Title: Under the Snow
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto
Warnings/Spoilers: none; vague references to The Sound of Drums
Rating: R (for one brief, non-graphic sexual scene)
Word Count: ~1700
Beta: sariagray
Summary:Ianto, Jack, a snowstorm, a cabin, and a dream.

Notes: This takes place, relatively speaking, during the-year-that-never-was. HUGE thanks goes to sariagray for her patience and understanding with me and my endless revisions of this (as well as several particularly mind-boggling conversations about TW canon and the Himalayas, which I'm sure drove her nearly mad). ^_~ Written for this week's redisourcolor challenge. Theme = kitchen; other prompts are condign, shower gel, expel and the phrase "Look. A map of Cardiff. Isn't it brilliant?"

First my left foot
Then my right behind the other
Breadcrumbs lost under the snow

Tori Amos, Mother

Ianto can hear the wind battering around the cabin outside. Shaking the windows a little, rattling them in their cages.

Outside the cabin, snow. More of it than he's seen in years. They'd needed proper boots to get up here, and even then, it'd soaked through to Ianto's socks. His toes are blue now from stumbling, snow-blind, through what had been almost waist deep powder at times. Some of the drifts had been so huge he'd had to hold onto the back of Jack's coat to avoid being swept up in them.

Jack had assured him that as long as he could still feel his feet, as long as they still hurt, it wasn't frostbite.

Easy for you to say, he'd quipped.

Jack could grow new toes, after all.

It's strange though, thinking of Jack that way, and besides, they need heat, so Ianto starts a fire, nice and big and crackling in the fireplace. Grabs a blanket off the back of the couch and wraps himself up in it, tugging it around his shoulders, and then pulling his head down so that it covers his ears. Those are still cold and burning, too.

Outside, the storm rages.

"Bet you could grow new ears, too," Ianto says, mostly to himself, as he stares at the fire blazing now in the fireplace. It smells like camping, like before his dad got laid off and they used to do things like this, warming toes and ears around the campfire, with stories and marshmallows and a flannel shirt that was three sizes too big.

Jack is pottering around somewhere outside the main room; Ianto can hear him, but can't see him. He wants to. See him, that is, so he gets up, moves away from the fire, and shuffles through the narrow doorway until Jack's frame comes into view. Jack's wearing flannel now, too, no braces. Thick wool trousers with lots of pockets. Huge chunky grey socks that didn't get wet like Ianto's had, somehow.

The wind howls outside in the darkness. Ianto shivers.

"Hi," he says, and stares at Jack's arse when Jack bends over, pulling open a wooden cabinet door. The wood is stained a dark mahogany and matches the walls of the cabin, a sharp contrast to the red-checkered floor.

"This place is pretty well-stocked," Jack says, sounding impressed.

And Ianto realizes that it's a kitchen. A proper one, too, with an island in the middle and cabinets and doors and stacks and stacks of food. Surprisingly large for a cabin this size, but he's not complaining. He smiles. Wonders if Jack knows how to cook any of this stuff, because he sure doesn't.

Jack is pulling out items from the shelves one by one and setting them on the counter.

"Three cans of beef barley soup. One huge canister of hot chocolate. Oatmeal - the real kind, not those little packets - even raisins." He opens up another cabinet and whistles appreciatively. "Canned vegetables and fruit. Plenty of ready-to-eat meals. And about three cases of beer. This place came prepared." Jack grins. "We'll be okay waiting out the storm here for a week if we have to with these rations."

"What about coffee?" Ianto asks hopefully, and sure enough, Jack's pulling a bag of beans out from the cabinet nearest his left shoulder.

"You'd know better than me, but it looks like there's a pretty top-of-the-line grinder here, too."

Jack beams at him, and Ianto suddenly forgets that he's freezing.

He moves towards Jack and, when he's close enough, he wraps his arms around Jack's waist, and presses his cheek against the flannel, against Jack's chest.

"You're so warm," Ianto says against the smooth cotton as Jack adjusts the blanket around his shoulders, pulling him closer.

Jack presses his lips to Ianto's forehead, and then to his mouth.

The room spins on its axis.

Ianto's tongue wrestles with Jack's, desire coiling hot and tight in his stomach, and more than that - relief, that he can still feel this, that he can still feel anything.

The sensation gnaws at him, but he can't figure out its origin, its basis.

The room is still spinning when their hips slot together, comfortable and impossible, something says, in his head. Impossible.

"Bathroom's fully stocked, too," Jack calls down to him from upstairs. "Lavender shower gel, the same kind as back in your flat."

Ianto blinks. A shiver runs down the back of his arms, raising the hairs to attention.

It'd been Lisa-a sale at Tesco (they were discontinuing the brand) and she'd stocked up. There were still three bottles under the sink that he hadn't even touched yet. He'd thought about getting rid of them about a dozen times, but Jack seemed to like it, said it reminded him of royalty, and so…. They'd stayed. At this rate he'd never escape from it.

A sort of condign punishment, maybe.

Jack rubs the thick foam over Ianto's shoulders in smooth circles. His touch is unusually tender, moving over Ianto's skin carefully, tentatively.

The stream of water is heavy and hot and turns Ianto's skin a light crimson before he sinks to his knees, and sucks Jack off enthusiastically, water pooling around Jack's toes.

The scorching spray against his back and his neck threatens to expel the cold once and for all.

The frost, the ice, the snow creeping up to his ankles - it all melts away, as Jack comes long and hard against his throat, warmth seeping down, filling him up.

Impossible, that voice says again, louder now. Impossible.

And then they're back downstairs, and Jack's standing over the large stove, an apron tied neatly behind his waist, and he's humming, some wordless almost-tune that Ianto's sure he's heard a million times before, but can't quite place.

The smell that fills the room is glorious. Bacon and eggs and pancakes, and the freshest coffee he thinks he's ever smelled. Ianto doesn't remember where Jack got fresh eggs, or milk for the pancakes, but that doesn't stop the combined aroma from permeating his skin and his pores as he breathes deeply.

It should be morning, too, but there's no sun filtering through the wide windows, just darkness and snow.

Ianto stares at Jack's back; he's humming louder, now, and Ianto wonders if there isn't something eerie about it, the more he listens. He wonders why Jack hasn't turned around yet.

The rhythm to Jack's song is familiar, but it makes Ianto's heart ache in his chest, it pulls at him, pulls heat from deep inside of him that pricks behind his eyelids.

He opens his mouth to say Jack's name, but nothing comes out, just air, so he sinks into one of the chairs at the table, and wonders where the draft is coming from; it's like ice. He rubs his hands together, and when he exhales, his breath hovers in front of him like a puff of smoke.

Jack's still humming that song, over and over, until finally that's all there is, just that song without a tune, and Jack is gone, vanished.

A familiar, helpless feeling washes over him.

There's a burning smell coming from the stove now, and Ianto's vision blurs.

In desperation, he stands, taps the side of the fridge one, twice, again, and again. He closes his eyes, and imagines Jack coming home, and then realizes that he's imagined this so many times before it almost feels like a memory; he can almost see it in his mind's eye.

Look. A map of Cardiff. Isn't it brilliant? he thinks, tapping at the fridge again a little frantically.

And it is. It's a map, hanging right there on the side of the fridge with bright yellow magnets holding it in place, and it's brilliant, and it's got all the right places on it, a big red circle over the Plass, where the hub should be - is- and suddenly he just wants to go back, to bring Jack back, but… He knows that's not possible, not from this place, anyway.

The windows in the kitchen are thrown open to the darkness, now, and it's snowing again, blowing through the window, spilling onto the stove as the pan lets out a low hiss.

Ianto can feel big, fluffy snowflakes falling quietly around him, melting on his eyelashes, falling onto the table Jack had set so neatly, seeping into the red checkered napkins, onto the plates.

He closes his eyes.

"I dreamt about you," Ianto says, and Jack shifts a little on the bed, listening. "The same dream, different versions. But it was always snowing."

Jack lets out a long breath and his fingers curl around Ianto's wrist.

"You were wearing my dad's flannel shirt."

Jack raises his eyebrows. "That's kind of creepy, even for you."

Ianto laughs, and his eyes are bright as he traces a line from Jack's left nipple to his stomach. "It was a dream, Jack."

Ianto leans over Jack's warm skin, and places a lingering kiss against his belly button. Under his fingers, he can feel Jack's stomach muscles twitch just slightly.

"We were in the kitchen, some cabin in the mountains," Ianto adds, lips still brushing lightly over Jack's skin. "You cooked breakfast."

"And then it snowed," Ianto says, pressing his cheek against Jack's chest, listening to the thumping, thumping rhythm of his heartbeat. "Every single time."

It's snowing now, too, someone says, quiet, a whisper, a ghost.

And maybe it is. Maybe Ianto can see it piling up around them on the floor next to the bed, a gathering whiteness in the corners of the room.

"You were in the kitchen," he tells Jack again, closing his eyes, sleep pulling him in. "You cooked."

"It snowed," Jack says, and buries his nose in Ianto's hair. "I know."

"That's impossible," Ianto says, barely audible against Jack's chest, letting Jack's warmth seep into his skin, right down to his bones. Smooth flannel against his cheek, thick wool socks against his ankles, blanket tucked up around his ears. Warm.

Impossible.