With You
By Missy

TITLE: With You
PART: One of One
RATING: PG (If kissing bothers you..)
PAIRING(s): Mostly SOL/Friendship, but this smacks of L/L cuteness, and is thus stored there.
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: SOL
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Milwaukee Era, post-LC
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: It's another winter in Milwaukee, and, wouldn't you know it, the pipes are frozen on Knapp street....
NOTES: Another little piece that came out of nowhere...

****

Why did it have to be so cold?

And it wasn't the sort of simple chill that could be warded away with a blanket; no, it required a good kick to the heater, in the vague hope that it would kick-start.

Nothing. And it was cold as ice.

Laverne shivered, wrapping the blanket more tightly around her shoulder. It had to be twenty degrees in the place. Worse: there wasn't a single hope of generating body heat with anyone for the night (Fonzie had gone ahead and fallen for that Ashley Pfister girl; and she really didn't want to go through the humiliation of asking Jake the Snake out again...). Even Shirley had gone ice skating with Carmine.

Great. She was doomed to sprout icicles from her snoot. At least the couch and her blanket would keep her from freezing to death..

A knock at the door drew her attention: she wasn't shocked to see Lenny opening the door. She knew that he only knocked when lone, so it didn't even surprise her that Squiggy wasn't with him.

"Waddya want, Len?" She wasn't in the mood to play games.

"Hey, Laverne," He said, awkwardly. What did surprise her, upon seeing him, was that he wore a short-sleeved teeshirt. But she wasn't in a mood to question him; everyone knew the boy was strange. "Ya look cold..."

"I am." She said, trying to make herself smaller and more pathetic-looking on the couch.

"Awww.." He said, "We got a lotta heat upstairs. It's so hot I gotta wear shorts!"

"What?!" Outrage rode her spine.

"Yeah, somethin's screwy with the heat; that's why yer freezin' down here and we're roastin'." He gave her a surprisingly wise look, "I'd invite ya upstairs, but Squiggy's sittin around up there in his undies."

"Oh... I'll pass," Laverne shrank beneath her blanket.

Something rustled, and she noticed that he held a bulging plastic garbage bag in his hands. "Yeah, but I know how cold ya gotta be...Remember how it usedta be, when we were kids?" Laverne nodded...or maybe she shivered. "That's why I brought you this..."

Laverne closed her eyes in instinctive fear, but instead of being dipped in something disgusting, a warm, comforting presence enveloped her.

Her eyes opened on the sight of a warm, heavy quilt.

Laverne knew how priceless the object was; it had been Lenny's mother's, the one possession she had left behind when the woman had fled their family. It was the only thing Lenny owned that was treated with special care; he had used it every winter for years. He understood that each little square had been sewn together by his grandma back in the Old Country; understood that it had meant something special, to someone.

"Len...Don't you need it?"

He shook his head, "Nah, we're hot." He smiled, awkwardness resuming, "I'm gonna go back home, Vernie...I'll see ya..."

"Len?" She spoke, halting him at her doorstep, "Wait..." She stood, walking up and gently, kissing his cheek.

It was an infinitely tender moment, and she suddenly wondered why they always ended up this way....he, caring for her, expecting, selflessly, nothing in return, and she taking.

"Thanks." She said.

He giggled, "Thanks." He repeated, touching his cheek and holding it, a giddy laugh escaping his lips. He turned, appearing mesmerized, just like every other time she had ever kissed him... until he walked right into the far wall.

She waited, making sure he wasn't hurt. Closing the door behind him, she felt warmer. How strange.

The pipes were still frozen.

She shrugged; it had to be a fluke. She returned to the couch, crawled under the blanket he had provided, and turned on Sea Hunt.

She would never admit this to anyone, but that quilt kept her warmer than any she would ever find.



The End!













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