't - and she should know
that. "I just know."
"Oh." A
two-word exclamation - those have a way of revealing everything.
She turns around, hiding her flaming cheeks, unable to sift
out her feelings from the white noise.
She remembers the can of tuna in her hand and begins rattling it. "Here, Muzzin. Here Muzzin..."
"You're holdin' the can too
high."
"Missus Kolcheck says she
likes to climb to the top."
Lenny squints up into the creamy sunlight. "She's big and white; why's she so hard
to find?"
Laverne shrugs.
"Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of
you." The statement is loaded.
"I don't know nothing about
cats. Or trees," Lenny replies,
staring her down. She turns to meet his
eyes and he diverts from the path, crunching through a large mound of
yellow-red leaves.
He's off the beam again, and she needs him with her, helping
out . "Len." The
word is plaintive. The tuna tin stops
rattling. He pushes into a cluster of
underbrush, ignoring the words she delivers to his back. "I don't know why I love you. I don't even know why I said I love you..."
She blinks to clear her cloudy eyes and he's disappeared on
her - dematerialized into mist while she was speaking. In a thicket of white ash she turns around in
circles, a dog chasing her tail, until a rustling draws her through a cluster
of berry bushes. He was gone - he had
left her on the forest path, abandoned her to the elements without a trail back
home! Len's sudden emergence from the
shadowed path sends her into an undisguised panic and she runs to him, the
force of her body knocking him down into the underbrush.
"Don't do that to me again!" she cries. He lies motionless,
face-down on the ground. "Len? LEN?" a growl of frustration builds in her throat - a bullish
strength filling her limbs.
When she rolls him over, the mud stains on his face seem to emphasize
his eyes. The sun breaks through a cloud
bank, perfecting his gloomy face.
"You do love me!" he says, childlike, portaining
the hard road before them.
The kiss obliterates the small clearing, their differences,
and the problem of Missus Kolcheck's missing
cat. When she breaks the embrace they
meet, eye to eye.
A small blur of white strolls up to the
prone couple, stretching out and yawning, a look of intractable amusement on
its feline face.
Meow, says Muzzin, in a tone that is almost amused.