Satyricon au go go

Disclaimer: No infringement of the following characters and situations is intended.

Warning: Rated [MA] Mature Adults only. May contain violence, horror, sexual references, coarse language, drug use, sexual scenes and adult themes

Title: Falling From Grace
Series: Magnificent Seven
Status: Part 6/9 qv Auld Lang Syne
Author/pseudonym: Hellblazer
E-mail address: havisham06@yahoo.com
Rating: MA
Pairing: Ezra/Buck (some other suggested pairings, unresolved longings and jealousies)
Date: March 2002 - May 2003
Disclaimers: Don't own these characters, MGM, Showtime, Fox and the rest do. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
Warnings: slash, H/C, violence, m/m hanky panky, drug use, nudity, coarse language, adult themes
Spoilers: Season 1 & 2
Summary: Nobody thinks Ezra deserves Buck, only no one has thought to ask if Buck deserves Ezra.

Falling From Grace

The bedrail was thumping into the wall as Ezra held onto it, braced against it, his back arched and panting fast as Buck, leaning over him, thrust into him, hard.

Ezra was pressed up against him, groaning with pleasure. Buck curled over him, his back rising and falling as he covered Ezra's shoulders and the tips of his ears with hot and heavy kisses.

Ezra rose up under every touch, twisting and turning like he couldn't get enough. It was like making love to an expensive whore. At first Buck had thought Ezra was putting it on, and he'd been annoyed, then he'd learnt that Ezra really meant it. Ezra just couldn't get enough of Buck and he needed to feel Buck's touch on his skin, all over his skin, he needed Buck inside him and surrounding him.

The more Ezra twisted, the harder Buck hammered into him and they were pistoning faster and faster, the bed slamming loudly against the wall.

"Oh yeah, oh yeah," Buck was grinning, knowing how close Ezra was. "Oh yeah, my little darlin',"

"Boys."

They sprang apart, Buck snatching up the sheet around himself and scuttling back up on the bed.

Chris Larabee, that long, lean streak of mean, was leaning languidly in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Buck rebuked haughtily, fetching the sheet up higher around his waist, protecting his modesty while Ezra just lay there tangled in the sheets like a fallen angel, dazed and frustrated.

Chris knocked lazily on the side of the wall.

"You don't just walk in on a man -" Buck complained.

"You wouldn't have heard me knocking, with all the noise you were making. Sounded like a stampede from where I was standing."

Buck gave him a shrewish look.

Chris pushed himself off the door, indicating the need to see them down below with a roll of his shoulder. As he walked down the stairs he heard the bed start up again and he shook his head, grinning.

Ten minutes or later Ezra followed Buck downstairs, having only pulled on trousers and boots. Ezra slowed on the second last step, catching sight of Vin waiting in the front parlour and unable to hide his surprise, thinking only Chris had bothered to come and fetch them. Then he visibly steeled himself and carried on into the drawing room as if it made no difference.

Vin was uncomfortably perched in one of Ezra's fine chairs, as though afraid to make contact with the expensive silk upholstery, as if his shaggy old clothes would stain and ruin it. He saw Ezra start and he glanced away for a moment, knowing he was the cause of Ezra's brief disquiet. Then he forced himself to look back, to meet Ezra's eyes, to gaze upon the skin that had once been his to touch. Such soft pale skin, marked by the scars he remembered too well: the gunshots, the knife wounds, the rope burn, the nest of cuts down Ezra's arm where he had been bled during his illness, and the faint switch marks down his back, where he had been beaten, more than once.

Beneath the scars Ezra's body was sculpted like a classical statue and few people knew, or were meant to know, that underneath those fancy clothes was a man who could be as hard and dangerous as any of them. Ezra liked to complain and fuss and make people believe he was barely getting by in their little frontier town, but Ezra was a survivor, of that there was no doubt, and seeing the fain scars that marked Ezra's skin just reminded Vin of that fact. People thinking Ezra was a sissy, Ezra wanted that to be their first mistake.

Ezra moved with an easy grace, brushing past Buck, nodding to Chris and Vin, very much the master of his house. The front room was all Ezra: elegant, fashionable, expensive and untouchable, the furniture looking too precious to use, at least comfortably. The cool silk covers were the essence of Ezra: you could run your hand along their soft textures, but you could never really touch them, the material would just slip away under your fingers.

Except for Buck - he had a hold on Ezra, his arms draped loosely around Ezra's waist for a moment, like a roped steer, before letting him go with a smile. Buck trusted Ezra to come back to him, to stay with him, to be with him.

All this could have been Vin's, if he'd just been willing to give more of himself to Ezra, more than he had. Ezra liked to play high stakes, higher stakes than Vin was willing to go. He'd folded too soon, and he regretted it. He envied what Buck had, and, as quiet as he was, he was unable to keep his regret a secret.

Chris saw it and his anger sparked again. Damn Ezra and the hold he had on Chris's two best friends. Charismatic little bastard, no wonder Ezra had ended up a player - he was born for charming the birds out of the trees.

Ezra saw the desire in Vin's eyes and his own eyes widened, first because he couldn't believe it, then because he didn't want to believe it, and finally with a need that surged up from nowhere and shamed him, with Buck's beloved touch still resting lightly on the small of his back.

"Hey," was all Ezra managed, his glib remark choked off in his throat. He glanced up at Buck, suddenly searching for an excuse. "I'll just go -" he fumbled, making a loose gesture towards the kitchen, and scurried off.

"Congratulations, you spooked him," Buck chastised quietly, his wide open face suddenly dark and scowling. "Don't look you so dumbfounded, Vin. You know Ezra still gets jumpy around you on occasion."

Vin started to open his mouth to protest but at that moment Ezra returned fussing with Buck's now well boiled pot of coffee, forgotten until this moment, and a selection of cups.

"May I offer you gentlemen a libation?" Ezra proffered his tray.

Vin shook his head with a shrug of long, dark curls, keeping his eyes down.

"I thought you'd have help to do that now, in this fine house," Chris taunted, devilment in his eyes.

Ezra gave him a shrewish look, setting down the tray. "With our Mr Jackson looking daggers at me anytime I should accept service from someone in a menial capacity? No, I think I'll pass. I've never fully ascertained the reason for his continuing agitation in this regard..."

"It's because you're from the South," Chris answered brutally and Ezra flinched a little, the remark still having the power to sting. This was his just desserts for mixing freely with so many Yankees and an ex-slave, of all things.

"Well, in that respect it must seem I should pay for the sins of my forefathers," Ezra countered smoothly.

"Hell, Ezra, you don't even know who your daddy was," Chris teased and Ezra looked as though he'd been slapped.

"Don't you dare -" Ezra spat out emotionally, then covered for himself by pouring out a cup.

Chris and Buck exchanged a quick look. Ezra never talked about his father. They had presumed Ezra either didn't know his father or didn't remember. Maybe that was still true. Something about the subject rattled Ezra, or maybe it was just the rub of Nathan's constant little slights, even in absentia.

"Besides," Ezra regained his composure. "Just having a manager suits me just fine. It's not as though I actually live here."

It wasn't wholly true. Ezra was spinning his own version of the truth again. He did have a housekeeper, only she wasn't required when he and Buck were in the house together, lest she see something that might distress her sensibilities, or give her cause to gossip back in town. Buck acted as Ezra's business partner, secretary and manager, and Ezra liked to maintain that little fiction.

Ezra had won his ranch in the biggest hand of poker the little town had ever seen, and the house and come with the land. It wasn't a grand estate, just a few rooms upstairs and downstairs, but it was his and his alone.

Ezra had fired everyone and left it to Buck to hire and re-hire whom he liked, leaving the running of the ranch in its entirety to Buck and his foreman. Buck had then discovered just how much he'd missed ranching and he'd begun to spend more and more time out on the ranch. Strangely, this arrangement suited them just fine. It kept Buck out of trouble and it kept them both from living in each other's pockets. It made the time they did spend together all the more special. Though Ezra's business interests kept him in mostly town, and Buck was more often than not occupied out at the ranch, sometimes Buck would come into town and sometimes Ezra would ride out to the ranch. It suited them just fine.

Ezra would usually show up on the pretence of some business matter that needed Buck's attention, and then they would proceed to have wild and crazy sex in most rooms of the house, which was why Ezra didn't want a housekeeper around. Then Ezra would head back into town, and Buck would often follow a few days later.

It was one of those times now. Ezra had rode in fast and hard last night, the sides of his horse foaming with sweat, and Ezra and Buck had made it as far as the bedroom, eventually.

In the bedroom they had stayed until Chris had come to fetch them. The stagecoach that serviced the town was well overdue now and the town was worried. There was talk of bandits and Chris wanted his old friend Buck by his side when they rode out to find their missing coach. As just about everyone in town knew Ezra had some fancy things due on that coach as well, Chris figured Ezra might as well come along. If nothing else Ezra was deadly quick with a gun, or, at least, he used to be.

"Dresses, wasn't it, or was it dishes" Chris smirked, green eyes dancing, trying to goad Ezra into a rise but Ezra wasn't biting today, at least, not as much as he usually did.

"A dinner setting," Ezra corrected primly.

"Ah, yes, dishes. For you big shindig."

Ezra rolled his eyes. "For your edification it is not a shindig, Mr Larabee, or a hootenanny, and pardon a fellow for trying to bring some form of civilisation to these wilds." Ezra emphasised the last word to hold all the belief in the hardships he'd suffered, stranded out here, denied music, light, good food and refined company.

"This part of your electioneering then, Ezra?" Vin asked suddenly, unable to keep his curiosity quiet, tumbling to Ezra's motivations.

"My ambitions for the town council are my own affair. This is merely an opportunity for me to share my good fortune and open my doors to my friends."

Vin shifted, uncomfortable. Ezra had invited him, but Vin knew he'd feel out of place, all gussied up like a doorman.

Chris was imagining Vin dressed to the nines, and as ridiculous as they'd both feel, he wasn't disliking the vision. Underneath all that ragged rawhide and stubble, Vin Tanner was a rather handsome young man.

"Whatever the reason, a party's a party," Chris agreed. He, for one, was as curious as anyone to see what magic Ezra could conjure in the desert.

Buck gave Chris a quick look, not sure if his friend was serious or not. Chris enjoyed mocking Ezra yet he seemed to be genuinely looking forward to Ezra's party, which was a side of the moody bastard Buck hadn't really seen in a good long while.

It had been Nathan and Josiah who'd found Ezra's plans a little too rich for their liking, and they'd been rather blunt in their wishes that if Ezra had to spend his ill gotten gains he could spend them on worthier endeavours. JD had sniped merely because the boy had been distressed by Buck's taking up with Ezra, and he had yet to reconcile himself to the fact.

Chris's even smile both amused and disconcerted Buck. He was being so placating, riding all the way out here, asking Ezra for his help. Something had changed, something had seriously disturbed the order of things and Buck now understood Chris's past violence towards Ezra.

It was all about power. Vin and Buck would never challenge Chris as leader of their gang of regulators, but Ezra, Ezra had challenged, and, in his own way, he'd won. Chris had beaten him bloody, probably only understanding the challenge on a visceral level himself, but Ezra had stood firm, and instead of challenging Chris in a throw down fight, he'd challenged Chris on his own terms.

Ezra's constant gambling had finally paid off: he'd won the deeds to a handful of properties around town, and used the profits from his gambling to buy a few more, like the two hotels he now owned at either end of the town. He might not be well liked or respected, but Ezra was an important man about town these days, important enough to have Chris actually ride out here and ask Ezra if he'd heard anything, ask if Ezra was willing to ride with them.

If that wasn't enough, Ezra wanted in on the newly formed town council. It had started off as a committee, created to see to the administration of that ten thousand dollars worth of hit money they'd found in the expired assassin's hotel room. Ezra had desperately wanted those undreamed of riches as a finder's fee, but Mary and the town and even his fellow riders wouldn't hear of it. A town committee had been formed to dispose of the fortune in a series of public works, earmarking some of the money for repairs on the church, Nathan's clinic, a new school and so on.

Chris had passed on five hundred dollars to Ezra on the quiet, just because he had some appreciation of Ezra's pain over the matter, and Ezra had caught a bullet meant for Mary, after all, in the scuffle of that statehood rally. Ezra had gambled heavily on that five hundred and fortune had finally smiled on him. Ezra was now a very wealthy man by the town's standards, and not a few people resented his sudden elevation.

It must cut Chris's pride to the bone to know he was effectively working for Ezra now, keeping his property safe. Buck felt for his old friend, but his loyalty now lay with Ezra, and a small humbling wouldn't do Chris a disservice, provided Ezra didn't take advantage of his new found influence. It was up to Buck to keep them both in line, as always.

Ezra was busy reciting the preparations he'd made for his upcoming dance, the vintage of wine he'd imported, and the wine glasses to go with it, the dishes he was having prepared, the fine white linen table cloths and the lights all imported at great expense. A small band had been hired from Kansas City to come and play for just this occasion and Ezra was assuring Vin of a night of earthly delights the likes of which he doubted Vin had ever sampled.

Chris was listening to Ezra's accent, as thick as molasses, as he waxed lyrical of past soirees. Ezra's accent always came on strong when he was hiding something or...

"You been drinking, Ezra?" Chris turned to him suddenly.

"No more than usual," Ezra replied smoothly, without skipping a beat. "Is there any reason why a man should stay sober in his own home, or have you joined the Temperance League, Mr Larabee?" Ezra inquired archly.

Chris's whole body tensed but Buck had already slipped in the gap between them. Damn those two, they just couldn't leave each other be. They taunted and they teased and there was no doubt there were enough sparks between them to start a brush fire but that when that fire burnt out it left only blackened ashes and it was up to Buck and Vin to keep them apart, like two volatile chemicals, lest they be caught up in the blast again.

"Ezra's sober enough," Buck insisted. "I've seen him ride out in worse shape," he added, in a backhanded compliment on his lover's ability to handle his drink.

"All right," Chris agreed, flicking Buck a look that said 'your responsibility' very clearly. Buck nodded. It was duty Buck gladly bore.

"We're leaving now. No straggling, no bitching and no moaning."

Buck gave Chris a warning look and stepped between him and Ezra again, just in case, before turning his back on Chris and facing Ezra.

"Why don't you go on and skedaddle back upstairs and get dressed," Buck asked softly, brushing his knuckles down Ezra's silk smooth sternum. "Looks like we've got some riding to do."

A brief meeting of eyes and Ezra nodded, walking away quietly, obediently.

Chris shook his head in mild disbelief. Buck had managed to tame the shrew, though Buck would call it nothing of the sort. Ezra respected him and listened to him on occasion, that was all.

"Ain't nice to disrespect a man in hid own house," Buck reminded Chris quietly, not about to let him off the hook that easily. Chris and Ezra were like two dogs, snapping and snarling at each other every other day, just for the sheer hell of it, or so it seemed.

"Just funnin'," Chris shrugged it off, though they both knew there strong undercurrents at play here.

Chris was a handsome man. Tall, lean, all sharp angles and attitudes. Tanned skin and sun bleached hair and green eyes that seethed with a boiling pain and anger at times, this all spoke to a life lived hard, and a life that had hardened him. Chris could be so sweet when he wanted to be, but he could also be cruel, and a wild and reckless past had given him the well-earned reputation of a man to stay on the right side of.

Buck, his friend for longer than either of them cared to remember, was nearly his complete opposite in temperament, with always a smile for a pretty girl, and usually a bit more, and Buck, tall and handsome with a thick shock of dark hair, was no slouch in that department. Buck loved his wine, women and song and how he'd ended up so smitten with a green eyed cardsharp was anyone's guess.

Vin, the witness to this small stand off, had fallen easily into a friendship with Chris, the two having met taking the same side in a street fight. Vin had been curious about Chris and Buck had been only to happy to share confidences about his friend, but of Vin they knew very little. Seemingly half-wild, they suspected Vin must have Indian blood in there somewhere. Certainly he appeared more in sympathy with the red man than the white, or maybe he'd just spent a lot of time with them, probably working as an Indian Agent somewhere. The only thing they did know was that Vin had a bounty on his head, a bounty he'd nearly been hung for on several occasions.

Chris didn't care about Vin's past. Chris could take a measure of a man and he liked what he saw in Vin well enough, and Chris knew he certainly wasn't the one amongst them who could cast the first stone.

They were saddling up, the wind kicking up the humid smells of horse, straw and cattle as it danced around Ezra's property.

Buck pulled Ezra close, and Chris thought Buck was going to kiss the little weasel for a moment, but Buck merely slapped Ezra's black hat down on his head, with a nod that told him to take care of himself and not to go getting himself shot. Ezra had a tendency to break cover if he saw one of his closest friends under fire and Buck knew there was a good chance they were riding into trouble. He didn't want to see Ezra plugged full of holes for a moment of showboating and his brief nod reminded Ezra of that fact.

Ezra for his part smiled, tipped his head slightly, and turned to fuss with the tying of cinch knots on his saddle. A dark shaped appeared beside him and he glanced up to find Chris Larabee watching him with a degree of scrutiny that made him uncomfortable.

Chris leant close to Ezra, looking him in the eye, needing an answer.

"Are you alright to ride?"

"Buck knows how to be gentle," Ezra rebuffed him, pulling on his latigo harder than he meant to, causing his horse to hook back a filthy look at him.

"But you like it rough." Chris half smiled at the memory.

"Not always," Ezra replied coldly. His eyes challenged Chris, accusing him of never bothering to ask Ezra's likes and dislikes. It had all been about Chris's needs, Chris's pain. Ezra had been left wanting and Chris had no choice but to accept the rebuke. No one knew just how badly he'd treated Ezra and he respected that, Ezra keeping his silence.

He backed off a little and let Ezra pass. He'd always treated Ezra badly, they all had, blaming Ezra for a war he'd had little part in - Ezra had only been a boy at the time. If they weren't riding Ezra for his origins then it was for his lifestyle and no wonder Ezra was so easily riled at times. Sure, they were only teasing but he saw how deeply their little barbs could cut on occasion, and it wasn't really fair on Ezra.

Buck tested his saddle and turned, seeing Chris and Ezra talking together, or rather glaring at each other, which passed as conversation between those two more often than not.

Buck pulled on his saddle again, angry with himself. He'd tried to tell Ezra that Chris's head was nothing but a bag of mean old rattlers, but the damn fool just had to go and get himself bit, didn't he. He wished he'd taken Ezra under his wing sooner. He could have spared Ezra a lot of heartache, especially where Chris was concerned, and he could have spared himself the pang of jealousy he felt whenever he saw Ezra with Vin or Chris. He trusted Ezra, but the residual current he felt crackling between the three men still pricked at him.

The wind kicked up a little more, throwing dust and debris in their faces, making their mounts stamp and flicker. Pulling his hat down low, Chris mounted up, the others following suit, and they rode out without a word, Chris leading, the others flanking him.

They rode for a while, meeting up with the rest of their group who must have already had set out from town, waiting for Chris down by the old dry creek bed. Unlike the stage they could cut across country to save time, cutting out some of the loops in the old road. If they found nothing they'd circle back but Chris was pretty sure they had a day's ride ahead of them before they caught up with the errant stage.

JD, Nathan and Josiah fell in with the party, JD trotting up beside Buck, causing Ezra to hang back. Soon after Vin dropped back to ride beside Ezra, flicking the occasional glance, trying to judge Ezra's mood. It wasn't easy, by the way Ezra was pointedly ignoring him, flicking his eyes away whenever he caught Vin watching him.

"Don't be looking at me like that, Mr Tanner."

Vin smiled, abashed at being caught out.

"Like what?"

Ezra's eyes refused to catch his smile.

"Like you're remembering what we had, what we could have had." Ezra shook his head. "Buck is the keeper of my heart now."

"I know," Vin conceded.

Ezra's green eyes met his, burning through him.

"You still fail to comprehend me. I loved you so terribly, I was so crazy in love with you that I died for you, and it still wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough." Ezra clicked his horse and rode up ahead, catching up with Buck.

Vin bowed his head and hung back, skin burning with shame. Ezra was right. He'd broken Ezra's heart and while they still shared an uneasy friendship, it wasn't right between them, not the way it had been. It didn't give him the right to go looking at Ezra like that, no matter how Ezra looked, or how much the old desire kicked up.

The shadows had lengthened and they'd pulled off the track a ways, gathering brush for a fire, hobbling and watering their horses, sitting down to share coffee, corn bread and tall tales by the small fire's flickering glow. Buck teased Chris with tales of indiscretions long ago and when Chris had finally made good his threat with a good solid kick to shut Buck up they'd quietened down and finally settled to catch what sleep they could. Chris took the first watch, ignoring the way Buck and Ezra snuggled up together under their blankets like two peas in a pod.

Buck was stroking Ezra softly and sweetly, murmuring to him, trying to settle him down for the night.

Vin watched them quietly, half hidden under his own blanket so he wouldn't be seen, wondering how they could dare to do it out in the open, yet feeling their need, hearing the hitch in Ezra's breath as he and Buck rubbed and stroked together under the blankets, mouths trying to trap and smother small animal cries of satisfaction. Vin watched as Ezra undulated, his head rubbing against the horse blanket, arching up into Buck's hand. Ezra's eyes closed, his mouth open as he pushed up. Vin could tell from Ezra's breathing that he was close, so close, and he remembered the feel of Ezra spilling hot and wet all over his fingers, the race of Ezra's heart, the sheen of sweet on his skin, the dark lust in his eyes.

Their breath exhaled in a harsh rush and they lay quietly together, nuzzling, until Ezra finally drifted into sleep and Buck followed him, lying curled up against him like a loyal dog.

Vin rolled over, not wanting to watch, but still hearing Buck's soft husky whispering. Ezra huddled against Buck, burying his face against Buck's shoulder, letting Buck kiss and coax him to sleep, Buck kissing Ezra's hair and murmuring soft little endearments until Ezra's eyes finally closed.

Buck was so gentle with Ezra, treating him so tenderly, like breaking in a young horse. Ezra had been skittish at first, but he had soon responded to Buck's quiet words and touches and he had stayed loyal to Buck. Ezra trusted Buck the way he trusted no other. He listened to Buck and let Buck smooth his sharper edges and soothe old hurts. Ezra was devoted to Buck, and vice versa. The rest of them had given the dalliance a lifespan of days, not weeks. They'd even taken bets on it. And yet months had passed and Ezra and Buck were still together, thicker than thieves.

Vin felt his heart wrench for a moment, missing Ezra in his arms, wishing he'd been as gentle with him as Buck was. He regretted that he'd not treated Ezra better in their time together, and he regretted that they were no longer the friends they had been. It was done, and there was nothing Vin could do, but regret.

Vin breathed in the bitter cold air slowly. He could be breathing Ezra's warm scents now if he hadn't been so damn impatient, if he hadn't been so drawn to Chris.

Chris, who was sitting alone with his back to the campfire, in no mood to be troubled by anyone or anything. Chris knew what they were going to find when they finally came across the stage's tracks, and he hated being sent on this morbid duty. Chris had heard the mutterings in town about Ezra's fancy imports making the stage a prime target for bandits, and he was half inclined to agree. Ezra's appetite for luxuries was bound to kick up resentments, some more dangerous than others. Damn if Ezra didn't just find a way to bring on trouble, even just ordering a new set of plates for his special occasion. People had heard the plates were made of solid gold, not merely gilt edged, and Chris was sure that was the root of their trouble, and what they found tomorrow would be on Ezra, fair or not.

Vin rolled over to find Chris watching him wordlessly. Vin glanced away again quickly, caught out and knowing he was going to catch trouble for it later. He knew it was wrong, he should he should be satisfied with what he had, but on nights like this, watching Ezra all lit up by the copper glow of the fire like he had been, it was hard not to remember, not to want more.

It was a grey half formed dawn that greeted them as they stirred, stretching out kinks caused by a night of sleeping on hard ground. JD was off tending the horses already and Chris was waiting impatiently for his breakfast.

Buck shook Ezra awake gently.

"Morning," he warned.

Ezra rolled over, awake and grizzling. "I hate mornings."

"I know, Darlin'," Buck grinned. He pulled him in close for a hug, dropping a kiss on the top of his head, then let him go.

Buck crouched by the fire to start the coffee going.

The others all looked away, queasy to be included in such a naked display of affection. Usually the two boys limited their flirting to the odd look or smile, however because they'd ridden out from the ranch they didn't have their town faces on and they'd let their guard down a little. Buck would never mess around with Ezra in front of his hired hands, but in front of his friends, that was nothing, or so he thought. The look he caught from Nathan told him different, and he quit it.

Ezra, always more sensitive to the undercurrents of a situation, was already chastened and sitting quietly by himself, supposedly adjusting his clothing and weaponry into an acceptable arrangement, yet the sting of censure was evident in the high red spots on his cheeks. He'd let his façade slip and he'd been slapped for it. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

Ezra wished there had been a time when no one had known, when it had been his secret alone to treasure and enjoy. Vin and Chris had guessed almost instantly, damn Buck's complete lack of any form of discretion, and Josiah had tumbled to the situation a short while later. Nathan had seen Buck's naked concern for Ezra on one occasion, and had been shocked, but that was nothing to the bile Mary had reserved for him and him alone, Chris having confirmed her suspicions as to Ezra's tastes. JD had been the last to know and Ezra could still remember the outcry, every word, the accusation that Ezra had turned Buck into a sissy boy.

Nothing of the sort, of course, for Ezra knew damn well Buck had dallied, and most probably had dallied with Chris, or at least had hungered for it, yet that didn't stop their little circle considering Ezra a corrupting influence, just because Vin was curious, Chris was horny and Buck was lonely.

Breakfast was a cold and undercooked affair, with Chris kicking over the ashes not a moment too soon and his posse more than ready to ride out.

"Vin, Buck, you scout on up ahead. Ezra -"

"Ezra should be riding drag instead of me," JD huffed. "It ain't like he can shoot for shit any more anyways," JD put the boot in, saying what most of them had noticed but none had dared say aloud.

Buck stood up instantly, more than ready to take his belt or fist to the boy but Ezra stopped him with a look, rising slowly instead and reaching calmly inside his jacket.

JD tensed, knowing Ezra kept both gun and knife under his jacket but Ezra had merely withdrawn a well worn pack of cards, his practice deck, which he shuffled for a quick moment.

Ezra tossed a card to Buck who flicked it up seconds before the bullet from Ezra's Remington plugged it, straight through the Ace.

Buck whistled and waved the smoking card as Ezra holstered his gun and walked away, point made.

"How'd he do that?" JD had to know.

"He's been practicing every day and night, for weeks," Vin answered quietly, having observed Ezra solitary exercises.

"Ezra's riding up front with me," Chris continued as if nothing had happened. He glanced at Nathan and Josiah. They could hang back. Chris doubted they would be needed, the worst had already happened.

ª

The smoke that they'd seen coiling up into the sky these last ten miles or so had already told the story and they had an expectation as to what they'd see once they rounded the hills.

Sure enough there, stopped in its tracks, was the coach, sunk low in the ground like a dead horse, its front wheels gone and the axel driven into the ground and nearly torn free as the horses had bolted in a panic. The coach had half tipped onto one side, the doors ripped off and lying scattered in the desert with the books and keepsakes of the passengers which were strewn all around.

The passengers themselves were all dead, shot at point blank range and left where they'd fallen to be worried at by animals overnight, their meagre possessions left discarded to the desert winds.

Ezra was picking through the crates and suitcases that had been broken open and scattered across the ground, trying to return what was left of the contents to their containers. The others busied themselves with the dreadful business of laying out the dead in the too sweet morning light and trying to right the stage from where it had tumbled, its horses long since gone.

"Look at him, more concerned for his own things than these poor people. They probably hit the stage because they knew it was going to have Ezra's fancy things on it," JD sneered to Buck, shaking his head that Buck could have taken up with such a mercenary character.

Buck knew Ezra had heard JD's taunts by the way he stilled for a moment, then went on with the job of repacking clothes and crockery into broken cases.

JD snatched the dish from Ezra's hands and smashed it down on the ground between them.

"These people died, and all you can think of are your things? Or do you want theirs as well?"

"JD, enough!" Buck started, dropping his side of the coach, letting Chris and Josiah strain and groan under the sudden weight but Vin was already there, between JD and Ezra, picking up a few scattered plates, dusting them off and pointedly handing them over to Ezra.

"It ain't about the money, and I know Ezra feels as badly as any of us over what's happened here, but there ain't no sense in leaving Ezra's pretty dishes out here to get smashed and stomped on. Ain't no point to it at all."

"Vin's right, son," Josiah added quietly. "There isn't any reason why Ezra should suffer any more than he has to. Let him have his plates. They're no use to anyone else in the desert."

Ezra was crouched by the broken open crate, stacking his remaining table setting, numbly noting only a third of it at best was salvageable.

It wasn't the money or the value of the things that concerned him. Ezra had walked away from more fortunes than any of them could imagine, just because things had become too difficult, too prickly for him. Why he stayed on here to have his precious ego bruised on a daily basis, it was beyond him most times. He glanced at Buck. Curse the fool who had stolen his heart and curse the fool who had let it be stolen. He couldn't just up and leave now, as much he wanted to. He'd put down roots, he'd bought into interests and against his own better judgement, he had taken a lover. His mother must surely be laughing at him, trapped in a prison of his own making. He felt like Marley's Ghost, his life dragging behind him in a long, heavy chain. He wanted out, but he couldn't bear to break Buck's heart, nor was he about to run before the town elections.

Slowly Ezra stood, wiping the dust from his hands with his fine white handkerchief. He glared across at Vin, surprising him with his hostility.

"I don't need you to fight my battles for me," he hissed quietly.

"Ez, I -" but Vin didn't manage to finish the rest of the sentence.

Chris had abandoned trying to mend the wagon and felt he had to step in before the squabbling came to blows. Nor did he like the way Vin had stepped in to defend Ezra so quickly.

"JD, get back into town and bring back a wagon and the undertaker. We'll need a big wagon, big enough to for the bodies, and maybe their luggage."

Vin tipped the brim of his hat to Chris in acknowledgment to follow up that order and forcibly hustled JD off towards his horse.

Chris knew Josiah and Vin were right. There was no point in leaving the books, clothes and crockery out here for the coyotes. Things were scarce and people made do and a book was a book, no matter how it had ended up here. JD was just young and squeamish. JD had never had to pull the boots off a dead man. With any hope he never would.

Buck joined Ezra in the task of searching out his scattered silverware. There was less of his silver, much less, and he was lucky to scare up a few forks and spoons that must have been dropped in the rush of the ambush.

Without a word Buck came and stood over Ezra, still fussing with his things, and when Ezra ignored him still he crouched close beside him, holding his hands to stop him working so mechanically.

"It's not your fault," Buck murmured.

"You are mistaken. Avarice is an all too human failing, and everyone here knows I baited the hook and these poor fools," he paused, broken, regarding the bodies now being carefully laid out in a row by Nathan, with Josiah kneeling and muttering by each one in turn. "These poor fools died because of me."

"Ain't no law against importing a little finery, Ezra. Hell, it could have been anyone's dishes lying here in the dirt, and you know that. You're not the only one to order fancy things from that catalogue."

"Yes, but I'm the only one who has paid for it in blood, and none of my own."

"JD doesn't understand," Buck tried again.

"He understands right enough," Ezra hissed, pulling free. "They all think they know me, they all believe I care more about things than people." He laughed hollowly. "They're probably right."

"That these people died for a few broken champagne glasses - no, Ezra. This happened because they ran into some pack of bandits with no more interest in your dishes than silk petticoats. They would have wanted money, and these poor folks didn't have enough. That's all that happened here. It's terrible but it is not your fault."

Ezra nodded bitterly to where Nathan and Josiah were laying out the bodies. "Tell them that, because I know they all blame me. You heard it yourself"

"Ignore JD. He's young. I've seen homesteads slaughtered just for food by hungry tribes in winter. Ain't no real sense to it, it just happens. This is a terrible business, but it ain't your fault the stage was robbed. Happens all the time. We can escort the stages in and out of town, try and track down the dogs who did this and ask the company to put on an extra man, but that's all we can do, Ezra. Ain't none of this your fault," Buck reiterated, trying to make Ezra believe him, but knowing JD's words had cut deep.

Buck stood, shaking his head. There was no reasoning with Ezra, there was no reasoning with anyone. Buck knew Ezra didn't like looking at death, especially if it was a woman, hell, neither did he, and he knew Ezra was just scooping up the folks' keepsakes as well as his own because he thought it might be important to somebody. He certainly wasn't looting and if he hadn't known JD was as upset over the whole business as the rest of them Buck would have tanned the kid's hide then and there for suggesting such a thing.

"Buck." Chris called him away, back to the solemn duty of stripping the coach and seeing if they couldn't fashion something to let them get the coach back to town - it was too valuable to be left to rot out here.

Vin was prising a couple of bullets out of the splintered woodwork with the tip of his knife, turning the mashed bits of metal over in his hand with a trained eye.

"Tell you anything?" Buck asked quietly.

"It might. These are homemade, not store bought. Old minute bullets, which means they've got old guns and they're not coming into town often."

"We're looking at a couple of land pirates." Chris was scowling.

"Looks, like. Three by my reckoning," Vin indicated the hoof and footprints that didn't belong to the regulators or the passengers. "Looks like their boots are patched, too. They took what they wanted and left the rest, so they're travelling light - they'll be ranging in a wide area. I doubt we'll catch up with them or see them again. They probably know the land better than I do and they'll go to ground, like wolves."

"Only hunting when they're hungry."

Vin nodded. "I could try and follow them but -"

Buck shook his head. "They'd double back and ambush you."

"I reckon they might. Best we get these poor folks back to town. If Chris wants, I can pick up the trail again."

Buck nodded, doubting, like Vin, whether Chris would want to risk hunting such a pack of cold blooded killers, at least not right now, when he knew Chris would rather keep an eye on Ezra and the coming town elections.

Mary had tried to solve the problem of the ten thousand dollars worth of blood money by suggesting it be spent on public works. This created almost as much infighting as the idea of dividing it amongst its finders and keepers, as everyone in the town had put up their own thoughts for improvements and necessary purchases. Eventually it was decided to spread the money between the church, a new school, a library, a new well and a few new books and supplies for Nathan's clinic. However a town committee had been formed to administer the building program and this committee was slowly evolving into a town council and Ezra wanted in, now having interests in the town.

At first his friends had laughed at him and then they'd seen Ezra go into action, turning on all the smooth talking charm and political savvy he possessed. Now Ezra was the most popular candidate for the nominal position of head of the council, a mayor by any other name, appearing as all things to all people. His friends, even Buck, had been alarmed at this transformation as Ezra went after his goal as ruthlessly as they'd ever seen him, his glib talking and flashy smile reminding them exactly why they'd never really trusted Ezra in the first place.

Buck did trust Ezra, or tried to. He knew Ezra only wanted the town to grow and prosper, but he felt caught up in the whirlwind that was Ezra's electoral campaign, helpless to do anything but go along for the ride.

Chris saw all this and he was concerned. He was concerned that Ezra had returned to his old snake oil dealing ways, and he was concerned that Buck had gotten in over his head, again. Chris was too loyal a friend to just let Buck make his own bed and lie in it. He wanted to trust Ezra but he wasn't sure if the boy knew when or where to stop. This planned party was just the pinnacle of Ezra's gladhanding. Chris, like the rest of them, wondered if a seat on the council would be enough to satisfy Ezra once he got it, and just how many more temptations would such a position set in the path of Ezra? Ezra, who considered avarice a character strength, not a vice.

Josiah was grunting and straining as he held up the end of the coach, allowing Buck and Chris to hammer on a new crudely repaired wheel. They'd buried the folks, deciding the bodies were too far gone, Josiah saying the words over each, but the coach could be salvaged, and they reckoned the wheel was just about good enough to get the coach back to town, if they took it slow.

Ezra, already damned in their eyes, busied himself loaded what was left of his dinner setting and decorations back onto the coach. As well as his own belongings he salvaged what keepsakes he thought those left behind might want, leaving broken books and ragged, bloodstained clothing blowing across the desert to catch on bushes, left to whomever found them, the coach not being able to bear that much more weight. Not unless JD returned with the wagon in a timely fashion.

ª

Ezra threw down the broadsheet in front of Buck, the print still damp enough to smudge.

"Can you believe the slander that woman sees fit to print - she all but accuses me of making that coach a target because it was carrying my goods into town."

"Now Ezra, you know nobody here really believes that," Buck tried, pushing back his chair, his breakfast obviously over.

"Oh no? JD accused me aloud of the self same thing, or had you forgotten?"

"That boy don't know his arse from his elbow, you shouldn't pay him any mind. Folks are just jealous now, on account of you having made something of yourself."

"With dishonest labour, according to this, this...rag." Ezra let his contempt drip from his words.

"Not everybody knows the work that goes into running your little enterprises - you make it look too easy, Ezra."

"They all think I'm a criminal when I run my businesses as legitimately as any other entrepreneur in this town. Hell, I'm the most honest one amongst those scoundrels and blackards. Well, I won't stand for it, this blackening of my good name."

"You could have a word to Mary."

"Oh, I will, you can count on that," Ezra promised, his blood up.

Buck shook his head, wondering how things between Ezra and Mary had turned so sour. If he didn't know better, he'd swear the woman was acting out of jealousy or spite. Ezra had crossed her in some way, and like any woman, she wasn't about to allow herself to forget it.

They strolled pout onto the promenade, Ezra sniffing at a cigar experimentally, having found it near impossible to buy a good cigar in this town, when they were nearly run down by JD.

"Hold up, sport, breakfast ain't over yet, you've got plenty of time to fill those hollow legs of yours," Buck teased but JD wasn't in the mood to hear him, shaking him off.

Ezra tried to wander away, leaving Buck to finish his breakfast with JD, but he found his path blocked.

JD had stopped Ezra on the sidewalk, refusing to let him pass, all riled up and ready to fight.

"Casey says you're going to throw them off their land. Is that true?"

Ezra paused, considering his answer. "Not in the immediately foreseeable future."

"Then you will?" JD bristled.

Ezra leant against the nearby post and lit a cigar, taking his time, not wanting to get JD offside.

He sighed at last and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"The railroad is coming right through that side of town, JD. Like it or not, those homesteaders are going to be thrown off their lands, and soon. It's only a matter of weeks now, the way they work those poor Chinese fellows."

"You're no better than Royal." JD hissed in disgust, walking past Ezra, a sign that he considered Ezra beneath fighting with.

Ezra just stayed leaning against the post, smoking, pretending not to notice the slight.

Buck knew he had though, and he caught up with JD, grabbing him by the wrist and making him stop and listen.

"Let me go," JD fumed, struggling.

"Not until you listen. You've got no right to talk to Ezra like that. Yes, he bought up the farms but if he didn't, men like Royal would. Ezra's letting Nettie stay on her farm right up until the railroad comes through it, and when it does, a portion of the money from the sale is going to send Casey to a good school back east."

"Casey doesn't want to go to school."

"She might, once she's thought on it some more. You could go with her. Didn't your ma always want you to go to college? Ezra's willing to pay."

JD shook himself free. "I don't want his money. And you, Buck, are you just his mouthpiece these days?"

JD just gave him a scowl and walked off.

Ezra flicked his cigar into the road. "You don't have to fight my battles for me, Buck."

"I don't want you fighting with JD at all," Buck spoke quietly, hating to see a rift between his boys.

Ezra just shrugged and stood to his full height, surveying the main street of which he now owned or part owned a considerable portion of. He was an entrepreneur, and a good one, but what appeared as shrewd investments to him always appeared cold and calculating to his friends. His motives would always be in question. A leopard can't ever change his spots, after all.

Buck regarded his lover, no longer the cheeky young lad that had rolled into town three years ago. Ezra was older and a little wiser, grown into a man with purpose. Ezra dabbled with both commerce and keeping the peace now, but his ambitions were grander. He needed to heed his true calling: politics. Equal parts philanthropic and mercenary, it was the latter part of his character people objected to. Ezra always took it so personally. Above all, possibly even beyond the ever present lure of riches, Ezra wanted to be liked.

Buck didn't mind the darker motivations in his friend. Hell, he'd lived with the devils that drove Chris for long enough. He was disappointed in JD though. At seventeen JD was no longer a boy, no longer easily swayed by Buck's opinion. Buck was disappointed that he hadn't been able to dissuade JD from seeing Chris as a role model, or that he'd been able to teach JD to see the best in people's natures, even when you had to look real hard for it.

Ezra might always be a con artist with a self-serving streak, but deep down he was good people.

Buck rested his hand gently on Ezra's back for a moment, but let it drop away, feeling the tightness between Ezra's shoulder blades. Ezra was upset, as much as he tried to mask it.

"You'd think I'd thrown the old biddy to the wolves."

"You knew JD and Vin might be upset if they found out."

"I made her a deal, a good deal, one that is obviously going to cost me dear. You can't fight against the railroads, anyone would be a fool to try, and she's too old to farm her land anyway. This way at least I gave her the means to set Casey up for the future. I was trying to do right by those people."

"I know you were," Buck comforted softly.

"No good deed goes unpunished," Ezra growled, and went inside his saloon to get a drink.

Josiah, leaning back in his old wooden chair in front of the saloon had watched the whole exchange in interest, having little else to occupy him at this hour of the day, the sun heading up towards its apex. Buck turned to him in frustration.

"I don't get that boy."

"JD? Any reason why he should be grateful? Did you even tell him Ezra was planning on packing his sweetheart off to a finishing school back east?"

"No, but, Ezra was only trying to do right by the girl."

"Ezra's idea of what's right, not Casey's."

Buck scowled at Josiah but the big man merely tilted his head, a twinkle in his eye, playing devil's advocate.

"Ezra's trying to do good. You'd think people'd be pleased he's given up his shady deals for -"

"Something grander?"

"That's not what I meant. Ezra's trying to do what's right by this town."

Josiah smiled. "Ezra's doing what's right for Ezra. Whether anyone else benefits along the way is purely coincidence."

"That's not fair," Buck complained, frowning as Josiah teased at the tiny doubts Buck tried to push away on a daily basis.

Why the hell did anyone care what Ezra did, anyway? Nobody said anything about Buck having to fetch Chris back from whatever stinking whorehouse he'd finally passed out in when Chris got deep into one of his moods. Nobody said anything about the bounty on Vin Tanner's head, a bounty Ezra had offered to pay off with a little bribe to the Governor of Texas at least half a dozen times, but Tanner, stubborn mule that he was, had refused. Nobody ever asked how Josiah had come to be defrocked or how exactly Nathan had escaped from his masters, but everybody made Ezra their business. Just because Ezra treated everything like a game, his little deals, his scrounging, his profiteering, his gambling, his services as a lawman, just because Ezra took everything on the roll of a dice, somehow he was seen as the least honourable amongst them.

Damn this town and its skewed morals, where a bit of flash and dash and some skill with the cards made you more of a reprobate than men who had murders on their conscience, deserved or convenient.

"I think people should look to themselves instead of judging Ezra all the time."

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," Josiah finished for him. "True enough, but did you ever think that some people are just worried about where Ezra might lead you."

"I'm a big boy, Josiah, I can make my own decisions, and hell, so what if Ezra's been arrested for grifting? I rode with Chris for a long while, I cleaned up his messes. Don't you dare tell me Ezra is any more trouble than Chris ever was."

"Maybe so, but at least Chris is trying to do right by himself."

"And you're saying Ezra ain't?"

Josiah scratched at his beard. "Did I ever tell you about the story of the scorpion and the frog?" Josiah didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "The scorpion asked the frog to take him across the river. The frog said 'no, you'll sting me and we'll both drown.' The scorpion says he won't sting the frog and so the frog agrees to take the scorpion across the river. Halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog. 'Why did you do that?' the frog complained. 'For now we will both die.' 'Because it is my nature' said the scorpion."

Buck looked away. "I know what you're saying, but Ezra ain't no scorpion. Someone just told him he was no good and everyone, including Ezra, has believed it ever since. He reckons if he can't earn respect, then he'll try to buy it, and if Ezra thinks the only way he can earn our respect is to buy it, whose fault is that?"

Josiah said nothing, letting the answer hang in the air. Buck stalked off furiously. Damn Josiah, always ready to butt in with some parable when you didn't want to hear it, never there with an answer or words of comfort or advice when you did need it. Did he have to make everything so hard?

Josiah sook his head, watching Buck walk off. The truth was never easy to find, or to face. Buck could only answer to himself as to whether he truly believed in Ezra or not.

ª

Chris took in the whirl of lights and bunting and the swirl of skirts in one dizzying breath, the musicians striking up another lively tune that dragged people out onto the dance floor, turning and laughing.

He found Buck in a quiet corner and sidled up to him while tugging at his necktie uncomfortably, glaring at Buck who dared to show a flicker of amusement at his discomfort.

"I didn't think you'd come," Buck confided, glad of Chris's company. None of the rest of their motley band had shown as yet, and Ezra's poker face hadn't quite covered up the sting of the obvious slight.

"I didn't think Ezra would go ahead with this, after everything," Chris left the sentence hanging.

Buck cocked a smile at him. "You know nothing can keep a southern boy from a cotillion once his mind is set, and besides, the town needed a party. Look at everyone, they're having the time of their lives."

"You're not dancing," Chris noted.

"Neither are you," Buck shot back.

They grinned at each other then turned to watch the festivities together.

Chris watched Buck's eyes follow Ezra around the room as Ezra almost seemed to dance from one knot of people to another, completely in his element. Ezra was gorgeously attired in a black suit he'd bought especially for the occasion, and he was really turning on the charm tonight.

Chris chuckled and Buck retreated from his study with a gruffly unamused demeanour, embarrassed to have been caught out.

"You're still smitten with him, that's sweet," Chris appeased, fondly. "I never tired of watching Sarah, even the smallest things she did, " he admitted, and Buck caught his eye quickly, so rarely did these little admissions fall from Chris.

Chris still couldn't hide his amusement that Buck, the most unrepentant womaniser Chris had ever known, had fallen head over heels for a slick talking southern bastard of a con man. It was the darndest thing. He'd expected the union to last hours, not days, certainly not well into a year, with Buck still doting on Ezra like a newly wed husband. It was entertaining, but, Chris shook his head again, they made such an unlikely pair.

"And look at you, all dolled up and so handsome," Chris teased his friend even more softly, and for a moment their eyes held the old light, sparkling between them. Chris playfully adjusted Buck's tie and arranged his brand new suit just so. Buck cut a fine figure, all scrubbed up and polished, and there was just a whiff of enduring emotions between them.

Chris watched Buck still watching Ezra over his shoulder and Buck caught his eye again.

Chris smiled, nodding towards Ezra. "I can't believe you ended up with Ezra."

Buck sighed, stretching himself up to his full height.

"To tell you the truth, neither can I, but that boy needs someone to love him so badly, and I need someone to love, so it works out." He glanced at Chris. "You weren't here, Chris, for the worst of it. Maybe it's better that you weren't. Ezra says he doesn't remember anything of the time he was ill, but I think he does. For months that boy was as helpless as a newborn baby and I had to feed him and bathe him and there wasn't one inch of his body I didn't know, long before we became lovers. It kind of made it easier. Ezra's never been honest with people, not even himself, but I've seen him without any of his little guises, I saw him at worst and his weakest -"

"And you still loved him."

"Yeah."

"He knows he can trust you."

"Yeah. He likes to play up, but he knows -"

"It's real."

Their eyes met. They'd had that for a moment, maybe more, but nothing like what Buck had with Ezra. When it came down to it, something invisible bound those two. They each had what the other needed. Chris wished again he'd behaved better, to both of them. Maybe he was just jealous.

"I still can't believe that of all the people in the world, you ended up with... him." Chris couldn't stop shaking his head at it, alarmed at how serious Buck was. "Sure, he dresses pretty, but -"

Buck cut him off with a look and Chris made a placating gesture.

"It's alright Buck. I know you've waited your whole life for the right man to come along. Are you sure it's Ezra?"

"You'll never know, Chris. He touches me in places no one ever has before."

"I'll bet," Chris agreed sourly. "So it's just sex between you two?" Chris cut short Buck who was about to launch into another ode to Ezra. He didn't want to know the details of what the two of them got up to and he certainly didn't have to imagine what Ezra was like in the sack.

Buck was suddenly giving him an angry look. "You know it's more than just that."

"I know sometimes you don't see straight, especially if there's a good time involved."

"Stay out of it, Chris. I know you still don't trust Ezra entirely but what's between Ezra and me, it's between us, and it's real. You don't know him the way I do. You never saw him -" he broke off, not wanting to remember again.

"I know you think he's selling me a line, but it's no con. I was there. I've seen that boy at his very worst and his best, I've nursed him when he was more dead than alive. I know when that boy's lying and I know when he's telling the truth and I know he cares about me, in his own way. You know it too or you wouldn't be making such a fuss."

"I know you've gone sweet on him, hell only knows why, I just don't want to see you get hurt, that's all."

"I told you before, Chris, it ain't none of your business."

Chris gave him a bemused look.

"All right." Chris let the matter rest. There was no arguing with Buck when his blood was up.

Buck took another speculative sip at his champagne, not sure if he was really cut out as a champagne drinker.

Chris watched his friend's struggle with the finer things in life with great amusement.

"Why didn't you hold this shindig out at the house. It has a bigger ballroom, surely."

"It's a parlour, not a ballroom, and no, it's actually smaller. You've just never seen it crammed full of people like this place. No, Ezra wanted to hold this ball in the centre of town so everyone could come and see the ballroom."

"He wanted to show off." Chris nodded, not surprised.

"He wanted to put it in people's minds that they could hire this place for weddings or funerals," Buck corrected, revealing Ezra's far more mercurial plans. "Besides, we're in the centre of town, and the house is a ways away. It's just a big, empty house."

"With no woman in it, just you," Chris noted, sipping at his champagne, understanding Ezra's need not to draw attention to that aspect of his life.

Buck bristled. "I'm not his wife," he ground out, and Chris backed up a step.

"I didn't mean it like that."

Buck considered his fluted glass, rolling it between his fingers. It was a sissy glass, of that there was no mistaking.

"I don't know what I am," he questioned quietly. "I'm not his partner."

"Do you want to be?"

Buck should his head vehemently. "No. I leave nearly all the business to Ezra. I just don't want to know, it's better that way. I just don't like people thinking I'm his kept boy or something."

"Nobody thinks that," Chris assured. "You're his lover," he reassured Buck.

Buck nodded, accepting that.

"Ezra must be paying a pretty penny for this fancy do."

"Oh, he is," Buck agreed, ruefully, sipping at his champagne.

That caught Chris's attention. "He can afford this, can't he?"

Buck rubbed a finger along his collar, unsure of how much confidence to share.

"Ezra can afford this, but business is a lot like poker, it's all about bluffing and knowing when to stay and when to fold. Ezra's been spreading himself pretty thin, empire building."

"You're worried," Chris nodded.

"I always worry about Ezra. I worry about deals going sour, enterprises failing, because I know what it does to him. I wonder when he's ever going to have enough money to feel secure. I thought his recent acquisitions might have brought him some sense of satisfaction, but he's wound tighter than a -" He gave Chris a serious look of warning. "If Ezra snaps we'll all be ducking the shrapnel."

"I know it," Chris acknowledged with a slight grimace. He patted Buck on the shoulder. "Keep being a good friend to him, keep him happy, and pray the silver in his mine doesn't run out."

"Oh, I'm praying," Buck agreed with feeling.

"Are Ezra's business all legit?" Chris asked, switching back into lawman mode, catching a hint of what Buck had said earlier.

"Just let it be Chris. Ezra's greased a few wheels, but there's nothing you need to worry about. I'd tell you if there was."

Chris considered him. "Would you?"

Buck was affronted. "Yes, I would. For Ezra's sake, as much as yours," he underlined.

Chris nodded, all right then. He'd let Buck keep an eye on Ezra, something he'd come to rely on.

Buck made to leave but Chris held him back gently.

"Did something happen in Kansas City?"

"No. I just think Ezra feels his ambitions are stifled by this town."

"You going to leave us, Buck?" Chris couldn't hide the sudden hurt he felt.

Buck matched his eyes. "I don't know. I've made this place my home, but Ezra needs me, by his side."

Chris considered his long time friend. "You do what you have to, Buck. You'll always have a place here."

Buck swallowed the rest of his champagne. Only time would tell on that.

ª

Ezra was sitting on the still white clothed dining table, feeding Buck left over strawberries dipped in clotted cream, one strawberry at a time, as Buck stood between his thighs, leaning close, kissing him long and slow between strawberries.

Ezra's tongue licked around Buck's lips, chasing up the last drops of cream, the fingers of his left hand tangled in handfuls Buck's thick dark hair. Buck was nuzzling at his throat, moustache tickling, his hand dipping down and rubbing firmly over Ezra's erection, making Ezra arch up into each stroke. Eyes dark, Ezra slipped another dripping strawberry into Buck's mouth, following it with his tongue, both tasting the sweetness of the fruit and the silk of the cream as their tongues slid together. Ezra pulled at Buck's tie and collar, smiling at the murmur of relief, then the murmur of desire as his hand vanished under Buck's shirt, running over the warm skin. Buck pulled Ezra closer, tighter, and began to press him back down against the hastily cleared table.

A small clatter in the back of the room caused Buck to spring away from Ezra as if burnt. Ezra pushed his hair back and slipped down from the table, leaning over to turn up a lamp.

"Forget something, Mary?" he asked, and Mary Travis, flushed and embarrassed, stepped into the circle of light cast by the lamp.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Chris would have stayed to watch," Buck answered bluntly, shocking her as he leant up against the table, arms folded, clearly annoyed by the interruption.

Ezra, eyes bright and very aroused, regarded her with a calculating air, like a predator stalking its prey. The quiet way he walked around her did nothing to dispel the impression.

"I, uh," she turned, following his movements in the shadows. "I wanted to talk to you about business matters."

Ezra chuckled softly. "Can it wait until morning? I'm afraid I've had rather too much to drink and anything we might discuss now could put me at a serious disadvantage."

Her eyes narrowed as she considered his hedonistic lifestyle, though she suspected he wasn't half as drunk as he claimed to be, watching the way he prowled around her, unsettling her.

"I, uh, suppose it could wait," she back pedalled, uncomfortable with the faint trace of menace Ezra was exuding, and she realised she really had confronted the lion in his den.

Ezra's face brightened, shining like the sun, throwing her off balance with his changeability, now open and beaming.

"Good, good, tomorrow then." He moved to escort her to the door, gently but firmly, the ominous undercurrents quietly returning to his manner as he shooed her out, his slamming home of the bolt after her having a jarring sense of finality about it. Ezra didn't trust her, and the feeling was mutual.

Ezra turned and leant against the door for a moment, sure now that they were alone and the town was asleep. His eyes were on fire and they met in the centre of the floor, wrapping around each other in burning kiss, reckless and hungry.

Their passion carried them into the corner, Ezra sinking down into one of the thickly upholstered chairs and Buck sinking down between his thighs. No words needed to be said, just Buck's tongue twisting around his, Buck's hands touching him all over, then Buck's mouth...Ezra's hand tightened in Buck's hair for just an instant as he was swallowed in hot silk.

Buck loved him like this: so hard and desperate it made Ezra wanton, his head lolling back as he gave himself up to Buck, riding the motion until they leapt up together and came tumbling down like waves in the ocean, Buck enjoying the jaunt as much as Ezra.

Ezra was kissing Buck and he could taste himself on Buck's lips.

Buck loved the taste of Ezra. He tasted like silky smooth skin and sweet and oily soap and salt and when he had Ezra in his mouth he could feel his life. He could lick at the trembling pulse and make Ezra squirm and whisper his name, the way Ezra did when he really meant it, the way Ezra said his name like Buck was the only thing in the world to him that mattered, and Buck knew in that moment it was true.

He loved the taste of Ezra and the saltiness that clung to his lips and the murmur of his name in his ears, spoken urgently by Ezra's voice. He loved to feel the beat of Ezra's heart beneath his touch, the heat of his skin, the way he moved, pressing against Buck and then drawing away, like a relentless tide against a pier, surging up and hissing Buck's name as the waves crashed around them.

He loved the sea green eyes that were so cracked with pain, like flawed emeralds, eyes that always seemed to be asking him a question, and surprised when they read the answer. Eyes that hid so much of themselves yet could see so clearly into the souls of other men, searching for those flaws, those cracks and weaknesses that could be prised open and shattered. He saw those same eyes, begging for love and forgiveness and unsure of how to receive it.

He loved the way Ezra's auburn hair would curl when damp, one stray strand dropping down, reminding him of the old nursery rhyme. When Ezra was good he was very, very good and when he was bad he was horrid. A naughty, spiteful little child but one minute spent in the company of Ezra's mother had explained that deeply bred and well taught viciousness.

Ezra had such grand plans for himself, yet thought so little of himself. That conflict drove him, tugged at him, tore at his skin. Ezra envied his friends as much as he loved them. He saw their lives in hopelessly romantic shades while despising his own. He saw them as larger than life heroes, and himself the scavenger, nipping at their heels.

The bitterness tainted Ezra, but in his heart was such sweetness, and Buck loved to see it shine out, like the dawning of a rosy pink sun, warm and so full of promise, so full of beauty. When he smiled, when he truly smiled and Ezra tasted sweeter than honey, more intoxicating than wine. Buck loved the taste of Ezra, sliding in his mouth. His love was better than wine, his kisses rained down on Buck's mouth in a heavy downpour and Buck was a thirsty man willing to drown in the river of Ezra.

He came up for air, smelling the faint traces of cigar smoke and champagne on Ezra's skin, the faintest hint of lavender water on his clothes, and Buck breathed deeply of his lover's scent, feeling the brush of Ezra's light ginger stubble graze against his own darkening cheek. He could taste the soap, the expensive kind, still clinging to Ezra's skin.

He loved the taste of Ezra, so clean and rich and tasting of a hundred different things. He could taste them all and know the picture that made up the whole. He loved the taste of Ezra and he would gladly kiss him until the day he died, but for now he murmured huskily in his lover's ear, perhaps they should take this upstairs before somebody else walked in and caught them in an intimate arrangement.

He rose up and took his lover with him, the taste of him still lingering in his mouth, knowing he'd taste that skin again soon enough, and Ezra would be tasting his.

ª

Ezra lay on his side at the far end of the bed, watching the rain splash up against the window. There was no light, aside from the occasional flash of lightning.

"Storm's coming in," Buck observed, moving down to Ezra's end of the bed. He brushed his face lightly against the skin between Ezra's shoulder blades, kissed a bare arm, then settled down beside him, just content to be with him.

This was a side to Ezra the others never saw: his stillness, his ability to just sit and watch the weather change. He must have been a solitary child. Buck loved to watch him like this. He loved to see Ezra at peace. He loved to see the face Ezra only ever showed to him, so different from his public face. This was the Ezra that Buck truly loved; the one who could be so quiet and soulful and would give him such bittersweet kisses, touched by a sadness that curled around him like a soft, sweet perfume.

The rain smacked against the window, hurling itself so hard against the glass it seemed to want to break through and invade their little sanctuary, throwing itself about like the drunks in Ezra's saloon.

The window withstood the assault for now. Buck half wished the hotel ran to shutters, to lock out the rain, but that would block Ezra's view of the storm and Ezra had a fascination with storms. He loved to watch them roll in across the land and roll out. He was funny like that.

Buck ran a hand down Ezra's back loosely, just so Ezra would know he loved him, then he settled himself and dozed, leaving Ezra to watch the storm, silently.

ª

Mary returned from the bank, face white and tight, and was brought up short by the sight of Ezra Standish loitering by the front door of the newspaper.

Softly, under his breath, he was singing "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" Just loud enough for her to hear, just enough cold light in his eyes to rattle her.

She bustled in past him, ignoring him, but he ducked in the door behind her.

She turned on him with all the fury of a wild swan. "Get out!"

"Now is that any way to speak to a business partner," Ezra began to drawl, gold tooth flashing in his smile.

"I have nothing to say to you. What you did -"

"Merely helping out a dear friend. I knew you were struggling, I just never knew how much. It was in my power to help you, so I availed myself of the opportunity. Let us just call it a payment for services rendered."

"Services?" She caught the hidden meaning in his words and didn't like the sound of what he was asking.

"Oh, my requests are small and inconsequential, I assure you. I merely require a slight alteration to your current editorial policy. For instances, those remarks you ran in your last issue, regarding my hotel, well, I'm not familiar with the laws for slander in this territory but -"

"You snake," Mary hissed.

Ezra remained unperturbed. "I simply will not have your constant, unsolicited, inflammatory comments on my business interests in print."

"Business - it's a brothel," Mary seethed.

"You're mistaken. It is merely a hotel, one of several I run in this little town. How my guests occupy themselves in the privacy of their rooms, well, that's none of my concern, and nor should it be yours."

"You run whores."

"I do not. If my staff wish to supplement their income, though I would never approve, who am I to deny them ways and means which may very well put food on their tables? I myself am not willing to let little children starve for the sake of misguided morality. Buck's mother was a whore and nobody has ever faulted her for raising a fine strapping lad, and if you think the only whores in town are the girls who merely flirt with the gentlemen who visit my establishment, then you are sorely mistaken. I wager I'd have been hard pressed to find a virgin within a 50 mile radius of this flyspot of a town, and that's before Buck rode in."

"How dare you-"

"How dare I? How dare I provide employment opportunities to the young women of this burg, something a little finer than farming? How dare I try and teach my girls a little culture and refinement as befitting employees of a grand hotel? I am merely an entrepreneur and I'd appreciate it if you kept your nose and your narrow mind out of my business. I employ girls in my hotels to sing and to serve and to cook and to clean and nothing more. The men who come to my gaming tables enjoy the sight of a good looking woman and anything else is beyond my power to prevent. I think you misconstrue the purpose of my business, just because some of my girls aren't as homely as you'd like them to be."

"You don't know me at all if you think I'm going to accept that lie as the truth."

Ezra struck a match and lit his cheroot, puffing on it a little before responding.

"No, I think I know you quite well, which is why I've bought out your mortgage on this little enterprise. Congratulations, you're no longer in debt to the bank. Consider it my gift."

Mary paled, then drew flecks of red on her cheeks.

"You -"

"No need to thank me, I assure you," Ezra smiled, his crocodile smile. "I've always wanted to be in the publishing business."

Mary gripped the edge of the table to steady herself.

"You can't."

"I assure you, I can, and I did."

"How could -"

"Simple. It's just business. The paper was struggling. I paid off your debts. Legally, now, I'm the primary shareholder. I own all your markers."

"You -" Mary was lost for words again. "You want to run this paper?" Her eyes blazed with anger.

Ezra paused to casually flick over the latest issue.

"You misunderstand me, my dear. I didn't say I wanted to run the paper. That job I will leave in your very capable hands. I simply own the paper, and as such I make my one, and only one minuscule request upon your editorial policy, as I am trying to explain."

Her eyes narrowed, realising she hadn't heard all of it.

Ezra smiled, gold tooth flashing, running a hand a long the printing press. "From this moment on you are to quash any stories that might not be favourable to either myself or my associates."

"You want to censor the free press?"

That crocodile smile again. "Nothing in this life is free, Mary. Without me there would be no paper. Not in a couple of months, anyway. I'm keeping your husband's paper alive, with only one, very small condition. Those are my terms. Take it or leave it."

"What if I leave it?"

"Then I'll just bring someone else in to run the paper," he announced simply.

Mary scowled. "I wonder if Chris Larabee knows what a viper he has in his nest."

"Oh, I'm sure Mr Larabee knows. Everyone in this town has always known I was no good since the day I rode in here." He paused, tinkering with the type. "I gave you your chance, Mary, yet you persisted in your thinly veiled vendetta against me, for whatever reason you might have. The libel you wrote about my businesses, it distressed Buck, and I couldn't have that."

"So you've taken over my paper."

"Yes. I consider it my first bold step into publishing enterprises. What do you think? I have great plans for this town, and an aspiring politician needs a favourable press."

"I despise you."

"I know. I'd hoped to settle our differences less, much less brutally than this. I admire you, Mary, I always have. You're an intelligent woman who speaks her mind, but you spoke out of turn and I couldn't let your slander continue."

"Everyone will know - they'll know what you are."

"Yes, they probably will, but it will just be your word now, won't it. Just gossip. It won't have the authority of the printed word, and you'd appear most ungrateful. All I did was help out a friend, financially. In gratitude for saving my life," he reminded.

"You bastard."

Ezra smiled. "Quite so," he agreed, and left her to fume. He knew there'd be rumblings from this, but in time the town would move onto a new scandal, and with any luck, Ezra now had the means to create that much needed diversion.

ª

Trying to set the type through tear stained lashes, Mary looked up from her work to find Chris Larabee watching her.

"What do you want?" she demanded tiredly, dispensing with their usual flirtations.

"You seen Ezra?"

"Not recently," she answered darkly. "Why?"

"I'm looking for Buck."

Of course.

She straightened, wiping her hands on her pinafore.

"No, I've not had the pleasure of either gentleman's company since Mr Standish's visit this morning." Her words were ice, like her pale eyes. "You have heard what Ezra did, haven't you?"

Chris shrugged. "Buying your markers from the bank ain't no crime, Mary, just business. You riled him and you should have known Ezra had a sting in his tail. He is his mother's son, after all."

Too late she had remembered. She wouldn't make the mistake of under estimating Ezra Standish ever again.

"Can't you do something?"

"I'll have a word with Ezra about selling the paper back to you, but, Mary, you really made him mad, with those things you said, and he just bought you out, to make his point. He didn't send you packing and he could have, you know."

"As a favour to you, or to himself," she fumed impotently.

Chris didn't answer that question, not really knowing himself.

"He told me he doesn't want to run the newspaper, he just wants to own it. Come on, Mary, wouldn't it be easier if Ezra was bankrolling things?"

"In exchange for my editorial freedom," she fumed.

"Only in regards to Ezra. Mary, you brought this upon yourself, printing those things about him. You shouldn't have known Ezra was going to take that lying down."

"I can't believe you're defending him."

Chris shook his head.

"Don't make me choose between you and my men, Mary. You don't want to do that."

"So it's like that, is it."

Chris watched their friendship shatter in her face.

"It is," he answered, delivering the killing blow. He turned to walk out.

"What has Ezra got over you?" she asked bitterly.

"You don't want to know," he tossed over his shoulder as he walked away.

ª

Ezra looked up from the small measure of dark amber liquid he was considering as a dark shadow moved to block what little light fell through the saloon's open doorway. Ezra, as always, had his back to the wall, facing the door, keeping an eye out for a mark or trouble so casually that only those who knew him well could spot the slight flicker of his eyes to the door as each new patron pushed in.

Ezra regarded now the dark clad man who stood before him, trying to sense whether he was a mark, or trouble. Probably the latter. Usually almost always the latter. If the mad, bad, dangerous to know aura wasn't enough, the sound of the spurs nearly always indicated the mood. The more purposeful the stride, the more discord they augured.

"Ezra, you seen Buck around lately?" Chris asked, surprising Ezra with this line of questioning. Ezra had been so sure Larabee had sought him out over the newspaper incident.

"Not recently, not since this morning," Ezra confirmed, his eyes unconsciously dilating at the memory, enough for Chris to know the last time Ezra had seen Buck it had been a very satisfactory outcome for both parties. A part of Chris recoiled from being inadvertently privy to such an intimate detail and he grimaced.

Chris took the opportunity to glance away and scan the saloon for sight or sound of the errant Wilmington.

"I ain't seen the old dog all day. Thought fer sure you would have seen him."

"No, I've been engaged in business dealings all day, I assure you. I had assumed Buck had found his own amusements, he usually does."

There it was again, that slight trace of tartness in Ezra's voice. Somewhere along the line Buck had done something to displease Ezra, some slip Ezra was finding it hard to overlook, in spite of his best efforts.

Vin appeared, looking a little lost and shaking his head.

"Horse is still here, but I can't find him anywhere."

"You checked Ezra's hotels?" Chris asked with a leer, earning a scowl from Ezra as a rebuke.

"Ain't there either," Vin assured. Of course he'd checked. It had been the first place he'd checked, and all of Buck's other favourite little hideaways too, not that Buck strayed far from Ezra's side these days. They were like Siamese twins, more often than not. Still, there had been something, a tension, a quickness to temper between them since they'd returned from Kansas City.

Chris had thought at first Buck shared his own misgivings about Ezra's political ambitions, or perhaps he'd felt left out, with Ezra's wheeling and dealing taking up so much of his time now. Seeing the brittle frown that crept over Ezra's face at Vin's joking reference to Buck's old habits, Chris wasn't so sure there wasn't something more. How else could he explain Buck missing and Ezra having to be told about it?

It wasn't like Buck. Sure he was a lazy son of a bitch but he wasn't one to let down Chris when he needed to be spelled watching over the violent drunk they currently had caged up in their little gaol, for the drunk's own protection as much as the town's. Chris had little patience for a brawl interrupting his evening drink and was as like to wing a man as to ask him to shut up, depending on the mood he was in. Chris liked to call it keeping his hand in. Buck liked to call it making trouble. Buck had been there last night to help drag the screaming man off to the gaol, but now there was no trace of Buck or where he'd vanished to.

Someone had reported Buck being in the saloon, but that had been hours ago. Ezra obviously hadn't seen him, but Ezra hadn't been lying about being busy either. He'd not only been preoccupied in buying out Mary this morning but also overseeing the last of the packing up after his grand ball, sending the musicians on their merry way and making sure everyone knew he had hosted the event of the year.

Buck had obviously been bored and found some wicked occupation, the devil finding good work for Buck's idle hands, only now Chris was beginning to worry that something wicked had found Buck.

Ezra was still sipping his whisky, considering his options.

"Ain't like you, Ezra, not to know or care where Buck's wandered off to," Chris accused with growing impatience.

Ezra met Chris's glare without fear and full of annoyance.

"In spite of what you must obviously think, I am not Mr Wilmington's keeper. It is not my duty to keep an eye on the man at all times. If he has perchance wandered off, well, Buck's a big boy, he can take care of himself. For myself, I have been busy electioneering."

The mere mention of Ezra's current scheme, as they all called it, drew rolls of eyeballs from both Chris and Vin. Neither of them really approved, either thinking Ezra was up to something or that Ezra was wholly too shady a character to be holding office in the town, as if that was a failing in any successful politician.

Chris tilted his head to the side.

"You and Buck have a falling out?"

"No, we parted terms most amicably this morning. We merely had different things to occupy us this day. I had my campaign and business dealings and I'm sure Buck has found some mischief to amuse him."

Mischief, yes. Chris was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about what sort of mischief Buck had gotten himself into. Thoughts of disgruntled husbands and fathers tumbled through his head. Nobody had seen the tall streak of shit since he'd been flirting shamelessly yet harmlessly with Inez over a coffee and eggs that morning. It wasn't like Buck to just up and disappear without telling anyone. Vin, yes, himself on occasion and even Ezra, but never Buck.

Buck always had some way of telling him if he was heading in or out of town, even if it was just a nod or a wink. In the years after the fire, even after telling Buck in no uncertain terms that he never wanted to see him again, Buck had never strayed far from his side, ghosting him in and out of towns, cleaning up his messes. No, Buck wouldn't just up and leave, not even for a day, not without telling him, and certainly not without telling either him or Ezra.

Chris shared a glance with Vin, then turned his exasperation back on Ezra.

"Ezra, are you going to just keep sitting there and tell me you're too busy to care where Buck has gotten himself to?"

Ezra sighed audibly, finished his whisky and stood, slowly.

"I think you will find your well meaning concern very much misplaced. No doubt our absent friend will eventually appear sooner or later looking abashed and full of apologies as always."

"Humour me," Chris insisted, not caring about whatever snit Ezra had gotten himself into, dragging Ezra out onto the street between the both of them. Ezra was going to help them find Buck is he had to kick the bastard from one end of town to the other to do it.

Vin saw Chris's anger spark and he pulled Ezra away from Chris gently, manoeuvring himself between them without a word.

Chris gave up, letting Vin call the shots, hoping he might get more sense out of Ezra, if that were possible.

Ezra, however, had settled into a prolonged sulk, with Chris's accusations that he and Buck were more estranged than he cared to admit having found their unhappy mark.

Just a look flicked towards the man by his side, just a look, Chris didn't even had to ask. Vin tilted a nod at him and crouched down a little, squinting up the street, ready to track Buck like a bloodhound, no matter where Buck's tracks might lead.

In the stables Vin found the slightest clues of a struggle he'd accidentally overlooked before. Then he'd been sure Buck was just snoring in some whore's bed, now he was worried that some evil had befallen their friend.

Buck had been heading out somewhere in a hurry but he hadn't finished saddling his horse, and the straw that had been kicked up by the restive horse had obscured the scuff marks in the dust, scuff marks made by two pairs of boots. There had been a struggle, and the small dribble of blood that had dried on the wooden stall, catching a few dark hairs from Buck's head, showed that Buck had taken the worst of it, probably surprised from behind. They'd had to have snuck up on him, to get the drop on Buck. Buck wasn't as fast or mean as Chris, but he wasn't an easy mark, either.

Vin crouched right down, considering, then followed the tracks outside.

"One rider, probably with Buck slung across the saddle, cutting out past the corral so he wouldn't be seen, that way." Vin pointed east.

Right. Chris's hand was already resting on his Colt, out of habit, fingertips brushing the well worn handle. Somebody was about to learn that taking issue with Buck was taking issue with all of them.

Vin was ready to mount up in minutes and Ezra, well, there was no way Ezra was staying put in town so there was no point in asking. JD was itching to go, but Chris shook his head.

"No, I need you here in town, to keep an eye on things, with Josiah and Nathan. So far as we know it's just a personal matter between Buck and this gentleman."

No need to out-gun the man in question just yet, Chris reasoned. He'd learnt enough from Ezra about not showing his hand too soon, and if they got in trouble, he'd wire JD for backup.

Chris also had his own motives for wanting JD to stay behind. The last thing he needed was JD and Ezra sniping at each other the whole way along. Hell, he was just as likely to shoot them both himself as to leave them alone to take pot shots at each other.

How things had grown so bad between JD and Ezra, he just didn't know, but it had been festering away for a long while. He guessed JD just plain resented Ezra for taking his place by Buck's side, and Chris could understand that, more than he wanted to.

Chris tossed their canteens to JD to fill while they attended to their horses and Josiah pressed a little extra ammunition on them, just to be sure. Less than half an hour later they were riding out slowly. Too slowly for either Chris or Ezra, watching from their horses as Vin, crouching and squinting at the ground, carefully picked out the trail of the stranger who'd taken Buck from every other set of tracks.

Ezra fretted and Chris scowled but soon they were on their way as Vin followed the tracks he wanted and they began to pick up the pace, Vin finally swinging up into his saddle and all three of them trailing the stranger and Buck out of town.

ª

They'd ridden wearily into the little flea pit town of Los Palmos. No one had seen or heard of Buck but even the lumpy, ill smelling, vermin infested beds offered by the town's one saloon were preferable to another night spent trying to catch a few minute's sleep on hard earth and in all elements. At least to Chris and Ezra they were, and sufficient and liberal lubrication via the rot gut they served here should smooth out any of the rougher edges of their accommodation. Vin as always chose his bedroll over a bed and Chris was beginning to wonder just what exactly Vin had against four walls and a door.

Certainly Chris and Ezra had just as many people after their hides, and they found a locked door a useful impediment to anyone planning to get the drop on them.

The night could wait however, as they nursed sour, bitter drinks at a table in the corner, attracting stares but one look from Chris, and the murmurs it attended, was enough to earn them their own little corner of peace. Sometimes, like now, Chris's reputation was more of a help than a hindrance. Few people in this town wanted to cross that infamous Larabee temper so inquiries after Buck were met with genuine answers and, realising the trail had gone cold, they'd been left well alone, which was good, because none of them felt much like socialising this night. Not even with each other.

Ezra was as jittery as hell but he hid all his worries behind a studied face of indifferent nonchalance, which annoyed the hell out of Chris. Chris accused Ezra of not caring at all about Buck, of using Buck as an unwitting pawn in whatever scheme he had cooked up, and made enough judgements upon Ezra's character and heritage to earn him a belly full of lead. Vin was surprised Ezra didn't draw on Chris, because he saw that tiny narrowing of the eyes, the look that usually meant real, serious trouble where Ezra was concerned. Ezra coolly stayed his hand, taking all of Chris's abuse evenly until Chris grew sick of him, pushed back from the table with a snarl and stalked off.

Now Vin knew something was wrong. It wasn't like Ezra to just sit still under an onslaught like that, especially not from Chris. Maybe Chris was right and Ezra was feeling guilty about something.

Vin straddled the chair, leaning on the back as Chris slammed through the doors of the saloon.

"You know Chris is only worried about Buck," Vin tried to explain.

"And you think I don't?" Ezra managed to look bitterly hurt and furious at the same time.

"Tell me what happened," Vin prompted.

Ezra shook his head in disbelief.

"Y'all think it's one of my shady deals gone south, don't you," he drawled thickly, bright red patches on his cheeks as he barely held his anger in check. He leant forward.

"Every time there's something untoward or improper occurring in that town the good citizens are always quick to blame me, without so much as a shred of evidence."

Vin raised an eyebrow, which infuriated Ezra even more.

"You have no right to judge me, none of you do."

"Maybe not, but if anything happens to Buck, Chris ain't ever going to forgive you."

"You don't understand -"

"Then tell me."

Ezra lowered his eyes in that charming, vulnerable way he had.

"If it were true, if I had associated myself with undesirables, don't you think they'd come after me, not Buck? Precious few people are aware of the true nature of my relationship with Buck. Certainly Mr Wilmington keeps up a spirited appearance as a Lothario, still."

Vin picked up on the trace of vinegar in Ezra's voice.

"It's a woman? Is all this is over a woman?"

Ezra glanced away. So, Chris had been right, Vin mused. Something had happened between Ezra and Buck, or rather someone.

"Ezra."

Ezra looked up at last.

"It had been too long since either of us had been in the city and I suppose it went to our heads. We behaved like the boorish country yokels we'd become and I'm surprised we weren't done over on our very first night there. Buck had desperately wanted to go out to the theatre. I promised him I'd take him out on the town and that's what he wanted to do, so we went. He wanted light and music and it was worth any game going in town just to see his face - he was like a child, a beautiful child."

"He was squirming in his seat and fiddling with his tie, and then the lights dimmed, the spot light came up and there she was, as astonishing as a goddess, all clad in diamonds. I felt Buck sit up in his seat, I saw the way he was looking at her. It was as if the world had stopped and she was singing only to him. She was, and I knew she'd reel him in once she had him on her hook. He was entranced, seduced. She was indeed like a goddess, the palest skin and the sweetest voice, she was a siren and Buck heard nothing but her song. There was nothing I could do. Buck went to see her perform every night we were in town, there was absolutely nothing I could say or do to dissuade him."

"One night, when I was otherwise preoccupied, Buck went out by himself. I didn't have to guess where," Ezra ground out sourly, still stung by the betrayal. "I'm not sure if Buck knew who she was, or even if he would have cared. Maybe he only became aware of the fact that she was married and to whom when her husband came bursting through the door."

A cold look swept across Ezra.

"Her name was Charity, and what she had neglected to tell Buck was that she was married to Peter Nichols."

Vin nearly fell off the chair.

"Nichols - as in?"

"Yes, the Peter Nichols," Ezra confessed with a sigh. "Buck went and slept with the wife of Peter Nichols. I tried to warn Buck but he was a man bewitched, at her stage door day and night. It would have come to nothing - Buck has these passing fancies all the time. A week later and it's all forgotten. Sure enough he did forget, only I suspect Nichols hasn't. That's why he was taken. It has nothing to do with me. Nothing. Doesn't much matter - if he has Buck, he'll kill him, if he isn't dead already."

Chris had been listening to Ezra, just beyond the doorway, knowing Ezra would talk more easily to Vin. Things were still a bit prickly between those two, yet the old friendship was still there in spite of themselves and Vin offered a quiet and sympathetic ear to Ezra's woes. Without too much wheedling or prising Ezra had finally told Vin what had happened in Kansas City and Chris could have put his fist through the wall.

Chris thought he'd detected a ripple in Buck and Ezra's relationship. Now he knew why: Buck had dallied with one of the wives of the very men Ezra was obviously setting himself up in competition with. No wonder Ezra had been a little nonplussed.

Damn Buck, damn the stupid fool, getting himself mixed up with that Nichols clan.

"Hell, Ezra, you should have told us you had those Nichols bastards on your tail."

Ezra was entirely unsurprised to find he had been shaken down for information, Chris no doubt waiting to scare it out of him if Vin's quiet persuasion hadn't worked. Ezra met Chris's eyes, man to man.

"I had rather hoped that Buck had slipped from the lady's boudoir without discovery. Nichols must have extracted the identity of her paramour from his wife by fair means or foul. If he has indeed found Buck -"

Chris nodded, agreeing miserably. Buck was probably already lying dead in a ditch somewhere, and they both knew it.

ª

Buck fell onto the ground like a sack of flour as the ropes tying him across the saddle were cut.

The dark clad man dismounted slowly, spurs jangling. He kicked Buck over, one of those spurs catching Buck and cutting him deeply across the arm. Buck bit his tongue, knowing there was worse to come, much worse.

Buck had seen this man come into the saloon, and had heard himself being asked after, and he knew the bastard must have followed Ezra's fancy musicians all the way out here. Damn Ezra for having to hire a troupe of musicians from that very town, the very theatre he was trying so hard to forget. If Ezra had meant to spite him with that little reminder, it had worked, although it was unlike Ezra to stoop to such pettiness.

A man like Ezra usually had no time in indulge in jealousy or spite, it was bad for business. Playing for revenge was just asking for trouble. It made you want it too badly, risk too much. Not to say Ezra was entirely above such tactics, he just rarely let himself give in to such childish endeavours. No, if anything Ezra had most probably merely seen the band perform often enough at the theatre to put it in his mind that bringing music to their little frontier might put him in good stead with many of the townsfolk.

Ezra had probably been hoping, much like Buck himself, that Buck's little dalliance had slipped by unnoticed or undiscovered by the husband in question. Obviously in this hope they had been cruelly mistaken as the man had trailed Buck all the way home, mad as hell and looking to get his pound of flesh out of Buck, and Buck was afraid he knew exactly which pound of flesh he was about to lose, too. Lying there as he was kicked savagely again Buck was half annoyed that his friends had yet to find him, but why should they? This was his mess and he'd brought this all down upon himself for one moment of stupid, carnal pleasure.

Buck could well imagine the woman telling her husband, perhaps even claiming Buck had taken advantage of her, yet he could also imagine what the man had done to make her talk. It was enough to make Buck take his knocks, to realise his foolishness had left the lady in question vulnerable. This man was no idiot, and he would have seen the tangled sheets and the curtains drawing in and out of the open window and he would have known he had been cuckolded.

Ezra had called Buck a damn fool and Ezra had been right. Buck could barely believe he'd been so stupid as to risk all their lives, but he'd been spell bound, caught up in her siren song and only the brutal realities of Ezra's heartbreak and the husband's boots driving into his rib cage had finally broken the spell. Too late for Buck to repent all his sins, alas, because he knew he only had an hour or so left to live, at most.

Buck lifted his head, bloody but defiant.

"Should have known you'd come. That woman, she worth fighting for. The things she can do with her..." He was struck across the face with the butt of a gun.

"You shut you mouth."

Buck spat out blood onto the dirty straw.

"Yeah, mouth, that was it," he managed, earning himself another heavy blow.

ª

Chris was still haranguing Ezra over the trouble he'd brought down on all their heads.

"Hell, Ezra, you got tangled up with the Nichols and you didn't think to tell us?"

Ezra stood up to meet Chris's accusation, annoyed.

"Buck entangled himself with the Nichols. Do believe me when I say upon discovery of the situation I took every effort to disengage Mr Wilmington from the lady in question."

"You upped stakes and left."

"Yes, my own interests be damned."

"Nichols followed you here."

"It would appear so, yes."

"You should have told us, Ezra."

"Until you had proved Buck had been abducted and wasn't merely off sulking somewhere I had no reason to inform you of his indiscretion. It was done, forgotten."

Chris just tilted his head. "Not forgiven. Not by you, not by Nichols." Chris and Vin shared another look. This is what had Ezra so snappy of late. Not, as they'd thought, the election, or Mary or even JD, but Buck himself.

"Damn, Ezra, you should have told me -"

"That Buck's brains are in his pants? I thought you were already well versed in that little gem of knowledge," Ezra snarled.

"He could be dead," Chris shot back.

"I know that too," Ezra resented.

"Stop it, both of you." Vin stood up between them. "Nichols is moving too slow, carrying Buck on his horse. He'll know we'll be on his trail by now. He'll have bought another horse, here, and he'll be moving on. He'll be looking for somewhere quiet and private, so he can take his revenge on Buck before we can find him."

Chris flicked a look at Vin. "You think he's still alive?"

"Man takes this much trouble, he's going to make it last, or else he'd have just shot Buck by now. Nichols is going to want to make it hurt, hurt real bad."

Chris grimaced. "Damn it, Ezra, I trusted you to keep him out of trouble."

"Me?!" Ezra started, stopped only by Vin stepping between them again.

"Chris," Vin insisted, and Chris nodded curtly, backing off. There would be time for accusations and blame later.

ª

Buck grunted harshly between clenched teeth, barely able to breathe, his ribs stove in from the hard riding boots that had stomped down hard and kicked savagely into him all over. He was bleeding heavily from the bare knuckle blows he'd taken to his face, his breathe wheezed in choking bubbles through his aching teeth, his blood streamed from his nose and congealed in his moustache like paste. His head was ringing and he could barely see as he curled helplessly in the matted straw that covered the derelict barn. He wanted to retch but he had nothing left but rose coloured spittle. He knew he was going to die. Nichols was going to beat him to death and he was going to take his time.

Buck lowed like a wounded animal as he was dragged up by his bound wrists, his arms violently hoisted above his head and tied to a beam that held up the old barn. He was spun around and the back of his shirt was ripped away and he knew what was coming without needing to hear the rawhide whip uncurl and swish angrily across the ground. The leather flicked up like a rearing snake and struck down with a crack, biting deep into Buck's flesh and ripped back for a second stinging lash.

Buck pressed his forehead against the rough wood he was tied against and tried not to give him the satisfaction of a single noise but the third strike snapped across his spine and dragged a scream from him that split the night and made the horses stamp nervously.

ª

They rode out of town in a sombre mood under the light of a three quarters moon. Vin was up front, stalling them occasionally as he slipped from his saddle to sift through the soil with his fingers, making sure they were following the same set of horseshoes Vin had been tracking for days, now ghosted by a second set. Nichols had picked up a second horse as Vin had said. Buck was hogtied over the saddle, wrapped tight in a filthy blanket, greasy threads of which Vin had found, unable to struggle. There was hope yet that Buck was still alive as Vin had found neither alarming traces of blood nor a body, yet Buck had bled, dripping profusely from a head wound as he hung down over the horse. The bleeding had stopped, which Vin hadn't liked at all, yet Nichols had continued on, so he hadn't finished with Buck just yet.

Vin's constant stopping was beginning to wear on Chris, and Chris wasn't the sort of man to wear his irritations well. He leant forward in his saddle, asking each time if Vin was lost or tired of playing in the dirt, enough for Vin to want to knock Larabee out of his damn saddle, but he knew Chris was just fretting, so he shrugged it off.

Ezra was riding up the back, letting his horse pick its way through the darkness, keeping well away from Chris Larabee, who held him solely responsible for Buck's abduction.

Vin, crouching on the ground, held up his hand as a signal for them to wait and be quiet. There it came again, softly, distantly on the wind, not the cry of a night bird startled from its nest, but the long, animal scream of a man being cut into.

ª

The blade pressed coldly against his cheek, then grazed down his throat. He gritted his teeth as it cut thinly down his chest, trickling blood in its wake.

"Gonna make you pay," the harsh voice taunted. "Gonna make it so you can't ever get with another man's wife again." He tugged at Buck's pants.

Buck shut his eyes tight, knowing what was coming, where the knife was going. He waited for the first cut, nerves screaming, and twitched when he heard the shot. Nichols grabbed at him tight, stared hate into his eyes and then fell. Buck managed to raise his head to look into the bright eyes of his lover, his gun drawn and smoking.

"Ez," Buck breathed, almost laughing with relief.

Ezra grinned. "I wasn't about to let that butcher mutilate you, my dear. Not my most favourite part of you."

Buck glanced down at his sorry state, deeply ashamed at what he had brought down upon himself.

"You still love me?" he had to ask.

Ezra crossed the few feet between them and kissed Buck hard on the mouth, pressing his body up against Buck, almost coiling around him, enough to make Vin blush and look away.

"Boys, we don't have time," Chris reminded gruffly.

Ezra backed up, only now seeing beyond Buck's eyes to the tortures his lover had been subjected to.

Buck was stripped to the waist, bleeding and sweating. He'd been horsewhipped, kicked and beaten and now he was tied up to the top paling of the horse stall to stop him from falling down, his arms outstretched and bound at the wrists with barbed wire, his head hung forwards as he waited for the next pain to come. Buck's hands had been nailed to the beams above him as they sloped down in an arrow to meet pillar of wood he leant against.

Ezra stared down at the blood he was covered in and it took a hard shake from Chris to bring him back to his senses.

"We've got to get him down," Chris reminded savagely. "Buck -"

"Do it," he snarled, meeting Chris's eyes.

With a shared glance, Chris and Ezra slowly pulled the nails out of Buck, Vin holding Buck up against the wood as he screamed. They cut through the ropes and wire, Chris cut down one of Buck's arms while Ezra took care of the other. Buck crumpled onto Ezra, almost collapsing Ezra with the sudden weight of over six feet of cowboy, but Ezra held him up.

"Knew you'd come," Buck managed to murmur with relief.

"Knew you'd get yourself in trouble," Ezra let slip his rebuke in his relief. They'd argued about it before, Ezra more concerned over whose wife Buck had seduced rather than the adultery itself. Ezra had been right, that woman was trouble.

Buck drew away from Ezra, holding himself up on his own two feet.

Ezra wished he'd held his tongue but his fear of losing Buck had turned to anger at Buck for bringing this down upon both of them. There was a Nichols dead at Ezra's feet and that meant a blood feud and they all knew it. They'd seen that clan in action before and they had only just barely survived the encounter.

"Ezra, I" Buck began as Ezra wiped the blood away from the cuts on his face.

"Hush now," Ezra soothed in his soft southern lilt. "You've never judged me, now allow me to return the favour. Neither of us are saints."

"That would make life dull," Buck agreed, smiling and wincing at the same time.

"How did you find me?" Buck panted with sweet relief.

Vin tossed him a knowing grin. "Ezra and Chris can be rather persuasive. Turns out the townsfolk were more scared of Chris Larabee than Peter Nichols, and they were very helpful in their directions."

After that Vin had picked up the trail again and Buck had never been so glad as now to be friends with a bounty hunter. Vin's ability to track a man across state lines had saved his life.

"Come on," Chris urged, grabbing Buck and holding him up, seeing he was about to fall. Ezra stepped into support Buck on his other side, almost by instinct, and Chris felt the bite when he saw how naturally the two boys just fitted together, how much they doted on each other, even when they were mad at each other. He'd never really let Buck in like that, not for a long while at least. Ezra was furious with Buck and Chris could well understand it, yet he still loved the incorrigible heartbreaker, and Chris could understand that, too.

So could Buck. He'd dragged Chris out of enough hellfires to know exactly how worried and angry Ezra was, and why.

"Can you walk?" Chris demanded.

"Do I have a choice?" Buck asked hopefully.

"No," Chris answered shortly, only the light in his eyes betraying that he, too, was relieved beyond words that Buck was still alive. For the moment. They were on the run now. The clan would hunt them down and kill them until the last man was standing.

ª

They rode for several hours through the night, they rode until Buck was sagging in his saddle and they knew he could ride no longer.

"Shouldn't we keep riding?" Vin asked of Chris anxiously, knowing they only had a lead of a few hours at most, knowing where there was one Nichols there were bound to be more.

"Yeah, but Buck can't go on any further. He's about to drop out of his saddle." Chris nodded back towards Buck and the truth of his words were all too clear. Buck was slumped over in his saddle, will power alone no longer enough to carry him.

"We'll stand watch, let him sleep a couple of hours, then move on."

Chris spared a moment to glare at Ezra again.

Vin touched his arm. "It wasn't his fault. You know how Buck is with the ladies."

"Ezra should have stopped him. I knew he'd get Buck into trouble. He let Buck down, he let us all down, again."

Vin shook his head. There was no arguing with Chris when he was in a mood like this. Nearly losing Buck had shaken Chris up badly, and it was easier for him to blame Ezra for the whole mess. Chris's day wasn't complete until Ezra riled him over something. Ezra just had that way of getting under his skin.

Buck would have fallen from his saddle to the ground had they not been there to catch him, setting him down on the ground between them and fussing over him until he growled at them to let him be.

Buck sat there, huddled over, shivering in the cold, a miserable figure of blood and bruises.

"Jesus, Buck, what'd he do to you?" Ezra asked, concerned, getting his first good look at the extent of Buck's injuries by the light of the moon.

Buck answered with a bellow as Chris splashed alcohol down Buck's bleeding back. Buck reached back and snatched the bottle from Chris, taking a healthy swig.

"Damn waste of good whisky," Buck growled between swallows. Now he'd stopped moving he was starting to feel it. Ezra could see it in Buck's eyes, a weariness and a realisation that his ordeal was still far from over.

Ezra tossed Buck a clean shirt from his saddle bag.

Buck turned it over in his hands, feeling the fine quality of the cloth slip between his fingers. Ezra was still keeping a change of clothes in his saddlebags, and Buck was saddened by the casual revelation of this fact. It wasn't vanity that drove Ezra to carry a spare suit of clothes, it was a defence mechanism, in case Ezra had to run out and suddenly change his appearance. Ezra was still carrying this change of clothes in his saddlebags. Either it was habit or... Buck decided it was habit, not wanting to think that Ezra was still ready to bolt over the hills at a moment's notice. He kept fiddling with the shirt in his hands, unhappy with his discovery.

"It's cold, Buck. Put it on."

"I'll bleed all over your fancy shirt," Buck complained quietly.

"Blood washes out," Ezra reminded him gently.

Buck nodded slightly and slipped the flowing white silk shirt over his head. The silk was as soft as a kiss against his raw and burning skin and he was glad again for Ezra's fine taste in clothes.

Buck grabbed Ezra's arm, holding him back for a moment, holding Ezra to him.

"I'm sorry I made things difficult between you and Chris."

Ezra gave Buck his 'it's nothing' smile.

"It's easier for Chris to be mad at me, it must come natural to him now."

Buck let out a brief laugh at that.

"Yeah, I guess you might be right at that." He grew serious again. "I am sorry."

Ezra flashed him his smile again. It was nothing. He knew it was nothing. The way he couldn't refuse a high stakes game was the way Buck couldn't help sleeping with the wrong kind of woman. They did these things for kicks, god help them. It probably explained why they found themselves in the line of business that they did. Crazy fools, just asking for trouble.

Chris dropped a blanket gently around Buck's shoulders, still somewhat outraged over Ezra's lapse in his duty of care towards his old friend. Chris had always feared Ezra would bring down something like this upon Buck. That Buck was the architect of his own downfall, well, Ezra should have nipped this in the bud in Kansas City. Ezra should have hauled Buck out of bed with that woman, the way Chris had, more than once. Ezra had proven he couldn't be trusted with Buck, and Chris's mood projected this sentiment louder than any words.

Not that Chris had been any better in his care of Buck, hell, he'd gotten Buck into more trouble than out of it. Chris just needed someone to be mad at and it was easier to be mad at Ezra than the man he loved more dearly than a brother.

Ezra understood this and took Chris's vinegar with its usual grain of salt, though it wore on him, that Chris was always riding him for something or other, even things he didn't do. Vin saw it and tried to placate Chris, but this only served to remind Chris of the friendship Ezra and Vin had shared, and once the jealousy kicked in, well, that was enough of a spur for Larabee.

He asked again what the hell Ezra was doing getting involved with the Nichols gang, in spite of Ezra's repeated protests that he himself had not undertaken any intercourse with any member of the Nichols family. That had solely been Buck's prerogative.

Buck had hung his head again, waiting for the inevitable lecture about him deserving to get his balls hacked off if he was going to keep diddling married women, especially the very pretty wives of notorious gangsters. Everyone knew Buck was incorrigible but surely there was at least an ounce of sense in his head.

Buck could have said he hadn't known who her husband had been the first time he'd bedded her, or even the third. It was only his near discovery il flagrante on the fifth night that bundled Buck out into the dark in fear for his life. He'd been glad to be leaving town with Ezra the next day. He'd thought he'd left it all behind him. He should have known those Nichols boys were like a dog with a bone.

Chris groused some more and they slept a little, uneasily, with one or two of them on watch at all times. They'd stopped only to let Buck rest, and damned if Buck could get any sleep, so much in pain, so terribly sorry for the trouble he'd brought down on his friend's heads.

Ezra woke nearly choked by Buck, the long limbed man not merely wrapped around him, but apparently hanging onto him for dear life, trying to snatch every bit of warmth he could from Ezra's body, causing tremors to run through Ezra with his chills.

Chris caught Ezra trying to rub some warmth back into Buck's skin, and he dearly wished he could light a fire, but there was no chance, not with a posse of blood feuding brothers on their tail.

"Here," Chris tossed Ezra his spare canteen, more whisky than water, and Buck didn't need to be told twice to drink deep. Buck needed the warmth of the whisky in his belly and he needed the liquor to dull the pain. If Buck thought he'd been hurt bad last night, it was nothing compared to waking up half frozen in this still dark morning, his back fairly cracking with dried blood, every kick and punch burning under his skin.

"Can you ride?" Chris wanted to know, enough of a 'serves you right' tone in his voice to make Buck bristle and get up on his feet.

Buck wasn't in any condition to take a swing at Chris, but he wasn't about to let anyone see how bad it was, either, least of all Chris. They might be good friends, good enough to get real nasty with each other on occasion, but that didn't mean the old rivalry had in anyway vanished. If anything, it was worse, because Buck could still see Chris and Vin sniffing around Ezra like dogs. Nothing like Buck taking up with the young scoundrel to make everyone wonder what they'd missed seeing in the preening little peacock. All because Buck had fallen hard and Buck didn't fall hard like that for just anyone. It piqued their curiosity. It made them wonder what Ezra had to hide, and what Ezra only showed to Buck.

Ezra met Chris's appraising stare with his standard 'wouldn't you like to know' half smile and tossed back the canteen to him. Ezra was too much of a natural tease not to goad Chris, just a little, enjoying his sport before the soft hiss of breath from Buck brought him horribly back to reality.

Buck didn't need to say anything. The haggard greyness of his face, the impossibly stiff way he moved, like you'd expect a scarecrow made out of an old rake to walk, and the way he just leant against his saddle, rather than actually adjusting it, told Ezra everything he needed to know. Buck was in bad shape, bad enough that he might not make the ride back to town, Nichols or no Nichols. That thought sent ice corkscrewing through Ezra's gut and he banished all such thoughts, superstitiously believing that just to think it might bring it into being. It was foolish but he wasn't about to argue with his fears now. Now he had to stand and watch Buck very painfully try and swing himself into the saddle, knowing any attempt to offer assistance would be savagely rebuffed.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Chris and Vin wincing in sympathy for Buck, too, and he knew the tightness in their faces meant they were both calculating just how much Buck was going to slow them down. There was no way they could outrun the Nichols gang with Buck in the shape he was in. Buck was a liability and like as not he was going to get them all killed, but they weren't about to leave him to die alone out here so they just saddled up in silence, checked their ammunition and made sure their pieces were ready one last time.

"Ezra," Buck spoke at last, still leaning against his saddle, sweating and bleeding in equal measure.

"No," Ezra cut him off sharply.

"Damn you boy," Buck hissed, "You pay me mind now."

"I think in your delirium you've confused me with that waif of yours. I am not a child and I will not be told what to do, not by you or anybody."

"Dammit, Ezra,"

"No. I will not leave you." Ezra's vehemence startled them all.

"I remember the nights and days you spent nursing me, so like hell am I going to leave you now, Buck. If anyone wants to come get you, they can go through me."

They all stopped to stare. None of them had ever heard Ezra so angry or straight talking.

"You remember?" Buck murmured.

"Pieces, remnants, " Ezra dismissed that conversation for another time.

Vin for his part was sporting that pained expression again, the one where his guilt over what had happened to Ezra welled up more than he could conceal. He'd left Ezra for dead and he felt the sting of rebuke, whether Ezra had meant it or not.

"No time for talking," Chris started tersely, irritated by Vin's hangdog expression. "They're coming and they're meaning to go through all of us to get to Buck, whether we're sweet on Buck or not," He kicked a quick grin at his friend. Damn if Buck's dick didn't get them in some pretty fixes. "So mount up. Ezra, you hang back, see if we can't lose 'em. Vin, you take point. See if you can't scout us a way with more cover. If it comes to shooting I don't want to be stuck out here in the open waving my dick in the wind." He indicated the wide plains of scrub that surrounded them.

Vin nodded, mounting, eager to ride ahead. Buck refused all offers of help and swung himself into his saddle with some effort and audible groans through gritted teeth. Ezra gave him one last worried look before turning, his horse switching its tail, sharing Ezra's mood, dropping back to scout around and see if he couldn't lay a false trail - something he used to have quite a talent in.

The rising sun found them riding at a steady pace towards home, pushing neither the horses or Buck too hard or too fast before they had to. They knew there was little chance of outrunning the Nichols gang but they knew they had to try. Maybe their luck would hold and they could throw the city slickers off their trail.

Vin's expression when he came in from a long looping scout around them put paid to that hope though. They were indeed being followed, tracked by a party of black clad riders several miles south of them and catching up hard. They must have ridden all through the night, like Chris had feared they would. There was no mistaking who was on their tail, and no chance of escape. When the riders came upon them they'd simply have to shoot their way out, or die trying.

Buck flicked a glance at Ezra, as though trying to preserve the memory of his lover riding beside him, even tired and dust covered as he was.

Chris caught the look and felt the slight sting of jealousy again, his standing in second place in Buck's affections betrayed by the way Buck looked to Ezra first, each and every time. Chris wondered again what sort of hold Ezra had over Buck that so bewitched him, the very same sorcery that held them all bewitched, if he was truly honest with himself.

It was Chris after all who had seen the young grifter in the saloon, Chris who had let Ezra's disarming cheek earn himself a place in their band of regulators, Chris who had borne the responsibility of having to trust a man he never had and never would trust entirely.

They kicked their horses on a little harder and further and Buck caught the looks that were zig zagging between Chris and Vin with greater and greater intensity.

"You can say it, you know," he spoke at last. "We're being tracked, they're gaining and I'm slowing you down. Don't take much to know it's the rest of the Nichols gang."

"We ain't leaving you behind so you can shut up now" Chris snarled. He and Vin shared another look.

Ezra rode back in, coming down off the ridge, riding hard and fast. Buck often wondered where a city boy like Ezra had learnt to ride like that, like he'd seen some of those southern boys ride during the war. It was probably best he didn't know. It gave him the shivers to watch Ezra drive his horse down towards them, just for a moment.

Buck hadn't even noticed Ezra had fallen back and slipped away, replacing Vin on scouting duty, who had just as quietly rejoined them. Buck realised he must be more out of it than he gave himself credit for. Ezra trotted up beside Chris, leaning close and murmuring. The gang must be close. Ezra had ridden around them, watching them. Chris nodded to Vin, who peeled off, unslinging his rifle and riding away with it resting across his lap. They must be real close if Chris had sent Vin back to pick them off from behind, one by one, in that quiet, deadly way Vin had.

Chris was squinting at the landscape. He didn't like this open scrubby land, ideal for an ambush and there was no way they could outrun them, horses and riders both exhausted.

"Vin insists there's an old homestead down by the dry creek bed," Ezra nodded in the general direction. "Burnt out by ranchers years ago, but it'll do to make a stand. I can't see that they'll give us much choice. We can't run, we might as well choose where we stand and fight."

Chris was amazed that Ezra remembered the details of the country they'd passed through as much as Vin did, though he knew he shouldn't be surprised. For all his urban traits, Ezra was as much a hunter as Vin was, only Ezra usually stalked his prey indoors.

Chris nodded curtly, agreeing reluctantly to the idea of holing up and shooting it out. He knew Ezra was right. They couldn't outrun them, not with tired, thirsty horses and Buck barely able to sit up in his saddle. There was always the chance they could get lucky, luck had seen them through so far.

Chris glanced at Ezra again, wanting to remind him that he should have kept Buck out of trouble, but what could he say? The number of times Chris had gotten Buck into trouble over all the years they'd known each other, well, he was in no place to cast judgement. Pissing off the Nichols gang, though. Damn, if he ever wanted any proof that Buck let his dick do all his thinking for him, this was it.

The homestead, as Ezra had generously described it, was little more than a one room split log shack, its roof three quarters gone and the walls looked like they'd tumble apart in the next stout wind, but it was cover and beggars couldn't be choosers. They half carried Buck inside, setting him down on the floor in the corner, hoping the position would offer him some protection.

Ezra offered Buck some more water but he waved it away, annoyed to be such a burden.

Vin scrambled in, bleeding profusely.

"Sorry, Chris, I could only slow them down, not stop them. They're riding like the devil himself - I don't think anything's going to stop them. You really mad them mad, Buck."

"You bought us time, Chris acknowledged, fussing with finding what Vin was bleeding from, in spite of Vin's efforts to slap him away and be a man about his pain. A bullet had carved a gouge out of Vin's thigh, but gone no deeper.

"Caught me riding between the trees - lucky shot," Vin hissed as Chris tightened a makeshift bandage around it. Their eyes met and there was nothing more that needed to be said.

"They're coming."

Chris cocked his colt. "We're ready."

Vin glanced over to Buck.

Chris followed Vin's intense gaze, falling upon Ezra fussing over Buck's many cuts and bruises and Buck half heartedly trying to push him away. Ezra was entirely absorbed in his task, dabbing at the wounds so gently.

Chris and Vin shared a look. This was a side of himself Ezra had kept private until now. He wasn't even aware he'd let his guises fall away. He was over tired and sick with worry. He just wanted to get out of here alive, with Buck.

"Dear god, it is love," Vin murmured, smiling, and Ezra glanced up like a startled rabbit.

Vin just raised an eyebrow, teasing him.

Ezra stopped tending Buck immediately and huffed and puffed and sulked and eventually resorted to unloading and reloading his Remington, hand shaking slightly until he made it stop. Not now. Above all, not now.

"How much you got?" Chris nodded at Ezra's handful of bullets.

"Not enough to last. I'm more into running than standing and fighting. I just hope they used up all their ammunition shooting at our dear Mr Tanner," he grinned back, gold tooth flashing.

Ezra glanced at Buck, noting the amount of difficulty Buck had holding his gun, the blood from his hands slipping on the butt.

"Perhaps you should keep lookout," Ezra suggested and Buck rankled immediately.

"I can fire a gun."

"You can't even hold it, let alone pull the trigger," Cris weighed in, earning himself a dark look.

Buck looked to Ezra for support. "Bind it tight. I won't let you down, I promise."

Without a word Ezra reached into his saddle bags and pulled out his last shirt, tearing it into silk strips, taking Buck's bloody hands between his own and wrapping them tightly with makeshift bandages.

"I'll buy you a new one," Buck pledged, his conversation covering his winces.

"New what?" Ezra asked, not really paying attention to anything more than wrapping the dreadful wounds to Buck's hands.

"New shirt," Buck hissed between clenched teeth. He'd said tight and Ezra was taking him at his word.

"Beauregarde, my dear, if you think you mean less to me than mere haberdashery you do me a great disservice. I'd burn all my clothes for another day with you."

"Ez?' Buck asked, startled by the sudden declaration.

Ezra looked up at him and it was all there in his eyes, plain for Buck to see. Raw, bloodied emotion, no tricks, no lies.

"Ezra -" Buck began softly but he broke off with a yelp as Ezra tied off the bandage.

"Try it now," Ezra instructed, handing Buck back his revolver.

Buck managed to get his finger round the trigger, drawing back the hammer slowly as far as it would go, blood squeezing out between his bandages. He eased the hammer back slightly with a grunt, ignoring the blood.

"It's good," he nodded.

The first bullets struck the side of the cabin, letting them know the remaining Nichols had finally caught up with them. It started with just a few random strikes, like a coming rainstorm, then the Nichols suddenly opened up with a deluge of gunfire and the four men inside the cabin cowered down low behind turned over tables and chairs, taking cover as bullets coughed up dust and splinters into the air.

On Chris's signal they waited for a break in the storm before popping up to return fire while the Nichols reloaded, each taking careful aim, Ezra flashing a grin at Chris and Vin when his first shot was answered with a yelp.

The Nichols hunkered down behind fence posts and tree stumps after that, remembering the calibre of the men they were shooting at, remembering that these men would not go down without a fight.

The bullets zigged and zagged back and forth between the two sides now with greater frequency, punctuated only by Buck's involuntary cry as a bullet or a splinter found him. He wasn't much sure which, only that he was bleeding.

Ezra made to crawl over to him, stopped only by Buck's growl and a warning of what would happen to him if he didn't stay where he was. Ezra watched helplessly as Buck tore at what was left of his shirt and roughly bound the wound, switching his gun to his left hand and now waiting for his moment to take his shot with his last few bullets.

Chris and Vin were busy reloading, grateful that Josiah had pressed the extra rounds on them, yet they all knew they'd set out carrying only enough ammunition for self defence, where as the Nichols clan had set out with annihilation on their minds.

"Ez," Buck spoke quietly, but Ezra heard him and turned, just as a bullet smashed into the window sill above his head. Ezra didn't care about the bullet of the blood that dripped down from the cut above his hairline where a splinter had nicked him, his eyes riveted on Buck.

"I do love you, you know," Buck admitted huskily.

"I know," Ezra answered simply, and went back to crouching under the window, waiting for the Nichols to waste their ammunition on timber and daub before he began to return fire.

"I never asked you to die for me."

Ezra shook his head as he reloaded his Remington with his last bullets, grinning a mad grin.

"No, you never did. You've never asked for anything from me. Not my reformation or my repentance."

"Why would I need to do that," Buck smiled at him. "I already have your heart."

Ezra met his eyes.

"I gave it freely."

"I know."

"I'd give you my soul."

"It's not yours to give."

"My loyalty and friendship."

Buck smiled. "I've had those for years."

"I don't have anything -" Ezra realised.

"Yeah, you do," Buck reassured quietly. "Now don't go getting your fool head shot off."

Ezra pressed forward, kissing him hard, sealing the bargain, then went back to loading his revolver.

Cris was rolling his eyes over the exchange, but he felt Vin's heartache as he watched Ezra dart forward and plant the kiss of a lifetime on Buck, a kiss of such ferocious love. He'd never thought Ezra capable of loving anyone that openly. He'd rarely seen anyone kiss that desperately, trying to compress years of loving into a single moment, not since the war, at least.

And Vin knew that kiss, all that passion, love and respect, it could have been his if he'd just given Ezra an even chance.

Vin glanced across to Chris, seeing both a bitterness there, and a sense of defeat.

"Don't do it, Cowboy," Vin shook his head, anticipating Chris's next move. They've got us pinned down, there ain't no cover and they'll shoot Ezra clean through if he tries to lob another fire bomb their way.

"I'm not going to just sit here and be shot down like a dog." Chris snarled back. If he had to die he was going to walk out there and die standing on his own two feet.

Vin touched his arm gently, shaking his head. Not yet. They had a few bullets left between them, and maybe they'd get lucky.

Vin peeped up over the sill of the broken window to get his bearings on where, exactly, each of the shooters were, when one of the bastards slapped off a shot straight towards him. The bullet missed but it smashed into the remaining glass, shattering it across his face.

Vin dropped his rifle and tried to claw at his face but Chris pulled his hands away violently.

"No," Chris hissed. "Stay still." And he held Vin as he sloshed water across his face, washing away the blood and picking out the larger pieces of glass.

"It's just dust and blood," he tried to reassure Vin.

Vin blinked painfully, trying to see, but all he could see were smears of shadow and the blood was rolling into his eyes again and it stung so badly. He shut his eyes tight and kicked his rifle across to Chris.

Chris picked it up, checking the chambers for rounds, realising there were precious few. He shared a glance with Ezra. Now it was down to the two of them.

Ezra shrugged, held up four fingers to indicate the number of bullets he had left and Chris replied with a count of six.

Sharing another look they made a move to stand, Ezra inching across to Buck and Chris moving towards Vin. They'd walk out of here, together.

They were just about to burst out through the open door when the rumbling thunder of hooves had them sinking down behind the protective cover of the walls. A heavy amount of gunfire filled the air and then silence for several long drawn out moments.

Ezra sat there, hunched behind the wall with Buck by his side, watching Chris breathe shallowly on the other side of the door, watching a small bead of sweat track down through the dust on the side of his face.

They waited those terrible long moments in silence, not sure whether they had been saved or set up for slaughter when JD's whoop split the air and Buck laughed out loud with relief.

Chris rose and strode out to greet JD, Josiah and Nathan as if they'd merely stopped by the cabin to rest for a little while, merely tilting his hat in an acknowledgment of a job well done.

Josiah was counting the dead, just to make sure, and Nathan was busy patching up both Vin and Buck enough for them to make the journey home.

Ezra followed Chris out into fresh air, walking across no man's land, now pitted with spent bullets and shot, the front wall of the cabin itself scarred and pock marked as a testament to the violence they'd endured.

Chris watched as Josiah dragged the late Nichols brothers from where they lay out into the open, both he and Ezra very aware at how only a moment and good fortune in the form of loyal friends had saved them from taking the Nichols' place on the bloody ground.

Ezra stood over the body of the last of the brothers Nichols.

"Someone should inform the widow Nichols of her sudden change in fortunes."

"I'll do it," Buck volunteered, hobbling from the cabin in spite of Nathan's fussing.

"No, allow me," Ezra coolly intervened.

"A man should clean up his own m-"

Buck never finished his sentence, crumpling behind them faster than Ezra could catch him.

"Buck?" Ezra shook him, trying to get a response. "Buck!"

ª

Ezra led the flashing red headed beauty out to the waiting stage, helping her up the steps with every courtesy while Buck saw to it that her luggage was safely stowed away.

She leant from the window, smiling and waving and blew them both kisses as the coach rocked forward and began to roll out of town.

"And there goes the blushing bride," Chris remarked, leaning back in his chair, amused. "Seemed like only yesterday she came to us as a grieving widow."

"Times change," Vin mused quietly, missing Chris's joke entirely.

A week ago she had arrived in their dusty little town, clad head to toe in a black widow's finery, a widow of their making, but not mourning as deeply as one might expect. She'd been saved from a bad marriage. She bore the news that old Ma Nichols had not long outlived the news of her clan's decimation at the hands of the seven, leaving the young widow now the sole survivor of the Nichols family enterprises.

Suddenly free to marry, Charity had fronted up to Buck, offering herself as his wife, but Buck had been more than a little gun shy and no one really blamed him for trying to extract himself from the clutches of a woman who'd caused him so much grief.

Ezra, on the other hand, had taken a shine to the actress upon proper introduction.

The town had reeled with the incredulous news that Ezra had made an offer of marriage to the scarlet woman. The gossip surged again when certain segments of the population realised Ezra's unlikely proposal had been in the form of a business merger under the guise of marriage, making a mockery of the sacred institution.

A fifty-fifty split of the profits, and she had both her independence and his reputation and control of the business interests in Kansas City. Ezra had a marriage of his choosing, and a large business empire of legitimate and less legitimate enterprises.

The unseemly haste of the arrangement, and Ezra's obvious benefit from same had raised eyebrows, and some resentment, but as much as Chris teased and taunted, he could see a real affection between Ezra and the new Mrs Standish. Buck's obvious attraction to Ezra's new wife had led to all the trouble in the first place, but it had seemed to end happily for the surviving parties.

"I wonder what the wedding night was like," Vin mused, rather viciously.

Chris gave him a sideways glance, more amused than irritated by the traces of vinegar in Vin's voice.

"You don't have to worry about that. Ezra knows his way around a woman, trust me."

Now it was Vin giving Chris the inquiring look.

"Buck told me," Chris attempted in explanation. "Ezra knows what to do with a woman, he just prefers the company of his own kind." He rocked forward in his chair. "She looked pretty happy to me," added, with a leer in his voice that earned him another poisonous glare from Vin.

The night of the marriage had found Ezra duly completing the paperwork to conclude his business arrangements, with Buck as witness.

Buck duly signed after Ezra's name.

"You never have told me what the P stands for anyway, really?" Buck asked, curious but quite serious, wanting Ezra to be truthful with him.

"Patrick," Ezra surprised him by answering, catching the nuance. "After my father, Henry Patrick, or was it Patrick Henry, I can never remember."

"Patrick," Buck tried it out, rolling it around on his tongue.

"You didn't know him, did you?" Buck prodded delicately.

"Once, when I was about nine or ten, our paths crossed. He gave me a ring, said it was the family crest or some nonsense."

"You still have that ring?" Buck asked, curiosity spiked.

Ezra shook his head, bright green eyes sparkling. "No, I lost it to a bad hand of cards, years ago."

"Ezra," Buck shook his head fondly, scolding mildly.

Ezra shrugged, a little lost, then his eyes sparkled. "I heard tell he was a rogue and a scoundrel."

"Like father," Buck teased fondly.

"Like son," Ezra smiled, hopefully.

"I really don't remember. Mother never speaks of him. He was a bounder and a drifter, I gather, and he and Mother were merely ships that pass in the night. I was neither wanted nor required."

Buck's hand was on his shoulder. Ezra was wanted, he was required.

The door opened on the two men bent over their paperwork, close enough to be almost touching in a lover's kiss.

"Ezra, honey, didn't your mother ever tell you it's not to polite to leave the bride alone on her wedding day?" Charity interrupted, teasing.

"I believe my mother actually prefers it that way," Ezra countered, rising to greet her." "My dear," he kissed her cheek chastely.

She smiled into his eyes. "Signed sealed and delivered," she nodded to the documents spread out on the desk.

"Quite," Ezra agreed. "All that is left now is to seal the bargain."

Buck rose, taking his cue.

"I'll leave you lovebirds be," he teased.

"Buck," Ezra called after him.

"It's all right," Buck reassured, smiling for Ezra's benefit before leaving him be.

Ezra took her hand lightly in his. "You don't mind? I'd hate for our marriage to be disputed on a mere technicality."

She smiled, stroking his cheek and pressing forward to kiss him. Ezra moved the kiss from her mouth down to her throat and then the satin swell of her breasts as his hand slid up under her skirts, skimming along her thigh. She arched up under his touch with a soft exhalation and they pressed back onto his mahogany desk, making it their marriage bed.

"And there goes the glowing bride," Mary arrived beside them to watch the stagecoach roll out of town, her voice more wistful than tart, which caught Chris's attention.

"Glowing?"

Mary gave him a knowing look.

Chris broke into a wide grin.

"Well, I'll be."

"What?" Vin didn't get it.

Chris just shook his head, not about to be the one to break the news.

Vin just stared sourly after the stagecoach, as if it were taking all his hopes and dreams with it.

"Ezra, married." Vin shook his head again.

Chris flashed him a grin. "Typical of Ezra, he gets to have his cake, and eat it, too," he observed as Ezra and Buck walked back into the hotel together, arm in arm.

ª

Buck was lying face down on the bed, trying to get some sleep, but he could feel Ezra moving about, and he knew Ezra was up to no good.

Buck sighed. "Whatever you're up to, ain't no way you're getting me on my back, not even for you, darlin'," Buck insisted, his back still ripped raw from his horse whipping.

"You misunderstand me," Ezra purred, brushing his cheek against Buck. "I want you inside me."

Buck might still be recovering from his wounds, but Ezra had no intention of rolling Buck onto his ravaged back, but neither did he have any intention of letting Buck fall asleep on him tonight.

"Why, my dear Beauregarde, surely you're not squeamish about being party to adultery now," Ezra purred, prowling over him.

Buck twitched, Ezra's words hitting a nerve. True, he did feel strange, with Ezra being married and all, incredible as it seemed, even if it was just for show. It made things different, somehow.

"Ezra, stop fussing and come up here and go to sleep."

Ezra had no such plans and a twinkle in his eye betrayed his own agenda as he softly blew across one lightly furred buttock, raising goosebumps. Like the brush of a butterfly's wings he whispered light kisses and soft breath across one cheek, nuzzling the cleft between Buck's thighs, then mouthing the other cheek.

Buck let slip a small groan as he ground his hips into the mattress. Ezra parted Buck's legs a little further and nestled between them, licking his way carefully down Buck's spine until...

Buck twisted the pillow in his hands, hissing as that wicked tongue tormented him, only to be taken away and replaced by something silkier and heavier, a touch he knew so well.

Ezra sank in him a little and Buck rose up to meet him, sliding Ezra home all the way until his love was inside him and around him, Ezra's arms encircling him as he leant back against his lover.

"Told you I'd have you in my marriage bed tonight," Ezra murmured in his ear, sucking on Buck's earlobe in the way that drove him crazy.

Buck rose up to grab hold of the brass bars of the bed and let Ezra drive deep inside him again and again until he could take it no more. He tore Ezra around in front of him and filled him, just like Ezra wanted him too, spilling his seed deep inside his lover.

Ezra lay down beside him, glowing and Buck rolled over the top of him, kissing him passionately. Marriage be damned. Ezra belonged to him, body and soul.

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