It had been years. It had been years, and now it happened again for the second time in six weeks: the whisper-shiver along his wrists. His hands shook.

Nathan made another pass at the light-thin end of the threadbare stitching. Again, a tremor, and his grasp on the forceps faltered. His palms were slick. He scooted his chair closer to the bed and braced his elbow firmly on the mattress. Leaning low over Ezra's naked back, he fixed his gaze on the elusive thread that wove neatly over and under the newly healed skin.

Licking his lips, he tried again to snag the stitch's end. He narrowed his eyes...a tug, and the skin of Ezra's lower back gave an unnatural little jump. Relief flooded him, and - though his grip was far from steady - the tenuous hold proved true.

He pressed his left hand against Ezra's skin firmly, but with a flex of his fingers that he never intended. He frowned; swallowed hard as Ezra's gently arching back hit his gaze like a belt of strong liquor to his gut. His hands shook again.

It had been - was it eleven? - years ago when he'd stitched up his first man: a deep, jagged, mess of a musket wound that had twitched with a viscerally ugly life of its own. And Nathan's hands had been like stone. It had been a wonderfully eerie calm that had overtaken him that day, blocking out the gunfire and the screaming; everything but the watered blood staining his skin as he'd carefully tried to clean the brittle horsehair. When he'd discovered how very easily a needle slid through flesh.

And years of blood and healing had passed. His hands had learned their carefully traced paths of battered medical texts and pure improvisation steadily. They'd had their uncertainty of course: when he'd first lost a patient in a coughing, seizing hemorrhage; the first time he'd tended Josiah, more in shock at the vivid tear in so stolid a character than in doubt of his own skill.

But today the base tremors wouldn't cease; the same unsteady rush of adrenaline through his veins that had plagued him that afternoon six weeks past when Ezra had laid himself out like that, all pale and bloody and trembling in time with Nathan's own hands. He watched now, and let his right hand pull gently while Ezra's back rose in inhalation. Their skin met and Ezra stiffened, maybe from the pain.

Nathan neatly cut off any complaint of his bedside manner. "You just sing out if this is hurting you."

Ezra stilled and gave the slightest sigh of resignation. "It's becoming evident in my unfortunately broadening experience that these things are more painful in their removal, than in their administration." His tone sounded as wryly detached as he could manage in his prone position.

"Yeah well, you did a good thing busting up that fight. Saved Inez a whole lot of hassle." Nathan's voice was steady and he let his motions slip into the simple rhythm of Ezra's breathing.

Fraction by fraction, he eased forth the stitching, watching the contrary contractions of Ezra's muscles. He could feel the smooth movement of thread under his fingertips, under Ezra's skin.

He felt the snag only a moment before Ezra's sharp hiss, before those hips bucked from the mattress like a puppet on tautened strings.

"Sorry," Nathan murmured, a little startled to realize that his hands were at Ezra's waist.

"Perfectly all right," Ezra returned, his muscles relaxing under Nathan's touch.

A disorienting feeling of familiarity overwhelmed him in a hot blush as he repeated what had set his hands shaking when he'd sewed up the deep poniard slash two months back. "I'm uh...I'm going to have to unhitch your pants now, Ezra."

All too familiar, the rolling flex that hurried over Ezra's bare shoulders, a disturbing wave of a chilled shiver. A muted, "very well," was the only response he received as Ezra raised his hips, fumbling unseen with trousers and drawers until they lay slack about his waist.

Nathan laid aside his forceps, carefully easing down the trousers just to the end of the stitching for what remained of modesty's sake. The cut twisted here at an angle toward the hip, mercifully shallow across the underlying muscle, yet deep enough to provide for awkward threadwork. He returned to his task, trying very hard to ignore the disturbing way the half-clothed skin called to his attention. The tapered angle of waist to hip...the softly rounding line of tailbone to the lowered waistband...

"I trust this still falls within doctor/patient confidentiality," Ezra cut in, his voice tinged with a chuckle.

Nathan had to smile. "Well, you know, I ain't really no doctor, Ezra."

His grin widened fondly as Ezra tiredly burrowed his face against the pillow. "And I am far from patient, Mr. Jackson."

Ain't that the truth. The thought crept onto Nathan's tongue, but wasn't given voice. He pursed his lips to keep from laughing, conceding defeat. "Well, any man who can joke with his pants down deserves to keep his scars to himself," he relented.

"Scar!" Ezra's head twisted around comically as he tried to get a glimpse of his own backside.

"Should fade soon, don't you worry none," Nathan reassured him, examining the anatomy in question with an expression of bemusement.

"Hmph."

A final tug, and the stitching was removed with a strangely satisfying sigh from Ezra. Before he knew what he was doing, Nathan's hand was at the other man's side, a briefly stoked connection in the dying heat. Ezra's hip felt inexplicably interesting under Nathan's tentative and impromptu exploration, like a simple, sliding puzzle box of interlocking bone and muscle. The room seemed suddenly to have gone very still.

Like freshly warmed cream, the skin shadowed between Nathan's splayed fingers, and shut oh-so-tightly were Ezra's eyes. A fearful silence was struck as Nathan softly trailed his thumb upward along the healing knife wound, amazed as always by the neatly knitted pink tissue. Another shiver skittered beneath his palm, warm despite its chilled implications, and little goose-heads sprang up under his touch. The wordless tension stretched between them, stretched - to snap jarringly as Ezra exhaled a soft, breathy sound. The noise startled Nathan from his vague wonder, and hastily he covered his touch with an awkward pat to Ezra's waist.

"There now, all done."

He turned his back to drop the forceps in the washbasin and set to scrubbing his hands, playing "Red River Valley" over in his head to block the rustling of Ezra refastening his slacks. Drying his hands briskly, Nathan searched his mind for something to say.

"Heard you helped Vin and Josiah fix up the saloon. Thought you weren't kin to honest labour."

He winced at the harshness of his own words, wishing he could pull them as soon as he heard their tone. He turned to gauge Ezra's reaction to find the man in the process of tucking in his shirttails, his back to Nathan.

The reply, when it came, was surprisingly mild: "I have nothing but the outmost respect for Ms. Recillos. Besides, I think of my efforts as an investment."

"Oh?" was Nathan's eloquent parry.

"Certainly. The Standish Saloon will be mine again, once I've the proper finances..." Then, darkly, "...without the need for investors."

A flash of annoyance shot through Nathan at this slight, but he had to concede the point. This led to hot guilt sinking in his stomach; his mind balked and his tongue tied at the thought of apologizing. Ezra's eyes remained downcast, seemingly engrossed with the ever-difficult task of buttoning his shirt.

"I...I'm right sorry about not sticking with you. Your Ma can be a charming woman. No excuse, I know..." Nathan spread his hands helplessly, itching at the hated feeling of vulnerability as the words hung uncertainly between them.

Ezra smiled a distant smile. "No apologies necessary, Mr. Jackson. I am well aware of my mother's charms, and I...had no expectations." The words were made of the usual light southern breeze, yet they stirred within Nathan an uneasy ache.

"Still wasn't right," he continued more firmly. "Ain't right to turn blind to a man's dream...especially not a friend's," he finished a touch lamely.

Another smile played about Ezra's lips, but a true one this time - a smile that would have been called shy on the face of any other.

"Not a dream. More like a passing fancy. But...my thanks all the same." Ezra's voice was strained, but sincere.

Silence resumed its reign, more bashful than tense this time and Nathan settled back, watching Ezra recover his waistcoat and tie. He smiled softly: those damned suspenders, clasped now with two efficient snaps. Ezra moved around the bed to retrieve his jacket, and an itching sense of restlessness overtook the healer. A straight razor's edge was scraping against the increasingly comfortable quiet in the clinic, and though he wasn't sure why, Nathan didn't want Ezra to leave.

"Ezra..." he began, wishing he didn't look as if he'd been watching Ezra dress.

Ezra had stilled, his hand resting on his hat where it lay on the table, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Nathan stared dumbly for a moment, his gaze held frozen by the memory of Ezra's sigh. The pause stretched a moment too long, and Nathan only made it worse by hurriedly trying to force his voice into some semblance of casual.

"What did you want to do, 'fore the saloon? Or did you always figure on making your living gambling?"

Ezra set on his hat and took a step toward the door.

"I've found that one who intends to make their living solely on gambling, stands a very good chance of leading a very short life."

Nathan watched as Ezra's right hand moved upward to his hat brim then paused. A tilt of his head; his eyes searched Nathan's for God and Ezra only knew what, and then -

"I was going to be a lawyer."

"A lawyer," Nathan parroted before he could discard the stupefied look from his face.

Ezra took another step toward the door, an unfathomable expression pulling tightly at his features, and Nathan quickly moved to the bedside chair, leaning forward, elbows on knees.

"A lawyer. That a fact?" He smiled earnestly, feeling fairly like he was sweet-talking a spooked horse.

Ridiculous or not, it seemed to work. Ezra's posture slipped down toward the casual side of formality. Nathan made a slight motion toward the bed, and though Ezra declined the seat, the step he took forward made Nathan's smile just that much wider.

"That is a fact, Mr. Jackson..." Ezra said quietly, his gaze lowered as if he were looking at Nathan's hands, his brows drawn together in an almost puzzled frown that was at odds with his vague smile.

Ezra grinned suddenly, a disarming flash of gold as he shook his head. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt, a nervous little gesture that made Nathan's chest tighten.

"A lawyer," Nathan repeated. "Yeah, I can see that. You got that silver tongue, like Josiah. Bet you would have been real slick in the courtroom."

The words rested unpleasantly on his tongue, echoing in his mind. He hadn't been in the courthouse since the trial, his father's trial. A ghostly feeling tugged at his heart and he forced himself to focus on the words coming from Ezra's mouth.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Jackson, I never did get the opportunity to set forth in jurisprudence as advocate rather than defendant."

Sincerely, Nathan tried to keep the irritation from off his face. He was never quite certain when Ezra's dictionary words made the shift from a comfort blanket to a warning, and no good ever came of pushing the southerner. Ezra always seemed to end up disappointing him, though he had to admit, Ezra proving himself a decent human being usually did the worst of it.

Still, Nathan liked the way that Ezra was looking at him; not in amusement, nor in contempt, and not with that guarded granite cast to his eyes that Nathan had seen on a hundred other faces of his youth. Ezra's expression was, if not open, then at least relaxed, set in the softened visage he wore when he drunkenly joked with Buck, or sat talking quietly into the night with Josiah. There was a certain vulnerability to the tilted corners of Ezra's mouth, the introspection in his eyes; it hit Nathan with the realization that Ezra would take to heart anything that was said. Just a word from Nathan could make him smile a genuine smile, or could cut him viciously deep inside the places that could never be healed. It came with a heady sensation, that power.

"So what happened?"

Ezra looked startled. He blinked rapidly as if he'd been staring into the sun, rather than at Nathan's clasped hands.

"So's that you gave up lawyering," Nathan clarified.

Ezra smiled a quick smile. "I'll let you guess, Mr. Jackson. Think of a 'Frisco earthquake with considerable Southern charm."

"Maude?"

"Maude."

Typical, Ezra blaming a failure on anyone but himself. Though to be fair, Nathan knew next to nothing about lawyer schooling.

"But you went to law school?" He knew the story was coming, but he was willing to play into the setup Ezra required before a regaling tale.

"Indeed, even with the hodgepodge of admittedly informal education I received throughout my upbringing, I managed to...secure for myself entrance at William and Mary."

Nathan considered questioning the brief pause, but decided that he would most likely be happier in his ignorance. Ezra apparently misinterpreted this silence, as he quickly clarified:

"The college of William and Mary is a highly respected law school in Williamsburg, Virginia."

Nathan turned the explanation over in his mind, inspecting it for any trace of condescension, but either Nathan was getting rusty, or Ezra didn't mean any harm by it. Nodding, he waited for Ezra to continue, but the man had that far-away look to him, like his past had taken hold of him by the throat and he was bleeding out.

"So, I'm guessing Maude thought the same of law student as she done lawman for you."

Ezra untucked his thumbs from his waistband, and set to turning his hat over in his hands, bending the brim.

"Mother saw the advantages my position could afford, though she..." He pulled a face as though he tasted food that had long since turned, "...begrudged the years that I'd be out of the game."

"So what happened?" Nathan couldn't help it - his curiousity had been roused. He did the figures in his head, rough considering he only had a general idea on how old Ezra was. Assuming Ezra was a few years older than him, then he'd have been starting out his college education when Nathan, still looking over his shoulder, had signed on as a Union stretcher-bearer. He honestly didn't know whether it was a comfort to know that Ezra might have, from the sounds of it, most likely received a student's dispensation from service to the south.

"Well, I was enrolled the September of my seventeenth year. I did well in my studies, taken under the wing of my Latin teacher, a Professor Sanford...Lawrence Sanford..."

A tight smile; a flash of an almost tangible shadow crossed Ezra's face as the name slipped too easily from his tongue.

"And by November of that first year," Ezra continued, "My mother sent word that she had a job in Tennessee. A rather wealthy arts dealer who had a weakness for...who wanted a young...heir."

Nathan wasn't sure exactly where this story was headed, but Ezra's voice was a touch too measured. Too controlled, as if he were reciting the bloody particulars of a lost battle.

"I took a two-week leave. The professor promised there wouldn't be a problem. And there wasn't...until the next February when Maude sent another letter, with another job..."

Ezra wasn't even looking at him anymore; he was facing the window, though Nathan doubted he was actually seeing whatever his gaze was fixed on. A lengthening shadow cut a striking division along the line of Ezra's jaw, and Nathan found himself watching intently while he listened, his eyes following the shadow's greyscale slice.

"That time, I spent the next month making up assignments. I had Professor Sanford pleading my case to the faculty..."

"But the next time...?" Nathan didn't know a whole lot about Universities, but knowing this tale's ending, he could guess what had happened.

"The next time," Ezra continued, his voice holding a strained note of long-grudged quotation, "I was advised that perhaps I should reconsider my academic pursuit until my family problems were resolved."

With that, Ezra shrugged, a jerky, almost violent gesture. He turned back toward Nathan, and as his face passed from shadow to lamplight, an eerie myriad of emotions drained from his features.

Then with a painfully easy grin, Ezra made a sweeping gesture, hat in hand. "And that, Mr. Jackson, is why I am a woefully underpaid lawman in our fair municipality in lieu of making a tidy sum as an Atlanta advocate."

And Nathan didn't know why he did what he did then. It was as if the battle of wills between them, so long at a standstill, had reached some unspoken stage of finality. Ezra had let his guard down. With those few honest words, he had left his belly exposed, and all Nathan had to do was strike one true blow.

"You can't even take some pride in putting an end to some suffering, 'stead of making a dollar off of it?" He could hear the disgust in his own voice, and he watched Ezra so closely to see that almost imperceptible flinch. First blood had been drawn.

Ezra took his time with the response that Nathan knew so well; he settled his hat and buttoned his jacket. There was no expansive length of verbosity as he took a step toward the door. Instead, his eyes flickered over Nathan dismissively with as much attention as one would give a piece of furniture. Or a familiar slave.

"Thank you for your assistance, and the enlightening conversation, Mr. Jackson." Ezra put just enough emphasis on the formal title, an almost patronizing edge. "If you have further need of me, I'll be in the saloon."

Ezra didn't slam the door.

Nathan let his head drop forward into his hands and nodded at the twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach and the quickening of his pulse.

Lordy, wasn't it like holding the whip, to sting Ezra with words.

With a sigh, he stood and set to carefully putting away his instruments. His hands shook with the sickness of it, because try as he might, he couldn't decide which was more sweetly satisfying: healing Ezra's wounds, or making him bleed.

Of course, Nathan had promised Josiah he'd stop by the saloon that evening. He'd heard enough soft insinuations that he'd been spending too many hours holed up in his clinic, and he would rather not have a follow-through on the vague and possibly embarrassing threats to which his oldest friend had alluded. And of course, Ezra just had to have been there sitting with Josiah and Vin; no small amount of liquor in his system if his flushed cheeks and tired eyes were any indication.

All three heads turned at Nathan's arrival, not surprising, considering his footsteps fairly echoed in the near-empty saloon. It was midweek; with the bar devoid of the local ranch hands that came in to eagerly drink away Friday's pay, only a few dedicated stewhounds and lawmen remained. Nathan could hardly turn on his heel and leave, even when Ezra fixed him with a winter-cold gaze. Instead, he pulled up a chair beside Josiah, as far from Ezra as he could, and tried to feign ignorance to Josiah's questioning gaze.

Vin gave Nathan an acknowledging nod before returning his attention to Ezra to finish whatever Nathan's arrival had interrupted.

"So like I was saying, Ez - the dust was so damn thick you couldn't tell a calf from a cowboy..." Vin snorted, trying to fight the grin that had already split across Josiah's face and was beginning to work on Ezra.

"...So the branding and ear marking was going fast as a jackrabbit so they'd get done for that dance. And after they finished, and the dust started to settle down a little, this guy Dawson lifted his hand...to...to...scratch his ear..." Vin took a breath, chuckling.

"...Only to find he didn't have one?" Ezra finished dryly, his wide smile and foggy eyes making it clear that he was feeling very little pain.

A hard feeling loosed itself in Nathan's chest, like a knife unsheathed from leather. As he watched, a treacherously soft expression crossed the preacher's face. Josiah's sights were fixed on Ezra who, hand running restlessly through his hair, was looking as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. Then, the blade inside of Nathan turned, to scrape along his heart as he saw the spark in Josiah's eyes.

Vin had fallen silent; Ezra reached for the whiskey to fill the quiet, and Josiah gently pried the bottle away from him. Nathan honestly didn't know who he was angry at - Josiah, Ezra, or himself - as icy-hot jealousy coursed through him at the sight of Josiah's fingers brushing ever so briefly against Ezra's. Nathan swallowed hard, feeling shame, familiar and hated, stabbing at his stomach.

He couldn't really hold anything against Josiah, who'd given him a man's respect since the day they'd met, and who couldn't be begrudged for inexplicable actions that even Nathan found himself fighting against. And Ezra, well...there was no way Ezra could miss the way Josiah looked at him, like he was picturing him stripped naked and laid out on the table - and where the hell did that come from? - and it took real decency and kindness to Josiah to never say a word about it. So that left Nathan himself to blame for this burning anger inside, and he had sworn to himself a long time ago that he'd never hate himself again for anything he had to do.

His inner frustration must have shown on his face, because all of a sudden, Josiah pulled his hand back and Ezra's mouth was set in a grim line. Nathan hurriedly schooled his features into as emotionless an expression as Ezra's, but it was too late - he could feel Josiah and Vin both staring wordlessly at him. Any of the others would have asked what the hell was wrong with him by now, but true to the natures of these three, not a word was said.

Nathan shook his head at the unasked questions and tried to think of some excuse for his friends, for himself. His hand fidgeted with his glass, toying along the rim until he forced himself to stillness.

The silence spread across the table, a new awkwardness for which Nathan was trying to deny responsibility. Both he and Ezra stared into their glasses, chancing uncomfortable glances over bitter whiskey-sips while Vin and Josiah watched them with eyes too curious and too knowledgeable all at once.

Another sip of the warmly numbing liquor, and Nathan caught Ezra's gaze once again, and managed to hold it. He didn't know that eyes so green could be so cold. If Ezra had looked petulant or angry, then maybe Nathan would have been able to hold on to his own exasperation, but Ezra's face retained its stony cast. He had gone too far, he knew, and all he had was a guilty wish that he, rather than Josiah or Vin, could be the one to draw Ezra back out of his armor.

Nathan wanted to believe that he had been just about to offer an apology when Ezra stood up with surprising steadiness and said, "Gentleman, not that this conversation isn't scintillating, but I do believe I'll retire for the night."

Ezra shook off Vin's protest that it was barely nine o'clock, and carefully retrieved his hat from the table; tipped it as he turned, and excused himself to Inez before making his way to his room.

Nathan's gaze followed Ezra's carefully measured steps, the steady brush of his russet topcoat against his trousers; out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Josiah doing the same. His head swiveled sharply when Josiah moved to retrieve his own hat and jacket off an empty chair.

"You headed off early too, Josiah?" Nathan asked, half guilty that his own clouded mood had driven off his friends, half hoping that he'd have an excuse to return to his clinic to let this all die down for morning.

Josiah gave him a long look, cocking his head to the side. "Thought I'd go keep Ezra company." He flashed a fierce grin.

Perhaps Vin knew the reason behind Josiah's liquor-fuelled courage, or perhaps his own solitary nature empathized with Ezra's. Either way, he fixed Josiah with a steady stare. "Think the man wants to be alone with his thoughts." He paused, considering. "Or at least with the ones he ain't drinking away."

"I don't think Ezra's are the sort of thoughts a man should be left alone with," Josiah replied as he settled his jacket over his arm.

He afforded Nathan a glance too brief for him to decipher, and got to his feet. Nathan felt only a slow resignation as he watched Josiah straighten his tie and waistcoat; bone-deep tiredness as Josiah followed in Ezra's exit.

Nathan and Vin sat in silence for a disquieting series of moments broken only by the clink of glass and bottle. Too much time passed for Ezra to have barred Josiah from his room. So they were talking, he told himself. That didn't mean that they were doing anything more than talking. In fact, Josiah talking to Ezra was a fine thing, Nathan assured himself. Josiah talking to Ezra had most likely stopped Ezra and Nathan having it out with each other long ago.

He realized with a start that Vin was staring at him with a measuring eye.

"I didn't say much of anything to him," Nathan said in his own defense.

Vin nodded, grinned a lopsided grin. "You ain't said much of anything to anyone tonight."

"No, I mean I didn't say much to Ezra, earlier. Just one stupid bit of nothing. Not enough for him to get upset about," he clarified.

Vin stared for a moment, puzzled, as if Nathan were a million miles away from the point. "I didn't think you did."

"It's not like I was way out of line. Ezra's always making his snide little comments, and I never take it to heart..." He thought on that one for a second. "Alright, maybe I was a little out of line, but still...you just never know what's going to bother Ezra..." He wasn't quite sure whether he was trying to convince Vin, or himself.

"Ezra doesn't let much get to him," Vin agreed.

"Exactly! I mean, he gets accused of cheating any given night at the poker table, he shrugs it off... Sure he was acting all hurt last month that no one trusted him with that money we found, but what did he go and do? Tried to make off with the cash anyway. So it's not like one little jibe at his..." he searched for the word, "...integrity is going to break him up."

"Yeah, it's not like he even held a grudge that no one said anything 'bout my taking Lucas's rifle. He gets over these things pretty quick," Vin pointed out.

"Or he makes like he does." Nathan had little clue where the words came from, or why he was suddenly feeling protective of Ezra.

"Still," Nathan continued, "If Ezra would just think of other people before himself, he wouldn't have to get over anything."

Vin shrugged. "If it does you any better, Ezra only walks off a slight from someone he doesn't got any respect for."

It took a moment for the words to register in Nathan's mind, and even then they sounded like foreign gibberish. He supposed he had to know that Ezra respected him, to look him in the eye, break bread with him, and watch his back. In his mind he knew this and refused to be feel any kind of gratitude for it, but his conscience recoiled at Vin's easy insinuations. And a shameful whisper in his ear asked him whether he ever told Ezra that he afforded him the same regard.

He fumbled briefly for words. "I should have gone up, instead of Josiah."

Nathan wasn't sure exactly how he meant that, but he frowned when Vin firmly shook his head. "I think Ez's more used to letting out his hurt when he's got the drink in him."

Vin's mouth was set grimly, but Nathan didn't question the story he sensed behind his words.

"Maybe that'd be for the best," Nathan said, downing the remainder of his glass for bravery, to steady his hands.

He'd gotten to the bottom of the stairs when he realized that he had no idea what his intentions were. By the tenth and eleventh, he was wondering what he was going to walk in on. By halfway up the staircase, his mind had conjured up a half-dozen unpleasant possibilities. On the landing he had a vague idea that Josiah was going to end up hitting him, and by the time he raised his fist to knock on the door, he was back to wondering just what the hell his intentions were. This final thought stuck most firmly in his mind while he waited for a response, as he was fairly certain either Ezra or Josiah would be questioning him in that vein in the very near future.

A muffled thump sounded from the other side of the door while Nathan shifted impatiently. He resisted the urge to press his ear to the wood when he heard a low mumbling, and was rewarded when the voices cleared:

"No, that's alright, I'm sure we'd fuel the talk of the town if you were to answer my door at this hour."

Nathan couldn't make out Josiah's response, but Ezra laughed a short, harsh laugh in response.

The door opened, first an inch through which Nathan could see a bare sliver of Ezra's face, then fully to reveal the room and both occupants. Nathan stared, then quickly realized that they were expecting him to say something. He removed his hat, feeling absurdly like he was calling on Rain down at the Seminole village... 'Oh God, Rain'

"Might I talk to you for a minute, Ezra?" he asked in a manner he hoped was concillatory.

Ezra's eyes darted to a Josiah for a bare second before he stepped back from the threshold, motioning Nathan inside his lamp-lit room. Nathan stepped into the flickering warmth and tightly bound tension.

"I think I'll be going," Josiah said softly, inclining his head to Ezra.

Nathan turned his attention from its uncomfortable absorption of his surroundings to his friend, noticing for the first time his companions' slightly...rumpled state. Josiah's tie, fastidiously straightened in the saloon, was hanging unknotted about his neck; his waistcoat looked as if it had been hastily buttoned, improperly at that, and his shirt was untucked on one side. Ezra looked slightly less conspicuous, though only if one didn't know his usually impeccable habits of habiliment. His shirt was untucked all around, hanging low enough that only a glimpse of his unfastened suspenders could be caught.

"There's no need to, Josiah," Ezra protested, surprising Nathan with both his desperate-sounding haste and his use of their friend's Christian name.

The two shared a look that reminded Nathan of the first medical book he'd read: he was sure that quite a bit of importance was being said, but he hadn't the faintest idea how to interpret any of it. He stood awkwardly, feeling like an eavesdropper.

"I won't tell him," Josiah said, "But you might as well. You deserve to."

Nathan put aside the hated and all too familiar feeling of being discussed as if he weren't there, as he tried to put Josiah's words into some sort of context. He failed, and an unpleasant voice of suspicion gained strength within him when he realized that Josiah was moving to the other side of Ezra's extravagant bed where his boots lay some distance from each other, as if kicked off before...

A sudden warm touch startled him out of his strangely possessive thoughts. Josiah was next to him, his hand on Nathan's shoulder. Nathan realized he was blocking the doorway and stepped aside, but Josiah held the contact an instant longer.

Josiah gave him a short nod before turning his attention back to Ezra. "I'll be around in the morning," he intoned with great solemnity for the casual words. Then he smiled. "I suppose we'll both have sobered up by then."

Ezra returned the smile, and then made the sign of the cross with an elaborate flourish toward the brandy bottle on the dresser. "And we'll have returned to listening to the spirits of the ecclesiastical kind."

Josiah nodded; turned; closed the door gently behind him. Nathan found himself listening for Josiah's footsteps echoing on the staircase, eventually fading. Then silence, as he moved his gaze past Ezra's questionably swollen lower lip to his abruptly expressionless eyes.

"We should talk," Nathan said quietly. There. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Ezra was silent a moment as he set himself to the task of picking up discarded clothing from the floor, damning enough evidence in Nathan's mind. Ezra hung his waistcoatt and jacket up in his wardrobe; he twisted his cravat around his hands as he finally replied.

"Really?" His tone was far too innocent to be genuine. "Regarding what, Mr. Jackson, that it couldn't wait until morning?"

Nathan just managed to bite back the accusation that Ezra didn't seem to have a problem with Josiah's company during the late hour; felt some confusion on just why he felt jealous. Because it was jealousy - not the envy he'd lived with all of his life, tempered by pride - but the senseless ache of covetousness, like when Rain had told him that a husband had been chosen for her.

Still holding his tongue, Nathan made his way over to the bed with its noticeably tangled quilt and sheets, and sat himself down. It looked as if he weren't the only one restraining himself; Ezra seemed to be keeping some dark comment to himself, his hands only winding the cravat tighter and tighter around themselves.

"I thought maybe we couldn't try and set things right between us, Ezra," Nathan began, "and there's no time like the present."

His unintended emulation of Josiah's sage tones registered on Ezra's face as the stony cast of a gravestone.

"If I've offended you, Mr. Jackson, then I do apologize. So unless you're seeking some sort of alternate restitution..." Ezra's voice trailed off in a cadence of insouciant tones.

Nathan took a calming breath before chancing a response. He tried to ignore the smell of thick sweat and whiskey that hung about the sheets. "I meant me. I mean...I meant - I'm trying to apologize to you, damnit!"

An argument might be put forth that shouting at Ezra may not have been the best way to approach this discussion. Then again, if he didn't force his hand, Ezra could be sidestepping his words all night, and the last thing Nathan needed was a sleepless night of imagined conversation with another morning of tired-eyed sniping.

And besides, the startled expression that crossed Ezra's face was truly priceless.

Ezra was staring at him now, an eyebrow arched. His mouth opened slightly, only to close again silently. His wrists flexed as he turned over the twisted fabric in his hands.

"I...see," was Ezra's eventual response, in a tone of voice that belied his words.

"No. You don't. I meant it that I want things to be right with us. I... I sure didn't mean to - " He cut himself off before deigning to claim he'd hurt Ezra's feelings. " - to pass judgment on you. I didn't have no right and I didn't mean it, and I'm right sorry."

He realized his gaze had dropped toward his hands, and he raised his eyes to Ezra's, watching as a weary expression tolled a painful weight on those fine features. Knotting his tie around his fists, Ezra suddenly looked far more tired and drunk than warily guarded. An impulse, quickly curbed, urged against Nathan's sensibilities: to smooth back Ezra's hair and tuck him into bed.

Ezra squeezed his eyes shut tightly, squinting as if he had a headache. Had his hands not been bound and wound with smooth black cloth, he probably would have rubbed his temples. Nathan could picture that gesture so clearly, and tried to discern what that said about him.

"That is...perfectly all right, Mr. Jackson. Your apology is more than accepted as I'm sure I brought the brunt of it down on myself."

Drunken emphasis or sarcasm, Nathan wasn't sure what put the sharpened accent on Ezra's words. Either way, he came to the swift conclusion that as per usual, this conversation was veering off into dangerous and barren territory. But he could do this; he could be the bigger man, and in the end, he'd be the better man for it.

"Naw, I mean it, Ezra. You and me may be like night and day, but that don't mean we respect each other any less for it. I just ain't been in the best of minds lately and I took it out on you." And amazingly, when Nathan spoke the words, he realized them to be true.

"Your father," Ezra said quietly, bereft of any query.

Nathan nodded, then realized that Ezra's back was half turned to him. "I reckon. It's been scarce two months since he passed, and after..."

"The trial."

"Y'know, if you hadn't been busy with Maude, I sure would've welcomed your help. Not that Josiah didn't do the best he could, given the circumstances," he hurried to add.

"No, you wouldn't have." Ezra's voice was as flat as the prairie.

Past the curve of Ezra's arm, Nathan caught a glimpse of a sudden, violent motion. Barely restrained frustration as Ezra tugged tighter his bound hands.

A denial hastened to Nathan's lips, just as the words and anger and deep-down hurt from that day came flooding back to him. He steadied his hands by twisting them around the tousled sheets in an unconscious mimicry; he found he couldn't lie.

"No, I wouldn't have. But that don't mean I was right. I'm sure you would have done a real fine job defending...my father. You would have tried your best."

There was a pause. Ezra turned and, whether a shadow-shifting trick of the flickering lamplight, or the whiskey in his blood, he appeared to stumble forward. A small smile crept over his face, stopping short of his eyes.

"You really think so little of me." It wasn't a question, more a quiet revelation, almost incredulous.

"No, but sometimes you really do give me reason to wonder, Ezra. You can't say you don't."

"No...I suppose I can't." Ezra glanced toward the mirror, then back to Nathan. He sounded so tired that Nathan felt it in his own body.

"Look," Nathan said as gently as he could, "we're all trying to change, the seven of us. And maybe you've had a little further to come than some of us. Takes time, I know, and it'll probably take a lot more time, and we see it, but sometimes you make it too easy to forget." The words tangled up between his tongue and ears, and he swore not for the first time that if he had Ezra's magic with words, he'd use them for more good than pushing someone away from sensitive subjects.

Miscommunication nonetheless, Ezra's response was a cruel cut of sharp and brittle and sharp words. "Oh, I do apologize, Mr. Jackson. Whatever could I have been thinking? I didn't realize that I wasn't progressing quickly enough to meet your divine standards." His voice was a sadistic mockery of contrition. "It is, after all, only your generous magnanimity that has stopped me from regressing into an inbred Reb who thinks the only good coloured folk are dead coloured folk. You have my undying gratitude."

There was a shakiness to his thickened accent, raw and scraping; Nathan didn't want to know what it was trying to break out through the cracks.

"Look, I didn't mean it like that. You're my partner and my friend. I trust you with my life, just not my money. And I do respect you, and I know you respect me, even if you've never given thought to what it's like to be poor, or oppressed, or coloured - "

"Mr. Jackson," Ezra cut in tersely, too quietly. "I think you profess to know too much, and what's more, I think that you should leave."

"Ezra, would you just listen for a minute? I'm trying to apologize, 'cause the...ignorant things you do ain't done out of meanness, you just never had any reason to think on what it's like to be a slave."

And Ezra laughed. A short sound at first, like something of great value being broken; it rose to a desperate-sounding chuckle, bordering on hysteria. Ezra laughed, fingering the tie stretched between his hands, twisting the two.

Nathan watched as the scarlet colouring across Ezra's cheeks spread flush; an answering whitening of the knuckles as his fist clenched. Ezra's laugh was hauntingly familiar; a drunken, inhuman belly-laugh that knew neither compassion, nor mercy. A sullied feeling rose from Nathan's stomach to the back of his throat and to his surprise, it tasted not of fear, not of anger or disgust. Instead, he felt concern, and not a little pity.

He got to his feet. "Vin was right. Maybe we should try this again when you're sober."

Ezra stilled very suddenly, his laughter dying in a snort. "Now you sound like Mr. Sanchez," he said, his voice satirically solemn. "Except with him, we won't be trying it again once I'm sober."

Nathan didn't ask what "it" was. "Well, we both worry about you," he said, feeling a surge of protectiveness as a childish look of dismay crossed Ezra's face.

Ezra nodded, "Josiah's just like Lawrence," he confided in a suddenly introspective about-face. "I told you about Lawrence, didn't I?"

He looked so genuinely perplexed, that Nathan, sighing, sat back down.

"Lawrence..." he cast back his memory as his mind adjusted to the change in conversation. "...that was your teacher back in law school? Your Latin teacher, you said?"

Ezra nodded, and took an unsteady step toward Nathan. Then, with a melodramatic sigh, he fell backwards on the bed, lying across it widthways. Staring up at the ceiling, Ezra said, "They both want to be my father..."

Nathan doubted that Josiah's feelings could be called paternal, but he held his tongue.

"Lawrence is dead now, I heard. So I guess he is like my father after all," he chuckled, and pursed his lips as if he were trying very hard not to burst into laughter again.

"That ain't funny, Ezra," Nathan warned, eyeing the brandy bottle and wondering if this discussion might not go more easily if he had a few more drinks himself.

"No," said Ezra, sobering quickly in that sense. "I suppose it isn't. It was a decent funeral," Ezra added abruptly.

"Lawrence's?" Nathan asked, feeling as if Ezra's train of thought had derailed.

"No," said Ezra in a rather petulant tone of voice which suggested that he felt Nathan hadn't been paying proper attention.

"Your father's?"

"No, they couldn't do that." This time, Ezra's inflection made it clear he questioned Nathan's intelligence.

"Your father's," Ezra clarified.

"Oh. I suppose it was." Truthfully, Nathan couldn't remember much about that day, save hearing his father's wet coughing end as the sun rose. He frowned as an image pushed itself forward from whence it was buried. "You helped carry the coffin," he blurted out.

Ezra nodded, with some difficulty as his head was over the side of the mattress. He crossed his arms over his chest, his hands still wrapped with the black cloth. His legs lifted in a full-body stretch as he yawned hugely.

Gazing down on him, Nathan shook his head. He felt another of those strangely tender urges to smooth back Ezra's hair as the man's eyes drifted close.

Weary, as if he'd been travelling hard all day, Nathan said, "Maybe we should take this up in the morning."

"No." Although Ezra's eyes were closed, his head still thrown back, his voice was clear and strong. "You said you wanted things right between us - why?"

The question was so sincere it was almost distressing. Nathan paused this time, taking care to select the right words. He chose and discarded a half dozen responses, before settling on: "Cause I like you, Ezra." And for the second time that night, Nathan found himself surprised by the truth.

Ezra didn't say anything and his breathing was so regular and quiet that Nathan wondered if he'd fallen asleep. Then, his hands slowly unwound the fabric they held until it lay slack over his palms, black against white.

"I...like you too. Would you tell me about when you were a boy, Mr. Jackson?"

The request sounded as if it had surprised Ezra as much as it had Nathan. Nathan turned the question over in his mind, trying to understand just what Ezra was trying to pull. He had to wonder: maybe Ezra was actually trying to understand.

His voice wavered as it tried to find the path of a story he'd told only three times in his life.

"Well...I was born on the plantation of Jonah Catchings in Atlanta, Georgia in 1844. My daddy's name was Obadiah and my mother's name was Rosa. The Big House on the plantation there was 'bout the size of the boarding house here in town: weather boarded with pine and white cedar shingles. Had parlours and a library...or so's I heard, since I was never allowed to set foot in there."

He paused, looking out of the past and down at his companion. Ezra's eyes were still closed, his forehead creased in a slight frown.

"I was raised mostly in the kitchen quarter where my Mama and the other house slaves worked, and slept, and took their meals, but I got sent out to the fields when extra hands were needed once I was 4 or 5. Our 'house' if you could call it that was a little log hut with nothing but a bed and a little chimney. The bed was just a wooden pallet with a blanket. We had to use moss to keep warm in the winter, but it bred fleas like nobody's business. There were about 5 or 6 other huts for the 20 some-odd people he owned.

"We each had a little truck patch where'd we grow vegetables to eat, and we'd get a peck of Indian corn every week, plus cornmeal and salt herring." Even now, Nathan could vividly recall the taste of bitter corn, and slightly turned buttermilk.

"When I was seven, you know that the Master took my Mama by force...and she...she got with child. Waded out into the river rather than have it...waded in the water to freedom..."

His chest clenched up so tight that he thought he wouldn't be able to breathe. So clear, he remembered asking his father where his mama was, and even at that age, curled up on the floor of his hut with his father's old jacket, he'd known not to cry.

"Got sold then...went from being a Catchings to being a Jackson. Plantation was the same as the last, 'cept we was allowed to keep a few chickens that we could sell for furniture. Lucky we got sold in a private deal with a trader - got spared the auction block." He saw Ezra's eyes open at that, a blank stare upward, a jut to his jaw. He took that to mean that Ezra had been to one.

"I was big enough to work the fields then, so's one day was like another. 'Cept Sundays...I had an uncle there - don't know whether he was really my uncle or not, he probably wasn't - "

"I am most definitely familiar with that," Ezra interrupted.

"Heh, suppose you would be. Anyways, my Uncle Eli did the preaching to us, since the master trusted him. Of course, when the master and the overseer'd come 'round he had to teach that 'He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.'"

How easily the words came back to him, the very words that he'd searched for as he'd painstakingly taught himself to read from the bible. And he remembered so clearly, the sweet, clean taste of relief, of spiritual justice when he'd reached the end of Revelations without seeing hide nor hair of it.

"But when it was just us," Nathan continued in a memory of song and spirit, "he'd be preaching that when we'd get to Heaven, there'd be no slaves no more. And that's when the idea took that maybe I wouldn't have to wait 'till I was dead and buried to be free..."

His tongue slipped deftly around the words now, carrying the taste and tracing the temperature of memory. With all the description he could bring to mind, and vague hand motions futile to Ezra's closed eyes, he tried to impart the joy and freedom of Christmas: the wonder of husbands from the fields seeing their new babies for the first time, feasts of hoarded apples and nuts, and the music...

And Ezra was an almost...comforting presence, lying warm and so close beside him. Nathan would steal a look downward as he searched for just the right words to make Ezra understand, and Ezra would smile slightly, or wince, or go so still that Nathan knew he was really hearing, really listening. And when any silence lasted too long, Ezra's eyes would flutter open, oddly bright in his flushed skin.

Now, mouth twisting unpleasantly around the far too vivid words, he explained the rope and wood and pain of a 'buck'; his first whipping for crying over the body of old Joe beaten dead; the rain-drowned babies in their field cradle...

"...They never did get a lick of labour and not a red penny for any of them babies." He hadn't thought he could still cry over that one, and he'd been sure that Ezra eyes would never shut so tightly in their sympathy.

His voice still finding strength, he told past the end of his childhood, if it could be said that he'd ever had one, to the meetings by the river. To running through the forest, in the darkness, praying the clouds wouldn't overcast the North Star's bright light. Praying against the cold, and the fear, and every little sound that crept up on his raw back.

His dry throat fell silent in this loose timeline some two years before he'd joined up with a group of Yankee soldiers, four years before Appomattox. Because he was tired maybe, that flesh and blood tiredness of living more than half a lifetime in a rambling monologue a little too real; he remembered so sweetly the feeling of being free, then, and now.

And when Ezra's reply came, it was too sudden and quiet, genuine and fleeting as a shadow, for Nathan to find anger.

"Did...did your mother do the right thing, in your mind?"

Nathan rubbed his eyes, and then tiredly eased himself backwards on his elbows, then flat on his back. He lay that way for a moment, his head next to Ezra's knees as he shifted through the scattered wreckage of his derailed emotions.

"I can't rightly say, Ezra. Can't rightly say. I was only seven when she...when she died. Happened plenty, white men who figured their slaves were their property in every sense of the word, but..." He closed his eyes, realizing why Ezra looked so comfortable in this position. "Saw them deal with it in different ways. I guess Mama must have been as proud as Daddy, that she just couldn't bear - "

"My grandmother did."

Nathan could have claimed that it was the statement's fractured nature, its suddeness that led to his utterly uncomprehending silence.Unfortunately, the grammar was lost on him as his mind tried urgently to convince him that yes, it did seem that Ezra was trying to say -

"What?"

Nathan had never heard of surrealism, but the desperate acceptance that overtook him was akin to the calm he felt when with his hands on a patient.

"I think we're perhaps the same age, wouldn't you say, Mr. Jackson? And when you were seven, your mother died, and when I was seven, my father died."

"You gonna tell me about when you were a boy, now, Ezra?" And he found he wanted to hear.

"I don't think so."

Nathan could hear the sounds of Ezra rolling over, fumbling for the bottle.

"Because things happened to me that...are nowhere near as...atrocious...as what happened to you, but they...they happened to me...and then we will argue, and I do like lying here with you...I don't think that sounded like it was intended to."

"That's alright, Ezra." It was.

"But my father's name was Benjamin. That means 'Son of my right hand' did you know that?"

"Can't say I did."

"Don't dis-disparage my dear doctor. Josiah told me."

"And your father was..." What if he said it, and he was wrong?

"My father was a 'gen de couleur libre.' A coloured man born free." The French words flowed smoothly, and perhaps not so strangely, it was the word 'coloured' that tripped clumsily on Ezra's tongue.

The mattress shifted and Nathan felt, more than saw Ezra sit up. He considered following suit, but he could hear Ezra taking a drink. With the way that this night had been going, there could be no harm done with Ezra getting a little drunker, and Nathan lying down.

"I don't know how he and my mother met. Mother, you know, has mastered the practice of rewriting history as she sees fit whilst still holding a grudge." Ezra laughed a short, humourless laugh.

'Runs in the family,' Nathan thought, though he wisely kept his mouth closed.

"But when I was small, I had a Mama, a Tante Marietta, a Papa, and an Uncle Edwin whom I was to call Papa in public or when anyone came to call."

If he couldn't look Ezra in the eyes, then he could at least force himself to watch as the black tie was pulled tightly once more around the man's fists. He wondered how Ezra's body could stay so very still while such anger twisted at his hands.

"And one day in August, when I was 7, some men came into our townhouse: three of them, angry with Mam - Maude. Pushed Marietta right out of the way and headed for the parlour. And I remember...I remember - "

There was an almost purplish tinge to Ezra's fingertips, so tight were his fists clenched.

" - how they were standing, like they always did, with my...father's hands at my mother's waist. And everybody just froze. And the men started hollering about what any darkie had coming to him if he touched a white woman. I..." Ezra made a chiding sound in disgust of himself. "I tried to explain that it was all right, he was my father... Luckily Marietta had presence of mind to cover my mouth and drag me upstairs."

Nathan realized with a start that in the picture he'd formed so clearly of that scene, he'd cast Ezra as his father. But that wasn't right, his mind insisted, because Ezra's father was a Negro, that was the point.

Or maybe it wasn't, because more than that, this was Ezra, sitting with him and telling him the truths of his roots. And it was truth, he knew, because no casual lie could make Ezra's fingertips push so hard, close to tearing some bit of cloth that probably cost a week's wages.

"That was the last time you saw your father?" Nathan asked gently.

And Ezra's hands went as deathly still as the rest of him.

"Oh no, Mr. Jackson. Oh no. The last time I saw my father, he was strung up in the elm tree that grew outside the kitchen window. My mother took me out there after she had packed up our things. She explained quite calmly, I think, that I was never to speak of my father again. That he was dead, and the same would happen to me if anyone ever discovered just what he had been."

Nathan had seen lynchings, had come too damned close to being on the receiving end of one; tried to imagine the rope, and blood, and unreal limbs through the eyes of a bereaved child. He had to sit up, rather than choke on the hot bile rising up in his throat.

He was sitting close to Ezra, he realized, closer than he'd ever sat to him outside of clinic or crisis. Their hips and shoulders were almost touching, even as they faced opposite. Nathan pushed back the pleasant feeling of warmth that threatened to overtake him; he tried to force his mind around everything he'd heard. He wasn't entirely successful, as what he knew and what Ezra had told him mixed unsettlingly inside him like oil and water. He was rather thankful that he'd had something to drink, because he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be having even a more difficult time with this sober.

"That all true?" he whispered, reaching for the bottle.

"No," was Ezra's quick response. "I wasn't seven years old. I was five. Saying I was seven seemed a convenient segue."

"But why - " He wasn't sure what he meant to ask. In the brief respite, he listened to Ezra's breathing. If he leaned just a little closer, he was sure he'd hear the man's heartbeat.

"Just why, Ezra?" he finished, hoping Ezra would have an answer to what he couldn't even put into words.

It was the stillness again. Ezra's hands folded in his lap, the solid black striping clear in the fire-toned light. Clasp and clench around themselves, tight around and under the tie. And Ezra's voice was so soft and slick, with a searing note beneath, like buttered game turning over a fire.

"Just because, Mr. Jackson. Because...I was sent to stay with my mother's uncle after my father's death. And Uncle James owned a substantial plantation, with two dozen slaves in the fields and three in the house, and two just to look after me. And I was told that all these men, women, and little children had to do whatever I told them, because I was white and they were coloured. I was a person, and they were not. And even after my mother came to collect me, and I was left with another wealthy relative with other slaves, I would look at them and...I would watch them be worked, and whipped, these people who might well be kin to me..."

His eyes set as hard as his jaw when he met Nathan's gaze straight on. "And I would thank God that no one knew that I had..." His face was too calm, his hands purpling with their tightly winding motions, but his last words were distastefully spat with overly concise enunciation. "...nigger blood in my veins."

Tighter, tighter - Ezra's hands moved with shaky, jerking movements, cutting off the flow to what had to be blood-starved fingertips. Tighter, the fabric was coiled, like the anger and confusion and frustration that were welling up inside of Nathan. Tighter, and one of them had to break:

"Will you just give me that!" Nathan snapped, catching hold of the silk tautened between Ezra's clenched fists and tugging hard.

He might have expected that his hand would get tangled up between Ezra's and his tie. And he might have expected that pulling so suddenly on Ezra's bound hands would overturn that warm, tense body practically into his lap. But whatever he might have expected, it certainly wasn't Ezra surging forward and covering Nathan's mouth with his own.

Warmth was all he felt for an instant: warmth in the corner of his mouth, then spreading as Ezra's lips moved. Warmth around the hand enfolded in Ezra's, and warmth spreading flush across his face, blossoming in his belly and loins.

It wasn't until Nathan's lower lip was traced in flickering fire that it dawned on him that he was being kissed. He was being kissed by Ezra. And it felt so teasing and comfortable at once, like he was sliding into where he had meant to be. He was being kissed...by Ezra.

"Ezra, what the hell -"

"Shh-shhh..." Ezra's hush was as shaky as his hands, which were now clasping at Nathan's shirtfront.

"Ezra..." And if it wasn't right for Ezra's tongue to be tracing such a melting path along Nathan's throat, then why couldn't Nathan pull back? Why the hell did he feel like the whole evening, the whole past year had been leading to this?

"No one has to know." The words were whispered, Ezra's head bowed, but his hands were still slipping under Nathan's shirt.

It was that expression on Ezra's face again, even as it was turned away from Nathan. That vulnerability, the resignation that only whispered of hope. Nathan could hurt him so very badly, so very effortlessly. And Nathan's hands shook; he wasn't sure they still knew how to heal them both.

"I ain't gonna be your dirty little secret," he finally breathed.

"And I won't be yours."

And the warmth was back, closer, closer, until Nathan existed only in the half of his body that Ezra was pushing down into the mattress. They shifted, a tangle of limbs and heat until Ezra's right thigh was caught fast and strongly between Nathan's legs. Nathan found his hips rocking in an intuitive rhythm, discovered how unbelievably sweet it felt when Ezra answered. Ezra's quickening breath felt like fog against Nathan's lips, and a gasping instant later, Nathan learned the nervous intimacy of Ezra's liquor-tinged tongue against his own.

With a wet severance, Ezra drew back, his gaze skimming over Nathan's body; an almost pretty blush unfurled to the tips of Ezra's ears. Ezra's lips parted, and with moist memory lingering on his lips, Nathan lifted his head for another kiss. Then Ezra's hand, flexing in a misleadingly simple pattern, stroked along Nathan's hip, and inward...

Conscious thought lost out to a pleasantly dizzying sensation of drowning in warm rain. 'Oh God, Rain.' The thought of her stabbed guilt through his gut, but it was soothed so easily by Ezra's lips following his hand's inspired libretto along Nathan's belly. And then, near-unbearable pleasure as Ezra's tongue...then his mouth...and Nathan hadn't known that anything could feel so good.

He was dimly aware that he'd whimpered when Ezra nuzzled so softly against his abdomen, and when he drew Ezra upward for another familiar kiss, he'd tasted an edgy flavour, like strong black coffee and seawater. They kissed, one long, sliding, swallowing kiss, Ezra so hard against him, and he against Ezra. Every inch of his body wanted Ezra's skin against it, with that sweet, pale blush it held and he tightened his arms around the body atop him, too tight, not tight enough.

Nathan tried to slow down his breathing, his heartbeat, his thrusting, but his chest was damp with Ezra's openmouthed kisses, and in between, he could see Ezra just looking at him, watching him. Biting his lip, he reached down through the tangle of half-fastened clothes and took Ezra in his hand. He grinned as Ezra's breathing hitched over and over, like the sound of someone fighting tears, but then Ezra's leg wrapped around Nathan's and Nathan found himself trying not to shout up to heaven.

Faster, not near enough contact, then a warm, wet spiral of vertigo. He was falling backward, to Hell, surely, Ezra atop and all around him. He breathed deeply, fighting a shiver that Ezra gave in to.

They gasped, and then lay there silently, neither one sleeping, neither one moving. Under his hand, under Ezra's skin, he could feel the tensing shift of Ezra's back. All too familiar, both the motion and the intent. In descending circles, Nathan moved his hand; he felt Ezra give so readily under his touch. Neither one spoke.

'Ridden hard and put away wet.' The thought snuck unbidden into his mind and he fought the urge to laugh as Ezra's breathing evened. The thoughts that followed came from a darker place, somewhere too painful and real. This was such an incredibly huge mistake that it seemed it had taken his head this long to realize it. What the hell could he say to Rain, to his friends? What would he say to Ezra?

That he and Ezra would keep hurting each other, Nathan was sure. They would just keep dueling, dancing and cutting, and who could say if a haunting of desperate embraces could take back any of it. They would hurt each other, and it would only worsen from here on in.

Nathan bit his lip. His hands kept their soothing litany along Ezra's back, tracing skin and memory to the fresh scar, imagining for a shivering instant a touch, a tongue along his own faded damage.

Ezra stretched, a poetic play of muscle under Nathan's touch. Nathan lay there silent, decideding to let reality catch up with him. For now, his fingertips traced Ezra's skin, comparing knotted to smooth, picturing the colours in his mind. And though his next exhalation was a shaky sigh, he kept his body still.

Ezra might hurt him, and he might hurt Ezra, but he was a healer after all. Against Ezra's body, Nathan's hands were steady.