A/N: Hi, everybody :) I mentioned awhile back in an A/N that I was working on an Lil' Ezra ow AU and here it is. I should really be sleeping right now, but since it is officially two scenes and an epilogue away from being finished I decided it was time to share. I don't want to give too much away, but it is angsty and there is a misunderstanding, because that's like a staple of Ezra fics. But it also has a happy ending and lots of comfort, because I'm me ;) Hope you enjoy it!

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"C'mon, Ezra, time to wake up," Buck cajoled for the third time, tempted to stick a cold hand on the back of the thirteen year old's neck. The teen groaned as he shoved his head further under his pillow. "Miss Virginia's not gonna have any breakfast left to serve ya if you don't get up." Buck laughed as Ezra loosed a hand from under the covers long enough to try and wave him away, before immediately reburying it in the folds of his quilt. Least he'd quit throwing stuff off his bedside table a couple months ago, but it seemed whatever time his cousin got to bed he was a grumpy Gus in the morning.

Of course, the dozen or so times he'd caught him turning his lamp back on to read when he was supposed to be asleep probably didn't help that any. "Now, I ain't going away, it's after nine already and the sun is shining, pretty girls are in the street, card tricks to be done, and you're gonna miss it all if you don't get that lazy butt up." He tugged the quilt down, Ezra showing more life than he had all morning, almost growling as he tried to pull it back up or at least keep it where it was as Buck tugged again, chuckling at the probably not very polite mumbles drifting up from the boy's buried head.

"I've got some water in my jug," JD teased, sticking his head around the door. The mumbles got louder.

"You've got somewhere you're supposed to be," Buck informed him dryly as he looked over, "Vin's probably getting hungry and those prisoners ain't gonna watch themselves." Ezra used the distraction to get a good grip on the blanket and yank it away from Buck, tucking the ends around himself, head included, like a cocoon. Guffawing a little at the quick move, he shook his head, "No you don't, pard." Not willing to keep playing this game all morning, amusing as it could be, Buck grabbed the end of the quilt, and even though he swore Ezra was trying to grip it with his toes, got it out and peeled it upwards, so that Ezra was uncovered and only the bit of blanket he had tucked under his head and was fiercely holding on to was still touching him. JD cackled from the doorway and Ezra's eyes cracked open long enough to glare at the room in general before slamming shut. Laughing again, Buck shook his head, "I swear, boy, you are just about the laziest sun of a gun I've ever met."

*.*.*.*.*

Yawning over his plate of biscuits and gravy, Ezra supposed that this might have been food worth getting up for. Miss Virginia served simpler fare than Miss Inez at the saloon, and while her biscuits weren't quite as fluffy or flaky as the bar manager's, the gravy was perfect, thick, but not lumpy or too salty and had plenty of sausage. Slicing delicately into one gravy drenched biscuit, he allowed himself a small hum of appreciation as he brought the bite to his lips. Perhaps not quite perfection, but close enough that few would argue.

Ezra was vaguely aware as he swallowed another yawn-they were so undignified-that Vin was joining him at his table, had only just started to nod a bleary hello when the man's hands flashed over his plate and a choice bit of gravy soaked biscuit and a crumble of sausage were quickly plopped into the tracker's mouth. Ezra squawked in outrage, drawing his plate closer and placing a protective arm around it. The tracker might go for a whole biscuit next, he'd lost entire servings of bacon before. "Mistah Tannah, kindly keep your appendages away from mah breakfast!" His frown became even more pronounced when he saw that Vin had a plate of the same breakfast settled before him and he dropped his gaze down to it pointedly, then looked back up at his companion with exasperation all but dripping from his pores, "Particularly as you have your own meal directly in front of you."

Vin, now busy carving into his own pile of biscuits, grinned and shrugged. "JD took so long getting to the jail there weren't nearly enough gravy left." If that were remotely true, Ezra thought it was only because of the mountain of biscuits he'd piled on his plate, eyes fixing in disbelief on the dripping mound.

"Perhaps if you didn't require enough sustenance to feed a small city such problems wouldn't plague you." Vin just laughed, ruffling Ezra's hair before he could duck away and earning another scowl as the boy briefly quit guarding his plate to try and push it back into place. Luckily, Vin was busy digging into his own breakfast now and left Ezra's alone.

"So," Vin said a few minutes later, a sizable portion of his plate gone and Ezra finishing the last of his, "day after tomorrow I got a free day. Figured we could try some more tracking if you want, maybe set up a camp and show you a bit about finding your way with the stars." Ezra perked up with interest at this, while camping out would not ordinarily be something he chose, Vin's knowledge of how to navigate in the wilderness was unsurpassed. Navigating by the stars would be infinitely useful for any number of situations.

That Mr. Tanner was choosing to spend his free time with Ezra was also highly flattering, and if Ezra were honest he'd have to admit that it was more than just Miss Virginia's fine cooking warming his insides.

"That sounds very agreeable, though Ah will have to acquire permission from mah cousin. Thank you for the invitation." Ezra smiled happily as Vin chuckled at him.

"'Course, Ez. Told ya we'd go again."

"I'm telling you both, there's something I don't like about that young one. Don't trust his smile." Ears perking up as he heard the familiar voices below, a book was laid aside as Ezra briefly considered dropping his head down to 'surprise' his cousin.

When he realized just what he'd heard, he froze. Surely...

"Aw, you're being too hard on the kid, Nate. Boy's a little wild, but I don't think there's anything really wrong with him." Buck Wilmington's distinctive voice sounded equally parts lazy and contemplative as he answered. Not at all, Ezra observed, offended.

Nathan grunted, "I didn't mean it like that. Still, can't say I'd be sorry to see the back of that youngin', after all the trouble he's caused."

An uncommitting grunt was his answer, then, "It'd make things simpler, that's for sure."

"That seems mighty uncharitable to me," the preacher rumbled disapprovingly, "what the boy needs is guidance. Firm guidance."

"Hell, preacher," an amused laugh, "After that trick he pulled with your laundry I wouldn't think you'd be feeling any too charitable yourself." Silently, heart in his throat, the boy who only a few minutes previously had been sunning himself, carefree, on the small curve of the hardware store's wooden awning that hid him from view, slipped backwards.

It was just like always. For all he'd thought he found someplace different. Disappearing over the rooftop, Ezra scoffed that he had ever allowed himself to believe any such foolishness.

*.*.*.*.*

Stretching as he leaned himself against the hitching rail, Buck shrugged, "No, gotta figure Ez'd miss the kid like crazy. And Eli seems more like he just don't think, really-ain't got the mean streak Conklin's harvesting in his boy. Now, if the Widow Raley'd actually scold the kid when he pulled something, instead of just insisting it must've been an accident, every damn time, that I wouldn't mind."

Nathan chuckled quietly, and a hint of teasing in his voice, said, "You'd think if anybody was up for the job of convincing her, it'd be you."

"Ya know, you might be onto something there, Nathan…"

*.*.*.*.*

The dust stirred lazily in the air over the rutted street. The sun shone down on the graying buildings, the bullet holes in the wooden awning above the restaurant letting little arcs of light dart through into the shadows below. Farther away, racing into one of the back alleys, a flash of Billy's blond hair could be seen as he hollered after his escaping pup.

None of it was Ezra's. He could walk the street until he memorized every inch, but that remained the same.

Even in the 'new' blue jacket and waistcoat Mrs. Potter had helped him to acquire, Ezra felt his heart continue to sink down somewhere in the vicinity of his toes. He hadn't wanted to believe what he heard, didn't want to believe it, but the words kept repeating themselves in his ears.

'Wouldn't mind seeing the back of him.'

'Make things simpler, that's for sure.'

Swallowing valiantly, Ezra found his fingers playing with the 'real gold look' buttons on the front of his coat, it taking a moment for him to force his lingering digits back to his sides where they belonged. At first the shopkeeper had been surprised, even suspicious, when a boy only a year her son's senior had come in with the allowance Mother sent him semi-regularly 'burning a hole right through that trouser pocket' as Buck had teased. She had quickly come to appreciate her frequent customer, even to the point of sometimes acquiring items in trade that, with her practiced merchant's eye, she believed to suit him. No more. Soon, Ezra and his new jacket would be gone, put on a stage he supposed, though in what direction or to which relative he did not know.

They no longer wished for him to remain in their fair town. No longer would it be h-

He cut the thought off hard, tipping his hat to Mr. Conklin as the man hurried past. The cantankerous old man ignored him, but Ezra hadn't expected anything different, and rather hoped that his politeness had annoyed him. Stopping briefly on the boardwalk, he looked ahead at the livery and the clinic above. When mother had first sent him to stay here with cousin Buck, Mr. Jackson had seemed to disapprove of everything Ezra did wholeheartedly. Yet, it had been him who had noticed that Conklin, disapproving of a 'popinjay child gambler' being among his son's associates, would go out of his way to criticize and snub him. Though the information had not been truly new to him, when the man had pulled him aside to tell him that he'd found Conklin a problem himself and that the best way to handle him was simply to kill him with kindness-react as though you assumed he meant the very best with his words, and whatever you did don't give him the satisfaction of losing your temper-it had still been appreciated.

Somehow, though, Ezra didn't think it had solely been his attempt to follow Mr. Jackson's advice that had had Mr. Conklin keeping his distance recently. He'd seen the way the merchant shied away, changed direction when he saw the peacekeepers, particularly Buck and Nathan, in the vicinity.

Yet, now...swallowing and setting one foot in front of the other, Ezra started down the boardwalk again, making sure that he was looking around idly as he often did when taking strolls around the town. Buck would tease him that he was practicing for joining them as a peacekeeper when he was old enough, and Ezra would scoff and tell him that he would be off making his fortune in London or Paris, not chasing down bank robbers, thank you kindly. He passed under the clinic's stairs and the smell of hay, manure, and horseflesh coming out of the livery. The familiar knicker, Chaucer calling out to him, was ignored. Ezra was never going to be able to actually acquire the horse now, and supposed the money he'd sunk into him was lost. Chaucer whinnied, the horse that Vin insisted he was spoiling not used to his boy walking by without stopping, and Ezra felt briefly as though he'd been jabbed in the stomach.

He'd heard the words directly, heard them from the source's lips, and all there was to do now was wait. Not too long ago the opportunity to return to a city, to his mother, to anywhere but this dried up dust bowl as it croaked out its seemingly last few breaths of life would have seemed a release from torture and mind numbing boredom.

He didn't need Buck, or JD, or any of them. Ezra had been his own primary caretaker for years. He wouldn't lie to himself that he would miss this dingy little nothing of a town. That he would miss them.

It was so much easier not to.

Ezra lengthened his strides as he reached the end of the boardwalk, eyes glancing only once over to the other side of the street and the church. To ensure no one was watching only, he asserted to himself. That was all. As a matter of course, Ezra was expected to let one of the peacekeepers know if he was leaving Four Corners borders, yet he was simply unable to face any of them, not after what he had heard. In the light of his revelation it seemed quite unlikely that they would be bothered.

Ezra wanted to be angry, to be furious, but Mother had taught him to recognize patterns at an early age. The one common factor in the variety of homes he'd been shoved in and yanked out of was him.

The matter was, entirely and completely, his own fault. In the end, it always was.