Weeds Between Graves
Part Five
By Missy

SERIES: Weeds Between Graves
PART: 5 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.

***

Lenny sneezed at a cloud of rising flour.

"Not in the dough, Len!"

"Vernie, do you think it's gonna matter?" A bell rang and he headed over to the oven, carrying a loaded peel over to the warming lights. "That's four."

"I'd like to know how you can sneeze." Laverne muttered, flattening out another crust and slathering it with pizza sauce.

"Ya think I know? Like this, right?" He slid the peel beneath four more pies.

"Yeah, now be careful."

He rolled his eyes but managed to get them all to the oven without spilling anything. He slammed the door and huffed another breath.

"More pepperoni." She muttered. "My Pop loves pepperoni."

"I'm sorry about your dad..." he said, rubbing her shoulders. She winced away from his touch.

"We're almost done, Len." She changed the subject, sprinkling over a layer of cheese. "When those are done, we're done." She handed him a mop. "Help out, eh?"

"Why'm I always the one with the mop?"

"Because you look good with it, I dunno!"

Her words did make his progress more pronounced. Soon the floor was clean, and leftover ingredients draped and left to chill. She pulled out four moor pizzas, and Lenny placed the last four in.

"So, whodya think're gonna come to our funeral?"

She frowned at him sourly. "That's horrible, Len."

"What? It's a great question!" He poked her shoulder as she leaned against it. "I don't think no one'll show up for me."

She frowned. "You're bein' hard on yourself again."

"It's the truth!" He protested.

They froze as the kitchen door swung open. Carmine stared in open-mouthed amazement at the kitchen filled with steaming pizzas.

A pizza cutter whizzed by his head, and so he dropped the crowbar and ran out the back.

Lenny simply blew upon the tips of his fingers and smiled.

***

Voices drew Lenny Laverne into the main body of the restaurant. The number of people there; drivers and lineworkers, and members of the Debs, startled them. At the center were Frank and Lenny's father, receiving condolences.

Neither of them had realized they had so many friends. Laverne, however, hovered around her father, listening as he told long-forgotten, embarrassing stories of her childhood. When Edna drew him away and into the miracle of the kitchen, he had knelt, and prayed his joy to the heavens.

As they cut up the pies, Laverne heard Edna say:

"Maybe it would be best, Frank, if you moved in with me."

"Whattya want? Me to leave what I got left of my Muffin?"

"No...Frank, I meant sometime in the future. You can't live for your memories of Laverne. She's dead."

"Dead like Josephine. Is that what you were gonna say?"

"Why won't they stop fighting, Len?"

"Why do ya think?"

Frank and Edna instantly stopped fighting at the sight of Shirley Feeney, staring quietly into the kitchen at them both.

"We're here to memorialize Laverne. Not fight over your relationship."




TBC

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