A/N: Sometimes I'm in a silly mood, and then the birth of a fic like the following happens. There is my token Ezra whump, but since it's a funny, it's not to the level of my normal sadism. Yes, I must even hurt the boy when I'm being quirky. *sigh* I'm messed up just a tiny bit, yeah?

As usual, thank you Aislinn Graves for being an awesome beta. In case you guys didn't already know, I co-wrote an M7 story with her called 'Ambush' that is over on her profile since it was her idea. She did the first and last third, I filled in the middle. It's a crossover with 'The Losers' so you might be just a tiny bit confused if you haven't watched that movie or read the comics (but you should totally go watch the movie 'cause it's wicked awesome and has Chris Evans playing my boy Jensen who any fan of the comics will attest to the fact that he plays the role perfectly!). If you aren't familiar with it, then Vin fans are missing out 'cause it has another long-haired, cowboy-hat wearing, super soft-spoken sniper type named Cougar. If you like Vin, you'll like Cougar, and Ais decided we should stick them together in one story to see what would happen. The drabble we created is just a taste of that! Go! Read! (after you read this one, of course!)

Confusion washed over him as he blinked open his eyes and found himself staring at a blue sky overhead. His brain felt numb - hell, his whole body felt numb - and he had the distinct feeling that he was forgetting about something important…

"Breathe," a deep voice commanded.

The words took a moment to register in his befuddled mind, but after he made logical sense of them he ordered his body to do as requested. A short intake of air cleared some of the haze from his vision, making him realize just how close he had come to blacking out from simple lack of oxygen. Another, longer breath reconnected the rest of his body to his half-conscious thought.

"Ow," he mumbled absently as pain sensors began to flare.

Someone nearby laughed. "Hell, I'd be sayin' a lot more than 'ow' if that were me," a jovial voice continued after the laughter.

"Surprised he's sayin' anything at all," that same deep voice from before grumbled.

A hand appeared in his line of vision, waving back and forth and thus reminding him to maintain the simple motion of blinking so his eyes wouldn't dry out. The hand was suddenly replaced by a face, one with blue eyes and framed with long hair. It was a vaguely familiar face, but at the moment he simply could not put a name to it.

"Ya sure he's gonna be all right?" the face said. "Don't look like he's all there."

"You get blown up and see if your brains aren't rattled for a while," the deep voice snapped.

Blown up?

If he could have remembered how to make himself laugh, he would have. He was an expert when it came to explosives, he didn't get "blown up." Or at least, he thought he was an expert…Who was he, exactly, anyway?

"Ezra, talk to me," said the man with long hair.

Ah, that answers that question.

His head cleared a little more. Ezra Standish - that's who he was, just his regular old self, nothing spectacular, no one overly important, just another face in the crowd.

Speaking of face, someone was slapping his.

"Stop," he moaned, turning his head away and scowling.

Jovial Voice laughed again, and it was beginning to get on his nerves. He turned towards the noise and sent his best glare at the man with the mustache. "I think he's comin' around," the laughing man grinned. "Hey Ezra, how many fingers?"

Sixteen?

Well that wasn't right. He blinked his eyes and the number of fingers dropped down to eight, which on one hand was quite impossible. Even in his scrambled state he could still recall that much.

"Four?" he guessed.

"Yup," Buck nodded.

Buck!

He smiled, happy to have placed a name to at least one of the men that insisted on invading his personal space at the moment.

"Why's he grinnin' like that?" Long-hair asked.

Ezra turned and squinted at him, trying to remember anything important…

"Five hundred dollars," he blurted out, then frowned and shook his head. "That's wrong…worth a lot more than that…"

"I'm gonna take that as a compliment," Vin said softly.

Ah, there it is. Vin Tanner.

He turned to where Deep Voice was poking at some tender spot on his leg. "Nathan," he said triumphantly.

"Yeah, Ez, you comin' around now?" the healer asked rhetorically, moving right into a new question as he prodded at another bruise. "That hurt?"

The gambler furled his brows in concentration. "Yes?"

Buck snorted. "Ain't a right or wrong answer, pard."

Nathan reached around and flexed Ezra's knee a little, causing him to hiss loudly. "Yes, definitely yes!" he yelped as he tried to pull away. Gentle hands held him in place.

"Is it bad?" Buck asked, the humor in his voice replaced with genuine concern.

Nathan shook his head. "Nah, seems he just twisted it a might when he landed."

Landed?

"Was I flying?" Ezra asked, wondering now just how muttled his brain actually was.

Buck laughed again. "Hell, pard, like a damn chicken."

The Southerner frowned. "Chickens do not possess the ability to….oh."

"Ezra, can you sit up?" the healer continued in his no-nonsense tone.

Of course, I'm not an invalid.

Ezra felt his muscles strain as he pulled himself upright, and flashed a smug grin in Nathan's direction. The healer continued to frown.

"Well, can you or can't you?" Nathan asked.

"Can I or can't I what?" Ezra returned, perplexed.

"Sit up," the ex-slave sighed.

"Am I not?"

Hell.

He realized with chagrin that he had only managed to lift his head up off the ground. Calloused hands moved gently behind his neck and shoulders, boosting him the rest of the way into a sitting position and holding him there as the world spun around him.

"You ain't gonna toss that coffee ya drank, right?" Buck asked worriedly.

Coffee?

"What time is it?" Ezra mumbled, swaying a little.

"Still mornin'," Tanner informed him, pulling Ezra's arm out of his shirtsleeve.

Why is my shirt unbuttoned?

"Ow," he muttered again as Nathan began tending to the cuts and bruises on his torso. Of course, the healer must have undone the buttons on his shirt while he was…what was he doing? His train of thought was suddenly broken by one of Buck's admiring whistles. When he turned his head, he saw the ladies' man gazing at his back and slight anger clouded his mind. "Mr. Wilmington, please refrain from whistling at my backside. I am not one your lady friends!"

This time both Nathan and Vin were the ones laughing while Buck fell silent. A blush rose up his neck before he shook it off, his face turning into a scowl. "Your bruise, Ez, I was lookin' at your bruise. You're all black and blue up the back of your shoulder."

Shouldn't that hurt?

He shrugged it off and realized that the motion did, indeed, cause a flair of pain he was previously unaware of. He scowled at the mustached man for bringing the new discomfort to his attention.

"Landed on a rock," Vin ever so helpfully pointed out, digging the damaging item from out of the dirt where Ezra had fallen. "Lucky it was your back that hit and not your head...or did you hit your head? Ezra?"

What?

"Ezra?" the tracker tried again.

What!

The gambler stared at Tanner, wondering why the hell the man was giving him such an exasperated look. Pain shot through his back and shoulder and he jerked forward, confused by the fact that he had somehow completely missed the moment when Nathan had moved around behind him.

"Dammit, Mr. Jackson, that hurts!" he snarled.

Vin looked oddly relieved by his outburst.

Strange…

"Sorry, Ezra, I'm almost done. Nothing looks broken, just gonna be sore for a while," the healer informed him.

"Then are we finished?" the Southerner asked, tired of being poked…and actually just plain tired. He wanted to go back to sleep.

"Yeah, I'm done. Let's get him back to his bedroll."

When they got Ezra to his feet his head lolled forward for a second as a wave of nausea went through him, but he fought off the sickness as the sight of how disheveled he looked reached his blurry vision. Appalled, he attempted to wrench his arms free from his captors so he could brush some of the dirt and grass from his pants. His shirt lay ruined and discarded at his feet.

Vin tightened his grip on the struggling arm. "Dammit Ez, quit fightin' us. We're just takin' ya back to camp so you can sleep for a spell, get your head back on straight."

The gambler unconsciously reached a hand up to his neck, running his fingers up to check the alignment of his chin. The slightly amused looks of disbelief on his friends' faces didn't go unnoticed, but he chose to ignore them as he assured himself his cranium was exactly where it was supposed to be.

"I'm a mess," he informed them with a petulant tone. "You can't really expect me to sleep in this state can you?"

Buck shook his head. "Don't got much of a choice, pard. It's not like you can change your clothes – they were all in those saddle bags of yours."

And the issue?

Nathan saw the confused look on the cardsharp's face and took pity on him. "You had a couple sticks of dynamite in your bags, remember? That windstorm blew through, carried a burning ember from the campfire over to 'em and they caught fire?"

Vin picked up the story, seeing the continued bewilderment in the gambler's eyes. "You shouted at us to take cover then grabbed up your bags and took off with 'em. Never seen a man move so fast."

Ezra thought he detected a touch of admiration in the tracker's tone, then turned to Buck as the ladies' man finished up the recount of the morning's events. "Got pretty far away before you tried to ditch the bags. Tossed 'em out in front of ya but you musta misjudged how much time ya had. The dynamite blew up in mid-air, sure sent you flying like-"

"A chicken?" Ezra finished.

Buck's eyes softened. "Yeah, pard, gave us a scare. Thought you were dead."

"But I'm not."

Vin smiled and patted his arm. "Nope, still with us…mostly."

"But my belongings are," Ezra stated dryly.

"Dead and gone," Nathan confirmed.

"Including my clothing," the gambler continued.

"Whatever you had in those bags," Buck nodded.

"So I can't get myself cleaned up?"

Nathan shook his head. "This could go on all day. Come on, let's just get him settled. He'll sleep it off."

Sleep what off?

"Ya sure he didn't hit his head?" Vin asked again.

Nathan frowned. "Didn't have to. That concussion's from bein' too close to that dynamite when it went off. It's his own damn fool fault. How many times has Chris told him-"

Ezra's head shot up. "Chris?"

"Yeah, you remember Chris," Buck told him softly as they lowered him down to his bedroll. "Moody guy, dresses all in black?"

Oh good lord!

The Southerner latched onto Buck and Vin's forearms, panic crossing his features. "You can't tell him!" he squeaked.

Tanner grinned. "Yup, he remembers Chris."

Ezra ignored him, a litany of babble spewing from his mouth. "He'll shoot me, not threaten to shoot me this time, he'll actually do it. If he knew how close I came to blowing all of you to, to, oh lord, you can't tell him!"

"Calm down, Ezra, he's not gonna kill you," Nathan promised.

Ezra didn't look so sure.

"Nate's right, he won't kill ya on account that you got yourself blown up savin' the rest of our sorry hides," Buck smiled.

They pushed the Southerner back so he was laying down, the man still pleading with them not to reveal what happened to him to their dark-clad leader. After a few moments his confused ramblings slowed to a quiet whisper and eventually stopped. His eyes slid closed as a sigh escaped his lips, his body succumbing to the effects of the concussion.

Nathan stood up and shook his head again disapprovingly. "I don't understand what his bags were doing that close to the fire, anyway. He knows better than to keep his explosives too near a flame."

Buck looked down sheepishly. "That might have been my fault," he quietly admitted. "I needed to borrow his razor, forgot the dynamite was in the other pouch. I set the bags back down without thinking."

Vin and Nathan stared at the ladies' man, completely dumbfounded.

"Buck, you idiot, you coulda got us all killed!" Nathan berated. "Damn near did kill Ezra! What're you gonna say to him when he wakes up? What're you gonna tell Chris?"

Buck shrugged. "Oops?" he offered.

Oops? OOPS! Mr. Wilmington, you are a dead man!

The End!