#almosthumannetwork

John adjusts the handheld radio in his cabin, pressing the button.

  "Kennex to central, truck number 0478."

  "Go ahead John." A female voice sounds on the other side and John grinned.

  "Hey, Valerie. I'm stopping at a diner in the next town. The snow isn't letting up and I don't want to be caught out in this."

  "Sure thing. You're ahead of schedule anyway. I'll log in your hours."

  "Thanks, Valerie. This is why I like you better than Richard."

  "Oh, John, everyone likes me better than Richard. Take care of yourself, okay? We've got a black ice alarm out tonight. Maldonado always says that she’s not compromising your health, no matter what the package."

  "Will do. See you, Valerie."

  "Bye, John."

  John stops at the diner at the edge of town, barely maneuvering his truck in the tiny parking lot. He pulls on his parka, taking a deep breath before jumping in the cold and snow outside.

  The warmth of the inside of the diner is welcome, even if he squints at the brightness of the lights. He slides into a booth in the middle, hand going to massage the muscle in his thigh. There's a bundle of scarring there that weather tends to agitate, but at least he still has it, which is more than most survivors of landmines can say. He looks outside at the snow, so different from the sands of Afghanistan and has to forcefully redirect his mind to the menu. His eyes land on the apple pie and his mouth waters.

  "Hello, and welcome to Nigel's diner, my name is Dorian, what can I get you?"

  John looks up and blinks stupidly for a moment. The stranger is gorgeous, despite his bright pink apron with ruffles. In fact, the horrifying shade seems to call more attention to his bright blue eyes and welcoming smile.

  Something about him immediately rubs John the wrong way. Maybe it's the cheekbones.

  "Pecan pie," he grunts, "and a coffee, black." The server's grin gets even bigger, showing off some brilliant white teeth.

  "We’re all out of pecan, I'm afraid. Might I suggest the apple pie? It's what Nigel's is famous for."

  "Cherry then." John is determined not to give in, aware of the fact that he's being a complete idiot. Talking with attractive people had never been a talent of his.

  "It’s winter. Not a lot of cherries to be found. We've just got the apple."

  "Fine, bring me the goddamned apple." the other man beams at him and heads behind the counter while John looks back out the window, ignoring his burning cheeks.

  The pie is delicious and John lets the chatter of the diner wash over him. It's not completely empty, even at the late hour. There's an old couple sitting in one of the booths; regulars by the way Dorian good-naturedly teases them, a middle aged man with a coffee in front of him, looking lost; John watches as Dorian slides him a plate of pie and his mouth quirks just a bit; a teenager has her headphones on and music blasting. The bruises on her face make John stab the fork into his pie a bit harder. Dorian hands her a cookie from the jar, carefully telegraphing his movements and she takes it with a grateful smile.

  When John leaves, the server favors him with another flash of his teeth and a sincere, “Hope to see you again, stranger!”

  John doesn’t even know what makes him say it.

  “Call me John.”

  It’s not until 10 miles down the road, when he’s trying to drive the truck as steadily as possible through the patches of ice, that he realizes that he’s lingering too long on the way Dorian’s eyes had widened in surprise right before the door shut on him, how he’s mouthed John’s name as if it’d been a gift.

  He decides to never return to the diner again.

      *

      He’s back at the diner in two weeks.

  It’s not his fault, he tells himself as he tries to lock the cabin door, hands numb with the cold and no gloves. It’s the damned weather; apparently there was a snow storm blocking the road ahead and it looked more and more like he’d have to sleep through the night in his truck’s cabin. It wasn’t his fault the diner was on the way to his drop off site.

  He studiously ignores the fact that he’d passed by three diners on the way here and that he could have stopped at any of them.

  The warmth of the diner welcomes him like an old friend and he closes the door hurriedly behind him to preserve the heat. It startles Dorian, standing behind the counter and looking out at the snow, and John catches a glimpse of sadness across his face, before it changes into a welcoming smile.

  “Hey…”

  “Hello, John. I’m glad to see you. The usual?”

  John nods, confused. Apparently, not only had Dorian remembered his name, but his second visit already meant he had a usual…

  The radio in the corner is playing some new pop song and the coffee machine starts whistling when Dorian turns it on. John lets his tightly wound shoulders slump forward, releasing the tension in them with a sigh. The dim lights and the warmth lull him halfway to sleep, so the coffee mug clattering on the surface in front of him is a shock. He takes a sip automatically, only to discover it’s exactly the way he likes it and the pie on the plate looks delicious, garnished with some whipped cream.

  He looks up and finds Dorian still standing at the edge of the booth, watching him.

  “It’s…good coffee.” John says. Dorian beams, but remains at his post.John clears his throat and tries again.

  “Would you, uh, like to sit down?”

  “Sure!” Dorian chirps, sitting down in a flurry of limbs and pink ruffles. John shakes his head to clear it, before refocusing on the man in front of him. Dark, flawless skin and blue eyes, he wouldn’t have looked out of place on a movie poster, yet here he is, wearing a washed out white shirt with coffee strains and a pink apron. He’s suspiciously handsome despite that.

  “So…how long have you been driving?” John coughs, embarrassed to have been caught staring. He focuses his attention on the pie before answering.

  “About 12 hours in total. I stopped at a rest stop in Ohio for a few hours-“

  “Where are you headed then?”

  “Illinois. I’ve got a few hours left to go, but I’m ahead of schedule.”

  “Good thing. There’s a road block up ahead, some trees cracked beneath the weight of the ice. It won’t be cleared for a few hours.” John huffs an annoyed breath, stabbing viciously at his pie.

  “Just great. That means I’m sleeping in my truck cab again.” Dorian smiles at him again, but it’s got an edge of tiredness to it, drawing attention to the circles under his eyes.

  “You can stay here if you want. We’re open all night. I usually work the night shift. And the day shift.” He looks idly through the window. “I don’t need a lot of sleep.”

  John nods awkwardly, but Dorian doesn’t seem to need a response as absorbed as he seems in the scene outside.

  “I bet you see a lot of places.” He suddenly speaks again. John shrugs, finishing the last of his pie.

  “If you count driving through them and occasionally seeing the inside of a motel room, then yeah. Not exactly time for sightseeing in this job. You see signs advertising the Biggest Ball of Twine in the world occasionally, but it’s not exactly the Eiffel tower. Do you know the difference between a motel room in Montana and South Dakota?” Dorian shakes his head. “There is none. They’re exactly the same, down to the suspicious strains on the bedspread and the soul-killing flower wallpaper.”

  “Why do it, then?”

  “It’s a living. And I like driving.” Dorian smiles again and leans forward into John’s personal space. He looks intense.

  “Think you’ll ever settle down? Find a house, a wife and some kids?”

  “Maybe.” John decides he’s answered enough interrogations for the night. Something is bothering the other man and John’s got time to kill. “You ever been outside this town?”

  Dorian’s expression softens and he looks away, over to where the clock over the counter is slowly ticking away.

  “No. Not once.” He falls silent and John waits. “You know, when you’re a kid you have all these dreams of where you’re gonna end up. You want to be a vet or a fireman or detective, but most of all, you want out of this town. Then life happens and 15 years later, you’re still seeing the same old faces, except maybe they got some new wrinkles.”

  A heavy silence falls between them. John keeps quiet and watches Dorian, who’s looking out the window. He’s worrying his lower lip with his teeth and his hand is twisting the apron into knots. After a while he speaks again.

  “I feel almost like a robot.” John gets a strange sense of deja-vu at the words, as if he’d heard Dorian say them before, like there’s some connection he’s missing. “I’m just going through the motions, barely surviving through the day that makes no difference in the long run anyway. I wanted to make a difference for someone, I wanted to help people. Turns out I can’t even help myself.”

  His voice is still calm, but his face is drawn in pain and the hand he’s got resting on the table is clenched in a fist so tightly that John can practically feel the nails digging into the palm. So he does something completely uncharacteristic for himself. He reaches over the table to rest his hand against Dorian's.

  “Hey, man, don’t say that, okay? You do make a difference to people. I saw you last time I was here. The way you spoke to the couple that was missing their grandkids or how you gave that man a meal when he had no money to pay for it, and when you gave that girl a reason to smile. You’re important to these people.”

  The radio in the corner has given into the static of late night programming and the coffee machine is still making vaguely threatening hissing noises, and with the snow falling in thick flakes outside it’s unlikely that either of them will be going anywhere for a while.

  Some of the tension in Dorian’s shoulders disappears, but he’s still staring out the window with a faraway look in his eyes, so John makes one last attempt to lighten the mood.

  “So, the apron…what’s that all about?” Dorian looks suitably confused at the sudden change of topic.

  “What about it?”

  “Well it’s all, you know, pink and shit. And it’s got ruffles. Not exactly manly.”

  Dorian drops his head into his hands, shoulders shaking.

  ‘Well Kennex, you’ve gone and done it now.’ John thinks. “Look, I mean, it’s not a bad thing or anything.” The shakes increase and John is frantically trying to figure out what to say to stop Dorian’s crying. “They had this magazine in a motel waiting room and it said pink was very trendy this season, very…uh…’in’.”

  That’s when Dorian can’t contain himself anymore, slumping sideways, his boisterous laughter filling the diner.

  “Very…’in’…he says…” he manages to wheeze out between peals of laughter. “It’s not a poisonous word John!” John rolls his eyes, but can’t help grinning back.

  “You made me think you were crying, you son of a bitch!”

  “But you were just so legitimately worried about the fashion statement my apron was showing! I didn’t know you cared about fashion, John. I thought you were more of a Plaid 101 kind of guy.”

  Referring, of course, to the plaid shirt John is wearing over a worn out pair of jeans.

  “What’s wrong with the way I dress? You’re the one rocking the middle aged waitress winter season look.” Dorian throws the menu at him.

  The night slowly turns to morning, the two men too preoccupied with trading playful barbs back and forth to even notice when it stops snowing.

  The waitress that comes to take over Dorian’s shift finds them in passionate debate about science fiction movies, surrounded by cups of coffee and shredded napkins. With another person in the diner with them, the conversation suddenly becomes stilted and awkward, so John pays, intending to spend the hours it will take for the road services to clear the snow napping in his truck’s cabin.

  He and Dorian exchange shy goodbyes by the counter, trying to hide from the curious eyes of the other waitress, baffled by how quickly the time passed and how easily a connection was made between them.

  “So, uh, I’ll see you around?” Dorian is absent-mindedly smoothing the edge of his apron and John notices that the bags under his eyes had grown more pronounced, but that his eyes had cleared somewhere between 4 and 5am.

  “Maybe. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll swing by if I go this route again.”

  Dorian nods and smiles one of his brilliant sunny smiles that mean John has to walk away very quickly because otherwise he might kiss him right in front of the day waitress and the morning crowd.

  He climbs into his cabin and turns up the heat, planning on napping before the road gets cleaned.

  Through his window, he can see Dorian’s silhouette disappear down the road, dressed in a multitude of coats and winter accessories. He watches until the other man turns a corner and disappears. The urge to go after him doesn’t.

  John leaves the diner that morning with an idea.

    *

    It’s not until a few weeks later that he takes the same route again and stops by the diner on his way back, hoping to see Dorian.

  But when he enters the diner, there’s no blue eyes and warm smile. In Dorian's place there’s another waitress and even her apron is the wrong color. She is extraordinarily pretty, brunette, with sharp eyes and in any other situation John would have stopped and taken a moment to appreciate her beauty, but right now he’s much too preoccupied with Dorian’s absence and how he’d never thought to include that little detail in his fool-proof plan.

  “What will it be?” His thoughts are interrupted by the waitress, whose tag says Danica, but the way she stands screams ‘Don’t mess with me’.

  “Uh…apple pie and coffee, black.” She nods and leaves him alone. No smiles, no vaguely flirty statements, no warmth, no Dorian.

  When she gets back with his pie (even the whipped cream looks kind of droopy!), he finally gets the courage to ask.

  “So, where’s Dorian?”

  “Gone.” Her eyes seem to be judging him.

  “Oh. Is he going to come back?”

  “Don’t know. I’m new here. That’ll be $6.45.”

  John nods miserably and gives her the money, before slinking out of the diner. He looks like a kicked puppy, which is a sad sight because he’s 6’0 and dressed almost entirely in plaid.

    *

    It is late spring when he comes back to Nigel’s Diner and he only does it because both of the other two diners on his road are closed due to a strange flu outbreak. The diner is almost completely full, probably because people are redirecting from the closed restaurants, but also because it’s in the middle of the day and John had only ever been there in the late hours.

  And then there’s Dorian, with a smile on his face that John’s been thinking about a lot on the lonely nights on the road and the tatty pink apron that has acquired even more holes since the last time John saw him. His first impulse is to turn around and run, but he’s a man, damnit, not a coward, so he sits at a small table in the back, half-hoping he doesn’t get noticed at all.

  “Hi! You came back.” Dorian notices him the moment he came in and attempted to use a stealthier approach, which unfortunately had the added benefit of scaring John half out of his seat.

  The answering, “Hi!” is a bit breathless.

  This gets them stuck in awkward silence that they both decide to break at the exact same time.

  “So-.”  “You-.” Embarrassed coughs.

  “Go ahead.” Dorian gestures with his platter.

  “Um, so you were gone and I didn’t want to ask where you were in case I came off as a stalker or something.” Dorian laughs and it sends warmth through John’s insides that he tries to immediately hide by focusing on the unbuttoned cuff of his shirt.

  “I went to see my cousins upstate for a little while. Thought a change of scenery would do me good.”

  “Did it?”

  “A little bit. Danica told me you stopped by.” John looked past Dorian where the waitress in question was watching them like a hawk, popping a bubblegum bubble.

  “Really? The way she looks at me makes me think she’s memorizing my mugshot for the report she’s filling against me.” Dorian turned around and did something complicated with his eyebrows that made her turn away from them. Though John noticed she still watched them through the window pane.

  “Nope, she’s actually a closeted romantic. She said my boyfriend was looking for me.” Dorian grinned at him playfully. “I don’t know how she came to that conclusion. Were there longing sighs?”

  “Psh, no. You probably talked her ear off about me!” John could feel his own smile stretch his face almost painfully, but he couldn’t seem to stop grinning.

  “What about? Your fashion sense?” Dorian reached out to brush imaginary lint off John’s shoulders.

  “Says the man in a pink apron!”

  “I told you; pink is a perfectly masculine-”

  "Dorian! Tables 5 and 8 are ready!” The cook’s voice cut clearly through their flirting. Dorian backed away with an apologetic expression, picking up the plates on the way.

  The diner cook was a curious man, scrawny, but somehow made bigger by his constant motion. His dirty apron had pictures of butterflies all over it and he was wearing a fedora, of all things. John's thoughts were interrupted by a commotion a few seats away.

  “What the fuck is this? I wait all this time to get served and then I don’t even get any sausages!”

  One of the patrons, obviously displeased with his meal, had risen half out of his seat (only half because he was too big to do so properly) and was now shouting at Dorian, who was attempting to shield himself against then man's spittle with his platter.

  “I’m sorry sir, but the Special doesn’t include sausage, it’s on the menu…-”

  “I don’t care! Now take your Special and your pansy ass apron and bring me some sausage, before I make you!”

  “Excuse me, sir; I think you should leave now.” Dorian’s voice is quiet, but it carries a hint of authority that echoes in the sudden quiet.

  “I ain’t going nowhere until I get my sausage! Now hurry to it, you stupid fag!”

  “Hey! Lay off him!” John is out of his seat and standing beside Dorian in a heartbeat.

  “Yeah? Who are you, his boyfriend? Fucking fags all over the place!”

  Dorian gives a decisive nod at that, before turning to John.

  “Hold my platter, man.”

  In two seconds flat he has him laid out on the table, his arm pinned behind his back with the man begging for mercy. He marches him out the door where he releases him and glares until he gets into his car and drives away.

  When Dorian comes back into the diner he gets a round of applause, which he receives with an elegant curtsy with his apron. John is pretty sure he’d never been so turned on in his life.

  The diner resumes its usual bustle and John returns to his table, where Dorian delivers his pie and coffee with a teasing wink.

  The message on his receipt says: ‘My shift finishes in an hour. Meet me by the back door?”

  When Dorian comes out of the diner an hour later, John has him pinned up against the wall before the door even swings shut behind him and he kisses the smartass comment right off his lips.

  “You didn’t wear the apron,” John murmurs against his lips between hungry kisses.

  “I thought one less layer might be useful,” Dorian answers before plunging a hand under John’s shirt to pull him closer.

  Fifteen minutes later, their kissing has mellowed out into something lazier and sweeter, with soft kisses and nuzzles, though they remain in a tight embrace.

  “The last time I was here I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Oh? What did you want to ask?” John pulls away to put some distance between them, tries to fight the answering smile that Dorian’s grin is causing.

  “I was thinking that I have a spare seat in my cabin. And that I could use the company.” Dorian doesn’t say anything. “You could get out of the town for a bit, see some of the US. Mostly the highway advert signs and the insides of motel rooms, but we could detour to see The Biggest Ball of Twine in the World if you really wanted to.” Dorian has to laugh at that, before kissing him again.

  “Biggest Ball of Twine, huh? That’s a mighty sweet offer. How often do I get to see my driver naked?”

  “Psh, as often as you want, just not while I’m driving. Maldonado will kill me if I get Indecent exposure; it ruins the company’s reputation.”

    *

    So the next time John swings by the diner it’s to pick up his boyfriend and his bags. Dorian climbs into the cabin to press a kiss against his lips before looking around curiously.

  “All packed?” John asks, eyeing the duffel bag on the truck floor.

  “I’ve got all I need,” says Dorian and the way he says it makes John blush to match the red in his plaid.

  They drive out of the parking lot with Dorian waving frantically at the diner workers and patrons gathered to see them off. He starts fiddling with the radio as soon as they pass the town limits. John can’t find it in him to be surprised when he lands on some Elton John and starts humming along.

  A few miles into the journey:

“Her name is Adriana, she’s 8 months old. Our suspect is the father, mother is still missing. Both were Benmorphine users and dealers. No other living relatives.” John nods thoughtfully, still stuck on the way the little girl is now trying to reach for Dorian’s hand, lit up in blue.

“Alright, I’ll call the chief, see if she can contact Child Protective services. I’ll have someone come pick her up.”

“We can drive her to the station.” Dorian looks determined.

“Are you crazy? I don’t know how to care for a baby.” Dorian reaches down and picks the baby up in a way that looks easy and practiced. She doesn’t let out a sound, simply burrowing down into Dorian’s jacket. It’s obvious from the way he wraps the blanket around her and holds her close that he isn’t ready to let her go, so John just sighs.

“You better be programmed with diaper changing skills.” He says and starts searching the room for baby formula and clean clothes.

Half an hour later, the flat is empty of the suspect, but filled with MXs that keep acting strangely around the baby and asking John if they have enough food for the child and if it is being kept warm enough by the inferior DRN. John is half-afraid that they might kidnap a breastfeeding lady if he says no, so he just orders them out. Dorian has things well in hand anyway.

Little Adriana is fed, burped and changed, all the while being peppered with kisses and murmured endearments, distracted by blue lights when needed. The pair isn’t paying John any attention, which is a good thing, since he’s having trouble hiding his bemusement over the proceedings.

Finally, they head to the car, Adriana gently carried by Dorian and John weighted down by bags of diapers, clothes and baby formula. He makes sure to drive very carefully on the way to the station, helped along by the fact that Dorian glares at him every time the car goes over a bump on the road. The baby falls asleep somewhere on the way, laid out on Dorian’s chest and drooling.

They settle in Maldonado’s office, Adriana still soundly asleep, oblivious to Valerie’s cooing and Richard’s mutterings. When she wakes up and starts fussing, Sandra pulls a soft cuddly teddy bear from somewhere in her desk and that calms her right down. The MXs start stock piling emergency blankets and pillows in front of the office door.

Through it all, Dorian hardly lets go of her, ready to attend her every need. In the absence of paperwork, John has too much time to watch them, the way Dorian seems to instinctively know when to cuddle and when to give space, when to change a diaper or when to sing a lullaby.

Dorian brings Adriana to John’s post a few times, introducing him as: John, Mr. McGrumpy Pants, Frowny Frownykins and his partner, respectively. Each time John is introduced, Adriana wrinkles her nose, which Dorian seems to find hilarious, because he says she’s imitating John’s frown. So when she does it again, John reaches out with his hand, smoothing out the wrinkles and bopping her nose gently. She breaks out into the biggest grin, telling Dorian, whose grin is almost as big, something in her baby speak. She starts flailing her tiny hands in John’s direction and he submits himself to obligatory inspection, even when she grips his hair too tightly and almost pulls it out. She bops his nose back awkwardly and seems very satisfied with her accomplishment.

A few hours later, the paperwork is sorted and an employee of the Social Services comes to take Adriana to her temporary foster home. John, who has been watching his partner fall progressively more in love with the little girl, is dreading this moment.

At first, everything seems to be going well, Dorian gently deposits the baby in the woman’s arms and presses a kiss against her brow. But the moment that Adriana realizes that she’s being taken away from Dorian, she starts crying. It’s a heart-breaking sound, especially combined with the look on Dorian’s face. He fakes a smile to calm the little girl, but John knows enough to see how much the separation pains him.

The woman carries the crying baby carefully away, a baffled MX trailing after her with the bag, leaving John and Dorian alone in the office.

Not for the first time, John wonders if Dorian can cry, if Vaughn had bothered to build tear ducts into the DRN, if he’d planned for them to feel strongly enough to need them. Dorian is standing stock still, head bowed, and every line of him fraught with tension and John thinks it cruel that he shouldn’t be given even that one respite, to be able to ease the pain with tears.

So he steps forward and rests his hand gently on Dorian’s shoulder. Dorian turns and the expression on his face is so painful that John has to pull him the rest of the way into an embrace.

He holds him like that until Dorian stops shaking, until his information net turns to familiar blue, instead of just a blur of color.

“John?” He asks, mouth still almost pressed against John’s neck.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you’ll ever want to have kids?”

“I don’t know. I’m not very good with them, it turns out.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Dorian?”

“Yeah?”

“When I have kids, you’ll have to be the one to change their diapers.” A soft snort against his neck.

“What will your future wife have to say?”

“Honestly…I’ll probably adopt.”

“Oh.” Dorian pulls back to look at him and John just raises his eyebrow at him. “Oh.”

“Yep.” He looks honestly stupefied, so John reaches out a hand and uses his finger to gently bop his nose.

They stare at each other in silence for a moment and then both dissolve into laughter.