Fic: Never Such A Blizzard Before

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Never Such A Blizzard Before
Chapters: 1/1
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Romance. Drama.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~2,900
Pairings/Characters: Jason Morgan/Damian Spinelli
Synopsis: Caught out in a blizzard, Jason and Spinelli attempt to keep warm.
Comments: Written for the gh_unwrapped  prompt of ‘trying to keep warm’ and also for the 'hypothermia' prompt on schmoop_bingo . Title ganked from Baby, It’s Cold Outside, but the fic has nothing to do with the song with the exception that it is cold. Characters aren’t mine. Enjoy.

 

Maybe things will be better in the morning.

It's the first thought Spinelli has in spite of the icy, cold, wet snow that is blizzarding down around them. That maybe, just maybe, by the time the sunrises he and Jason will not be trudging through almost a foot of snow in search of somewhere warm and dry.

"You alright?" Jason asks, glancing over his shoulder to his self-proclaimed protégé.

He's got a few cuts and bruises – they both do. But, it's nothing one wouldn't expect when a car skids off the road and into a ditch, they're lucky nothing serious happened, really – and he's pretty sure he sprained his wrist at some point in the accident, and he's sore in the way adrenaline and tense fear tends to result in. But his response is, "Yeah, fine. Y-you?"

"Fine." Jason echoes, in spite of the cuts and bruises he has to be sporting, too.

They drift back into silence as they continue hiking along the road. Spinelli walks in Jason's footprints and tries to stay as close as he can.

And it is so agonizingly cold out here. He doesn't have a jacket, which was absolute idiocy on his part, but then he hadn't been planning on a trip into the heart of a snowstorm when he'd left the penthouse that morning. But, the dedicated goons of a rival mob-boss obviously hadn't considered that when they'd initiated an ambush at the city limits. It had taken nearly an hour to trip them up, lose them, and then confront them. Jason, obviously, did the confronting.

When that was finally over with, they'd simultaneously realized that they didn't have any real idea of where they actually were. Spinelli didn't have his laptop with him, and neither of their phones offered signals. They'd crashed the car less than twenty minutes after that.

He's cold and wet and shivering and he's not even really sure what Jason is hoping to accomplish by walking along the road. Sure, they might see a car. Sure, they might get a signal. But the only thing he definitively knows is that it is freezing.

"I can hear your teeth chattering from here," Jason remarks, which is rather impressive since he's a good twenty feet ahead of him. He stops walking. "Come here."

Spinelli does as requested, falling into step beside Jason, who shrugs his leather jacket off his shoulders and slides it onto Spinelli's. "Probably won't help much, but…"

"Stone C-cold doesn't have t-to…"

"Just shut up and take the jacket, okay? I want us out of this snow by nightfall." With that, he marches forward, seemingly unaffected by the freezing temperatures in only the long-sleeved black shirt.

It can't really be all that far off from nightfall, Spinelli figures. With the way the snow-clouds have been eclipsing the sun all day, it's seemed pretty close to sundown for hours. His watch says something like four p.m. and with how early it gets dark, they're looking at one, maybe two hours of actual light left.

They walk for a good while in silence again, but Spinelli can see Jason shivering now and every attempt he makes at returning the jacket to its rightful owner gets promptly refused.

It's pretty much officially dark out now, but there's still no sign of civilization, really. Still no cars, still no signal. Nothing.

He's not sure what they're going to do if they don't find somewhere to stop, at least for a while. They can't keep going like this for very much longer. They're both wet and cold and exhausted and sooner or later those things are going to combine to cause some rather deleterious issues.

Jason stops walking up ahead and Spinelli quickly moves forward in case something's wrong, but the older man is just kind of staring into the tree-line like he sees something. "What is it?" Spinelli asks.

"Stay right here, don't move. Looks like there's a building a few yards in." Jason explains. "I'll go check it out, come back and get you once I know it's safe."

Spinelli nods, though he's concerned about Jason's plan. If there is someone or something dangerous in there, Jason probably won't be up to his usual standards when it comes to self defense. On the other hand, they haven't seen a single sign of anyone in the time since they started this hike, so there's probably nothing to worry about. At least that's the idea Spinelli is going to go with.

It takes longer than he would like before Jason returns, but when he does it's to report that the cabin seems abandoned and that until proven otherwise it'll have to do.

"No electricity. I'm not sure if it's because of the storm or if there hasn't been any power here in a while." Jason reports upon leading Spinelli into the cabin. It seems darker in there than it had been outside which is quickly remedied by the flashlight Jason flicks on, though it remains just as cold as outside. "There's a fireplace, and wood out back."

Spinelli takes in the small, one-room cabin in silence as he helps Jason look for candles or more flashlights or anything that might actually allow them to see. It has only the bare essentials, maybe a hunter's cabin or something. There's a fireplace centered on one wall, a sofa that Spinelli suspects is some kind of pull out bed pushed back against another. There are a few cabinets in the far corner, too, but Spinelli doubts anything in them is still edible. At least he assumes this based on the fact that he finds a pile of newspaper dated December, 1998 among various maps and papers on a small desk by the door. He suspects no one's been here since then.

"Aha! Candles," he declares, when a search of the drawers of that small desk actually yields results.

"Good," Jason says, digging through a small closet that's full of hunting gear. He uncovers some water bottles, a first aid kit, a lighter, and a blanket in the process, all of which are helpful finds. He tosses the lighter to Spinelli, who only barely manages to catch it, since he's working with his injured arm cradled against his chest. "Light those. I'm gonna go grab some firewood. I think it was covered, so hopefully it'll still be dry enough to use."

By the time Spinelli gets a few of the candles set up around the room, Jason has returned, setting armfuls of wood down along the fireplace. Three trips and he seems satisfied so Spinelli watches as he sets to work on starting the fire. It's tricky, and it takes a few of the old 1998 newspapers to get it going, but eventually they have a decent flame.

"Alright. That's done." Jason sighs, as he sits down on the floor in front of the fire. They should probably get out of their completely soaked clothes, but he's not quite willing to move just yet.

Spinelli grabs the first-aid kit and sits down beside his master, quickly assessing the supplies they have. It's a pretty expansive kit, not like what they probably should have had in the car. "Is Stone Cold amenable to some cursory first-aid attempts by the Jackal?"

"Yeah, I'll fix you up, too," Jason agrees, moving closer to his self proclaimed protégé. He sits statue still as Spinelli's shaking hands clean each of the shallow cuts on his face and neck – wounds courtesy of the driver's side window blowing out – maybe five or six in total. Anti-biotic ointment follows, and in the case of two of the lacerations, Spinelli opts for a butterfly bandage, just in case.

"Anything else?" Spinelli asks, though he hasn't seen any other wounds.

"Hold on," Jason replies, shifting so that he can escape the soaked shirt that clings to him like a second skin. He offers his arm to Spinelli, where a deeper gash is revealed, surrounded by a good amount of partly congealed blood. "Just that one."

Spinelli stares at the wound as he realizes it isn't from the car crash, but rather from confronting the goons who'd chased them out here. "So the Vindictive Thugish Ones had knives, then." It's not a question and Spinelli's voice is oddly devoid of all emotion.

"It's nothing." Jason defends, because clearly Spinelli isn't too thrilled by this injury. "They had guns, too. You had to figure they had weapons. They weren't after us for their own entertainment."

He knows that. It's not like he believed that their pursuers were solely interested in getting them lost in the woods, but it doesn't mean he has to like that Jason got hurt. And it certainly doesn't mean he has to like that Jason didn't tell him sooner. He cleans and disinfects the wound in silence. It could probably use stitches, but Spinelli has neither the supplies nor the stomach to do that, so he settles for some more of the butterfly strips and a piece of gauze taped down. "Done," he mumbles quietly, as he releases Jason arm.

"Alright, then," Jason says, ignoring the relative silence of his grasshopper. "Your turn."

Spinelli's wounds are much the same as Jason's had been, excepting that the few scratches on his face are the result of the passenger side window shattering.

"Off with the jacket," Jason orders, when he spots blood on the bit of skin he can see low on the side of Spinelli's neck. The hacker obeys, letting the jacket fall off his shoulders with a slight wince as he works his sore wrist out of the sleeve. There's a decent gash right on the top of his shoulder. Nothing like Jason's knife wound, but it's the only injury Spinelli has that requires any butterfly bandages.

Spinelli looks about as surprised as he does to see that wound, which probably speaks to how cold they really were.

Once finished with the cuts, he moves on to Spinelli's wrist. The cold probably kept it from swelling too much, but when Jason checks it over, he gets more than one flinch from Spinelli in the process. He finds an elastic bandage amongst the supplies in the kit and carefully wraps it up to support the sprain.

"You know that you can't out silent-treatment me, right?" Jason comments as he repacks the first-aid kit and gathers up their trash.

Spinelli frowns and stares into the fire in response.

"Suit yourself." Jason says, as he leverages himself to his feet and moves to set the kit on the desk. He grabs up two of the water bottles he'd found, offering one to Spinelli who, in spite of his apparent frustration, accepts.

After the silence has stretched on for a while, Jason sighs. "It's not like you could've done anything about my arm if I had told you. We didn't have a first-aid kit in the car. It wasn't even that serious."

"And if it had been more serious?" Spinelli responds, pulling his knees up to his chest and curling his arms around them. "Would you have just gone on walking through the blizzard until you passed out? Or until I started seeing blood in the footprints I was walking in? You know I wouldn't have been able to get you here."

"That didn't happen. I'm fine." He responds, which is probably not the best thing to say, but it's about all the defense he's got. "Spinelli, I-"

Spinelli shakes his head and stops Jason from further argument. "I know. I know and I'm sorry. It's just… been a really long and tiresome day, is all, as I'm sure Stone Cold would agree."

Jason nods, "Yeah, I'd say that." He stands again, now that Spinelli has ended his silent protesting, and crosses the room to drag the sofa closer to the fire, so that it's actually in range of the radiant heat from the flames. "You ready to try and get some sleep?"

Spinelli, who'd been fixated staring into the fire, jumps at the question. "Oh, ugh, indeed, the Jackal finds that a most appealing prospect."

"You can have the sofa, I'll just take the floor."

"Nonsense." Spinelli responds, getting to his feet. "For one, your loyal grasshopper would never actually agree to such a proposition. For another, we are both still quite frozen and even Stone Cold cannot deny the benefits of shared body heat in such a situation." He moves the sofa cushions and is happy to see that it indeed a pull out bed as he had suspected. Jason helps him unfold the thing and luckily the one blanket they have is impressively thick, so it should at least help keep them warm.

"If you're okay with sharing, alright," Jason agrees. Past experience tells him that sofa beds are never, ever all that comfortable, but after the day they've had, he figures anything even moderately resembling a bed will probably seem pretty comfortable.

Spinelli is well aware that for the body heat argument to have any effect at all, they both need to lose the wet clothes. Before he can manage to awkwardly remind Jason of this, the other man is kicking off his shoes and socks and stripping out of his jeans. Left in boxer-briefs that are mercifully still dry, he lays out his clothes a safe distance from the fireplace in the hopes that they might actually dry by the time they can get out of here.

The hacker follows his example, tugging his shirt over his head with a minimum of pain for his wrist and he sets his shoes and socks beside Jason's – and he is thrilled to see that his toes aren't blue with frostbite – and jeans come off next. In nothing but boxers, he's more than ready to be under the blanket.

He's in bed first, as Jason moves to go put out most of the candles, but his master slides under the blanket just a few seconds later. It's awkward at first, trying to move around without hitting or kicking each other, but sharing body heat means they have to be close enough for that to actually have some effect.

"For the record, Spinelli," Jason says, his voice coming from the darkness, gruff and hesitant, but only once they're arranged in such a way that allows for warmth but not for discomfiture, "I'm sorry about today..."

"Stone Cold," Spinelli starts to protest but he's stopped by the pressure of a warm hand on his forearm, the unexpected contact raises goose bumps on his skin which have nothing to do with being cold. He is grateful for the dark so that his tell tale flush remains hidden.

"No," Jason's tone is serious, he shifts in the dark and his warm breath wafts across Spinelli's face as he speaks, "What happened today, it shouldn't ever been allowed to get to that point. I know how dangerous it is to be around me and I don't let the people I care about get in the line of fire if I can help it..." He pauses, his hand reaching over and fumbling for some part of Spinelli, it was hard to tell which but when his fingers found his cheek, they lingered stroking it with a surprisingly gentle touch, "I think it's because I don't even think about you as being separate from me; where I am, you are - or that's how it seems and so, that means I end up putting you in danger." He swallows, and the sound is unnaturally loud in the dark silent room as Spinelli lays perfectly still, frightened that any move on his part will break the spell of Jason's spontaneous confession. "I should just let you go for your own sake so you don't get hurt or..." Jason's voice catches, as if he cannot even fathom the idea, "Killed, but the thing is... I can't..."

The fingers that are curved around and grasping the hacker's face urge him toward Jason and suddenly there are warm lips pressing fiercely against his own.

Spinelli, despite the mind-blown state he is presently in, doesn't hesitate in kissing back. The rest of his body follows his head and turns toward Jason, pressing close now that any trace of the prior awkwardness they'd felt over being in such limited proximity is gone.

"The Jackal," Spinelli has to pause in order to catch his breath when they finally break apart. "The Jackal must argue that were Stone Cold inclined to simply 'just let me go for my own sake,' you would have a hard time accomplishing such a goal, as your ever-loyal grasshopper is going nowhere." With his one and only objection to Jason's uncharacteristic admission out of the way, he shifts forward to kiss Jason again.

"Mm, have to say I'm glad to hear that," Jason mumbles out against Spinelli's lips just before he moves along the younger man's jaw-line and down against his neck, intent upon leaving marks that he'll be able to see later.

Spinelli groans and lets his fingers curl into Jason's still residually damp hair, managing a muted, "Stone Cold," just before Jason smashes their mouths together in a more desperate, demanding type of kiss that promises more.

If this continues as Spinelli hopes it does, it doesn't matter that they're stuck in some cabin in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard and still slightly chilly.

It couldn't be any better.