Ianto curled over and sighed contentedly as he felt Jack's reassuringly warm arms snaked around him. He'd been spooned up against Jack but now that he'd turned over he could feel Jack's hair tickling his forehead and moved just close enough that he could nuzzle the tip of his nose against Jack's for a moment. He didn't stir but then Ianto didn't expect him to. Jack could sleep through anything when it suited him, and breng snuggled up with his lover definitely suited him.

Ianto relinquished his eskimo kisses and nuzzled deeper into the pillow, breathing deeply and realising that something was amiss. The fabric smelled different, not that comforting scent he was used to, but something else. That was when he remembered this wasn't his bed. It was the spare bed at his sister's house.

She'd insisted they stay the night after having stopped by for dinner, as worsening blizzard conditions made the roads hellish. No one would be ploughing the increasingly heavy drifts accumulating on the roads until early morning. It might have only been a few miles but at midnight, in the pitch black with snow swirling to the point where he couldn't even make out his sister's mailbox from the front windows, there didn't seem to be any point risking it. They took enough risks as it was and Ianto quite enjoyed living. He also didn't want the bill for any damage to the SUV, or potentially being stuck in a drift overnight waiting for someone to dig them out. The SUV's heating could only stave off so much of the arctic temperatures.

'I'll take the couch and you can take the spare bed,' Ianto said to Jack when Rhiannon had made the offer he couldn't refuse.

'Don't be ridiculous, Ianto,' Rhiannon scolded. 'You don't have to sleep in separate rooms for god's sake. We're all adults here. I know it's only a double bed but it should be room enough for the two of you. Unless you're going to tell me you're some kind of prude and that you don't sleep together.' She raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to say yes. She knew perfectly well Ianto was doing all he could not to touch Jack in front of the kids. The odd hand on a knee was okay, but he wasn't into public displays of cuddling.

'We're good together,' Jack told her, settling his hands on Ianto's hips from behind, ignoring the same rules Ianto set for himself about public displays of affection. 'Thank you. I can always do without Ianto telling me to slow down when I'm only doing twenty miles an hour.'

Ianto snorted. 'Twenty? You?' Jack couldn't even manage twenty when he'd fallen unconscious behind the wheel one time. His foot had still been pedal to the metal. Jack would only view a snow and ice covered road as a challenge.

'Johnny's probably got some pajama bottoms you could borrow,' Rhiannon continued to prattle on, even as Ianto was trying to extract himself from Jack's hands. 'Not like he wears them, and God knows they probably don't fit him anymore, but you with your barely there arse…' Rhiannon gave her brother another up and down look.

He narrowed his eyes at her. 'I'll try really hard to count that as a compliment.' He didn't really want anyone other than Jack talking about his arse, its size or relative appearance. It was obviously better than her saying she thought his arse could do with trimming down, but still.

'Jack, are you a pajamas type or no pajamas?' Ianto's sister called back over her shoulder, already heading upstairs to raid their wardrobe.

'He'll take pajamas,' Ianto quickly replied, cutting off anything Jack might have to say on the matter. He could just imagine how Jack might respond to such a question, qualifying it with some audacious reasoning.

Johnny came back inside from putting out the rubbish at the same moment Rhiannon came thudding back down the stairs. 'Eh, nice one,' he said, spotting the sleepwear in her arms. 'Like being in a hotel, only without the champagne and free cable telly.' Or most other things that made staying in a hotel much nicer than staying at his sisters place, Ianto thought.

'Stay up as long as you like,' she said, indicating that they were headed to bed.

'We won't be staying up,' Ianto promised her.

'Aye,' she agreed. 'Some people have to go to work tomorrow, don't they?'

'Oi,' Johnny said, alert to the targeted remark. 'Twenty quid says the metal works won't even open cause of the snow,' he argued. 'Not my decision.'

Rhiannon rolled her eyes. The Newport metal recycling plant was at least a step up from the last few jobs he'd had, and had some long term prospects. 'Well, right then you two,' she said, pecking her brother on the cheek to his chagrin, and only just resisting the urge to give Jack one as well.

Ianto climbed the stairs after them, Jack following behind as he opened the door to the spare room and lead them in, closing it behind him. He expected to roll into bed, but as soon as the door had been shut, Jack had pounced on him. Displays of affection were no longer public viewing and Jack intended on taking advantage of that fact. One thing had lead to another and after that, Ianto's recollections became a little hazy. He only hoped that they'd been quiet enough.

'Morning,' Jack whispered, his eyes opening to find Ianto's face just inches away.

'Morning,' Ianto whispered back, impressed that Jack was sticking to their discreet volume. They might just have gotten away with it, Ianto thought, slightly unashamed for the moment. Jack's naked flesh under the duvet was almost more than he could think about. He was tempted to enjoy it a little longer before the sound of people moving around the hallway reminded him it wasn't appropriate. He had no idea what time it was but it couldn't be early if everyone else was up on a day when there'd be no school or work for any of them.

'We should go,' Ianto said.

'They might not have ploughed the roads yet,' Jack replied.

'Maybe,' he agreed. 'But we can't stay in bed all day.' Not this bed, anyway. Might be that Jack declared a snow day for Torchwood as well, in which case Ianto's own bedroom didn't have the same restrictions.

Jack reluctantly followed his lead as he climbed out from under the warm covers and began putting yesterday's clothes back on. His sister would probably insist that he also use their shower, but what was the point if he was just going to put dirty clothes on afterwards. It wasn't as if they were hanging around for a slow cooked breakfast, which would no doubt be the trifecta of sibling offerings.

He slipped his shirt back on, slightly creased, and wishing he'd draped it more neatly over the chair in the corner of the room, before sitting back down on the edge of the bed to tug on his socks. Jack passed him his tie, which had been somewhere on the floor on the opposite side of the room, and he slung it loosely around his neck whilst he finished with his socks.

He reached over and grabbed both sets of neatly folded pajamas and shook them out before scrunching them up in his hands. It should at least look like they'd been worn. The bedsheets were probably okay as well. Jack had cum inside him and then finished Ianto off by sucking him off. Apart from them being a little sweaty there shouldn't be any other traces of what they'd done in Rhiannon's laundry. Knowing his sister, she'd no doubt be checking for that sort of thing. Having her think they were having sex under her roof in her spare bedroom didn't mean it was okay. He wanted to be seen to be holding the higher moral ground, even if it was a complete lie.

It wasn't until he picked up his trousers from the same spot that he noticed the button missing from his back pocket. He gave a quick glance around the floor and the spot where they'd been abandoned last night, before sliding off the bed and kneeling beside it to take a look underneath.

'What are you doing?' Jack asked, standing there in only his underpants.

'I'm missing a button,' he said, running his hand along the dark underside of the bed, feeling nothing but carpet and accumulated dust bunnies. 'Trouser back pocket,' he clarified, so that Jack wasn't expecting to see a small white button like the ones from his shirt. 'Can you see it?'

Jack gave a half-hearted gaze around the room before replying. 'Nope.'

Ianto rolled his eyes at the poor attempt, moving further afield in search of it. 'I'll bet it came off when you tugged my trousers off.' Jack had been in a hurry to divest him of clothes and Ianto hadn't minded at the time.

'I promise you I was careful,' Jack insisted. 'I know how much you chew me out when I damage your clothes. I wasn't even that rough.'

He hadn't been, truth be told, but sometimes it was hard to gauge those sorts of things in the heat of the moment. Once Jack started kissing him, there wasn't much room left for sensible thoughts. Pressing ever onward was really all that mattered.

He pulled back the duvet and removed the pillows from the bed. It was silly to think that it had gotten in bed with them, but stranger things had happened. 'Help, would you?' he implored, still navigating the room without any trousers on, solely focused on his new priority task. After having thought he'd gotten away with having sex under his sister's roof, he was about to be undone by something as inane as a button ripped off in the heat of the moment. There was no other way to explain how it had come off. He just had to find it so that she didn't.

He began upending everything. There were boxes stacked in one corner and a small bookshelf loaded up with everything but books. The wall opposite the end of the bed was wall to wall shelving and had once, he recalled, had sliding doors to conceal the mess stuffed inside it. The kids had probably used it for hide and seek one too many times and accidentally pulled the door off its sliding roller, and had since been donated to the nature strip garbage collectors. Now, without limiting doors on it, it was packed with even more stuff, spilling out wherever it could, and leaning heavily against the other boxes and furniture in its attempts to to break free of the room's confines altogether.

Ianto chewed his lip in vexation. Honestly. Why did his sister have to be such a hoarder? The spare room was even worse than the rest of the house, storing everything that wouldn't fit anywhere else. His missing button could have flung off in any direction and ended up hidden deep inside the clutter.

Jack pawed through a box of broken and abandoned toys, books and clothes. 'Your sister is a serious hoarder,' he said, echoing Ianto's thoughts. 'Are you sure the two of you are even related?'

'Hardy har har. Just shut up and keep looking.'

'Okay, Mr Grumpy Pants.'

Mister missing buttons on my pants, more like, Ianto thought.

They must have searched for a good twenty minutes before Ianto got annoyed and gave up. 'Put some clothes on,' he snapped in a low voice, thinking his sister might just burst in on them, demanding to know how Jack wanted his eggs done.

Jack raised his eyebrows at Ianto, eyes dropping down to remind him he wasn't fully dressed either. He snatched up his trousers and angrily tugged them on, tucking in his shirt and doing his tie in record time, not caring that it wasn't the best knot he'd ever done. He just needed to go out there and start damage control, hoping that by that time he reached the kitchen, he'd have come up with a really good explanation for it. Or perhaps he'd just go with denial and swear he'd never lost it in the first place. She might not find it for weeks. If he couldn't find it now, what chance she'd uncover it right away? The odds were astronomical but then again, fortune had never favoured him very much.

The kids were in the living room, rugged up in their slippers and dressing gowns, clutching bowls of Coco Pops and eyes glued to the television cartoons. He might have walked through there naked and they wouldn't have noticed, thank the gods.

Rhiannon was equally adorned in a massive pale grey dressing gown and bright pink leopard print slippers as she leaned over the counter, buttering toast.

'Didn't think you were ever getting up,' she muttered, adding marmite in a thick layer. 'Thought you said you had to work.' She slid it onto a separate plate and held it out for him.

He took it and scrunched up his nose at it. The marmite was way too thick and there was none at all spread right to the corners of the bread the way he'd have done it. 'We'll pick up something on the way,' he said. 'But thanks,' he added, trying to remember his Ps and Qs.

'Is this yours, by the way?' Rhiannon asked, reaching into her pocket and holding up the very button he'd been searching high and low for.

He snatched it from her. 'Yes.' He hoped he wasn't blushing. God knew where she'd found it. Maybe she'd poked her head in during the night and found it right by the door.

She folded her arms and gave him a look that was bordering on smug. 'I thought so. Looked too fancy to belong to anyone in this house. I found it on the kitchen floor this morning.'

The kitchen? Ianto silently wondered. No wonder he hadn't been able to find it.

'You probably got it caught on that drawer over there,' she said, pointing to the one beside the fridge. 'Stuff's forever getting caught on the edge. Tore a hole right through one of my cardigans the other week. I've been telling Johnny to fix it for ages, but you know what he's like. If it's not affecting the beer or the crisps, it might as well not exist.'

'Hey, you found your button,' Jack said, coming into the kitchen, dressed and rubbing his arms as the chill kitchen air caused goosebumps on his arms where he'd rolled up his sleeves. 'Still snowing outside, I take it?'

Rhiannon sighed, glancing out the back window at a sea of white. 'Winter's here for the long haul.' Her gaze returned to the button clutched between Ianto's slender fingers. 'You were looking for that?'

Jack grinned and Ianto might have slapped it from his face if they hadn't been in company. 'Oh, yeah. Ianto was frantic thinking he'd lost it during his rush to get undressed last night.'

'I was tired and just wanted to get to bed,' Ianto said, trying to cover Jack's tracks.

'You do look like you had a late night,' his sister agreed. 'Spose it's never quite the same in a bed that isn't yours.'

'No, it's not,' Jack agreed, though Ianto just knew they were no longer talking about the same thing.

Ianto felt his cheeks grow hot. 'We should get going,' he insisted. 'Still got to battle our way home for some clean clothes and put this one in the pile for mending. You never know, aliens might be behind this freak snow. Best we be off and check.'

'Whatever you reckon,' she replied, having got the measure of his Torchwood lies by now. 'Nice having you over, anyway. Maybe not two months before we see you again?'

'I'll make sure Ianto leaves some gaps in his diary,' Jack promised, reaching for his coat left hanging over the back of one of the dining table chairs last night and slipping his arms into it. 'Thanks again for putting us up.'

Putting up with us, more like, Ianto glumly thought. He pushed Jack down the hall before he could say anything more incriminating. 'Well, I think we got away with that,' he said sotto vocce once they were out of earshot. 'Just.'

'I doubt it,' Jack replied.

'Why? We were so quiet.' He bit his lip. 'I mean, we shouldn't have in that first place but you were horny and I'd had two glasses of red wine. You took advantage of the situation.'

'You're right,' Jack seemed to agree. 'Quiet did take some of that passion out of it, but I think it was more likely that your sister figured it out when I used the bathroom just after you fell asleep and I ran into Johnny in the hallway.'

Ianto stopped dead in his tracks. 'Oh, God. You weren't walking around the house in the middle of the night naked, were you?'

'Hey, I wasn't the only one! He's not half bad, by the way. You should have more nieces and nephews with a set like that. Did he get the snip or something, do you think?'

Ianto let out a vexed breath. 'Jack…'

'What?'

'Aye aye, Bute,' Johnny said, clapping Ianto hard on the shoulder as he snuck by, stealing the plate of toast, Ianto hadn't realised he was still holding onto. 'Amazed you can walk after taking that thing up the arse. Got an eyeful of it last night and that was enough for me, that's for sure.'

'Johnny!' Rhiannon hissed, appearing in the hallway behind them. 'Not where then kids can hear, you pillock! Jesus.'

He chewed noisily on the toast and Ianto couldn't help but compare him with Jack for his overt lack of table manners. 'We're only talking tackle, love.'

'Not in my house, you're not.'

Ianto waited for an apologetic look from his sister but it wasn't forthcoming. He expected that as soon as they were gone she'd be asking Johnny just how big. And then she'd look to compare notes with Ianto the next time he stopped by for tea and spinach dip. Big enough that I get so horny I snap the buttons off the back of my trousers, he might have joked if it weren't so terribly invasive a question, even between siblings.

Never again, he vowed, even if that particular horse had probably bolted. Just when he'd thought losing a button was the biggest of his problems. Stupid snow.