He always looked so beautiful like this. Calm and peaceful. When the strains and weights of the world had all but disappeared, quelled by sleep. It seemed cliched, everyone became relaxed in sleep, it was nothing special nor was it intimately private. You could see anyone like this just by looking in through his or her window at night.

Yet lying here, with his fingers brushing gently across Ezra's arm, gently so as not to wake him. To be able to feel his heat and hear his soft breath, Buck was just glad to be there.

He liked to imagine that Ezra was different to anyone else. That his shields were so strong they could be worn even when asleep and that he only ever let them drop with people he loved. Like with Buck.

Buck would often fantasise that this was the first time Ezra had ever let anyone in. He liked to picture Ezra in a little bubble, visible to all, yet corporeal to none. Until now.

He liked to imagine that he was Ezra's first. His first love, his first companion, his first everything.

He knew it was stupid. Ezra knew far too much. He was too talented to be a virgin and his eyes too wounded and guarded to be pure.

But Buck still liked to pretend.

Ezra stirred against his touch at that moment. He rolled onto his stomach, pressing unconsciously into Buck's side and let out a soft sound deep in the pit of his throat. The sleepy hum sounded almost like a purr. Ezra made the sound every time he awoke, it was a routine of his, soon he would click his tongue against the back of his teeth and blink up at the bed rail until his vision cleared. Buck had memorized it, sometimes he felt it, letting his hand brush over Ezra's throat and feel the vibrations of the purr and then the jerk of his lips and the flutter of his eyelashes. Ezra usually hit him with a floppy sleep laden when he did that, he didn't like having his face touched, but sometimes Buck just couldn't resist.

Sometimes he viewed Ezra as some fascinating prize, something he'd never seen before, something that he couldn't just see with his eyes but had to touch and taste.

Ezra had laughed when Buck had told him this, he'd hummed a fond hum, not unlike his morning purr, yet still different and had called him something, Buck had forgotten what the exact word was but he remembered the feeling when he'd heard it, he remembered liking it. Liking this.

Fin.