Ficlet: The Coldest Night
Dec. 29th, 2025 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: The Coldest Night
Fandom: Torchwood
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1062
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: It’s the coldest night of the year, and Ianto is out in it, searching for Jack.
Written_for:
topaz_eyes’s prompt ‘Any, any, On the coldest night of the year’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Some days, and more precisely some NIGHTS, Ianto really hated his job. Maybe he would have been better off in a nice, cushy, nine-to-five office job, with weekends off and three weeks of annual vacation time. Okay, yeah, he’d be bored to tears by mid-morning every single workday, but he’d have regular hours, a pension plan, and a good chance that he’d live long enough to enjoy his retirement.
None of those things applied to Torchwood, of course. Working hours were whenever, life expectancy was at best mid-thirties, and a pension plan was therefore irrelevant. He seldom even had time to get bored. Boredom was something that happened to other people, but right now, being bored sounded rather nice. He was cold, angry, worried, frustrated, and miserable, but definitely not bored. If only!
There were plenty of places Ianto would have loved to be on the coldest night of the year, and this most definitely wasn’t one of them. He could have, maybe even should have, been tucked up with extra blankets and a hot water bottle, or a hotter Jack, in his big, comfy bed at home, drinking hot chocolate and reading a good book while listening to the icy wind howling around the eaves. He could have been tucked up under a duvet on his sofa, also either with or without Jack, eating toasted cheese sandwiches and hot soup, while watching TV. He could have even been getting hot and sweaty on the cramped army cot in Jack’s bunker, definitely WITH Jack this time, trying out for the sex Olympics, far enough underground that the wind couldn’t be heard, or enjoying an energetic bout of shower sex with the hot water pouring down on both of them, but instead…
Coldest night of the year. Had he already mentioned that? Because it was, according to the forecaster on the radio. Minus ten bloody Celsius, with a wind chill of minus fifteen, too cold for snow but more than cold enough to freeze moisture from the air and turn it into hoarfrost, which would have been pretty if he wasn’t out in it. Even with thermal underwear, don’t judge, and no fewer than three pairs of socks inside his boots, even with a quilted bodywarmer, one of Jack’s, under his heavy winter coat, even with gloves, and a hat, and a long scarf wrapped around his neck and most of his face, he was still bloody freezing, and if he caught pneumonia, he was blaming Jack.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t Jack’s fault, as such, at least not all of it. It wasn’t like Jack had said “this would be the perfect time for the Rift alert to go off so I can drag Ianto out into the wilderness and freeze him half to death”. Not even Jack would be stupid enough to jokingly tempt fate, and the Rift, with a comment like that. And alright, Trelai Park wasn’t exactly the wilderness, but in this weather, it might as well have been, especially at almost two-thirty in the morning, with the frost coated grass crunching noisily beneath his boots, and his feet so cold he could barely feel them anymore.
He plodded gamely onwards, though, doing his best to block out his discomfort, thinking wistfully of hot showers, toasted cheese sandwiches, fluffy blankets, and all the things he’d rather be doing than this. All the while he cast about with his torch, holding it awkwardly in one gloved hand along with his scanner, because he had his gun in the other hand, safety off, not taking any chances. He had no idea what might be out here, aside from what he was looking for, or more accurately, WHO he was looking for. He was tracking the signal from Jack’s wrist strap…
Jack, who’d said whatever had come through the Rift, he could handle it by himself because it was late and Ianto should head home, try to get some sleep. Jack, who’d said he’d come over to Ianto’s place as soon as he was done, that he’d be there by one-thirty at the latest. Jack, who hadn’t shown up, hadn’t called, and wasn’t answering his phone. Jack, who’d managed to land himself in some sort of serious trouble on the coldest bloody night of the year! At the rate things were going, they’d both freeze to death out here, probably wouldn’t be found until the spring thaw…
What a charming thought that was! Ianto ruthlessly pushed it from his head, because it wasn’t going to happen. According to his scanner, he was getting close, Jack was less than fifty metres away, or at least his wrist strap was. Hopefully Jack would still be attached to it; all of him, not just an arm… He shoved that thought aside as well, changed direction slightly, and kept going. Briefly he considered calling Jack’s name, but if there was something else out here, something dangerous, then it wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself, although his torch was probably already doing that, a bright beam of light in the darkness.
Ianto found his missing lover near the remains of the Roman villa. It looked like he’d found whatever had come through the Rift, then slipped on some ice and fallen, breaking his leg, and possibly his neck, knocking himself out, and subsequently freezing to death. His phone was on the ground a few metres away; he’d probably not been paying attention to where he was walking, too busy trying to get a signal, his phone too cold to work properly.
Sighing, Ianto straightened Jack out, rolling him onto his back, making sure the bones of his broken leg were in the proper alignment, doing the same for his neck, and then waiting for Jack to heal and gasp back to life. While he waited, he carefully paced back and forth to keep from freezing to death himself.
Coldest night of the year… He shook his head, huffing annoyance behind the muffling folds of his scarf. Should have left the bloody Rift Gift where it was until morning; it wasn’t as if anyone else was likely to come along in the meantime and take it. Only an idiot would be out here in these temperatures! Which made Ianto almost as much of an idiot as Jack was.
Oh, Jack was SO going to owe him for this!
The End
None of those things applied to Torchwood, of course. Working hours were whenever, life expectancy was at best mid-thirties, and a pension plan was therefore irrelevant. He seldom even had time to get bored. Boredom was something that happened to other people, but right now, being bored sounded rather nice. He was cold, angry, worried, frustrated, and miserable, but definitely not bored. If only!
There were plenty of places Ianto would have loved to be on the coldest night of the year, and this most definitely wasn’t one of them. He could have, maybe even should have, been tucked up with extra blankets and a hot water bottle, or a hotter Jack, in his big, comfy bed at home, drinking hot chocolate and reading a good book while listening to the icy wind howling around the eaves. He could have been tucked up under a duvet on his sofa, also either with or without Jack, eating toasted cheese sandwiches and hot soup, while watching TV. He could have even been getting hot and sweaty on the cramped army cot in Jack’s bunker, definitely WITH Jack this time, trying out for the sex Olympics, far enough underground that the wind couldn’t be heard, or enjoying an energetic bout of shower sex with the hot water pouring down on both of them, but instead…
Coldest night of the year. Had he already mentioned that? Because it was, according to the forecaster on the radio. Minus ten bloody Celsius, with a wind chill of minus fifteen, too cold for snow but more than cold enough to freeze moisture from the air and turn it into hoarfrost, which would have been pretty if he wasn’t out in it. Even with thermal underwear, don’t judge, and no fewer than three pairs of socks inside his boots, even with a quilted bodywarmer, one of Jack’s, under his heavy winter coat, even with gloves, and a hat, and a long scarf wrapped around his neck and most of his face, he was still bloody freezing, and if he caught pneumonia, he was blaming Jack.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t Jack’s fault, as such, at least not all of it. It wasn’t like Jack had said “this would be the perfect time for the Rift alert to go off so I can drag Ianto out into the wilderness and freeze him half to death”. Not even Jack would be stupid enough to jokingly tempt fate, and the Rift, with a comment like that. And alright, Trelai Park wasn’t exactly the wilderness, but in this weather, it might as well have been, especially at almost two-thirty in the morning, with the frost coated grass crunching noisily beneath his boots, and his feet so cold he could barely feel them anymore.
He plodded gamely onwards, though, doing his best to block out his discomfort, thinking wistfully of hot showers, toasted cheese sandwiches, fluffy blankets, and all the things he’d rather be doing than this. All the while he cast about with his torch, holding it awkwardly in one gloved hand along with his scanner, because he had his gun in the other hand, safety off, not taking any chances. He had no idea what might be out here, aside from what he was looking for, or more accurately, WHO he was looking for. He was tracking the signal from Jack’s wrist strap…
Jack, who’d said whatever had come through the Rift, he could handle it by himself because it was late and Ianto should head home, try to get some sleep. Jack, who’d said he’d come over to Ianto’s place as soon as he was done, that he’d be there by one-thirty at the latest. Jack, who hadn’t shown up, hadn’t called, and wasn’t answering his phone. Jack, who’d managed to land himself in some sort of serious trouble on the coldest bloody night of the year! At the rate things were going, they’d both freeze to death out here, probably wouldn’t be found until the spring thaw…
What a charming thought that was! Ianto ruthlessly pushed it from his head, because it wasn’t going to happen. According to his scanner, he was getting close, Jack was less than fifty metres away, or at least his wrist strap was. Hopefully Jack would still be attached to it; all of him, not just an arm… He shoved that thought aside as well, changed direction slightly, and kept going. Briefly he considered calling Jack’s name, but if there was something else out here, something dangerous, then it wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself, although his torch was probably already doing that, a bright beam of light in the darkness.
Ianto found his missing lover near the remains of the Roman villa. It looked like he’d found whatever had come through the Rift, then slipped on some ice and fallen, breaking his leg, and possibly his neck, knocking himself out, and subsequently freezing to death. His phone was on the ground a few metres away; he’d probably not been paying attention to where he was walking, too busy trying to get a signal, his phone too cold to work properly.
Sighing, Ianto straightened Jack out, rolling him onto his back, making sure the bones of his broken leg were in the proper alignment, doing the same for his neck, and then waiting for Jack to heal and gasp back to life. While he waited, he carefully paced back and forth to keep from freezing to death himself.
Coldest night of the year… He shook his head, huffing annoyance behind the muffling folds of his scarf. Should have left the bloody Rift Gift where it was until morning; it wasn’t as if anyone else was likely to come along in the meantime and take it. Only an idiot would be out here in these temperatures! Which made Ianto almost as much of an idiot as Jack was.
Oh, Jack was SO going to owe him for this!
The End
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Date: 2025-12-29 11:19 pm (UTC)