The hot spring sun beat down on them, and Blair tilted his head up, like a daisy. With a sigh of contentment he pulled off his shirt in a single, graceful movement and laid back into the soft grass. Jim followed suit, shoving his own shirt under the back of his neck as a crude pillow. Sneaking a glance over at the other man, he stared, hypnotised at the dense mat of chest hair, eyes skittering over the two brown nipples then slipping lower, and he burst out laughing.

Blair looked down at his too-big pants, hiked high to his breastbone and bound there with a rope. "What?" he sat up and stared at the sniggering Leftenant. He had the feeling he should have taken offence at this grand man laughing at the only set of clothes he had, but decided he liked the sound of that full-bodied laughter too much. "Don't laugh, this is the height of Parisian Fashion!" Scrambling to his feet, he walked a short way down the hill, waggling his ass exaggeratedly as Jim's sniggers turned to howls.

With a graceful turn, the Maquisard minced back and stopped halfway, legs braced, one hand playing with his rope belt. "You like zis, yes?" he drawled in a perfect imitation of the English parody of his native accent. "Maybee I show you more, American?" Tugging on his belt, he loosened it a little and threw his head back, hands on hips as he wiggled back to where Jim was helplessly clutching his stomach, tears pouring down his face.

He was a step away when the belt dropped, and his trousers fell around his ankles, baring his ass to the French countryside and his private parts to a wide-eyed Ellison.

"Merde!" With a strangled curse he tripped and fell as the pants caught his feet, landing flat on top of Jim. There was a confused jumble of arms and legs, and then he pushed himself up, propped on forearms either side of the older man, painfully aware of the way his suddenly awake penis was brushing the other's.

He tried to push himself up on his hands, only to have his palm slip on a patch of loose earth and send him crashing back down. Jim grunted at the added pressure, then shivered as the intimate contact to his groin sent little spiderlegs scurrying along his entire nervous system.

Blair felt a tentative bulge beginning in the clothing under him, and with an odd, almost shy smile, moved again, experimentally, feeling it harden under him. He watched delicate eyelids close over bright blue eyes, then Jim moaned, biting into his lower lip. Blair moved again, then the eyes flew open, hot with arousal, and Jim's arms were coming up around him. "Oh, god..."

Pants were suddenly an unbearable pressure to the Leftenant, hauled off hastily and clumsily by two sets of hands to catch around boots and left dangling as he darted upward to taste the inviting mouth hovering over his own. An explosion of tastes met him, a slight metal tang from the canteen water, some sweat, all rolling around and surround by another, stronger taste. Tasting Blair.

Blair felt strong hands weave lovingly through his hair as their tongues duelled, a moist intruder welcomed and greeted, offered a place of refuge as he searched for more of that taste that was exploding over him. Jim Jim and more Jim. He felt a movement at his groin, along his entire body, desperate and needy, and old as time itself and responded, wanting more and more, it could never be enough, not with this man, he didn't know how, and he didn't know why. He didn't care either, just knowing that it was needed, a joining, an act of love in a time and a world where all there seemed to be was hate.
 

Jim couldn't believe he was doing this. He was actually doing this. The straight man who never even looked at another guy, kept all the social rules and strictures, dated all the pretty girls and left 'em in the dust until he found the right one and settled down was frantically humping himself against another man, holding him tight, as if letting go in some way meant losing the warm, strong, muscular form that was jerking against him, with him. A crimson haze obscured his vison, blocking out all rational thought, blocking out everything except the urge to fuck and fuck and fuck until his dick fell off.

With primal howls, each found release, the hot fluid foaming and roiling, trapped between their bodies to smear against flesh already slick with sweat. Breathing was optional, air snatched between hungry kisses and explorations of each other.

The frantic movements slowed, and Blair drew back a little, raising his head, searching the other man's eyes for something undefinable. Wanted. Needed.

And found it.

They began to move again, this time finding a rythmn, the initial release taking the edge off their desperate hunger, making way to a slow, gentle loving, the glide of skin against skin as if they were made for each other, mouths brushing, meeting, then locking together as they moved, sharing breaths, or maybe not even sharing breaths, the other's presence all each man needed at this point in time and space.

With a gentle sigh, Blair came, head arching back, feeling Jim's hands cup his head, thumbs stroking just below his ears. Bowing his head again, he rested his forehead on the strong chest, then looked up, and the smoky desire and arousal, the pure love shining from the cerulean depths blew Jim away, ripping straight from his feet to his groin, and then out of his body in a seemingly never-ending stream.

Later, they reclined on the grass and opened the basket, astonished by what Serena and Megan had managed to scavenge. Some cheese, fruit, even a little bread. Some traded from local farms, some taken from ambushed supply trucks destined for fat Wehrmacht generals. There was even a bottle of wine, a rarity to be treasured, and each man resolved to make it up to the two women. Sprawled on the soft grass, feeding each other, they pretended there was no war, no death, just the two of them, the only people in a perfect world as they kissed, almost playful, trying to ignore the necessary guns that were a constant reminder of the fragility of their dream.

Jim lounged in Blair's lap, occasionally lunging up to lazily snatch a choice piece of food from the other man's hand, each finger being suckled in turn before he returned to his soft pillow of strong thigh. He was working his way up to the smaller man's wrist when a sound caught his ears. He paused, ignoring the puzzled inquiry from above his head, finally identifying the source. Soldiers. And they sure as shit weren't the resistance.

"Jim?" Blair leant down, brushing his lips against the short hair, only to draw back as the Leftenant sat bolt upright. Reaching for his clothes without another word, the older man began pulling them on, movements sharp and quick.

"Jim?"  His voice quavered, although he tried to steel it, fear blossoming into relief as his lover turned to face him, eyes warm and tender from a face set in stone. Then the single word that slipped from his lips brought back the fear. "Germans."

Blair didn't hear anything, but imediately snatched up his gun, dragging his pants up with his left hand, gun ready in the right. "Where?"

"East." Jim cocked his hearing, finding it less of a stretch, the low muted voices and soft treads closer to their position now. "A patrol, sounds like."

Blair took his arm, tugging him to the shelter of one of many rocks dotting the hillside. "Hide," he whispered. "If they're a scout, they're looking for us, the Maquis. Maybe they won't-"

A shot rang out, sending slivers of rocks flying from their barricade. "Or maybe they will." Jim clenched the grip of his sten a little more firmly in his hand, then rolled out to one side, keeping low to the ground, spraying a quick burst at the targets he saw approaching. Targets, that's all they were. Not men, not the freckle-faced blond and dark-haired teenager types that were too goddamned young to die. They had weapons, and they were using them. That made them targets. Nothing more, nothing less. Not if you wanted to keep your sanity.

Or your life.

Jim watched the bullets bounce harmlessly off a nest of boulders in front of them. They were too high up on the hill, and the angle was too steep. For all the good they were doing, the two men may as well have been throwing cream pies and insults.

Blair nudged his shoulder and pointed at a little knot of boulders set in a point about twenty feet in front of them.

"Down there," he whispered, the sound somehow carrying easily of the noise of battle. "We can get a shot from down there."

Ellison shook his head.  Twenty feet of unprotected ground - rough ground at that. It would slow them down and they would be dead before they even made it halfway. "I don't think -"

But the kid wasn't listening to him, he was taking his opening, darting between the boulders dotting the hill, zig-zagging from one to the other, finally slamming into the point of a grouping of three. "SANDBURG!!" Jim watched helplessly as the impossibly small figure stood rock steady in the face of the shells pulverising his safe haven, calmly and coolly taking aim and firing, again and again, full lips moving soundlessly in a prayer for forgiveness as man after man fell in front of his onslaught.

Bellowing his rage as a returned shot came too close, Jim stood, lobbing grenade after grenade overarm, watching them roll like obscene eggs down the sparse vegetation. He was a perfect target, proud, tall, uncaring, invincible. He would live. He had to live.

Because death would not hold Sandburg. And the prospect of Ellison drifting through eternity without him was fucking UNACCEPTABLE.

Snatching up his gun, he ran down the hill, long legs eating up the distance as he sprayed a covering fire until he fell on his knees beside Sandburg in the tiny knot of rock that seemed barely large enough to hold one. Between the grenades and the deadly hail from the twin Stens the patrol retreated, more than half their number dead.

Jim reloaded his weapon and raised it at the retreating men, but Blair knocked it aside. "Leave them," he whispered. "They're going, gone. Nothing to fight for. Please."

Jim looked from the last figures to his new-found lover and nodded, swinging his gun to the ground as he ran desperate hands over the trembling figure. "Are you ok?" he demanded. "Hurt?" Blair shook his head, shivering as reaction set in. "Dammit Sandburg, if you ever do anything like that again!" Jim cut himself off and hauled the smaller man into his arms, bringing him close for a desperately fearful kiss.

Blair made a mewling, needy noise in his throat, leaning into the long hands entangled in his hair, turning his head side to side, exploring, tasting, taking, giving, over and over, then drawing away, jerking, eyes looking down, then closing, face twisting in agony as reality intruded. "I killed them..."

Blair staggered away, throwing up, over and over, every inch of that marvellous, scavenged, interrupted picnic expelling itself, leaving him retching and convulsing under dry heaves for so long that Jim started to be afraid. Hesitantly he came up behind the wretched figure, one hand reaching out to rub steadying circles on the strong back while he murmured reassurances. "It's ok, bebe," he soothed softly in French, finally coming closer to wrap his arms around the shaking figure. "It's ok, it's all right, shh, shh. "

Blair leaned back into the embrace, hands coming up desperately to cling to the strong arms encircling him as he sobbed. "IT'S NOT ALL RIGHT!!" He screamed the words into the sky, and the Leftenant flinched. "I killed them.." Blair whispered softly with an agonised glance to the bodies on the grass. "Jim, I, oh god, oh god, little boys, they were only little boys, they could have been men, but oh god, I killed them, I killed them..."

"Blair..." Ellison tried desperately to get through to the smaller man, his large hands wrapping around the smaller ones, trying to rub warmth into suddenly chilled flesh. But Sandburg was almost catatonic, words of penance falling rapidly from his lips as wide blue eyes stared off into the distance. Panicked now, Jim lifted a hand to slap the smaller man, but his arm dropped down, far short of its goal. He could never raise his hand to mar the precious skin, even in a situation like this. Slinging his Sten over his shoulder, Jim picked up Blair, cradling him to his chest, holding him close, all senses on alert, expanding outward and outward, searching, hunting for any sign of the enemy as he headed for the safety of the Reseau.