JD was adding a bowl of salad to the table as Ezra walked back into the kitchen. Ezra pursed his lips.
"I trust that you scrubbed the dining area?"
JD smirked faintly, "Soap *and* water was used. I don't wanna be staring at your butt marks any more than you do." He waved Ezra to a chair and brought a platter holding the fresh trout, garnished and smelling utterly delicious.
Ezra's stomach rumbled.
"Help yourself," JD told him and turned back to the stove to remove a dish of new potatoes. He grimaced. "I'd offer butter with 'em, but somehow--"
Ezra looked up from serving a portion of the fish onto his plate, "Thank you. No." Their eyes met, and JD's mischievous grin became a snicker, and Ezra laughed back. He stabbed a portion of the fish and lifted it, pointing it at him. "You, sir, are indeed a troublemaker." He took a bite and his eyes closed momentarily in sheer gastronomic pleasure.
"But you like my kind of trouble," JD said cheerfully, and sat down, helping himself to large portions of everything.
"I like *this*," Ezra swallowed and opened his eyes. "This is quite extraordinary. I was expecting one of your three thousand pasta variations."
JD ducked his head a little in embarrassment. "It's the only actual recipe I know. My Mom taught me one time, when I wanted to impress this," he coughed and stopped himself with a mouthful of salad. "Anyway, tomorrow, it's pasta."
Ezra's face fell. Damn. Tomorrow. The poker game.
JD glanced up and his face tightened, "But I can learn more if you want, I mean, I can get some books or something and--"
"John!"
"Sorry." JD stared at his plate, silent.
"It's not the pasta. I love pasta. I don't care if you couldn't cook anything at all. *I* can't cook. Why should you?"
"Er, because you paid--"
"Enough!" Ezra laid his knife and fork down. "I thought I made it clear at the outset, you are not here as my servant, my slave, or anything else. You are my companion, for so long as the contract between us lasts. I would like to hope we can become friends, but that is not required of you. *Nothing* is required of you, except your own happiness." He paused, an appalled look on his face, "Please tell me you have not been intimate with me because you thought it was required of you?"
JD's face flushed scarlet. "No," he said almost inaudibly.
"Are you quite certain? You do not look entirely certain."
"No. I--" he stared fixedly at his plate, refusing to look up. "I like you. I mean, I *really* like you." He flickered a quick glance at Ezra, but didn't seem to be reassured by the blank face that looked coolly back at him. "It was kind of a bonus, but I-I," he stuttered, and Ezra held in a grin with some difficulty. Not that it was amusing, far from it, but the boy's discomfort was more reassurance than his words.
"You would have been prepared to lie with me whether I were hideous or pleasant to look upon?" He took pity on him, and JD nodded dismally. "But as I am not, in fact, hideous you have been able to forget that in effect I am paying you for this?"
"I guess."
"Good."
JD looked up, startled. "Good?"
"Indeed." He lifted a bite of fish to his mouth and popped it in. He waited until his mouth was clear, and added, "you should eat up, it won't stay hot forever." He broke open the potatoes, letting the air cool them, a small smile flickered across his lips and he rocked back onto his tailbone, letting the twinge there remind him why the butter was not available for the task. "This really is quite delicious."
"Thank you." JD ate silently, with all the enjoyment evinced by a condemned man enduring his final meal before the noose.
"I might just have a little more of --" he reached out to the fish and moved a goodly chunk onto his plate. He allowed no hint of his thoughts on his face, quite opposite to his young companion, whose every thought was telegraphed so clearly he might as well have spoken them. The boy placed his knife and fork on his plate neatly, and Ezra frowned. At least half of the food was still on his plate.
"I said good," he dabbed at his lips with the napkin, "because I should infinitely prefer that you come to forget entirely about the money, than dwell on it and modify your behaviour in accordance with some erroneous notion of what I might require or like, or need."
JD nodded with difficulty.
"I see." He drew a deep breath. "Are you finished eating?" JD nodded again, and Ezra stood. "Leave the dishes. Mrs. Flores will deal with them tomorrow."
"I don't mind--"
"Please," Ezra stopped him and held out his hand with a kind smile. "Come with me." JD looked at his hand, and back up at him, then took it reluctantly.
He followed as Ezra led him out onto the deck. "Sit down," he gestured to the edge of the deck, and JD sat obediently.
"This glorious vista is the reason I fell in love with the property," Ezra said casually, and turned JD by his shoulders to look out towards the mountains, behind which the sun was slowly drifting out sight in an orgy of reds, oranges and golds. JD let his legs dangle off the edge of the wood, and Ezra settled in behind him, smiling as he leaned back into Ezra's body. He looped his arms around JD's waist and leaned his chin on his shoulder, his legs stretched out either side of his partner's.
"It's amazing, "JD said softly.
"Do you know how much it cost me?"
JD's body tensed, and Ezra rubbed his cheek against JD's jaw. "I'm not trying to be cruel. I want to explain something to you."
"I don't know. A lot?"
"Nothing at all. A husband of my mother's, the fourth, I believe, left it to me when he passed away. He did it, he informed me, because it was always worth having beauty in one's life, no matter how ill earned." He smiled and brushed a kiss on the tense jaw. "Some years ago, my mother's present husband attempted to buy my approval with that Jaguar which you found so remarkably 'hot'." JD shivered briefly, and Ezra slid closer, his chest pressed tight against the boy's back. "It caused an inconceivable amount of difficulty for me, what FBI agent can afford a Jaguar, after all?"
"I thought you said you weren't in the F--"
"Shh. Let me finish." He waited until he was sure JD had subsided, and continued. "I am in the ATF now, yes, for reasons that we do not need to examine at this juncture. And now I have you." He tightened his grip. "Beautiful, isn't it," he gestured at the sunset. "I didn't ask for the house, you know, I merely expressed appreciation at a point when a troublesome old man wanted to annoy the hell out of his blood relatives.
"I didn't ask for you. My mother had an inconvenient five hundred thousand dollars and decided that she would dispose of it by adding something to my life that she thought was lacking. I strongly suspect I was set up. And so were you." He shifted his face to press a kiss into the nape of JD's neck, and his shoulders slumped, the tension flowing easily out of them when JD's hands wrapped tentatively around his arms. "The money would have been spent in some vastly selfish way, had it not been given to you. I will regret the spending of it only if it should come between us. I think we could become good friends. If you'll let us."
He stopped, waiting.
"I'd like us to be friends," JD's voice was rough, and he swallowed hard in sheer relief.
"I think we already are," he said quietly, and JD nodded, and they leaned against each other quietly.
Ezra found with some surprise that this whole non-sexual contact thing was astonishingly comforting, and smiled. Contrary to his every instinct, flouting every bit of training Maude had ever sought to instil in him, he was sitting on the ground, outside, with a man, in a way entirely likely to make his mother and indeed whole generations of Standishs if she were to be believed, fling their hands up in despair at the vulgarity of it all. He was actually canoodling out in his back yard with a man he hadn't even met two days ago, the two of them cuddled up closer than he'd allowed almost anyone. Worst of all, he never wanted to move.
He trailed lazy kisses down from JD's ear to his chin, then worked his way down his throat to nuzzle at the dip formed by his collarbone. One of JD's hands wrapped around his own and tugged it gently upwards to brush his lips over the back of it. It was the lightest of touches, and he shivered, unbearably touched. JD's fingers intertwined with his, and settled back to his waist.
"I don't ever want you to think I don't want you here," he added softly. "I admit, I was doubtful yesterday." He grinned and JD chuckled. "Okay, I thought I'd gone stark raving mad yesterday."
"Me too. I -- I, I was really starting to have second thoughts. And third and fourth and fifth ones too." He sighed and relaxed into Ezra's embrace. "But," he hesitated. "I've started relationships which were much less fun on flimsier pretences, it's what students do." He smiled up at the darkening sky. "We *are * having fun, aren't we?"
"I certainly am," Ezra's voice was dry. He shoved forwards a little and JD laughed.
"I guess you are enjoying it then."
"So, you're not going to worry about the money, my friend, are you?"
"Okay," he replied simply, and Ezra smiled.
"Good."
They sat in silence for a long while, watching the twilight fade into night. If this be madness, let me never grow sane, he thought in the stills of his mind, and relaxed completely.
"About tomorrow." Ezra started, tugging JD closer.
"You're having pasta and liking it," JD murmured, and turned his face to brush his lips against Ezra's.
Ezra grinned. "I am desolated to be obliged to contradict you, darlin', especially when we're making such good progress, but no, tomorrow we are having poker and my five colleagues are coming over."
"Do you want me to clear out?"
"Certainly not. Mr. Larabee as good as ordered me to ensure you were present."
"They found out, huh?"
"That's one way of putting it. Another might be that your phone voice is sufficiently loud that Mr. Larabee heard you refer to yourself as a little hausfrau, and doubtless also caught the other remarks you made."
"Oh. Oops." JD's tone was appropriately remorseful, but his shoulders were shaking gently. Ezra did not make the mistake of thinking he was crying.
"You revolting brat, next time you call, one, call my cell phone, not Mr. Larabee's, and --"
"But Ez," butter would have melted in the innocent sounding voice, "you didn't *give* me your cell number."
"Surely I." JD's head shook slowly. "Ah. An oversight I shall rectify as soon as possible."
"Right now?" JD sounded disappointed and Ezra shook his head slightly.
"No. Right now I'm enjoying this." He kissed JD's neck and smiled at the contented little sigh from his partner. "Stop distracting me, you. And thing the second, please modulate your voice a little whilst speaking to me on the phone, or my colleagues will be privy to far more of my private life -- and yours -- than is good for any of us."
"Okay," JD agreed equably. A while later he added, "Does that mean beer and nachos?"
"What?!"
"Poker night? I mean, you're all posh, but these guys, I'm guessing they're not so much into the haute cuisine."
"Not so as you'd notice, no." Ezra shrugged. "I usually pick something up on the way home. It's easiest for me."
"I could--"
"Not without transport." Ezra said flatly, then added slyly, "I'd hate you to put your back out carrying the groceries home." JD chuckled.
Some unspecified time later, JD's voice broke the quiet again. "Ez."
"Mmm?"
"How do you play poker?"
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Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fandoms listed herein. I am certainly making no money off of these creative fan tributes to a wonderful, fun show.