Natural Disaster

Chapter 23

Launa stared forlornly out the window, heaving a heavy sigh.

"No mater how many times you sigh at it," Avi called to her from the closet, "the blizzard isn’t stopping."

He, unfortunately, spoke the truth. The storm had been raging for three days, and showed no signs of stopping. They had tried the cars outside, but his cold-numbed fingers hadn’t been able to work their magic and hotwire the vehicles. Thankfully, there was a store relatively nearby at their disposal, although, it was a bit of a hike in this weather. They weren’t snowed in, not yet, but the cold and the biting winds made it impossible to travel, especially in their thin clothes, and it wasn’t as if they could simply find snow gear in the desert town.

Launa was starting to consider putting all of their cans into the cabinets. It’d be easier, if we’re gonna be stuck here. I’m getting sick of having to dig it all out of bags when we have a place to put them.

She peered around the corner of the walk-in closet, curious as to why he was in there, and raised an eyebrow at her partner. “What are you doing?”

Avi didn’t even look over his shoulder as he thumbed through the hangers loaded with clothing. “I’m tired of wearing dirty clothes, all the time,” he said, pulling a black, button-down shirt from its hanger and inspecting it, “Might as well take what fits. Their owner doesn’t need it, anymore.”

She mosied in beside him, glancing over the selection. “Kind of like a GoodWill with no charge. Aha,” she pulled out a bright green, Hawaiian print shirt and held it up to his torso, “perfect.” He batted it away, making a disgusted noise. “What? It’s green- you like green!”

"It’s ugly, is what it is!"

"Don’t be picky!"

"If there’s better stuff available," he said, taking the shirt from her and tossing it onto a shelf where she couldn’t reach, "then I will be picky."

She rolled her eyes, turning her gaze to what she assumed was the previous owners’ wife’s side of the closet, grimacing. “Why is there so much pink?” They remained quiet for a long while, dismissing several ugly ties, sweater vests, and blouses until Avi broke the silence.

"What the fuck."

"What?"

His eyes wide, he pulled a rather large, leather collar holding it by the very tip of one of the tag that read “PET”. They stared at it, then at each other, bursting into embarrassed giggles as he dropped it, as if it were a spider. “Yikes, okay,” he coughed, “moving on.”

______

"Better?" she teased him, trying hard not to stare as he buttoned the shirt up, screwed his face up, then undid the top two buttons.

"Clean clothes are definitely better," he said, moving to glance himself over in what was left of the broken, full-length mirror before turning to face her. "Thoughts?"

Hello, nurse. Launa cleared her throat and nodded, trying to look nonchalant and goddamn don’t stare at his collarbone. “It’s nice,” she said, her voice a little higher than normal, “It’s different.”

Avi squinted at her. “Different good, or different bad?”

"Just different." She shrugged, forcing herself to look away from the view she was getting of his chest and to the selection of clothes left in the closet. "None of this woman’s clothes are going to fit my line-backer shoulders."

"There’s nothing wrong with your shoulders, dear," he teased, leaning on the door frame to the closet, rolling up the sleeves of his new shirt.

"I didn’t say there was anything wrong with them," she corrected him, ignoring how good that shirt looked on him and shoving a garishly pink dress aside in frustration, "they’re just wide." Launa came across some leather corset getup and, blushing, quickly shoved clothes into it to block it from view.