Chapter 2
A/N: Catching this story up to where it is on An Archive of Our Own. From now on, whenever i update it over there I'll simultaneously update it here. -DL
A couple of weeks later, Daniel was sitting once again in what he'd come to think of as his 'place', the third barstool from the end. He was covertly watching Aasif, who was busy with another customer not far away. The bartender had thawed somewhat toward him, since he was now a regular. And he always made sure to leave a big tip for Aasif, and to say a friendly word or two to him. Aasif was still standoffish, but since he was that way with everybody, Daniel wasn't put off by it.
He let his eyes rove over the almost-empty bar. The time of day that he liked to show up usually meant that place was sparsely populated. He got off of work at two, and was usually on his customary barstool by three-thirty or so. He hung around and generally nursed one drink for an hour or so, not wanting to drink enough that he had to take a cab home. It was actually a quiet, nice time in his day, hanging out here. Even if he wasn't so terribly curious about Aasif, he'd probably still come here every day.
There was only one other guy at the bar, and he was sipping at a beer. Daniel waited until Aasif pottered along behind the bar near him before he spoke up casually. "So, Aasif. How long have you worked here?"
The bartender blinked a little. Clearly he wasn't used to even casual questions being asked about his personal life. "Almost three years," he replied.
"Do you like it?"
A shrug. "I guess it's all right. I make good tips, and it's not the hardest job in the world. The drunks can be annoying, though."
"I'll bet," Daniel said sympathetically.
Aasif hesitated, then asked: "What do you do, Daniel?"
"I'm a security guard at an armored car delivery company. I just got the job a month ago. It could be worse - at least I'm not a bank guard," he said with a grimace.
Aasif actually laughed softly. Daniel was intrigued by that sound. He liked it. Maybe he could try and get the bartender to laugh again sometime soon. "I thought all bank guards were old, fat, retired cops anyway," he remarked.
"Most of them are. It's not a very taxing job." he hesitated, then asked quietly: "You've got an accent, Aasif. Can I ask where you're from originally?"
The bartender stiffened, his mouth thinning. He looked away. "I am from Iraq," he replied stiffly.
Daniel felt a surge of sympathy go through him. It couldn’t be easy admitting that; he was sure that Aasif had experienced some prejudice before this. "I see," was all he said aloud. "Was it because of the War? That you came to America, I mean?"
"Yes, my parents sent my sister me here six years ago not only because of the War, but because of rising sectarian violence. They wanted us to be safe."
"Good parents," Daniel said admiringly. "But why didn't they come with you?"
"They couldn't. They sent us to an aunt and uncle who were already living here. We stayed with them until we were eighteen and ready to go to college. But I decided not to go - I didn't know what I might want to study, and it seems a waste to go to college if you don't know what degree to get or what you want to do."
"That's good thinking." Daniel remarked, impressed. "I was the same way. I could go now..." he remarked, thinking of the G.I. Bill, "But it seems pointless when I don't really have anything I want to study. I like my job pretty well, and I've never had the urge to be a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant."
"My sister is in college, studying to be a biochemist," Aasif said.
"Wow! That's amazing!" Daniel exclaimed.
The bartender nodded. "I'm so proud of her. She's really smart. I help her out with money when I can, because I don’t want her to be drowning in student debt by the time she graduates. I figure she can pay me back over time when she's making a good salary."
Daniel gave him an approving look. "You're a good brother. You should always support your family when you can."
Aasif smiled slightly. "Are you a good son and brother as well, Daniel?" he asked softly.
A shrug. "I try to be. When I can. But I was out of the country for a few years, working..." he added, glossing over the fact that he'd been in the Army. After Aasif's reaction to his uniform, he didn't want to spook the bartender. "So I wasn't always able to be there for them if they needed me. But I can be now, of course, since I’ve moved back to the States."
Another customer appeared, and Aasif left him to attend to the new patron. Daniel sipped contemplatively at his drink, glad that he'd finally managed to exchange more than two words with Aasif. Maybe he could finally get the guy to open up a little.
His hour was finally up. Daniel looked at his watch, sighing a bit. He rose to his feet, leaving a tip on the bar for Aasif. To his surprise, the bartender spoke to him: "Goodbye, Daniel. I take it we'll see you again soon? Maybe tomorrow?"
"Not tomorrow. Well, you won't see me, anyway. Isn't it one of your days off?"
Aasif looked astonished. "Yes, it is," he said in bemusement. "How did you know that?"
Daniel smiled wryly. "I've been coming in here almost every day for three weeks. I couldn’t help but notice."
"Oh. I see. Then you'll be coming in Thursday, too?” he asked, mentioning his next day of work.
Daniel smiled slightly. "Yes, I will," he replied, not telling Aasif that he didn't actually intend to come into the bar on the bartender's days off, since he mostly came in here to observe Aasif himself.
"I'll see you then," Aasif remarked, and Daniel felt pleased. The bartender actually seemed to want to see him again. That was definite progress on his part.
"Yeah, I'll see you," he replied, and left the bar.
The next day, Daniel went to visit his family after he got off of work, rather than going to the bar. He spent some time at his mom's house, playing with his niece and nephew. His mother was babysitting them for his brother while he and his wife spent some time alone together away from their kids. They were overjoyed to get to play with their uncle, and they all romped away in the backyard, splashing in a wading pool that his mother had bought for the children to play in. They swarmed over their uncle, giggling, as he lifted them into the air to make them shriek with glee.
He was a bit sunburned and very mellow when he left his mother’s house. As he drove home, he found himself thinking idly about Aasif. He was realizing that his curiosity about the bartender had been joined by something else - attraction. Somewhere in this last three weeks of observing the man, he'd begun to find himself drawn to Aasif irresistibly. It wasn't just a sexual attraction, though that was definitely there. It was more than that. Something about the man’s soul seemed to call to his.
He grimaced at how sappy that thought sounded, even in his own head, but it was also true. Would he manage to find out why Aasif seemed so terrified of soldiers? And if he couldn’t, would he ever be able to get close to the man? Aasif, after all, didn’t even like to be touched. Clearly he had some problems, and if Daniel couldn’t find out what they were he didn’t stand a chance with Aasif. Especially if the bartender found out that he was a former soldier. Daniel understood why most men didn’t like to go to formal therapy sessions; they were taught that as a man that was a form of weakness. And they were MEN, by God! Mach, rough, tough men didn’t go to shrinks, they just bulled through their problems on their own! They sucked it up!
Which was just bullshit, of course. But he’d seen it over and over again in the Army. Soldiers thought they were big and bad, and that they could somehow just fix whatever was wrong with them on their own. And how many of them had ended up eating the barrel of their own guns because of this way of thinking? God, far too many of them. He’d lost enough former comrades to suicide to know that trying to tough something out on your own was a recipe for disaster. It didn’t make you weak to ask for help; it simply made you smart.
But maybe Aasif was afraid to ask for help, or maybe there were other extenuating circumstances. And if he could discover what was wrong, what had happened to him…well, maybe Daniel could talk him into getting the help he needed. Or if not, maybe just having a sympathetic, non-judgmental ear to listen while he talked would be all that the bartender needed. He wouldn’t know until(or if) he managed to find out what had traumatized Aasif. He’d wait and see, and continue to observe the bartender closely in the meantime.
On Thursday, he was sitting on his regular barstool drinking a beer. Aasif had actually smiled a little when he’d come in, which heartened Daniel. The bartender finished mixing a drink for another customer, then wandered down to where he was sitting. “How was your days off, Aasif?” Daniel asked him casually.
The bartender grimaced. “Boring,” he replied succinctly. “I didn’t do much. Just cleaned my apartment.”
“That’s too bad. I went to see my mom and got to play with my niece and nephew.”
“That sounds nice. I’m hoping that my sister will decide to have kids. I’d like to be an uncle,” Aasif said wistfully.
“It’s the best. Those kids rock.”
“Have you ever thought of having any of your own?” Aasif asked him curiously.
He shrugged. “Not really,” he said. He didn’t add that since his job had been so damn dangerous, he hadn’t even contemplated adopting a kid any more than he had considered finding a life partner. Even the thought of leaving some poor kid semi-fatherless, or even just leaving both his partner and child alone for months and even years at a stretch, was not a pleasant one. “Though now that I’m Stateside, I might think about it more seriously,” he added. “But if it doesn’t work out, I’m still an uncle.”
“Indeed, that is true,” Aasif agreed in his musical, accented voice. Daniel loved the way he put sentences together sometimes; it was so exotic. He could have listened to Aasif talk all day long.
But, alas, the bartender got called away just then. He lifted his hand in a little wave before he went to attend to another customer, and Daniel watched him go with a silent sigh. This slow, patient stalk was difficult, even for a seasoned soldier like him. All he wanted to do was sweep Aasif off of his feet, to take his heart by storm. But he couldn’t even touch the man’s hand, let alone do any sweeping. Aasif still wasn’t letting their fingers touch when he handed Daniel his drinks. Would he ever relax enough to allow even that small a touch? He could only hope.
Aasif expertly poured vodka into a glass and added orange juice. He handed the resulting screwdriver to his customer, being careful to make sure that his fingers didn’t brush the other man’s. As he worked, he sometimes glanced at the blonde man sitting further down the bar, nursing a beer and occasionally eating some peanuts out of the bowl near his elbow. The bartender frowned a little at himself. What was his fascination with Daniel Radney? Sure, the man had become a regular customer in the last month or so, but so what? Why, whenever the man walked into the club, did his heart skip a beat and his breathing quicken? What was it about this man, out of all of the attractive and/or sexy men who came into the club every day, that drew Aasif to him so strongly?
He found himself often in a sort of tizzy lately. The mixture of attraction and fear that he felt every time he so much as looked at Daniel Radney was making him a little crazy. On the one hand, he rejoiced that he’d found someone who made him feel this strongly, but on the other…on the other, the terror that he experienced whenever he got close to another man(especially a white man, like Daniel) was still present. He still couldn’t bring himself to touch Daniel, not even the slightest little bit. He was desperately frustrated by this fact. He was SO sick of living in fear! He wanted to be free of it, to be a regular guy who could kiss and touch another guy, who could be held and made love to without losing it and going mad with fear. He wanted that so very badly - and he seemed perfectly incapable of ever having it.
Misery engulfed him at this thought, and his shoulders slumped. Despair filled him. He had to blink rapidly to dispel the tears that had gathered in his eyes. What heinous thing had he ever done to deserve this? Nothing that he could think of. God must, indeed, be an extremely vindictive entity to visit such an endless purgatory on one of his followers, especially when that follower had been a mere child when the nightmare that he could never escape from had begun…
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