Weeds Between Graves
Part Two
By Missy

SERIES: Weeds Between Graves
PART: 2 of ??
RATING: PG-13 (Adult themes, language and materials)
PAIRING(s): Lenny/Laverne; Squiggy/Shirley
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: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Milwaukee cannon, late-season five.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Lenny and Laverne find themselves tools of the Big Good, though they're not entirely comfortable with their mission...
NOTES: In which I steal myth arch from "Joan of Arcadia" and "One Life To Live". Don't worry, I only sort of joke ;-).

Inspired at least in part by the Hootie and The Blowfish song "Running From An Angel". Mostly because Shirley must deal with her daddy issues at some point in her life. And it sounds like a sea chantey.

***

Laverne covered her eyes. She didn't want to remember what she had seen, even if it held a kernel of a long ago fantasy that had never come true.

"Carmine's vode-o-doing with another girl." Lenny remarked. "How do we let Shirl know that without her feelin's getting' squashed?"

Laverne shook her head. "Len, there ain't no way she's gonna not be hurt."

"Yeah. It'd help if we knew where she is." He pointed out, sticking his right hand into his hip pocket.

"...Sorry, baby. I gotta go see my girlfriend." Came Carmine's voice from the closet.

"You have a girlfriend?" The girl cried.

"Just like you've got a boyfriend. Look, I gotta go to the hospital. You clean up and get out, okay, Lucille?"

"You're an asshole, Carmine."

"You keep coming back for more." He pointed out, turning on his heel and leaving.

"Boy, I always knew Carmine and Lucille had a thing, but..." Lenny turned to find Laverne floating, following Carmine down the hallway with a determined scowl on her face.

"Jerk thinks he can cheat on Shirl and get away with it..." He heard her mumbling. They followed Carmine to his Cadilac, the one Lucille had paid for, and slipped into the back seat.

He drove quickly, speeding really, but Laverne and Lenny didn't notice. Lenny seemed to thrive on it, standing up and throwing his arms out into the air, which unnerved Laverne.

"Vernie, we're dead. Why do ya care?"

She didn't know why she did. The idea of being dead still felt foreign to her. She looked up from Lenny's antics to watch the Caddy sail by Knapp Street.

"Shirl ain't home?"

"Maybe she's at work."

"Len, I would agree with ya...if Shotz hadn't BLOWN UP."

His eyes widened. "She's hurt?"

"Ya think I know?"

Carmine parked. They beat him up the stairs by a good minute.

***

"Fabian, Fabian..." Murmured Shirley from her hospital bed. Laverne hovered over her best friend, trying to figure out why she had been hospitalized. Her head wasn't swaddled, and none of her limbs were broken. Then her eyes landed upon Shirley's hands; the left one was heavily bandaged. When she tossed to her right side, Laverne also noticed a bandage over Shirley's cheek.

She began screaming. Out of nowhere, just screaming. Laverne threw herself backward with the shock, landing with a thump against Lenny. Footsteps echoed up the hallway, and a nurse could be heard calling for sedatives. A dark-haired doctor, as lovely as though he had emerged from Shirley's dreams, appeared, and plunged a syringe into Shirley's arm. The screaming stopped abruptly.

"Poor girl. The sedatives wore off. Nurse, when she wakes next, make sure that someone stays with her to help her through the shock."

"Sure thing, doctor. I've heard that she had a rough time."

"They found her standing over her best friend's body, screaming."

Laverne winced. It didn't bring back any memories of what had happened, but poor Shirley...

"...I'm tellin' ya, I heard screamin'..."

At that point, Squiggy and Frank DeFazio burst simultaneously through the door...or tried to. Laverne gasped at the haunted, worn face of her father. The dried tomato sauce and caked flour in his hair told her that he had rushed right over from the Pizza Bowl.

"The little girl's okay?"

"She's resting again. When she wakes up next time, we want someone with her."

"I'll stay." Squiggy said.

Frank sent the boy an odd look. He didn't seem entirely sure of Squiggy's motivation, something Laverne couldn't blame him for questioning. "You gonna do something nasty to her?"

Squiggy frowned. He had always respected Laverne's dad, sort of looked up to him, not as strongly as Lenny had. "A course not!"

"Fine. I gotta make phone calls."

Frank staggered out of the room, taking the doctors with them. Leaving Squiggy alone.

Awkwardly, he sat down in an empty chair by her bed. "Uh...hey Shirl. Nice Pyjamas." He stuck his fingers awkwardly through his hair. "Uh...I brought ya somethin'." He indicated a large, leather-bound book, which he had been carrying beneath his arm. "Uh, it's the only book I got that I'd wanna read to you. I'd read all the others ta Laverne." He gulped. "Uh...It's called The Bible. I don't know if ya heard of it 're not..."

Suddenly, the door wrenched open, and Squiggy grabbed up his open Bible. "Hey, Carmine."

"Squig. How's Shirley?"

"Still out of it. They've got her on stuff."

Carmine nodded, blankly watching Shirley's face. "Do they think she's gonna have that scar forever?"

Squiggy frowned, sputtered, and said, "They said her hand may not work good. Ain't that more important?"

Carmine's expression was chilly. "Ya need ta go, Squig."

"But..."

"Now."

Squiggy backed out of the room, his expression dark and distant.

***

Lenny fell asleep four hours into Carmine's vigil. Laverne herself tried to keep conscious, wondering how Carmine could just stare blankly into space the way he did. Suddenly, he announced to Shirley that he needed some coffee, and left the room.

Laverne elbowed Lenny. "Watch her, I'm followin' Carmine."

Laverne floated down the hallway, keeping a distance from Carmine. Haunted faces lingered within her mind; people walking with zombielike expressions. The headline on a paper screamed:

DISASTER:
100 Dead, 200 injured in Shotz Brewery Explosion Monday

The world was a logjam, and Laverne lost sight of Carmine after he ducked into a hall closet. Laverne breezed through the bodies, pressing an ear to the doorway. She frowned; the same panting noises, the same groaning. How could a guy like Carmine turn into someone so different, just because his girlfriend had a cut on her face.

With almost malicious delight, Laverne knocked a scalpel off of a passing tray. It drew a passing Squiggy's attention, and he stopped, picking it up.

"Hey, anyone missin' a...boxcutter?" He frowned, then shrugged. A big door with words like "Supply Closet" couldn't escape his attention.

And it didn't. Neither did the sight of Carmine humping a redheaded nurse.

Squiggy paused, his jaw dropping open. Carmine didn't notice him, and neither did the girl, so lost in the throes of passion were they. He frowned, then turned on his heel, rushing back to Shirley's room, as Laverne followed.

Shirley stirred, waking suddenly, her eyes bleary. "Fabian?"

"No, Squiggy."

She frowned. "Squiggy, stay out of my underwear draw..."

"Shirley...wake up."

Her eyes went, suddenly, wide. "Oh, God..." She whispered softly.

"You were in an accident. All of us were. I got somethin' important to tell ya..."

"Oh God. Laverne, Lenny..." Her eyes widened, "Carmine..."

"Yeah. He's cheatin' on you."

She stared at him blankly for a moment, as Laverne triumphantly leaned against a wall.

"I don't believe you." Shirley said.




TBC

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