It ain't love, this thing with Ezra. Not really.

It's never been a Saturday spent courting in his Sunday best, or those chaste goodnight kisses on the front porch - the sort that leave a man with more than he hoped for and a hell of a lot less than he needs.

He's never brought Ezra flowers - can't even imagine the look he'd get if he tried it. No love poetry, 'cept the crazy jumble of underlined action words and describing words that burn between his brain and lips when he's looking down at Ezra half-clothed and half-asleep. He carefully wrote some of them down once, and looked at them a long while before tossing them onto the fire.

And they've never said it - love that is - as in I Love You, 'cause they're both fellas and that just isn't done. He doesn't really know the reason why, but there's probably one somewhere and he expects that Ezra knows it.

Sometimes though, when the long day is through and Ezra has a dinner bucket and a smile waiting for him, Vin's said "I do believe I'm in love," in a joshing sort of way. It tightens him up from gullet to gut whenever he says it, like it's some sort of secret. Feels kinda good, feels kinda bad when Ezra's answer has "esteem" or "affection" in it. Feels a whole lotta good when one of them words is "carnal."

They don't say forever, neither. Hell, it's rare they even say tomorrow, 'cause even if Four Corners is near respectable and folks think the same of him and Ez, well...there's still no sense in sticking his tongue out at fate.

So, no romance, no lover's pledges or any of the nonsense and everything that he shared with Charlotte. Not love then, except the sort between buddies keeping company when they're somewhere between marrying and paying for it.

Not love, not really, but...

Yeah, there's always a But, and mostly that But is how he wants to talk to Ez tonight about that Dickens book he's started, and then he wants to fuck him, and then maybe have a drink and a game of rummy afterwards. Or maybe some of that sherry might be nice; the smooth stuff out of the bottle that Jeb Crawley got Ez for the birthday Vin still feels kinda guilty for forgetting about.

It wasn't until a few days after that he even realized birthdays were something included in this thing they've got going. Ezra never said boo about it, but maybe that business last week was supposed to be his revenge. Or maybe anniversaries just aren't fair game like birthdays apparently are, because Ezra never gave no notice to their third one passing by last Tuesday.

Sometimes Vin really wishes there were set rules for this sort of thing.

He'd wanted to do something to celebrate, feeling pretty good for remembering the date - feeling even better that they weren't up to their neck in trouble like the last two years. Figured on maybe taking a ride out to the spring; getting some pine needles in some embarrassing places. Figured on letting Ezra's head rest on his chest while they played the Constellation Game, because the ground there can be awfully rocky...

Just a pencil-sketch of a plan, really, but he'd felt a queer sort of sweaty-palmed pride in it. He'd even packed a clean blanket in his saddlebag, and the set of handmade darts he'd been putting together as a house-set for The Standish Saloon. In his head, he'd give Ezra his gift right at sundown; earn himself a nice little present in return, even if Ezra hadn't brought anything with him but himself. In his head, it was pretty damned near perfect, with the new grass and the breeze off of the water...

Funny, peculiar-funny, that the bigger Four Corners gets - and it's booming with every train that passes through - the more closed in he feels. And it's even funnier that him and Ezra and Chris are the only ones still hanging 'round - the ones that everyone figured would be first to light out.

It's a whole 'nother town, really. Not just because they're thinking of changing the name to Travistown, after that business with the judge and those land grants. It ain't even all the new folks the trains have brought in. No, it's the four people who aren't here anymore - the one's who've left behind man-shaped holes where they ought to be. Oh sure, Buck and JD still write: long, rambling letters of unlikely adventures and even unlikelier women. Nathan even writes to Ezra fairly regular, which always makes Chris smirk when the letters are delivered to The Clarion. But it's not the same.

He sees Ezra in the cemetery sometimes, hands shaping words as he talks to Josiah's grave. Smiling.

Whole 'nother town, and even if he doesn't miss the constant rainfall of gunfire, he does kinda miss those sweet sunshine lulls that always seemed too good to be true. The town never sleeps anymore; it's too busy for that, and Ezra's in his element.

So the darts are still in his saddlebag, and he spent that anniversary evening playing muscle in the saloon while Ezra ran an all-night poker game in the back for some Easterners. Vin ended up putting away half a bottle of red-eye that night. Passed out in the room above the saloon that's sort of his for when he needs it. Pissed as he was at Ezra, he'd been a little ashamed at how drunk he'd got.

They don't drink so much nowadays, neither of them. Not since the night they both got liquored up and had at each other with bare fists and dirt-filthy words until they were both bruised and bloody and crying a little. He woke up buff-naked in Ezra's bed with a busted rib, and he's still got the lowdown feeling that the parts he can't remember, Ezra ain't forgetting.

So most nights when he's keeping Ezra company at the bar, he nurses a coffee or a lemonade. Makes folks in town think he's a Baptist, which is pretty funny when he thinks on all the times Ezra's complained about him bringing unwashed feet to bed.

The town-folk don't know him, not in the way that Chris used to and Ezra's starting to. That he used to be one of the "Magnificent Seven" is always good for a free drink with those young men who arrived somewhere between the facts and stories. For some reason, a group of drinking men are more likely to expect a tall tale of gunfights from him than from Ezra. Ez don't talk much about those days, which always amazes Chris. But Vin thinks he gets it. Those days are fading fast, and it cheapens them to their dime-store novels to cart 'em out for a bunch of family men who'll never understand.

Families...that's another thing he's been thinking about a lot lately. There's always a passle of young'uns running about town now, trying to follow him out to the woods when they see him with his rifle.

Ezra's been helping out Billy Travis and Silas Chase with their figures, letting them settle the saloon's books. It's Mary's doing, more than Chris's, though Vin figures his grumbling was mostly for show.

There's something about looking in on Ezra's office in the evening to see three lamp-lit heads bent over a stack of ledgers and receipts. Ezra's real good with them, and that little Armor looks up to him the way Billy does to Chris. He'd be a real fine daddy, Ezra, and it's too easy to picture him holding a little brown-haired, green-eyed baby. There'd have to be a little wife there too, Vin supposes, but she's never in that little family portrait in his head.

He wonders what it'll be like when Ezra finds her - wonders if he'll stick around past the christening himself. Of course, maybe Vin will be the one to settle down first, find some pretty thing with Charlotte's need and Ezra's independence, his passion, her softness. Ezra in a dress. Now that's something he wouldn't mind seeing again.

Maybe...maybe he'll ask someday. Maybe Ezra just might say yes.

Yeah...

Come to think of it, tonight might be a good time to give Ezra those darts. Bet he'd be mighty grateful, wanting to show his appreciation. Ezra might even get one of his fancy foreign ideas - the sort where afterwards they're upside-down and backwards from where they started, with the sheets trussing them up and together from ankle to hip.

Definitely the darts.

See, that's what's so great about Ezra. There's no scraping together the few dollars he picks up to buy some fancy oddbit for a woman who then may or may not decide to favour him with a roll in the hay. Vin shows up at Ezra's with a little handmade gift, or a willing ear, or just a "Damn, but I'm horny," and Ezra works that sweaty magic of his that always has them nearly rolling right off the bed.

And those hands of his...

Whistling something whose name he can't remember, Vin's own hand is jammed in his trousers' pocket 'cause thinking of Ez always does that to him.

Maybe he'll talk Ezra into taking that ride out to the spring tonight, since it's Inez's shift at the saloon. Pine needles and such.

Might even ask him about the anniversary thing, just so's he knows for next time.

Next time...

'Cause it may not be love, this thing he's got with Ezra, but...

He has to grin.

It sure is something.