Faovorite characterization? EZRA! But srsly, my favorite series was prob' the ones you did where you let people pick their own ending. It was such a cool idea.
Ahh! I’m pretty tickled you like Ezra’s characterization, though increasingly I’m pretty sure yours is better!
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“Yo, Old Man Easy,” Connorsslapped Ezra on the back hard enough to send the spoonful of soup Ez wasraising to his lips all over the cafeteria table. Connors came around an sethis own tray down across, returning nothing but a grin to the daggers EzraShepherd was staring into him. “I’ve been noticing that you’ve been hitting thechow hall earlier and earlier.”
“That’s pretty A+ perceptive,Connors,” Ezra pulled his napkin off his lap and swabbed up the flecks ofchicken-noodle from an adjacent piece of cornbread. “But have you noticed thatI call you ‘Connors,’ not some weak-ass nickname?”
“Shepard gets to call you ‘Easy.’”Ezra didn’t need to see the twinkle in Connors’ eye to know the joke he was buildingup for.
“That’s because Oz knows thequickest way to my heart is a good, hard, fuck,” Ezra deadpanned, making sureConnors felt every clinical implication. “And he’s got a big enough dick toreach. From either end.”
“Dude! Too much information, dude!”
“Not even finished, Squirmy. Part of the reason Oz gets to call me ‘Easy’, y’know other than that he’s my boyfriendand nicknames that sound fucking atrocious coming out of your mouth sound cuteand sexy coming out of his, is the fact that with just the barest modicum of analingus,” here Ezra began exaggeratedlyslurping the thick soup from the rim of his spoon.
“Dude! Dude! Alright! Jeez!” Connors screwed up his face, but ended uplaughing. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.” Ezra reached over and plucked thecornbread off Connors’ tray, messily biting it in half before Connors couldguard the rest of his food. “Hey! Hey! God,I don’t know how Oz puts up with you, Shepherd. You this much of a snarky dickwith your boy?”
If Connors had been able tounderstand Ezra’s cornbread-muffled retort, he would have heard: “You want to know what Oz loves best about mysnarky dick?” But Connors pressed on, unheeding.
“You got to let the mask slip oncein a while, Old Man.”
Ezra snorted, swallowing down hismouthful. There was something to that, and maybe it took dum Connors pointingout the obvious for Ezra to actually get theobvious: No, he wasn’t any less snarky with Ozark. But it wasn’t the same. Itwasn’t… so defensive. For the longest time, Ezra had thought his humor wasprotecting the soft, abandoned little boy he was inside.
That wasn’t true, though. Underthe jokes and the cracks and the snark was… more of the same, really. It was him, now, along with the tremors andthe panic attacks and the worry that he definitelyhid behind the jokes.
And Ozark loved that, and so muchmore about him. It was freeing. Being with Oz was a reminder that he wasn’t allshell, that against all odds, the war paint Ez had adorned himself with foryears came in all colors, after all. He could use it to make big, swirling VanGogh portraits of the man he loved.
“How’d an old man like you nab aguy like Oz anyway, huh?” Connors teased through a mouthful of beans. “Dude’slike a super model.”
“Guess everyone needs an uggo to make them feel better.”
“I use a lot of concealer.”
“10 inch dong.”
“We’re just pretending to give bean-snorting apes like you something to gossipabout.”
Those and dozens more went throughEzra’s mind in a blink of an eye, but none of those felt right. He didn’t ‘nab’Oz, and he didn’t care exactly why are how Ozark love the craggy face and thefour-decades-too-deep laugh lines, the stubble that stuck around and not in Oz’ssuper model way. But even though he should’ve been the punchline of therelationship, Ezra believed it with his whole heart.
“Yeah? You think Oz looks good, you should see the two ofus together.”
Connors guffawed, almost spittinghis beans on the table.
“You’re too much, Shepherd.”
“Uh huh.”
