It felt wonderful, to just lie there and hold a warm body, Jim reflected, slowly drifting back to wakefulness. To feel the person in your arms return the embrace, content to snuggle. He missed snuggling. Carol had never been one for it, always frumpy and grumpy, or already gone when he awoke.

 Morning stubble scratched teasingly at his arm, then two full lips were pressed to his cheek. "Good morning," Blair said politely.

 "Good morning," Jim said back, equally politely. Then he launched himself at the smaller man, bedclothes rumping and flying as he plundered Blair's mouth. And damned if Sandburg wasn't returning the favour.

 Finally they rolled to a stop, and Jim tugged the smaller man to him again, liking the way the slender body fit so well into the curve of his own. He slowly traced circles around Blair's nipples with his fingertips, nuzzling into the juncture between his shoulder and neck. "You know, I've been thinking," he mused teasingly, shuddring a little in anticipation as a warm hand snuck over his body. "And - " he trailed off and let his head fall back, relishing the feel in those scampering fingers across his skin.

 "And...." Blair drew the end of the word up into a question, his questing hand happily stroking and fondling everything in reach.

Jim leaned over and kissed the smaller man, tasting the salt from the last nights tears and smelling the unwashed, sweaty smell. "And, I think my little cochon needs a bath," he teased, nuzzling a perfect, shell-like ear.

"Cochon?" Blair fairly shrieked, rolling over and clamping his knees firmly astride Jim's pelvis as he pretend to smack the man helpless with laughter beneath him. "COCHON???"

 "Hmmm..." Jim made a show of sniffing the air and Blair pelted him with a pillow. When he pulled the cushion away, Jim was using the index finger of his right hand to push his own nostrils up, honking and grunting like a truffle hunter.

It was the final straw. Blair sat there speechless for a long moment, then finally threw his head back and screamed with laughter. Howling helplessly, the Maquisard toppled off his lover and to one side, clutching the pillow in his hands so tightly Jim thought he could hear the material tearing.

Jim decided he liked the sound of Blair's uninhibited laughter. He liked it so much, he decided to hear more. Creeping one hand along the mattress, he mercilessly attacked the smaller man's stomach. There was more hair down here, he discovered, soft and silky, a delight to his fingers as he tickled over ribs that stood out a bit too sharply.

 Blair shrieked and tried futilely to squirm away, panting and flapping his hands in a flurry of slaps at the invading digits as peal after peal of laughter blessed the air. Finally he managed to escape. "D'ac, D'ac!" he gasped. "Ok! I'll take the damn bath! On one condition."

 Jim waggled his fingers threateningly. "No conditions, my little piggy," he warned.

 "One." Blair rolled over and covered the larger body with his own. "You bathe with me."

Blair moaned as the hot water caressed him. "Heat..." he turned and made kissy motions to the faucet as Jim stepped into the water. "Oooh, I love you. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou...."

 Ellison pouted as he settled himself up the other end of the tub. "Does that mean I'm replaced?"

 Blair tickled him with his feet as he closed his eyes, soaking up the heat. "Unless you start spouting warm water, yes," he replied solemnly.

 "Ahhh," Jim leaned back, water splashing around him. "But will this bath take you to a place of endless sun?" he asked slyly.

 Blair cracked open one eye. "I'm listening..."

 Jim smoothed his hands up the other man's calves. "Where would you like to go, mon 'tite cochon? Florida? Mexico?"

 "I went to Mexico once.." Blair splashed his toes in the water, watching the little ripples spread out to rebound from the sides of the tub.

 Jim caught the wayward foot and settled it in his lap with its mate. "When?" he asked, sensitive fingers massaging the fleshy pad on the sole.

 Blair threw his head back and moaned in ecstasy. "Avant la guerre," he gasped, "I was studying the cultural remnants of the Aztec empire."

 "Studying?" Jim's hands drifted into stillness as he realised how little he knew of his lover. "Why?"

 Blair demandingly thumped his foot, splashing him. Taking the hint, he resumed the foot massage with a wry little smile as the Maquisard continued. "I was studying the people..." He slid down further in the tub as Jim hit a sensitive spot "oooooooooooo.......anthropology....."

 Jim started on the other foot. "So you were studying to be an anthropologist?"

 "Am an anthropologist," Blair was melting into a puddle under the strong fingers. "Professor. Got my doctorate three days before they broke the Maginot Line."

 Jim let his hands move on their own as he studied the smaller man. His Blair a Professor? He looked no older than 26, 27, not the stuffy, grey haired gentlemen he usually associated with that level of knowledge.

Blair arched lazily as he fished for the soap, body undulating along Jim's legs as he recovered his prize. Soap, real soap, an incredible luxury with the nazi restrictions. More highly prized than chocolate, even - chocolate might taste nice, but you couldn't roll it over your body to get rid of the smell. "So what about you?" he asked, lathering up a foam in his fingers and smoothing his soapy hands over Jim's chest.

 Ellison shrugged. "Army. My brother cashed in big on the crash of '29, he owns some company in the US." He leaned forwards with a gasp as the slick palms teased his nipples "Never really could get into the corporate dig, so I went back into the armed forces. Then the war started and..." he shrugged again.

 Warm water waved around them as Blair shifted in the tub, kneeling between the older man's thighs as he continued his washing. "And that's it? Just army?" His hands slid up to knead the older man's shoulders. Jim moaned incoherently as the smaller man brushed against him, an innocent little smile on his face, even though he knew exactly was he was doing to the Leftenant. "No wife?" Blair pressed with a little twist of his hips to the right, that same innocent half smile tickling his lips. "No children?" Another twist to the left. "No little cottage by the seashore?"

The maddening movements quickly became too much, and Jim wrapped his arms around the base of the smaller man's back, grinding their groins together hard. Blair's grin grew impossibly wider as he held on, head falling back and lips gasping open as a warm, hungry mouth attached itself to his nipples, sucking and nipping, blowing cool air, the contrast startling and aching.

 "Jiiiimmmm..." he moaned and thudded his fists against the muscled back in a little drumbeat of ectasy as the other man switched from one side to the other, the movements between them faster now, water sloshing up and over the sides of the tub to spray the floor as the Maquisard raised himself higher on his knees, then dropped, pounding harder against the waiting flesh as Jim grunted. Finally it proved too much, the warm water slicking and splashing around them pushing the pair right over the edge, the tattered tiling bounding the noises of their release back at them over and over again.

 WIth a sound that was half gasp, half sigh, Jim toppled backwards, water waving around him as he fell back bonelessly into the tub. Blair fell with him, slumping over his chest, content to be held and petted until his brain returned from its sojourn.

 Jim carded his hands through the hair at his chest, over and over, noting the way each strand felt gliding across his knuckles. "Your hair.." he murmured, stretching a coil out to its full length, watching the highlights playing. "So beautiful.."

 "I should cut it.." Blair whispered drowsily. "They have barbers here, or scissors. Make myself respectable..."

 "No!" Winding a length around his hand, Jim slowly brought the other man's face to his. "No cutting." He kissed the full lips, and went back to his playing, memorising each and every individual strand. "Can I.." he started hesitantly. "CanIwashyourhair?" The words came out in a jumble as Jim stroked his hands over the tumbled silkiness. Caroline had never let him touch her hair, perfumed and coiffed and fussed over for hours on end until it was 'just perfect.'

 Blair turned over in the tub and laughed at the whiteness billowing outwards through the water, like a giant amoeba. "Not in this water," he said comfortably, snuggling a little further into the strength at his back. He peeked over the edge and winced at the mess on the floor. "I don't think we have enough water left in the bath."

 "Well, how about another bath?" Jim suggested.

 Blair blinked at him, and Ellison could almost see the little cogwheels turning in his mind, shifting from viewing a hot bath as a dreamt of luxury, to a luxurious reality. He checked the little water heater, then shrugged, reaching down for the plug and dangling it in front of him by the chain. "Why not?"

 Together they flopped back against the sloping end of the tub, Blair leaning against Jim's chest, feeling the liquid warmth slowly drain away around them and watching the way the smaller man's penis bobbed in the retreating water until it sat lonely on the bottom of the tub.

 Blair looked down with a frown. "That looks so...sad," he remarked mournfully, before going off into gales of laughter.

Jim smiled. That was one of the things he loved most about the smaller man, his ability to laugh, take amusement in even the smallest (or largest, truth be told) things - even at the expense of himself. Blair poked the plug back in with his feet, then with a bit of fumbling turned the taps back on with his toes, reluctant to leave his warm, snuggly pillow. There was more fishing for soap, followed by some snuggling and smooching as the water levels rose, and Blair barely managed to turn the taps off again before the tub overflowed.