Relocation - Interlude Seven

[churbooseanon]

 

Relocation - Interlude Seven

    It was a noble gesture, Daniel mused as he took the final sip of his cup of coffee and stared at the laptop in front of him. If nothing else, he thought he deserved credit for the offer, for the putting himself out there and trying to help Nathaniel figure out how he was going to go about his new life. If Nate was willing to put himself out there, do something a bit ‘crazy’ by choosing to live in a city he’d only been in for two and a half weeks, Daniel intended to make it as easy as possible for him to commit to that intention. The only problem, he had realized, was that he’d never really done the whole job search thing himself. When he was in high school he’d just worked for Shaun’s family like his mother had. When they’d come here together and Shaun’s uncle paid for his apprenticeship to a locksmith, Daniel had been getting a degree in business and accounting so he could learn to manage the business in the areas Shaun wouldn’t know how to do. In that time he’d done any work he could find on campus, from typing up notes for people to paid editing and even a semester working in the business office before he’d been let go because he’d suggested his boss’s organizational habits were less than effective.

    Never once had Daniel gone through the process of apply and apply and apply and apply until it felt like your hand was going to fall off. He hadn’t really gone through the classifieds in hopes to find something, hadn’t clicked through page after page of items online in hopes of finding something that appealed. So really, Daniel was more here to provide a laptop and support. Which meant he really wasn’t useful at all.

    “What about this one?”

    Daniel looked up from his laptop and across the table to where David was sitting. The other man had noticed the identical efforts Nate and Daniel had gone to yesterday morning with Shaun’s assistance. Well, mostly Shaun sat there and made jokes about jobs that Nate could do because he would look good or bad in the clothes that went along with it. Needless to say, nothing had gotten done until David had come over to investigate. It was only with the offer from the more experienced man that the pace had gotten relaxed that day, leaving Daniel comfortable enough to head to work with Shaun, leaving Nate at the cafe until David was off work. But now, here he was, sitting in a booth and giving up his Saturday afternoon in the hopes that he might find something.

    At least he wasn’t alone. David’s question made Nathaniel, who was sitting with his side pressed against Daniel’s so they could look at the laptop together as they searched, shifted so he could lean forward and look at the newspaper. David was tapping an ad he had circled in pen.

    “It’s a security firm that is taking applications,” David explained. “I looked it up on my phone and they contract with the college campus and with the museums in the area. I bed with your military background you should be able to make it through with a minimal application and even your lack of so called ‘work experience.’ Hours will probably be hell because you’ll be a new hire, but it’s the kind of thing that should probably keep you for years if you want it.”

    Daniel looked hopefully at Nate. The thing sounded perfect. Someone Nate’s size and build would definitely seem more imposing and thus suited to the job. If they had any weapon licensing processes he should pass them quickly enough. And he probably knew how to take people down if he had to given his training.

    Yet Nate just shook his head at that.

    “It’s a nice offer, I admit,” Nate shrugged. “Put it in the maybe pile?”

    “Maybe?” Daniel couldn’t help but ask, and then there was a foot, David’s he assumed, that kicked him under the table. Why would he do that?

    “Maybe it is,” David said quickly, clearly trying to give Nate a reason not to answer. Yet there Nate was, turning to look at Daniel and laying his hand over Daniel’s. The touch was a point to focus on, which made him feel good.

    “I’d be happier to not be put into a position where I could be called upon to genuinely hurt someone,” Nate answered, his voice soft. “I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime.”

    “Chances are you’d never have to,” Daniel pointed out, frowning up at Nate.

    “I know,” Nate assured him, squeezing his hand. “That’s why it’s a maybe unlike the suggestion that I go into the police academy.”

    Daniel nodded in agreement even if he didn’t understand, and tried to keep his smile calm. But he didn’t understand. Then again, he’d never been through the things he suspected a soldier went through. All he could do was sit here and be supportive. Which, he realized, he liked the thought of. Yes, he was used to being supportive because he had only ever been that to Shaun, but knowing that Nathaniel had someone to fall back on if he really needed it? That was amazing. It was… powerful in its own way.

    “Alright, so security guard on the maybe list,” David repeated, pushing the listing over to Daniel, who shifted over to his spreadsheet. It had been David who had suggested the means of organizing a job search, noting it could make it so much easier remembering where you’d applied, where you hadn’t heard back from, and the like. “We’re doing pretty good here. I think that’s nearly the end of this paper. How about we finish the things we have open in front of us and take a break?”

    Daniel smiled in relief. This whole process was oddly draining.

    David finished his newspaper page after a minute and then slid it aside. He nodded to them both and pulled out his phone as he slid out of the booth. There, then, was the real reason he wanted to take a break. Daniel had to assume that he had gotten a text from York and wanted to respond sooner rather than later. At least the smile he saw David wearing was the same one that Daniel had grown used to seeing when David came to serve them in the mornings. But it did mean Daniel was left alone with Nate, and with a sigh he leaned over a bit to rest against his boyfriend’s shoulder.

    “So… what do you think of the tedium of the civilian world now that you’re back to it?” Daniel sighed, closing his eyes. He could feel the material of Nate’s shirt pressed against his cheek. It was a sensation he was used to. Thursday night, on the couch with Nate, he had found himself growing familiar with Nate’s sweatshirt. Despite how often he had reminded himself that he was going to sleep in his own bed, the warm feeling in his gut from the hot chocolate and the warmth of his boyfriend against him, had lulled him like nothing else. Thus he had fallen asleep resting against the other man, and woken only when he had seemed to be floating on a sea. His eyes had opened to see Nate over him, to watch the apartment moving around him. He’d stayed quiet and still all the way to his bed and cling to Nate’s sweatshirt in hopes he wouldn’t go.

    But that had been two nights ago. Now he just closed his eyes, breathing in the freshly laundered scent of Nate’s sweatshirt and focusing on the touch of the fabric.

    “It’s good,” Nate answered, his voice a low rumble that Daniel could almost feel through his cheek. “It’s nice to be involved in something like this. This is something I tried to protect. It’s actually kind of nice to know I can have something like this myself. But we don’t need to rush this, Daniel. It’s not like I can start before the reunion. And my savings will keep me for a decent bit. Not that your assistance isn’t important to me. I just can’t see you so stressed over this.”

    Daniel chuckled, but he didn’t move. “Kind of you to worry about me, but it’s more than that. It’s like David said yesterday. It’s easier to really make a life for yourself in a new place when you have something to do. Something to be. And as he just picked his life up and moved across more than half the country to be here, I’d put some weight in what he said.”

    “Perhaps,” Nate answered, and when his hand touched Daniel’s shoulder, Daniel knew he was being asked to sit up. “Here, I’m going to get you some more coffee, maybe a treat. Sound good?”

    “I’d like a…”

    “Banana nut muffin,” Nate said, and when Daniel looked up at his boyfriend, he saw a fond smile on his lips. “I remember. Be back soon, okay?”

    “You better,” Daniel found himself saying, and the smile he was given in response was beautiful. God, how had he ever gotten so lucky?

*        *        *        *        *        *

    Nathaniel took a moment to smile at his boyfriend after he had stood. Already Daniel’s attention had returned to the computer screen. Even telling the man to take it easy didn’t seem to have much weight, but he wished it did. But if it did, well then Daniel wouldn’t be Daniel. He wouldn’t be strong and focused and intense in a way that caught Nate’s eyes. Or maybe it was something else entirely. But it wasn’t time to contemplate such a thing. No, what he needed to do was get that treat and drink for his boyfriend so they could go back to work.

    With that in mind he turned away from the table, moving toward the counter instead. The timing, perhaps, could have been better, because as he moved forward, the woman at the counter made a step backward, gesturing wildly with the mug of presumably scalding hot coffee. Someone shorter, perhaps Daniel, would have been struck in the face by the mug held by the tall blonde, but for Maine the unintended blow was aimed for his shoulder. Accidentally aimed, of course, not that it hit. His reactions were far better than that, and when he saw it coming, Nate’s hands came up to block the blow, one grabbing the woman’s wrist, the other near her elbow. It immobilized the arm, and sure, a bit of coffee slouched out onto his hand, but he just grit his teeth against the pain.

    Someone else might have yelped in shock, or screamed, or cursed. The woman didn’t behave in any way that Nate might have expected to find in someone in a cafe. Instead she dropped her mug, and while Nate’s attention was on that and the pending pain of hot coffee splashing onto his shoes and seeping through the cloth of the material, would probably even stain it. The thought was a passing one because in moments something else entirely was happening. The distraction, because he understood a moment late that was what was going on, worked well enough for him to be unprepared for the woman to step back, her heeled boot slamming toward his instep. Nate saw it coming just in time to slip his foot away from her attack, and then he was pulling and twisting her arm back with him. The goal was to twist it behind her back, but the woman was spinning around and Nate was in shock as her poisonous green nails moved for his face.

    “Alexa!” a sharp voice called out, that of the proprietor he thought. The kind woman known as Connie who Shaun called Rebecca, and who looked at Nate without really talking to him all that much. “Stand down!”

    The order was barked with such a commanding tone that even as the woman relaxed, Nate let her go and snapped to attention. The blonde, though, had an entirely different reaction once she was released.

    “You fuck, you got my fucking coffee spilled and broke the damn mug!” the woman growled, turning on him, and then she just stopped. Nate could see her staring at him, and it was only then that it occurred to him that he was still stiffly at attention. Embarrassed and with a pained hand, Nate moved past her, reaching for the towel the woman behind the counter was holding out toward him.

    “You’re the one who was flailing everywhere, Alexa,” Connie insisted. “In fact, the only reason you dropped the coffee was because of you, and you burned his hand.”

    “Hey, it’s not my…” Alexa started to protest as Nate worked on drying his hand.

    “Get the mop and clean up,” Connie insisted, and Nate just went still, shocked by the statement. Even if these two knew each other, which it seemed they did, how could Connie demand something of a paying customer? But his question was brushed off as Connie turned her attention back to Nate. “Got to admit, I’m a bit impressed. Alexa isn’t exactly easy to stand up to. But you are David’s soldier friend, aren’t you? He’s told me about you.”

    “He has?” Nate asked, not bothering to look at Alexa as she stormed off toward the back room, presumably to get a mop. Part of him wanted to look back toward Daniel, but he didn’t want to be rude to the woman before him. And he had something he had to do here anyway. “Two coffees, banana nut muffin, lemon bar.”

    “He has,” she agreed, moving to get the treats onto a plate. Not that it stopped her from talking to him. “That was pretty impressive, what you did to Alexa. That’s going to leave her ego sore.”

    “She’s pretty good,” he answered simply, still a bit shocked by how that had played out.

    “She’d tell you off course she was, but she has been training for a long time,” Connie responded as the pastries went onto plates. “She’s a MMA fighter, owns a gym around here where she trains people to fight. How to defend themselves.”

    Nate just hummed his acknowledgement. It made sense. Since coming back from the states he’d learned about this whole ‘mixed martial arts’ thing, and wasn’t quite sure what to think of it. But clearly it had some value. The thing is, he didn’t quite know why he should care about what this woman was telling him. And then it hit him, late of course.

    “You heard us talking,” Nate noted as the small brunette moved to the coffee machine and filled up two mugs from the carafe of full caf. When she turned back to face him, he was graced with a wide, playful smile.

    “Actually, David asked me yesterday if there was any chance we had an opening for you,” Connie admitted as she returned to the counter with the mugs and put them down just long enough to pick up a tray to move the mugs and sweets onto.

    “You said no.” The statement didn’t need made, but clearly the woman was trying to have a conversation, and he was expected to respond. Which was only polite considering the fact that he’d been here with Daniel since earlier in the morning.

    “Yep,” Connie chuckled, sliding the tray toward him as Alexa returned with the mop and a bucket. “Because I’m full up on employees right now. But I think you might be pleasantly surprised if you asked Alexa about her gym.”

    “No he won’t,” Alexa gruffed, and Nate rolled his eyes. He just passed some cash across to Connie and lifted the tray.

    “Wait!” Connie snapped at them both, sounding far from amused. When he looked at her again he found a dark expression on her face. A quick glance at Alexa revealed she seemed a little cowed by that. “Come on, dear, don’t be so rude. This guy clearly could have put you on your fucking ass. But from what David says, he’s a Marine. Come on, dear, you could use that.”

    “I don’t hurt people,” Nate responded gruffly.

    “I don’t need some jarhead oaf to hurt people,” Alexa countered as she mopped up the floor, pushing pieces of cup around like she didn’t understand how to clean at all, or didn’t care.

    “Wow,” Connie sighed. “You’re both just stubborn fools. Okay, let me put it more bluntly. Nate, was it? Well, sure, Alexa could use a trainer there to help out the normal customers, but mainly she needs someone who will help her with self defense classes, which isn’t about hurting people so much as keeping people from getting hurt by those who would take advantage of them. Alexa, you were saying you needed a new assistant for those classes, and might it not be better for some of those women to see how effective what you’re teaching them could be against a man his size? Talk about a confidence boost.”

    “Self-defense?” Nate asked, finally looking to the blonde woman. There was an implication there which had him really listening. Women in self defense classes that would need a confidence boost against… “Oh.”

    “Yeah, oh,” Alexa answered, shaking her head. She stopped mopping and leaned heavily against the stick of the mop. “But doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. Big mindless brutes aren’t useful.”

    Frowning he stooped to start picking up some of the shards of the mug. “Some of the men in this world are big, mindless thugs who have reach, weight, and size on women. If you’re teaching a woman to defend herself, it’s better if she got to apply some of what she learned against someone who looks as scary as the people who might go after them.”

    “Alexa…” Connie said softly as Nate stood and placed the pieces of the mug on the counter, “you should at least try him out. Please? For David.”

    When Nate’s attention returned to the blonde woman he watched her look him up and down, biting her lip. Then, with a sigh that seemed to say ‘I’m only doing this out of the kindness of my heart, she nodded.’

    “Well, Bunyan, you interested?”

    “Bunyan?” Nate asked. Something told him that if he knew this woman long, that name was going to stick. But when she didn’t explain he nodded. “Get another coffee and come sit down. Let’s talk business. I think we’ll be able to help each other out.”

    “Only if you’re buying the coffee, Bunyan.”

    “As much as you need,” Nate promised. Truth be told, he had a damn good feeling about this.

    “Well then, Bunyan, I have a feeling this is about to be the start of a beautiful relationship.”

*        *        *        *        *        *

    There were a lot of ways it could have gone differently. Ways it might not have gone at all. For one thing, Shaun could have taken care of his own shopping on that day they had met, or Stephen could have chosen to drop his cousin off at another store. For another Daniel could have asked to accompany Shaun on the installation at Flower’s home that afternoon, or Nathaniel could have taken his cousin up on the offer to buy more clothes first. Daniel could have asked David for a ride to the store or Nate could have just stayed on the couch. So many different things that could have spun out in so many different ways. Any number of minute differences and it might not have happened, their lives would have been quieter, separate, untouching.

    As it was Daniel stood on the street outside of his apartment, bundled up in warm pajamas, his green coat, and Nathaniel’s large white hoodie as he watched his boyfriend climb into Stephen’s car. The cousins had a long ride, and an even longer talk, ahead of them, not to mention their family. Daniel had a day of business and a lazy weekend where he just stayed in his apartment and traded texts with the man that would soon be back and sleeping on his couch again. Soon enough he’d have breakfasts with his boyfriend and best friend, chatting over Shaun’s head in French with David, and laughing together. There would be a kiss on Daniel’s forehead before he and Shaun went to the shop and Nate went to meet Alexa to start his first real day on the job.

    But that was a weekend away, and the last week together had been amazing, even if he had lost so much of it in the name of Nate training under his new, demanding boss. Still, with the way everything was fitting together almost perfectly, with the right circumstances dealt to him at just the right moment, things were changing. Without this, without singing in that grocery store, and a chance of overheard lyrics, his life would have been very different.

    Now though, standing there on the sidewalk, wrapped up in layers of warmth and the remembered pressure of the gentle kiss on his lips from his new boyfriend, Daniel Lauve, knew that going all in had been the right choice. Surely only good could come of it.