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Sam and Ezra have always slept together.
In the literal sense. They don’t start sleeping together until about a year in, but Sam is honestly surprised it wasn’t earlier. It probably would have been, if he had the courage to take the chance.
(Ezra teases him about it sometimes. Never in front of other people, of course, but when it’s just them and the quiet, lonely night, and he’s had a bit too much to drink, he’ll really start to dig at Sam.
“I was waiting for months. I began to think it would never happen and I was just going to be stuck as the fool, trailing after you.”
“Well, I got the guts eventually, didn’t I?”
“Months, Sam. You’re lucky I like you so much.”)
But anyways. They’ve always slept together, even in those early days, when Sam didn’t sleep much at all and Ezra was still poking and prodding at him to make sure he wasn’t seriously fucked up in the head.
He remembers the first time they slept— well, not really together, but close enough to be mistaken as something else.
He remembers it because he doesn’t remember it at all, only the soft sounds of Ezra breathing. There was a cold going around, and it made his lungs sound just this side of rattly, and Sam remembers thinking God Almighty, help me keep my guard up. This man is tricking me. Please don’t let him.
And then, nothing. Frustratingly, blissfully, nothing.
Sam remembers sleeping through the night and then some, finally waking to Ezra milling around in search for breakfast. He remembers the way Ezra had looked at him, some strange mix of delighted and relieved, and said “You slept like the dead, Samuel. Good. Make it a habit.”
And nothing more.
-
The open road is fucking freezing.
Sam learns this, along with a couple other things, his first months traveling with Ezra. Maybe travelling isn’t the real word for what they’re doing, more like swindling or stealing, but Ezra wrinkles his nose at those words as if they’re not as true as the saddle on his horse.
The horse, adequately named Honey for her golden hair (just like her owner), seems to like Sam. At least that’s what Ezra says, when she will almost fall to the ground with a resounding whump right next to Sam when they settle in for the night.
Secretly, he likes her too.
But they travel, and they sucker poor souls out of their hard earned money, although the rich men Ezra likes to target don’t seem that hardworking at all. They seem lazy and incompetent, which is why they’re so easy to steal from.
Soon enough, Sam and Ezra becomes SamandEzra. They’re a double act, a package deal, never seen without the other close behind. Soon, there is not a soul in the country who does not know about their exploits, about their genius, about their loyalty to only each other.
Rumours swirl, of course they do. But they’re never in the same place long enough to let it truly hurt them. Or else they would slow down. Get emotional. And there is nothing emotional about the calculated way Ezra Dawson can zero in on a down-on-his-luck man like a hawk.
So they keep going. They keep going despite the rumours, and the stories, and the men and families they’ve taken from. They are SamandEzra, and nothing could ever keep the two of them apart.
And along the way, Sam takes moments for himself. He stores them away in his heart, tucked and folded as if between a bookcase. Safe and warm.
Like now. They are on the road, as they always are, sleeping on the ground, as they usually are. And like usual, Honey sleeps near the wagon, as if she will be the sole defence against thieves in the night.
Like usual, there is a dying fire lit hours ago, embers still molten in the darkness. And the most expected is them, lying on top of a thick blanket.
They are almost unmoving, halfway to sleep, curled around each other like commas. And Sam thinks you can tell, can see it in their faces, that there is nowhere they’d rather be. Or at least nowhere he’d rather be.
Ezra is lying on his chest, an arm haphazardly curled around Sam’s waist. Sam is resting his chin on the top of Ezra’s head. The only thing he can feel right now is warmth, radiating from his chest down to his toes.
Ezra has got him. And he has Ezra. And that’s how it always will be. No matter how much everything changes, they will stay the same. And that’s the last thing Sam thinks before he plunges into unconsciousness.
-
Of course there was going to be a bed.
The last few weeks have been— a rush, to say the least. Who knew that buying a building and renovating the entire thing was a busy decision? Nonetheless, it leaves Sam feeling exhausted, and just about ready to collapse into bed, except—
There’s no bed.
Which makes sense. This place used to be a schoolhouse, for God’s sakes, and so why would there be any type of bed? So him and Ezra have been sleeping on the ground for the past weeks, which would be fine, except for the fact that he’s not young anymore, and every morning he wakes up regretting it in the first place.
But he still lays down on the cold, hard floor every night, despite all his complaining (which he makes very clear). He does it because Ezra is right there next to him, and he’d probably follow Ezra to the edge of the Earth if someone let him.
It’s not until the third week that Ezra does something about it.
“Okay, I’ve had just enough of sleeping on the floor, so let’s fix it.” His tone is resolute, as if he didn’t wake up less than 2 minutes ago.
“Huh?” Sam mumbles, turning over to face Ezra. “How the hell are we gonna fix it? All our money is on this place, so we can’t exactly waltz into the shops and pick out some quilts.” The sentence is punctuated with a yawn.
Ezra rolls his eyes. “Obviously, dumbass. We’re flat broke, so we’ll have to build it ourselves.”
“Ourselves?” Sam practically crows. “I don’t know shit about carpentry. And I know you don’t either.”
“So, good time to learn, then,” Ezra intones. Sam groans into his pillow (that is not an actual pillow, just more blankets).
Later that day, Ezra is sprawled out on the floor with a hefty pile of wood and an alarmingly large saw. Sam had helped him bring in the materials, of course, but at his insistence to help Ezra had shooed him away.
“You said it yourself, you don’t know shit. I at least lived next to a carpenter when I was six,” is what he says, which seems like a bad argument, and Sam tells him as much. Ezra smacks him in the hip.
Now, he sits to the side watching Ezra work, whittling just to keep his hands busy. Depending on how focused he is, it could either be a spade or an odd looking triangle.
But as it is, it’s hard to focus on any task when Ezra is in front of him looking like that.
Ezra has taken an old shirt and ripped the sleeves off for more movement. It’s loose, probably won in a poker game, and is clearly meant for a larger man.
All of this is to say is that there is a lot of skin on display, and Ezra doesn’t even seem to care, doesn’t even seem to notice that it’s slowly driving Sam crazy.
He fiddles with the ring on his chain momentarily. It’s a tell, one that he gained after the ring was actually given, but not that useful in any kind of game, because it just means he’s thinking about Ezra.
He’s thinking about Ezra, sitting on a floor that has seen much better days and figuring out how to build an entire bed without asking for help.
He’s thinking about Ezra, who once told Sam that missing his sister is like missing a limb sometimes.
Ezra, who seems to have a million faces for a million people, who still loves Sam in each one. Even when Sam can’t quite love himself.
Without really meaning to, he finds himself getting up and walking over to where Ezra sits. He looks up from whatever he was working on, half smile already on his face.
Sam leans down and kisses him slow and soft, the way he deserves. He can feel Ezra smile and sigh into his mouth, and if Sam could choose his last moments, it would be here, in a schoolhouse that’s falling apart, with Ezra in his arms.
When he pulls away, there is not even a thought of someone seeing, of someone knowing. He looks at Ezra, at his partner, at the love and affection so evident in his expression. Sam has heard people say that Ezra is hard to read, but that’s not true at all.
In the end, he doesn’t remember the entire day. What he does remember is Ezra’s laugh, and the sunlight that dances across them both, making them glow. The way they had moved against each other, always in sync.
Sam and Ezra. The way it was always meant to be.