Torchwood: Fanfic: On the trail

[m_findlow]

Title: On the trail
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 600 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "any, any, tracking someone/something through the snow" at fic_promptly
Summary: The rift doesn't care where it dumps things, Torchwood still have to go and get them

'My feet are cold and wet,' Jack moaned as they ploughed through the thick snow.

'Well, I did offer for you to change your shoes. There were spare wellingtons in the SUV,' Ianto replied, grateful for the pair he was wearing. They weren't pretty, but they did the job, and that was all that mattered.

'And the bottom of my coat is soaked too.'

'Well, that's my hopes dashed,' Ianto quipped. 'I was rather looking forward to being bundled up in your nice warm coat when we got back to the car. Now I'll just be bundled with your cold sodden coat, which will need dry cleaning.'

'Grrr,' Jack said, tugging the end of his coat out of the mushy snow.

'You really need a shorter coat. I wouldn't have to clean it so often if you didn't drag it through every kind of muck imaginable.'

'I wouldn't look nearly as dashing, though.'

'True.'

Jack puffed out clouds of mist in the frigid air, and secretly wished he'd taken gloves with him, like his more sensible other half, but he wouldn't admit it.

'How come you're not complaining?'

'If I did, it wouldn't leave you with anything else to do.'

'Har har.'

It was so cold even Jack wasn't tempted to start a snow fight. There was quite enough snow falling down the back of his coat and seeping into his collar as it was. He also knew he wouldn't be popular if he tried, and any hopes he had of cuddling up to Ianto for warmth later would be very slim indeed.

'I thought you liked the snow?' Ianto asked, sensing his despondency.

'It was great for the first thirty years. Having spent the first seventeen years of my life of a planet that was wall to wall sand and beaches, it was definitely a novelty.'

'What changed your mind?'

'Three winters stuck in the trenches in France. I've never been so cold in my entire life. Half the mornings I woke up I swear I'd died during the night. Some mornings I woke up and found fellow troops dead next to me, so I'm pretty sure there were plenty of nights where I did.'

Ianto said nothing. He felt frozen to the core just listening to Jack's story.

'It must have been horrible.'

'It was.'

He couldn't imagine it. Being a young man in a war zone. Sure, Torchwood was dangerous, but he wasn't spending every day and every night terrified and trying to kill people, knowing that they wanted nothing more than to kill him, just because the powers that be had decided they were enemies.

Ianto tucked a glove arm around Jack's. He never knew quite what to do in these instances, but Jack always appreciated physical contact.

They ploughed on through the sparse forest, grateful that the bitter wind had eased, taking with it the falling snow. The lifting weather conditions seemed to have also lifted their spirits, as the started jokingly trying to push one another over into passing snowdrifts.

Finally they managed to hone in on the signal of their rift refugee, located in a small clearing, ringed by barren, icicle covered trees.

'Well, that's got to be about the most anticlimactic thing I've ever seen,' Jack declared.

'I didn't know the rift did irony.'

Parked in the clearing in three feet of snow was a 1980's refrigerator.

'Well, we're not going to be able to carry that back, let alone fit it in the boot.'

'Maybe we should come back in the summer and see if it's turned into a beach umbrella.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

*snort* A refrigerator, just what they need out in the frozen wastes! And now they have to trek back through the snow to the SUV and attempt to get dry. I'm glad I'm warm indoors.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

If Jack keeps up his good behaviour I'm sure Ianto will find a way to warm him up.

[jo02]

But what's IN the fridge ??? They can't go without looking, surely !

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Well, if it came from the eighties, I'd hazard a guess at prawn cocktails, vol au vents, a ham salad, and a bottle of Passion Pop, lol.