#ezjim

Exhausted, he ambles back into the soft light of the bedroom where Ezra awaits him, so wrapped up that all they are is a pair of green eyes staring up at him through a little peephole in the thick comforter. He feels a little swell of excitement as he approaches - the cold months really aren't so bad when he has someone to keep his bed warm. He lifts the covers and crawls in to be eagerly accepted, relishes the way Ezra's soft body curls so tenderly around his, the way their head nestles on his chest as he tucks the blankets back in to seal them both away from the invading chill. He takes a deep breath in, testing how much his chest can expand under their embrace. Satisfied that he won't find himself starving for air, he exhales, wheezing the whole way through, and feels Ezra shift and sigh as their hand goes to rest on the pectoral opposite their ear.

Jimmy is intuitive enough to feel the disquiet buzzing beneath Ezra's skin, it's almost as if he can hear the words being rehearsed inside their head. He leans in, breathes in the smell of their hair.

"Something's on your mind," he states, speaking into the crown of their head, and prompting another deep sigh out from them.

A beat passes while Ezra gathers the words. "That sounded awful. I know what those fits are like," they say, voice laden with sympathy.

"Don't worry about me, darlin'. You know how it goes, I get sick and then it lingers for a couple weeks, but after that I'm all good," Jimmy reassures, though inwardly he can't deny just how good, how warm and wanted their worry makes him feel. Nonetheless, his reassurance is pale and thin, and earns only a drawn out silence, heavy with doubt.

"You know, Jim..." Ezra starts, and then pauses for an extended length, dredging up words and assembling them with as much delicacy as they can muster. "I know I'm the first one to beg you for a drag whenever you light a cigarette, but I've been thinking-"

The warmth chills, the worry worms it's way under his skin and lingers like an itch, and suddenly Jimmy doesn't quite want to be so wanted; he shifts uncomfortably in Ezra's embrace and interrupts with a swelling irritation he's only halfheartedly trying to contain: "Oh, so now you're gonna tell me you want me to quit, right?"

He feels Ezra freeze in his arms and shrink ever so slightly away, but they say nothing, leaving him to stew in his own shitty, swirling mixture of indignation and regret.

"...I just want you to be healthy. I don't wanna watch you suffer. And I want you to live a long time, because I want as much time with you as possible," they murmur, quiet, timid and guilt-ridden, and the wholehearted sincerity of the words pierces him right through the chest with shame.

Jimmy casts his eyes up to the ceiling. His brain was working itself into a lather, readying him to blow up in anger at the impudence of the suggestion, but the wind is gone from those sails, and in its place is a reluctant remorse. Being asked to give up cigarettes feels like being asked to give up his own right hand, or something. It's the kind of request that leaves him with such heavy questions as: "how the fuck do you think I'm supposed to function at all without it?!" Yet Jimmy can't deny, he feels bad for being so quick to snap at Ezra, when they expressed such a tender concern. And love.

For him.

He takes a deep breath, tight and a little sharp around the edges, and rattles all the way through the exhale. Then shifts, that he and Ezra are face to face in the bed; they meet his eyes with hesitation, guarded. He presses his lips into a line, stares into their eyes hoping the remorse shows itself in its fullest. He lifts his hand and strokes the side of their face, tender affection over plush freckled cheek, moves to tuck a lock of dyed-black hair behind their ear. Jimmy watches them relax, their closed expression opening into this moment of mutual softening. Then, he draws them in close, hugging them tight as he presses a kiss to their hair and lingers there, lips and nose buried in their smell.