Relocation - Interlude Two

[churbooseanon]

Relocation - Interlude Two

    “Okay, but seriously… what the hell are you doing here?”

    Daniel looked up from his thoughts as much as the sidewalk and gave Shaun a sideways look. “Excuse me?”

    “Out here,” Shaun answered, his hands waving around them to try and take in the city around them with a simple gesture. “As in not in the cafe, talking to big, bald, and smiling?”

    Daniel rolled his eyes at that question. “You said there was…”

    “I said I was handling it,” Shaun sighed and Daniel felt like it was supposed to be a commentary on his presence. Which Daniel didn’t quite understand the necessity of. “Which meant you could stay and flirt with your stranger.”

    “I was not flirting with Nathaniel,” Daniel protests, and he was pretty certain that he was right. Flirting led to things Daniel did not want and was certain he never would. All of which meant Daniel had not been flirting.

    “Face it, you just ran out of a date because old man Flowers is being a pain. Again.”

    “D-date?” Daniel demanded, coming to a halt to stare at his friend in horror. “It wasn’t a date. You know that. It was making someone feel a touch more at home while getting to practice my native language.”

    “And those dreamy eyes you were shooting him?” Shaun cooed, clearly playful, as he stopped to stare at his best friend.

    “I was not!” Daniel snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. He liked to think the gesture was because of the chill in the air and not because he was being defensive. “You couldn’t even see my eyes from where you were.”

    “No, but as your very bestest friend, I have the power to see into your heart!” Shaun announced triumphantly before starting forward again. Daniel had no choice but to continue with him or concede the argument. Not, of course, that he saw standing around flabbergasted as losing, for all that Shaun would and had in the past.

    “Keep this up,” Daniel threatened as he caught up with Shaun, “and I’ll find a way to make your time with David very awkward.”

    “As if you could!”

    “All I’d have to do is tell him your name, right?”

    This time it was Shaun’s freezing that paused their advance toward their shop-slash-home. Shaun’s pausing and turning to look at Daniel with shock and betrayal in his eyes. Daniel refused to be moved, though, not by this.

    “You wouldn’t,” Shaun gasped.

    “Would I not, Mister Cu…”

    The hand that slapped over his mouth made Daniel smile. Being from Seattle, David might not understand the significance of the name, but Daniel knew more than so many other ever would about Shaun. That came from being raised together, of course. Came from so many years of trust and connection and from what faith they had in each other. To give Shaun’s name up would be like a betrayal, and now Daniel was putting this teasing about Nathaniel on the same level as such a deep harm to his best friend. Clearly Shaun was astonished, and maybe, Daniel thought, he had a reason to be.

    “I promise, D, I’ll behave,” Shaun assured him at last, “but you have to agree not to say the name, okay?”

    When Daniel noded in agreement the hand was gone, and again the pair started forward, this time in silence. Still, he had to wonder just why he had left the cafe so quietly. Hadn’t Shaun’s text been clear enough? Why take it as a prompt to leave when Daniel’s only real interactions with Flowers were when he ordered things for the man and sent invoices along? Why in the world had he left Nathaniel hanging like that? Had he been looking for a way out? Should he apologize?

    With that thought in mind and silence from Shaun, Daniel pulled out his cellphone to compose a proper apology.

    Sorry to leave so quickly, Nathaniel. As I said, something came up and now I realize that it’s not so urgent as I had first assumed. That being said, there is still work to be done so I fear leaving was for the best.

    There, that should cover everything. Still, it did leave Daniel feeling a little bit like he’d let Nathaniel down. Which was weird. It wasn’t like he had any obligation to the other man, just the time they had spent together. Just thinking of the conversation made Daniel smile, and he was quite aware of that smile. While it wasn’t strange for Daniel to smile, but he knew he was serious enough that to have one prompted by conversation with a stranger was an oddity. One that he thought he might like. Just thinking about Nathaniel made his chest strangely warm. Or perhaps his scarf and coat were warmer than necessary today.

    When his phone chimed cheerfully Daniel could not help but smile all the wider at the speed of the response. Apparently he wasn’t the only one eager to continue their conversation. Or was believing that a touch too presumptuous? Still, he managed to ignore Shaun’s chuckle as he pulled his phone back out to look  at the message.

    It’s okay. David explained everything. Put it on your friend’s tab. Think we can do it again sometime?

    For a moment Daniel stared at the message, trying to process the offer it contained.

    “What’s got you so distracted this time, D?”

    Daniel almost had to jump when he found his best friend’s hand on his elbow, holding him in place. Of course once he looked up the reason for that became obvious. Rather than Shaun attempting to peek at his phone as Daniel had irrationally feared, Shaun had stopped him from running right into the door of their little business. Immediately Daniel flushed with embarrassment, shaking his head. How was it possible that he could be so distracted as to not be aware of where they had gotten? Normally he was quite adept at maintaining spacial awareness, and yet here he was, lost in his own mind.

    “Apparently I forgot to pay David back at the cafe,” Daniel answered, rather than asking the question that was really burning in his head: did Nathaniel really desire additional time with him, or was the man merely being polite?

    “Oh D,” Shaun groaned as he let go of Daniel’s arm and moved to unlock the door of the shop for them. “How could you do something so silly? Poor guy probably had to…”

    “David put it on your tab,” Daniel cut in, deciding to do away with the slightly teasing edge to his best friend’s voice then and there. That should temper his amusement some.

    “What!?” Shaun demanded, clearly horrified by the outcome. “Why the hell would he…?”

    “I believe he connected my abrupt, and forgetful, exit to your own departure. As such he blamed the thing on you and decided to put the bill at your feet.”

    “Does he think I’m made of money?” Shaun sighed, holding the door open for Daniel. “Okay, so maybe there are arguments to be made for it, but come on, super not fair.”

    “Complain to your boyfriend,” Daniel chuckled, heading for the counter. He carefully unwound the scarf he was wearing and hung it and his coat up on the hooks Shaun had put in just a few weeks ago. They had discovered that the reason the shop was always so cold was because whoever had put in the old hooks had placed them right over a heating vent, meaning the thing was nearly always blocked in the fall and winter months. For the used bookstore this place had once housed that probably hadn’t been too much of a problem. Too much of Shaun’s work relied on his hands being warm and nimble, though, and they had remedied the issue the second they realized it existed.

    “You can bet I will,” Shaun assured him. “We’re doing movies in my apartment tonight, so you better bet I’m going to needle him about it. What about you, going to talk more to your French-speaking stranger?”

    Right, the text message, the question. Somehow Daniel had nearly forgotten the thing.

    “Does it bother you that I have a friend you can’t eavesdrop on?”

    The look of feigned pain on Shaun’s face was almost precious. “Daniel, would I ever spy on you?”

    “Perhaps,” Daniel chuckled, heading for the back room. There were invoices and itemized receipts to send out, and he always tried to do an inventory check after Shaun had visited Flowers, so he should probably get onto that task now. Not that he couldn’t steal a chance to message Nathaniel with a confirmation first. His work more than allowed for that.

    An electronic chime announced the opening of the shop’s door, and as one Daniel and Shaun turned to look at the door. The woman there looked quite distraught, and immediately Shaun was moving to greet her. That expression usually meant one of two things: the woman had either locked herself out of her car or her house. Either way Shaun’s gallant streak demanded that he see to the woman now. And as it was their policy never to leave the front unattended, Daniel just pulled his work laptop out of the backroom and set it up on the counter. Inventory could wait. When Shaun turned back to him Daniel was already tossing his friend’s coat and the go-bag with his gear toward him.

    By the time Shaun and the woman were gone, the message he had intended to send had completely fled Daniel’s mind.

*        *        *        *        *        *

    “If you don’t get off the couch soon, I’m going to assume you died and call animal control to get your fucking bear sized ass out of my apartment.”

    Nate doesn’t even bother to dignify Stephen’s tantrum by looking up from his book. Maybe he would have had his cousin bothered to come up with a new insult in the last several hours. But over and over it had been the same pathetic one since Nate had gotten back to the apartment he was crashing in around noon. Granted that was nearing on nine hours ago and Nate had gotten up and moved around for meals, but other than that, he had pretty much claimed his cousin’s couch with little change in status other than bathroom breaks. Nine hours that he’d been flipping through old celeb magazines and watching episode after episode of an A-Team marathon on cable. If he really thought about it, then yes, the position was a bit pathetic, but seeing as Stephen had only been home for about three hours, Nate was nowhere near willing to admit that out loud.

    Nor, it seemed, was Stephen about to give up the fight this pass. As Nate watched he could see thoughts flying behind his cousin’s too bright hazel eyes, and then, resolution. Even as the younger man started to move, Nate forcefully exhaled and so found himself not as stunned as his cousin flopped down onto his stomach. Asshole.

    “Come on, tell me about it. Your mystery man stand you up or something?” Stephen asked, and there was actually a gentleness to his voice that made Nate toss the year old magazine to the side. With a gesture Stephen was off of his stomach and after a few moments of shifting and shoving, Nate had propped his back against an armrest and Stephen was on the far-side of the couch with Nate’s feet in his lap. Stephen didn’t look entirely happy with the change in position, and Nate got why. There had to be a concern that if his cousin returned to his normal flippant self he might get kicked in a very painful place. But Nate wasn’t the same person he was when they were kids, not even remotely. Wouldn’t be honorable to turn Sig into a soprano for a few hours, even if he was a little asshole.

    Besides, there was an understanding concern in those eyes that told Nate that, maybe this time, it was safe to talk about this frankly. Good thing too, he had been stewing in his own mind for hours.

    “He was there,” Nate said once he was certain that both of them were settled. “We had a nice long talk. It was so good to hear someone that sounded like home so…”

    “Ah, French,” Stephen rolled his eyes. “Dude, most people you find in this part of the states isn’t going to be ready to have a real, in-depth, and competent conversation in French. It’s just the way it is. The accents are all atrocious. I can’t even handle Gary’s attempts at it.”

    Well, there was a revelation. Apparently Stephen missed it to some degree as well. Not surprising. Back home the whole neighborhood spoke it. English was something you used outside of the community, at school, with people who weren’t part of that amazingly tightly woven fabric of your life. Perhaps Stephen just found it easier to cut himself off from it rather than long for what he’d left behind. Then again, had Stephen ever really fit in back home? It had been clear really early on that his cousin was an actual artistic genius, not to mention highly intelligent. So asking him to try and fit in with his parent’s expectations that he take over the family store just hadn’t sat right with Stephen. And so here the other man was, far away from home and the sort brotherhood that Nate had easily found in the Marines. Poor guy.

    “Well, this guy speaks it perfectly,” Nate sighed, shaking his head. Maybe his cousin caught something in that, because Nate could see a glimmer of interest in his eyes.

    “So what happened?”

    “He bolted early,” Nate admitted, and yeah, he could hear his own disappointment in his voice.

    “Maybe he found your beanie visually offensive.”

    Nate pulled said white and yellow headgear off of his head and flung it at his cousin, sparking an unexpected burst of giggles as Stephen knocked it away.

    “You look like a giant snowbank wearing jeans,” Stephen continued, and it took all Nate had to not sit up straighter to lean across and tickle his cousin. He knew the other man was particular weak around the ribs, but as Nate wasn’t ticklish at all it wouldn’t be sporting of him.

    “Nothing like that,” Nate rolled his eyes, running his hand over his buzz-short hair. “His friend and co-worker was there, and some work emergency or other came up…”

    “So you’re pining over your date going AWOL with his boyfriend?”

    A chill tore through Nate, one he couldn’t quite understand, and he stared at Stephen in shock. Could it be that…? No, it really couldn’t. There was too much honesty in Daniel, too much genuine feeling and sincerity and all those similar words for Daniel to lie like that. So Nate shook his head, trying to dismiss his cousin’s suspicions.

    “The waiter told me that it was just business,” Nate explained softly, because for some reason it was important to get his cousin to not only understand, but accept this.

    “Waiter has to be a friend of your mystery man or mystery man’s boyfriend,” Stephen countered. “Covering for them, you know?”

    “The waiter is dating said supposed boyfriend.”

    With a sigh Stephen shook his head and pushed Nate’s feet from his lap so he could stand up. “So, what’s the big deal then? Guy walked out. You have his number. Just call him or something.”

    And there, of course, was the problem. All of this time and still he had no response on what fell like an all important question. Never before this had he been so caught up in waiting for something. But it was what it was, and he was not going to nag Delta. At best he’d ask again later. But not yet. Otherwise he’d seem too desperate.

    Desperate for what, he didn’t know.

    “Already texted him. Just waiting for an answer.”

    Once more Stephen rolled his eyes. “You make no sense. I don’t care if you were taught to be patient in the military or something. Real life? Life with people around? It’s too chaotic for you to wait for what you want, Nathaniel. Besides, it’s not like you’re going to be in town forever, man. Make the move while you can.”

    The move? Nate shook his head. That wasn’t something he did. It’s just the company, he told himself. The company of a perfect and beautiful man and…

    Yeah, he’s gone, isn’t he? Strange to think how long it had been since he’d felt something like this, met someone as interesting as Daniel. But there was nothing he could do about that right now, so he just reached for the magazine again as Stephen retreated to the bedroom and continued reading nonsense stories.

    When his phone rang Nathaniel almost fell off the couch in his eager fumbling for the device. The unknown number upset him for half a second until he considered it could be a land line, and with a smile on his lips he answered. The only people that had this number, after all, were family members who were programmed into it, Stephen’s friend Gary, Daniel and…

    “Hey,” a nervous voice greeted that was most definitely not Daniel’s. Which could only mean one thing.

    “David,” Nate greeted, pushing himself back up onto the couch and finally into a sitting position. “What can I do for you?”

    “There’s a bar, back where the cafe was. Three storefronts up from it. Can… can you meet me there?”

    There was a trembling in his voice that Nate knew from too much personal experience, and he tucked the phone next to his shoulder as he grabbed for his boots.

    “What’s the name of the place and how will I find you when I get there?”

    “It’s called Fly By. I’ll be at the bar. As soon as you can?”

    Nate grunted his agreement as he shoved his foot into a boot. “Be there as soon as I can. Don’t drink too much, okay?”

    There was a small affirmative noise and then the line disconnected.

    All thoughts of Daniel were driven from Nate’s mind as he rushed through the door.

*        *        *        *        *        *

    It wasn’t that Daniel had routines that he lived by. Well, okay, maybe he did, but there were some traditions that helped clear his mind when weird things were going on in his life. Those routines had taken on a new level of important these last two weeks. Everything that had been going on with Shaun since David had started at Connie’s had seemed like a sprint toward some sort of finish line that Daniel couldn’t begin to envision. It was as if the man was a catalyst in their lives, pushing everyone around him in new directions. A new energy source in a previously closed system that had woke Shaun from the revere he’d been stuck in since everything that had happened with Charlotte.

    And so there was a place in Daniel’s life for the ease of routine, both in his mornings and in his evenings. Thursdays, for instance, had a pretty consistent flow. Shopping done for the week, he came straight home on Thursdays and turned the heat down on the slow-cooker that held his dinner (and left-overs for lunch) before taking a nice shower. After that it was pre-made bread in the oven to rise and warm while he took a half a glass of wine to the living room and stretched out on the couch with a good book. When dinner was done he would put away the extras and clean the kitchen to some classical music. Then it was the other half of his nightly glass of red wine, the couch, and his book until it was time to sleep. It was a routine that hadn’t been interrupted for more or less three months now, and Daniel was shocked by the flash of irritation that went through him when he heard a cursory knock on his apartment door before it was opening.

    Still, knowing Shaun had a date with David tonight found Daniel sitting up straight and setting his wine glass aside. He found just enough time to finish this movement before Shaun, sans shoes and with the off-gold micro-fleece Daniel had given him for Christmas last year wrapped around his shoulders, entered the living room. Daniel needed only one glimpse of his friend’s face to see the pain there, and without speaking he gently patted the space on the couch next to him. Permission given Shaun rushed to his side, grabbing a spare cushion from a chair to place in Daniel’s lap. Then Shaun was stretched out on the couch, his head on the cushion in Daniel’s lap. The silence between them was heavy, but no so much that Daniel didn’t understand the source of it. Nor did he fail to understand what his friend needed.

    Slowly his fingers stroked and tugged through Shaun’s short hair. For all the years that Shaun professed he was a dog person, Daniel had no doubt that his friend was cat deep inside. There was too much comfort, too much pleasure, from the gentle stroking of his hair, too often Shaun seemed to rumble with joy at the touch. And now it was clear his friend was taking the comfort at face value. After all, had he not done this a number of times in the past for Shaun? After Charlotte, after the battle Shaun had gotten into with his family, after both a girl named Cheryl and a guy named Jackson had rejected Shaun’s asking them to junior prom. Comfort shared like this was just another part of who they were to each other, and Daniel had long since learned that prompting his friend for an explanation early would only shut him up for longer.

    “I had a date tonight,” Shaun said, a statement that was quite needless as Daniel had been well aware. If that hadn’t been true Daniel would have gone downstairs to deliver Shaun’s portion of the pot roast. He had, of course, assumed that David and Shaun would figure out their own meal, and Daniel hadn’t wanted to interfere or intrude. Still, Shaun approached this the way he needed, and Daniel waited.

    “Didn’t go well,” Shaun said just as needlessly. “He… he ran out.”

    For a moment Daniel’s fingers stopped their attentive stroking. That didn’t sound like David, from his understanding. Then again, had Daniel not been torn away from last week’s highly irregular poker game with Gary and Stephen by David fleeing that date as well? If this was going to become something of a habit from David, Daniel was going to have to deal with the man before he could truly tear apart Daniel’s best friend. Still, the statement begged a response from Daniel by tone alone, and he had to oblige.

    “What happened?” he prompted quietly, his fingers taking up their duty again.

    “I don’t even know,” Shaun admitted, his voice a whisper of its own. “Maybe I said or did something wrong but…”

    “But?”

    The sigh was a weighty thing, like all the pains in the world could be condensed into one, sorrowful noise. “It seemed to be going well, you know? One moment we were watching the movie, and then we got… well, things escalated like they do. That guy seems starved for affection, and when he kissed me, like hell I was going to pass up the opportunity to…”

    “Was he as interested in the making out as you were?” Daniel asked, because god help him, no matter how bad it got he would never be interested in a play by play. The implication was enough, anyway, for him to determine the when of what had gone wrong, if not the what.

    “Yeah, he was D,” Shaun insisted. “I’d never continue something like that if the other person wasn’t enjoying it just like me. It’d be wrong. It was just so abrupt. One moment he’s kissing me like it’s the only way to satisfy some fire in him, the next he’s pushed away and he’s fleeing for the door. Completely sudden, completely unsignaled. What did I do wrong?”

    Daniel’s teeth worried at his lip as he considered this question. What was it that Shaun could have done to so markedly upset his boyfriend? Not that either of them had figured out what had prompted last week’s difficulties between them. But hadn’t things seemed to be going well since they ‘officially’ became a thing last Friday? Shaun had seemed overjoyed since the apologies, and to an observer like Daniel things had seemed to be going well. If only he better understood how things like this even worked. Not that Daniel had ever found himself interested in the attentions people seemed to give to each other in the name of romance. A makeout session seemed strange and unnerving to Daniel, and yet here he was, forced to consider how Shaun had gone wrong.

    “What was going on with the movie?” he asked, keeping the desperation out of his voice. Maybe there would be a hint there.

    “Huh? Oh, it was another action flick, this time. Another favorite of mine. It was about these mafiosos who are trying to take out their own side so they can come to power. We’d just reached the part where…”

    The sudden silence from Shaun, the stillness to his previously trembling body was something that Daniel couldn’t explain at all. He’d expected to be able to buy himself five or ten minutes to think while Shaun gave him a disturbingly deep synopsis of the film, not to mention an analysis of why the film is important to the industry and other things that are, in Daniel’s opinion, far from interesting. To have him pause like this, to have Shaun frozen and not indulge himself in his favorite hobby could only mean that something had occurred to Shaun.

    “Oh,” Shaun said at last, his voice low and shocked. Yet filled with understanding. “Huh. I… Hmmm. I think I need to think, D.”

    Ah, that point then. As Shaun lifted his head Daniel slipped out, picking up his glass of wine.

    “Beer or…?”

    “Beer,” Shaun answered before Daniel could finish the question. “And do you have any of that marble rye bread of yours?”

    “Yes, you can have a pot roast sandwich,” Daniel chuckled as he walked toward the kitchen. Nothing like a bad mood to make Shaun hungry. But it wasn’t like the treat would take him long to make, so he didn’t begrudge it.

    It wasn’t until Daniel sent Shaun back downstairs at eleven and after a number of beers, that he noticed his cellphone sitting on the coffee table. Some part of him may have been aware of it before that, but only when he was tidying up before bed did he realize that he hadn’t reached back out to Nathaniel as he had intended to so many hours ago at work. But now it was too late. Surely the man would be sleeping, and Daniel would not disturb that.

    What harm could come from leaving the conversation until tomorrow?

*        *        *        *        *        *

    The thing about a cry for help is that, when you get there, you expect to actually be helping. Or so Nathaniel had expected when he’d gotten that freaked out phone call from David nearly forty-five minutes from now. Despite being on foot he’d managed to make it to the bar in about twenty minutes, but that came from the sort of shape that Marines were kept in, a level of fitness Nate hadn’t neglected in his short time out of the service. Finding David hadn’t been any real challenge either, as crowds had long since learned to part for a man of his size looking like he had somewhere to be. What had hindered his efforts was the silence that had settled over him and David in the last fifteen minutes. Slowly, and silently, the two sipped the beers the bartender had provided without them asking, and while David stared down at his own, at the bar, at his hands, at pretty much anywhere that Nate wasn’t, Nate just watched the other man quietly.

    Sometimes it was hard to open up, to talk about the things that were really bothering them. It was harder, he knew, when there were people around. But if this was where David felt safe, then Nate wasn’t going to question that. Patience, in the end, would be better for them both than it possibly could be if Nate pried before David was ready.

    “I shouldn’t have come here,” David whispered at last, and Nate could easily read the tension in the set of his shoulders as the other man said it. Whether it was from the environment, the situation, or that bone deep weariness that came when you knew you wanted to talk about it and couldn’t find the words, Nate didn’t know. Not that he didn’t have his suspicions as to which it was. “This is just foolish. I didn’t mean to…”

    “Hey,” Nate cut him off, reaching out to put a light hand on David’s back. “I don’t know what happened, and I don’t care. All I know is that you need someone here, whether you want to talk to them or not. And I’m offering.”

    At last David looked up at him, his eyes so pained, and his face looking so young under his clearly bleached hair, that it took all Nate had not to reach out and hug the man. There was no way he was going to violate personal space more than he already had. David needed his own pace. That was how you dealt with a pain so deep as David seemed to have.

    “Come on,” Nate said, his voice relatively soft as he stood. “You clearly don’t want to be in this bar tonight. So let me make sure you get home, how does that sound?”

    There was a softening of his expression, and that was a relief in and of itself. Soon the man was standing and they had made their way outside. In silence they made their way to David’s car, and when the other man gestured, Nate just got in with him. The only noise is the engine and the slow slide of the windshield wipers David turned on to combat the scattering of rain. But it’s a silence that said there was more to come, as soon as they had a chance. Clearly David needed the support that Nate was offering, and it was too late to take the offer back, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.

    Soon enough the two of them were settled onto a couch in an apartment that still had that pristine sort of look, and David was passing him a bottle of mediocre beer. Still the silence held, lingered there until they were halfway through their drinks. Still, the tension was there. But slowly it was melting away, replaced by the strength and confidence the bottle always seemed to give.

    “How…” David started, and the word trailed off into emptiness until there was silence once more. This one was lighter, filled with potential. Another half of the bottle and finally David spoke, really spoke. “When something happens and you just feel sick to your stomach and like you need to run…?”

    “How do you deal?” Nate asked. When the other man nodded, Nate just sighed and reached up to run his hand over his buzzed hair again. Finding the way to explain it had never been easy for him, and talking wasn’t really his thing either. But putting it into words was something he had to figure out how to do for David’s sake. “It’s not easy,” he admitted. “Some days you just feel like you’re too sensitive to it. What it is, what I’m told it is, is that sometimes the things going on around push the trauma back out of the lowest reaches of our mind. Pushes it to the fore of our subconscious so that it doesn’t matter how okay we are, it sneaks up on us. One wrong word, sound, smell even, opens it all up again.”

    “You’d think the wounds would scab over,” David muttered, his hand coming up to massage his shoulder.

    “Time,” Nate answered, looking back down to his bottle of beer. “Or so they tell me at the meetings. What you need to learn for yourself is what sorts of things might make it harder for you to handle things, and figure out if there is a good chance that, in a given situation or location, you’re more at risk. More likely to be hurt.”

    “What is it for you?” David asked, his voice a whisper.

    Again Nate looked up to look at David, and he found the man’s gaze distant, his fingers massaging a place on his shoulder. There was something about that, something that carried a weight that reinforced what Nate had seen earlier. The hesitance, the nerves, the way he shied away from Nate. It scared him so much, where his mind went with that information, and he wouldn’t let himself think too deeply on it. It wasn’t his place.

    “IED hit a convoy I was protecting,” Nate admitted after finishing his own beer. His fingers tingled with a hundred thousand pinpricks. When he left he’d have to call a cab, but that was a concern for later. “Loud noises get to me, like with a lot of soldiers. I’m not looking forward to the Fourth of July, truth be told.”

    It earned him a pitying look, but Nate just chuckled at it, shaking his head. “I’m dealing with it, I’m learning. That’s what the session is for. It’s also why I’m not exactly big on bars for the moment. Too much potential for sudden, loud noises. The cafe is better.”

    David chuckled right back. “Yeah, Connie does a damn good job at keeping things calm there. You’re always welcome there.”

    There was a finality of that statement that made Nate start to rise.

    “It’s getting late,” he pointed out, and David nodded to him. “I should…”

    “You’re welcome to crash on my couch.”

    Nate stared at the other man in shock from the statement. And then, he realized, it made sense for David to offer. Worked up as he might be, the other man might have nightmares, and even if you weren’t willing to talk about them, it was more comforting to have someone there. Just to know you weren’t alone. That you were safe. If he could offer that sort of security to the man’s rest, Nate would give it.

    “I can give you a lift to the cafe in the morning, and I assume you can get home from there.”

    Nate nodded, and soon enough there were pillows and a blanket in his arms. Silence once more dominated as David retreated to his room for the night and Nate stretched out on the surprisingly long enough couch. Slowly he emptied his pockets of wallet, phone, keys. Of course his eyes went to his phone, as silent now as it had been during the last time he had been waiting for Daniel’s call or text or whatever. STill nothing. Better not to get caught up in it, then. Determined not to think about it, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

    His dreams were filled with the scent of coffee and a soft smile and green eyes that radiated warmth and joy as he laughed. He dreamed of reaching across the table and laying his hand over the smaller one, and he hoped it wouldn’t upset the other man. Dreamed in shades of green and flowing language and a voice that was pure and simple.

    Waking was a pleasant thing. Slow and lazy and he felt so long wrapped up in the blanket. The apartment was pleasantly warm, the whole place smelling like coffee again. Coffee…

    Nate sat up suddenly, realizing what that had to mean. David had to be awake, which meant he needed to get moving. His eyes blinked repeatedly as he tried to get ahold of his surroundings, and what he found was a note on the table. A note with a key on top of it.

    Nate, I was going to wake you but 1) you looked comfy, and 2) after our talk last night I figured it might not be the best idea to share you awake. This is my spare key, so lock up and either slip the key under the mat or come to the cafe and drop it off. If the latter I’ll buy you a cup, and if you’re fast enough, you might catch Daniel. Either way, have a good day.

    With a chuckle Nate reached for his boots. No reason he shouldn’t go and try just that. Besides, seeing Daniel again would mean he could ask the question in person. He needed a yes. In the end he wouldn’t find the other man there. He’d been there too late and while he stayed for hours, the other man didn’t return. Just another thing, Nathaniel supposed, his cousin would tease him about later.