Ash '06: Particularities

It simply, is.

Ezra fussing with himself in the rambling brook, burgundy silk handkerchief turned black-red like blood, all wet and sopping with captured cold clear water dragged across his face and neck and forearms.

Vin fussing with the horses, everything checked twice, for horses were the only way out and one had to be sure.

Ezra thought Vin's insistence was a touch unwarranted.

Vin thought Ezra's immediate need to rid himself of grime was a touch prissy.

So Ezra washed himself while Vin made doubly certain and both met in the middle, nearabouts the same time, every time, and the annoyance was ignored - overlooked because each had their own peculiar habit as distraction.

Ezra stood and stretched, all things popping and groaning and settling back into its proper place. His eyes closed and his hatless head tipped back, curve of his smile catching the sun.

Vin leaned against Peso and watched, eyes narrow and intent and sparked with foundling hunger. That part he never grumbled over, not a single breath or the tiniest little bit.

Once - a day long ago - Ezra had stumbled off Chaucer's back and hadn't broken for the water. He'd held fast to the reins, had tugged and fixed and tightened - cavasan and bags and cinch.

He'd resettled the stirrups then finally let go the reins, only so far to loop them at the ready around the saddlehorn. He'd done the same to Peso, had tied neither in, merely relied on the greenery and shade to be sufficient inducement not to wander.

Once - a day long ago - Vin had staggered to the thread of creek plowing with subtle determination through the dust. He'd fallen to his knees, gathered the water in the cup of his hands, shaken and weak as he brought handful after handful to cascade down his face, crisp agony as rivulets followed his neck then swirled to his shoulder.

That day had been too close.

Happenstance run-in men spoiling for a fight breathing hot down their necks, lead flying even hotter, Ezra and Vin barely ducking and weaving in escape before it got more than too close. No good reason for the ruckus, no good reason to stay and argue it.

Ezra had held onto Peso's reins and charged them forward, shoulder snapping loose from its hinge as they rode though a thatch of bramble, then up and through a narrow gap and down the near sheer tumble beyond, where riders less skilled could not follow.

Vin had been listing to the side, shot straight through the shoulder, blood in his eye from a cut that whispered up into his hairline.

Even at a stop the horses had stayed alert, sweaty and agitated, cropped the bush clean of leaves all the same.

Ezra had checked them thrice.

Vin had pressed Ezra's silk handkerchief, all wet and cold, into the hole in his shoulder and waited, swooned and faint beneath the blister-haze late afternoon sun.

He'd been pulled to fit in the cradle of Ezra's strength - no knowing what or if Ezra's shoulder had been fixed, for he was aware of nothing but wait, wait, wait for Ezra - and he'd let go and fallen into the black and amber wash that beckoned, trusted the horses were ready and trusted Ezra beyond all else.

Later - it was dark and the night was cool and the stars were vivid and dancing - he'd come back. Blinked his eyes slow once, scratched his middle finger into his palm, and those things alone were enough to have Ezra at his side to coax him awake, coax water down his throat, coax his lips into a shared, grateful-relieved kiss.

Once - a day long ago - but Vin didn't count it as going against the grain. Didn't come exactly from their normal routine or come-by honest divergences from said habits. Not really.

Ezra rolled his neck - the sign he was almost done with his fussing - and Vin grinned. He stood up from his lean, all done with his fussing, too. Small aggravations, specks of nothing compared to all that was good in their opinions of one another, so easily forgiven when putting up and having was their opulent grace reward.

Two steps forward, each, and arms opened and gathered and drew the other closer, closer, tight and nothing between them but heat and themselves, that white-heated rightness that never would subside.

Ezra's skin was sweet and clean, still damp and cool, against Vin's scratchy-dirt cheek. He smiled, threaded his hands into Ezra's wetted hair, angled for the kiss Ezra was pushing to find.

End