Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm just being nice and letting them play with each other.
Comments: Just a bit of fluff. That's all.
"I am in dire need, Mr. Tanner.""What's the matter, Ez?" Vin looked up from the shirt he was mending and peered at the gambler. "You look all right." He glanced briefly around the camp. "No bad guys anywhere that I can see." Vin went back to his sewing with a shrug.
"I was speaking of my inner needs. Those of the spirit, not of the body." Ezra Standish replied snappishly.
"I expect Josiah will be more than willin' to talk to ya about all that spiritual stuff when we get back to town." Vin went back to his sewing with another shrug.
"I do not need religious instruction, Mr. Tanner. What I need at the moment is conversation. A friendly game of cards. Anything to stave off another evening of sheer boredom."
"We're havin' a conversation right now." Vin pointed out in a reasonable tone which served only to further annoy his companion.
"Are you acting in this obtuse manner for your own amusement?"
"Nope."
"Will you please stop with the damned sewing!"
"You want to do it?"
"No. I do not wish to do it."
"Needs to be done."
Ezra stared at the tracker's bent head with pursed lips. Vin's hair shone with red and gold highlights in the fire. His fingers flicked the needle deftly in and out of the fabric. In and out. In and out. In and out.
"I don't know how." Ezra finally admitted sullenly, tearing his gaze away from the nimble fingers of his companion.
"C'mere. I'll show ya. Ain't hard." Vin held up the shirt in invitation.
"I cannot believe I am about to do this." Ezra muttered, getting to his feet. "A little boredom is a dangerous thing."
"What's the matter, Ez? Don't like to sully them hands with manual labor?" Vin's blue eyes twinkled, although he kept his tone solemn.
"No, Mr. Tanner. I do not."
"Fond as you are of fancy duds, I would've figured you knew how to at least sew on a button."
"I was busy acquiring other skills."
"Lyin' and cheatin' and such." Vin nodded his head.
"Among other things."
"I don't imagine Maude was the domestic type."
"No."
"Well, this here is a needle. You hold it like this and..."
"Ouch! Dammit!"
"I said hold it like *this*."
"I can see why now. May we proceed?"
"If you're sure ya can handle it."
"You do not need to concern yourself with my abilities. I assure you, I can *handle* it."
"Ok then. It's your skin."
"And my blood. Don't forget that."
" Ain't likely to do that. It's all over my shirt."
+ + + + + + +
The feeling crept up on him gradually as he sat there by the fire, sewing a fresh button on one of Vin's old flannel shirts. It was a rather nice feeling at first. It was causing a pleasant tingling sensation that played easily up and down his spine as he bent over his task. He was warm despite the slight chill in the air. And his smiles came easily, naturally, and often, as he and his companion chatted desultorily. All in all, a nice way to pass an evening when there was no saloon to be found.
It wasn't until Vin's fingers brushed against the bare skin of his wrist, as he handed Ezra a spool of thread, that Ezra finally realized what was causing his appalling lapse into domestic bliss. Dear Lord. Please make it not so. He couldn't possibly want Vin. Not like that. The man was scruffy, ill bred, uneducated...
With long legs, lean hips and the sweetest ass Ezra had ever seen. Poets could fill a book of sonnets about the depth of his blue eyes and the richness of his silken hair.
And he could part the tail feathers of a hawk with that gun of his. Ezra groaned aloud. This was not good. Definitely not good.
"Somethin' wrong, Ez? You poke yourself with that needle again?"
"No." That's right. Keep it simple. Take a page out of Mr. Larabee's taciturn book. The less you say the less likely it is that Vin will deduce you are pondering the many definitions of the word poke, paying special attention to how they might apply to him.
"You about done with that shirt?"
"Yes." His voice came out a bit on the squeaky side as Vin leaned close to grab the shirt from his unresisting fingers.
"You got any other ideas rattlin' around in that head of yours or can we just git to bed now?"
"Excuse me? Bed? Yes. I mean no. I mean... Awww hell." Ezra gave up in disgust. He glared surreptitiously down at his groin, which had derived great pleasure from hearing the tracker say bed and git in the same sentence. It was trying valiantly to make its joy evident, willfully defying Ezra's silent commands.
"Well?" The tracker stood up, slipping his suspenders off his shoulders as he stared down at the southerner.
"I'm afraid I fail to apprehend your meaning." Just go to bed already, Vin. And stop torturing me this way.
"Are you bein' this obtuse on purpose?"
"No?"
"You tryin' to tell me in that polite way of yours that you don't wanna?"
"Uh?"
"That's good. Cause I wouldn't have believed ya." Vin stepped closer, reaching his hand out to brush the front of Ezra's trousers.
"Uh!"
"You ain't never done this before?"
"Not with a... friend." Ezra said softly, finally regaining the use of his voice.
"Awww Ez." Vin slid his lips across Ezra's jaw, flicking his tongue lightly over an earlobe.
"I am not inexperienced." Ezra said, somewhat miffed by the tracker's tone.
Vin leaned back and looked at Ezra dead on, blue eyes serious now. "It's different with a friend. It ain't just sex. Can get that anywhere. It's about companionship. That's harder to come by."
Ezra nodded slowly, suddenly nervous. "Companionship." he echoed.
"Yep." Vin cupped his hands around Ezra's face, drawing him in for a kiss.
The gambler returned the kiss, his nervousness evaporating in the wash of sensation.
"What happened to the needs of the spirit, Ez?" Vin whispered teasingly, drawing back a bit.
"Subjugated to the desires of the flesh."
"Uh huh."
"You still think I'm obtuse?" It was Ezra's turn whisper teasingly in Vin's ear as he trailed his fingers down the tracker's spine.
"Nope. Yer havin' a moment of downright clarity, here." Vin gasped, arching his back.
"Clarity? I am indeed impressed, Mr. Tanner."
"I can see that." Vin shifted his hips to press against the gambler. "If I use a couple more fifty cent words like that, think I can feel it, too?"
"I think that can be arranged."
"I'll let ya feel mine."
"Uh huh."
The End
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