AN: This was conceived to snazzy 40s jazz tunes and I hope that shows!

The loss of the treeline, out into open fields, proved chillier than expected.

This didn't pause Jack's stumbling jog. He felt fevered, despite the temperature. A man groaned at Jack's back and the youth slowed. He clasped a pair of hands in front of him, the other man's feet dragging behind them. His head lolled on Jack's shoulder.

A fireman's carry had been out of the question, injuries considered, and more tears stung Jack's eyes—these ones from shame—that he wasn't strong enough to carry the larger man bridal style.

Everyone's bigger than me. Dylan deserved better than to be dragged across the unforgiving ground.

A spasming shudder assaulted the larger man. Jack halted, eyes glassy. He didn't realize he'd been tracking the steady press of the man's chest against his back until it stopped.

No. Nononononono.

Jack slung Dylan's arms off and eased him to the ground.

The man's lips were blue.

"Come on, Dylan." Jack slapped the waxy cheek, pumped the chest. "Breathe."

The December morning was just as much as, if not more of, a danger than blood loss. Jack whipped off his wool scarf and pressed it to the long slash in Dylan's abdomen because hedge clippers, really? And everyone knew you were supposed to be safe from assassins (who's trying to kill us anyway?) in the fricking English countryside. Not that he or Dylan intended to get stranded here. They'd been lost in the wilderness for over two days, after escaping capture from said hitmen.

Jack's stomach had stopped feeling hungry.

"Breathe!" Jack roared.

An agonizing twelve seconds followed. Until finally Dylan's lungs contracted with a stuttered sort of breath that sounded feeble but symphonic to Jack's ears.

He pulled Dylan into his arms, across his knees, to share some heat. It's what Jack told himself but sue him if he was shaking and needed to feel the dead weight of his unconscious leader.

Jack's leather jacket was pitiful against the frost, but he wrapped Dylan in it anyway.

Dylan's head of curls cradled in Jack's right elbow.

My hair looks like that grown out.

Jack adjusted Dylan's arm across his chest to rest on his shoulder. It felt like a seatbelt around Jack's body.

Like a frame.

He rocked in an attempt to stave off the stinging behind his eyes. The scarf slowed the bleeding, tacky between Jack's fingers and where Dylan had rested against Jack's back. It dripped onto the dead grass. Both were coated eyelash to pinky toe in mud. Brown blood and British soil.

Jack swayed side to side and choked back keening noises and what do you know—we're dancing.

They were dying. Dancing—living—dancing—dying…wasn't it all the same? Jack couldn't tell anymore.

The "gardener" had come out of nowhere, ignoring Jack (didn't everyone?) to charge Dylan with the clippers. A savage scuffle had ensued. Dylan managed to break the man's leg and nose.

But the hit man had used the opportunity to run Dylan along his clippers. Dylan had collapsed on mossy earth like the end of Swan Lake, only instead of applause was Jack screaming to get to Dylan, pirouetting over tree roots from where'd he'd been scouting ahead.

Jack's broken waltz with Dylan was rudely interrupted by a sharp pain in Jack's cheek. He jolted to the present.

Another slap. But Merritt didn't look teasing at all and Jack had never seen that expression of utter terror on the man's face before.

Merritt? The word got lost on the way to Jack's tongue.

Merritt tried to get Jack to follow the movement of his thumb—I don't have a concussion, Merritt—but got distracted by Daniel on his phone while simultaneously in an argument with a redhead at his elbow.

My phone. Daniel tracked my stolen phone.

A car pulled up and Alma leaped out, trailed by a swarm of doctors in scrubs and parkas.

Huh. Jack realized that, on some transcendent instinct, he'd nearly wandered to the road.

And then hands were all over him, trying to pull Dylan from his arms. His breathing hitched.

You're supposed to ask nicely if you want to cut in, Jack protested.

Merritt read the micro-expression and shooed everyone back. "Jacky Boy, you did good. Let us take it from here. You got 'im."

Jack continued rocking. A buzz of pride filled him at Merritt's words. Dylan wasn't dead. Filthy, yes. Slathered in blood that wouldn't stop—but alive.

Merritt's eyes pinched at the edges. "Son, don't make me sedate you."

Jack didn't understand how this was possible, given that Merritt had no syringes. The doctors had lots though. They jabbed one in Dylan's wrist, "for the tetanus risk." Jack thought of the rusty hedge clippers. His mouth went dry.

A woman knelt on the other side of Jack—just Henley, his mind supplied—(because Merritt refused to give up his protective post) and reassured him the cops picked up Dylan's would be killer and her hair look like poppies against the English—

Jack finally relinquished his hold on Dylan out of sheer astonishment. He stopped rocking, mouth open. Eyes on Henley.

"Oh good, you broke him," said Merritt.

Daniel rushed in close to ruffle Jack's hair and are you crying, Atlas? Merritt threw a blanket around Jack, arms tight. By some new trick he got the youth to his feet.

And then they were moving to the car and if Merritt basically held Jack upright the whole way, well, that was okay. Merritt eased a stiff Jack into the back seat, then squeezed in next to him. Arm slung over Jack's shoulders, he took off his knitted toque and planted it over Jack's numb ears.

This is becoming a habit.

"You're lucky, Jack Frost." For the silly words, Merritt's face was awfully serious. "Good lad."

This last nickname was said mostly to himself. Jack drifted but not in the sleepy kind of way. His eyes wouldn't close. Merritt kept up a steady contact of words. Soft, full of a gentle, grey humour. Sometimes Merritt made himself laugh and Jack liked the feeling against his aching ribs.

Reality returned in the form of an unfamiliar house. A doctor looked Jack over in the foyer before having a quiet word with Merritt. Something about bruising and starvation and hypothermia and severely strained muscles.

I did drag Dylan for a good six hours.

A thermos nestled in Jack's hands. He started. It took longer for his eyes to find the source of his surprise than he liked. Daniel knelt in front of the chair and coached Jack how to drink the broth and vegetables. He held the bottom steady while the smaller man sipped.

"That should warm your insides right up," said Daniel, with a similar kind of pride in his voice. The words didn't sound right from Daniel's mouth, more as if he'd heard someone else say them many times.

"I've got a better idea," said Merritt. There he went again, getting Jack to his feet without him even realizing it. Jack made a note to ask him about the amazing sleight of hand. Merritt steered him for a large bathroom down the hall. "Don't come out until I can see you under all that muck. Towels on the right."

Daniel's hand found Jack's hair again. "Merritt, are you sure we should leave him alone?"

"Shush." But Merritt's smile at Daniel was all humour. "Showers are a man's best friend."

"I think that's dogs."

"Shoo. How would you know?"

Daniel blinked, apparently stumped by that one. It had been a long two days.

Jack shut the bathroom door and locked it. Lurching on his feet, he stood for a long time before peeling off his clothes and running the shower. All the body products were pink or purple with fancy flower names. Jack didn't care. He slathered on anything and everything, watching Dylan's blood swivel down the drain. Soon the floor of the tub was black with Yorkshire grime. The warm steam felt funny against his buzzing skin.

All at once, Jack's numb toes wouldn't support him anymore. He thumped to a gawky position, head in his hands. Voices shrilled outside the door.

"Jack?" called Henley. "I'm coming in, okay?"

It wasn't really a question, but Jack did little more than stare at the opposite wall. A key jangled in the lock. Heels stepped in. The door closed behind her.

It occurred suddenly that this was Henley's house, that of course, she said she'd be returning to her home in England when she left them. Jack blinked a few times. He hoped Henley wouldn't pull back the starry blue shower curtain.

She didn't. Jack heard her sit on the plastic toilet seat lid.

"You alright?" she murmured.

Jack nodded, then remembered she couldn't see it. He stuck his thumb out. Henley gave it a squeeze.

"Good. Do you need help getting up?"

Thumbs down.

"If you're sure…" Jack could picture the escapist biting her lip in that way she always did. "I'm just going to stay until you finish. My heart nearly stopped when Daniel called me. But, duh, of course I wanted to help. Couldn't believe he implied I'd let you freeze on my doorstep. I'm sorry about Lula leaving. Actually, let's not talk about that…you should see my azaleas in the spring, Jack. You'd love them."

Henley told Jack all about her prized garden while Jack sat on the floor and washed his hair. His ears rang. The fine shivering finally stilled. Almost an hour passed under the hot stream.

When Jack shut off the water, all was silent. Jack peered out and wondered when Henley had left. She'd placed a fresh change of fleecy clothes on the sink. Jack didn't want to know how she had underclothes and sweats exactly in his size.

Our sizes, Jack realized when he stepped out and saw Merritt and Daniel asleep on the couch in new duds.

Alma waved Jack over, finger to her lips. Jack followed the woman into the guest suite. Dylan was propped up on a field of pillows. The doctor quietly put her suture kit away.

"He's sleeping peacefully, not unconscious," the woman said, stethoscope dirty around her neck. "Though he should be out of the woods now. The sedative will wear off by tonight. I'll stop by in the morning."

The doctor's scrubs sported an eye over the breast pocket. Jack supposed he should be surprised the organization had its own doctors but he wasn't. Alma shook the woman's hand and dutifully wrote down Dylan's medications.

Jack tuned the rest out. Alma closed the door with a soft smile at Jack.

Jack's legs felt wobbly for the umpteenth time that day. He had to hold the wall on the way to the bed. He sat on the plushy duvet at Dylan's hip. The man had been cleaned chest down for emergency stitches, now in a thick gown. His face, however, was still streaked with filth. A canula fed warm oxygen to his lungs.

Checking over his shoulder that they were still alone, Jack dipped a cloth in a fresh basin that had been left on the nightstand. Steam curled from the water.

Your partner is the picture.

So, slow and reverent, Jack pulled the cloth over Dylan's skin. Through his long eyelashes. Mud flaked away from his lids and mouth. His dusty eyebrows became auburn once again. The hair was harder, curls knotted together in brittle clumps. Jack found a beech leaf near the man's ear.

Dylan's eyes popped open at some point. Neither said anything, Dylan only offering his other hand when Jack scrubbed around the IV line. The man's eyes never left Jack's face. Calm, blinking low, tinged with something affectionate.

He'd been shaved so Jack wiped foamy patches away. He cleaned under Dylan's finger nails, the grooves beneath his chin. The pockets of his eyes, the dimples near his nose.

Jack dipped the spongy cloth over and over again, until the water ran brown. Until his aching body sat back, oozing relief. He allowed himself the tiniest of grins, one that barely touched his lips but crinkled his eyes.

They gazed at each other a moment without speaking. Jack wondered how they'd survived this one.

Dylan reached on the other side of the bed for a muddy leather jacket. "I believe this belongs to you."

Jack took it with a nod. He held it close to his chest.

"You see a lot," Dylan whispered. "It saved my life."

"Thank God one of us does." Jack's voice crackled after hours of disuse. "Watching you drop was one of the scariest things I've ever…"

No matter how hard Jack tried, he couldn't finish. He felt the ice under his knees, the birds flanking into the air. Dylan's graceful, dancer's crumple to the ground.

Dylan placed a shaking hand on the side Jack's face. "I see a lot too. I see you."

Jack's eyes stung. He wrestled it back.

"I see you," Dylan repeated. "You're not invisible, no matter what your mother and father insisted."

Jack's mouth twisted in all sorts of bizarre, trembling shapes.

"You owe me a new scarf," he said, voice wet.

Dylan's eyes lit up. He shook his head. "You're pretty slick, Mr. Wilder. Very slick indeed."

When Jack woke, he was wearing a trilby hat.

Jack frowned. He'd fallen asleep on Henley's couch. Again.

It had been a week since he and Dylan's traumatic romp through the woods. Jack's sleep, restless and intermittent and never in an actual bed, matched Dylan's.

Daniel and Henley argued a lot but every time they did, their bodies got closer. Daniel's burning fury simmered to fond frustration. Merritt seemed more at ease than he had in months—he slept like the dead. Alma snapped photos of them all when she thought they weren't looking.

Jack twirled the hat between his hands and spied a card folded in the teal brim.

'Dylan's cooking again,' said Merritt's scrawl. 'You drew the short straw. Or…Daniel drew it for you.'

Sure enough, a chorus of clattering spoons on pots filtered from the kitchen.

It was a peculiarity of the universe that Dylan loved to cook, especially when he needed to think. And he was good. Professional level, even. Alma joked that if the magician thing didn't work out, he'd be guaranteed a job in France.

Jack snorted. "Short straw? Yeah right."

Jack suspected that every time they drew straws, it was rigged on his behalf. The others' way of showing they cared. Dylan wasn't allowed to cook without supervision while on such strong medication and Jack was too shy to admit he wanted to help. Being near the older man was the only thing keeping Jack sane.

He didn't die. You didn't fail.

Wandering into the kitchen, Jack straightened his rumpled sweater. The cold had seeped deep into his marrow that day. He wasn't sure he'd felt truly warm since. When the others found out how any kind of cold now made Jack tremble, Daniel mysteriously had a wool blanket on hand at all times. Fricking Mary Poppins.

Dylan had his back to the kitchen entrance. He stirred a soup pot on the stove. Jack leaned on the door frame.

"Cutting board's there," said Dylan without turning around.

A red pepper and small Forschner sat waiting. There was even an 'I –heart– NY' apron.

Jack scoffed. "I'm not wearing that."

Even without seeing the scruffy face, Dylan's smirk hung palpable in the air. Jack rolled his eyes but he was smiling too.

They cut in silence. Jack twirled the knife between his fingers before starting on cinnamon sticks for the bread loaf Dylan was prepping to go with his harvest soup.

"Can you knead this dough for me?"

Jack turned. A streak of flour adorned Dylan's forehead. Like white bindi. The image was strangely fitting.

"Jack?"

"Right," said the youth. Zoning out. Also a new thing. "Sorry. How do I do that?"

Dylan stared at him. "It's bread dough. You…knead it."

"Actually I'm trying to lay off carbs."

Dylan tried to look annoyed but his lips turned up. "You fold it over itself."

Jack blinked. "What?"

"Here." Dylan tore the bread dough ball in half and stood beside Jack. Shrike's fingers shimmied together in a dusting of flour over their adjacent cutting boards. "See how my hands, the heels, push the dough away from me? Good, now I pull it back."

Dylan's fingers smoothed back and forth, wrist gyrating to fold the dough into a mouth shape. Then he smooshed it down. Jack had forgotten to blink. The mesmerizing display was rhythmic.

Shove, pull, fold. Shove, pull, fold. Shove, pull, fold…

Jack's hands took up the three beat. The comforting hum of the fridge harmonized with the bubbling soup pot. Steam unwound coiled muscles in Jack's neck. It cooled on his cheeks like stolen kisses.

"Did your father beat you as well?" asked Dylan in his quiet rasp.

Jack's hands hesitated.

I wish, he almost said, then thought better of it. His mother's later boyfriend took care of that department.

His breathing threatened to skip but the sight of Dylan's steady kneading uncoiled Jack's shoulders.

Shove, pull, fold.

Jack's eyes glazed somewhere into the past—

Shove. Pull. Fold.

"Everyone assumes I come from poverty," said Jack. "From crime."

Dylan met his eyes. Said nothing.

"For a while we lived in a nice two story in Queens. White picket gate and everything. I would've given my left arm to have them stop fighting, though."

Jack focused on the dusty feeling of the dough between his fingers. He began to shiver.

"I don't really know what happened. Finances maybe? Yelling, threats…they hid behind the upper middle class veneer."

"I know." Dylan never rose above that murmur. "Your father died when you were seven."

Jack scratch at his nose with a blank sort of nod. "Got drunk and stumbled in front of a truck. After that, Mum just didn't care anymore. She lost hope. Pretended I didn't exist."

Shove, pull, fold.

Flour had settled in Dylan's hair like Father Christmas. Jack supposed he should feel angry saying his neglected childhood out loud. But Jack just felt tired. His bones groaned, creaky leather baked too long in the sun.

Dylan pried the dough from Jack's fingers and the youth realized Dylan had been saying his name.

"Mum married some floozy rich guy when I was fourteen," Jack found himself saying. Dylan bent to place the dough pans in the oven. "She and that snake charmer were thicker than thieves. They kicked me out. My life turned into a game of cat and mouse with CPS. Trash cans became comfy beds, all that Oliver Twist crap."

Dylan whipped around and blinked very fast. "That…that I did not know."

Jack shrugged. "It feels like a lifetime."

"Jack." Dylan's voice finally rose. He set a hand on his hip—a familiar warning tick. He was apoplectic. "That was only six years ago. Your family let their boy starve on the streets."

Jack looked at his white hands. He sighed.

Dylan shook too, for an entirely different reason. He turned away, but not before Jack caught the stiff jaw and haunted eyes.

They didn't bother setting the table. Everyone had ended up around a rerun of Columbo in the living room. Dylan handed out steaming bowls of soup over the back of the couch to the other three Horsemen and Alma. Jack tried, but his shaking hands nearly spilled. Merritt caught the boy's wrist and the soup with a little nod. He gazed at Jack for a minute, eyes shifting back and forth to read the pockets of lost space in Jack's face.

"Go sit down, kid," Merritt said quietly. "It's alright."

Jack danced to the music of their laughter, bad jokes, and warm stories. His vacuum world had come alive when he met them all. Passing Dylan, he eyed the bulge of stitches and gauze under the older man's button up.

Jack's whole body shuddered. Dylan froze.

Burly arms were suddenly around Jack and a big hand cupped the back of his head. Jack short circuited. It had been over a decade since this kind of encompassing embrace so Jack was shamed that it took him so long to reciprocate. His arms latched around Dylan's neck.

"I see you," said Dylan. He repeated it over and over again in the boy's ear. "We all see you."

Merritt chimed in with a Homburg hat patted lovingly over Jack's head.

This is becoming a habit—

Jack smiled, teeth and all.

And at last he felt warm, toasty down to his core.

Written in 2016.