Fic: Lakeside Diner (April Fic Challenge)

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Lakeside Diner
Chapters: 1/1
Author:csi_sanders1129
Ratings: K+
Word Count: 1557
Pairings/Characters: Vincent Moretti, Leo Caruso
Synopsis: In which both Vincent and Leo make it off the rooftop alive, and the escape doesn’t end there.
Comments: Written for my April Fic Challenge 2021, Prompt: Berries. Can be Gen or Pre-Slash. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

There's a small, out of the way diner, about an hour outside the county line, that's open 24 hours.

The faded neon sign proclaiming it the Lakeside Diner never seems to work, and it never has very many visitors, but the food is decent and cheap and roughly once a month, Vincent finds himself there, always either very, very early in the morning or very, very late at night. He's not sure which this visit qualifies as, perhaps something between the two. He claims a seat toward the back of the run down restaurant, a spot that can't be easily seen from the door or the plate glass windows should anyone be looking for him, and he waits.

The lone waitress on shift, a perpetually exhausted middle-aged woman, appears to be functioning mostly on the very potent coffee the diner serves. She greets him robotically, not at all curious as to his reasons for being here, rattles off the specials, and sets down a menu in front of him.

"I'll order in a few minutes," Vincent tells her, over the tinny sound of the nearby jukebox playing some rock-n-roll song over weathered speakers. "I'm waiting for a friend. But I'll take some coffee, please. Black."

She nods and takes her leave, returning a moment later with an old, chipped mug and a half-empty carafe of coffee, pouring it out for him just as the little bell over the door dings with the arrival of another customer.

There are plenty of tables open. The only other one taken is on the other side of the room, where a haggard, old man is hunched over the table and appears to be sleeping off a few too many drinks. Despite this, the new arrival claims the bench seat across from Vincent.

"Coffee for you, too, hon'?" The waitress asks.

"Yes, please, ma'am," Leo says, pulling off his hat and gloves before he shrugs out of his thick winter coat, trying to rub the warmth back into his hands. "Damn is it cold out there."

"Supposed to snow all day," Vincent agrees. Then, with a pointed look, he warns, "If you're not careful you'll get snowed in here."

Leo waves off the advice, "Don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing."

Vincent doesn't argue, just slides an envelope across the table to the other man, who pockets it swiftly and nods his thanks. "Alex added some drawings for you," Vincent tells him. "And Linda wrote you a note."

"How much longer you think we'll have to do this?"

"With no leads, the investigation's dying down, but the Chief still has them under surveillance. Once you're set-up, I can get hold of the schedule, tell them when to go, but until then…"

Leo frowns, "Until then, I get ominous breakfast dates with you. How's the shoulder?"

He manages a laugh at that, "Better. Hurts like a bitch when it rains," he says, but for a plan they'd concocted in the middle of a firefight it had worked surprisingly well. Vincent had taken a non-lethal bullet, let Leo get the fuck off that rooftop without raising too many questions. The cops and the feds would never suspect an injured officer to be the one helping the criminal who shot him, no matter how off the rails the undercover work had gone. Now, it's just a matter of time before Vincent can ensure Linda and Alex get clear of the city without drawing attention to Leo.

"I'm starving, man," Leo says, when Vincent raises an eyebrow at the audible growl from his stomach. "I worked a double at the construction site. Left straight from there to get here on time. Haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday," he explains.

"Get whatever you want," Vincent tells him, more than a little concerned about Leo making the four hour drive back in the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions with evidently no sleep. He'll deal with that, later, though, because the waitress returns with Leo's coffee and to take their orders. "My treat."

Leo, who's been working several under the table jobs as much as possible and saving every penny he makes, does not question the limits of this offer, and orders enough food to feed a small army.

While they wait for their food, talk turns to Vincent's recent separation from Carol. He still gets to see Julie, though, and he shows a few pictures to Leo, tells him about how big she's gotten already. The four month old just started teething last week. Leo shares a few stories about Alex when he was a baby. He's in the middle of a mildly terrifying tale about Alex's first foray into crawling (he'd managed the task quickly, and gotten out of sight in the few seconds he and Linda took their eyes off of him) when their food arrives.

The waitress sets down a plate in front of Leo that is filled with a stack of thick, buttermilk pancakes, piled high with a very impressive mountain of fresh blueberries and strawberries and raspberries and blackberries, all topped with an additional mountain of whipped cream. On a second plate, there are what looks to be at least four eggs, scrambled. A hefty mound of bacon. A few breakfast sausages. And a couple of slices of toast with jam.

Vincent, meanwhile, has a much less imposing omelet, stuffed with peppers and onions and mushrooms, with a small side of hash browns.

Leo digs in, seems to revert to prison habits in his haste, all hunched around his food like he has to guard it from the other inmates, trying to eat as quickly as possible. Vincent watches this spectacle, a forkful of his own breakfast paused halfway to his mouth. "Easy there, buddy," he says, "No one's gonna take it from you."

"Right," Leo says, after he's made a considerable dent in both the food and his hunger. He slows considerably, takes a long swig of his coffee. "Right, sorry."

After that, they eat at a much more reasonable pace. Leo actually manages to finish the vast majority of his meal. The waitress returns to clear their plates some time later, leaves the bill when they decline to order anything else.

Vincent takes it, pulls out his wallet to grab an appropriate amount of money to cover it. They don their coats and hats and gloves and leave the warmth of the diner together. They pause just outside, where what had been mere flurries when they'd arrived has now turned into a more consistent sort of snowfall, already starting to accumulate on the roads. "Listen," he says, looking rather skeptically at Leo's car – it's a complete piece of shit, it makes that ancient truck they'd borrowed from that farmer look like a dream. He's not sure it would get Leo back in one piece in good weather, frankly, he's surprised it got him here at all. "There's a hotel nearby…"

"Nah," Leo interrupts, "Can't stick around. I got a job lined up for tonight."

"Jesus, Leo," he snaps, snagging the keys out of the man's hand before he can make a move to get into that deathtrap of a car. "You're gonna kill yourself like this and that is not a message I want to relay to your wife and kid. You need sleep. You need a break," he says. "There's a hotel nearby. I'll get us a room and stick around to make sure you stay put. We'll wait out the storm there together."

On the plus side, it seems like Leo is too tired to argue with him about it. He's met with begrudging agreement on the matter.

Still, as much as he doesn't want Leo driving, he's unwilling to risk leaving Leo's car in the diner's parking lot, so he surrenders the keys and trusts that Leo won't bolt on him when presented with a chance at escape. Indeed, the man follows him the short distance to the hotel, where Vincent runs into the office to get a room. He heads to the room first, waves for Leo to join him when the coast is clear.

"Not bad," Leo says, dropping his bag just inside the door, "nicer than my apartment." The room is rather large, with two queen beds made up with clean and comfortable bedding. There's a little kitchenette in the corner of the room, a small table with two chairs. The bathroom is spacious, too, and when Vincent checks, the shower actually has impressive water pressure. The heater's humming away, chasing away the cold, winter air as the snow steadily picks up outside.

Vincent watches as Leo collapses onto one of the two beds. Instantly, it seems like all the tension bleeds out of Leo's body, like he can finally relax. And, oh. Vincent comes to a sudden realization – that Leo doesn't work well alone. He's always had a partner – be it Linda, ever-present, or the traitorous Harvey, or Vincent himself. He's always had someone to watch his back. And now, on his own and at risk, he's on constant alert. He'll have to find a way to work hotel stays into their monthly meet-ups from here on out.

"Hey, Vincent?" Leo mumbles, face buried in a pillow.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," he says, quietly, already bordering on the edges of a much needed rest, "for everything."