Mission Impossible Fic: Power Cut
Feb. 1st, 2026 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Title: Power Cut
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Pairing: William Brandt/Ethan Hunt
Tags: Power Outage, Snowed In, Huddling For Warmth
Rating: G
Word count: 2,022
Summary: Will wakes up to silence. Or, to be more precise, it’s the silence that wakes him.
Author notes: Written forjenab for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomtrees. This is unbetaed so if you spot a typo/mistake, you should absolutely tell me about it.
Power Cut on AO3
Will wakes up to silence. Or, to be more precise, it’s the silence that wakes him. It’s… too quiet. It takes him a few second to figure out what’s missing until it clicks. The central heating, which has been humming on and off all evening and night ever since they arrived and turned it on to ward off the persistent cold that creeps into all unoccupied buildings, is silent.
It’s not supposed to be. Will has kicked some of his blankets off in the night and he’s distinctly chilly. Chillier than he should be. Almost as cold, in fact, as when he and Hunt had navigated the winding roads of Northumberland in the twilight, driving a stolen card, one that was barely in road condition, and definitely didn’t have a working heater. They had taken a circuitous route to the out of the way safe house, just in case they were followed.
Slowly, Will cracks an eyelid. Darkness. The clock-radio on the bedside table is not showing the time, and the outside light above the porch that had been casting a gentle glow against the curtains is nowhere to be seen. There’s only the faint blueish tint of starlight reflecting on freshly fallen snow.
The power is out.
They’d been sure they were in the clear, but maybe they’d been overconfident in their assessment. Or just plain tired. It had been a long case, one that didn’t seem to be coming to a close anytime soon, and mistakes were bound to happen, even in their line of work where those mistakes were likely to get you killed.
The training kicks in just like it’s designed to do. Will doesn’t open his eyes fully, lest the gleam of them catches any torches of an intruder, and he doesn’t move his body even though his left leg and side are really, really cold and he wants to roll himself up into the duvet like a burrito. Instead, Will lies still for another full minute, listening for any unusual noises, any hint of movement inside the house or outside it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A creak of a door, somewhere down the corridor.
Will tenses, listens to the steps, light but unhesitating, approaching his room. He counts down in his head, imagining the assailant’s hand reaching for the handle, turning it, easing the door open, stepping to the room…
Will rolls off the bed and kick out, feet hitting something warm and solid.
The pained grunt that follows is awfully familiar. Will realises who his late-night visitor is at the same time as Ethan says,
“Brandt, it’s me. A little less violence, thank you.”
“Jesus Christ, Hunt!” Will gets to his feet and tucks the gun he’d grabbed from under the mattress into the back of his jeans. There’s no cosy pyjamas on the job. “What did you expect, creeping in like that?”
“I don’t know!” Will can just about the see Ethan’s outline against the window, enough to make out the way he runs a frustrated hand through his hair, and the distinctive shape of a gun in his other hand. “An intruder?” Ethan says. “One of McIntyre’s cronies strangling you with a piano wire?” He shrugs.
In retrospect, they’re probably lucky that they didn’t accidentally shoot each other in the dark. The agency would probably dissolve from the shared sense of embarrassment as a result if that happened, and the Director would find a way to make them pay even beyond the grave.
Will huffs. “No intruders other than you. Power’s out,” he adds, entirely unnecessarily.
Ethan is tired enough to let it go. “There’s torches in the kitchen. We make it there and then clear the house.”
That’s exactly what they do, moving in tandem, guns out, shoulders pressed against each other, first along the upstairs corridor and then down the stairs. The kitchen is around the corner, and nothing waits for them there except silent appliances and the promised torches, thankfully with working batteries.
After that, it takes them less than five minutes to cover rest of the house, separated now for efficiency. They find no uninvited guests.
“I’ll do a sweep outside,” Ethan says once they reconvene in the kitchen.
Will would argue but Ethan is already pulling his boots on, so he stays behind, waiting in tense silence for any indication of trouble, such as engine noise. Or gunshots.
The only sounds are the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall and his own breathing. And the howling of the wind. In less than ten minutes, the sound of the front door opening has Will stepping behind the kitchen door, his gun in his hand, safety off. Just in case.
Ethan, who clearly anticipates the reaction, however, calls out. “It’s just me. No one’s around, no new tracks on the snow.”
Will sighs and steps out, torch back on now that it’s safe. He finds Ethan in the process of shaking snow out of his hair and hanging his jacket to dry.
“It’s really coming down out there,” he says.
Will can see that. “So probably a storm-related power cut then?”
“Probably.”
Now that the adrenaline is fading, there’s no escaping the fact that the house is cold and getting steadily colder. Luckily…
“There’s a fireplace in the living room,” Will remembers.
Ethan frowns. “Is it actually functional? Dying of smoke inhalation is a less pleasant way to go than hypothermia.”
Will rolls his eyes but dutifully goes to find the information pack for the house. It’s kept in a safe, which is in a cupboard under the stairs, hidden behind the cleaning products and garden chairs. The code to it is fifteen digits long and burned into every agent’s memory with several mnemonics and some not so light conditioning. The code is the same everywhere, and so is the location of the safe. If a house didn’t have stairs or a cupboard under them to begin with, they sure did after the agency renovated.
The folder is thin, but includes the reassuring words ‘woodburning fireplace, serviced annually’ and, under ‘local information’ also, ‘winter power cuts common’. Reading all of this last night might have saved them some skulking around in the dark but by the time they’d gotten to the house, the need to rest had overridden anything else.
“There’s enough wood here for tonight.” Ethan points the torch toward two baskets of neatly packed firewood sitting on the floor.
The folder had promised more wood in the garden shed but Will didn’t relish the idea of going out into the storm to get it now. They’d have to do it in the morning if the power wasn’t back on by then, but at least they’d have daylight on their side then. Right now, he rummages in the kitchen drawers and the large cabinet in the living room until he finds a block of fire starters, and a couple of old copies of the local newspaper.
After that, it’s a work of few minutes to get the fire going, Will feeding it patiently with kindling until the flames are strong enough to catch hold of the bigger pieces.
Meanwhile, Ethan is pulling the cushions off the sofa and arranging them on the floor in front of the fire. When Will raises a questioning eyebrow in his direction, he shrugs and says,
“Well, I’m not sleeping in a freezing bedroom but I’m also not dragging a double mattress downstairs for this, so this will have to do.”
He’s got a point, so Will follows him upstairs as they each duck into their bedrooms, come out with armfuls of pillows and blankets and miraculously don’t break a single bone while carrying them downstairs in the dark what with no hands left to hold a torch.
Will drops his bedding on the cushions and goes to the kitchen to find any foods that can be eaten without cooking, or, barring that, cookware suited for open fire. They ate last night, but the packet of cereal bars he finds will be welcome come morning. The water is thankfully working, and he comes back triumphant with a stainless-steel kettle, teabags and mugs. There were no hooks on the fireplace, but he and Ethan can take turns holding the kettle at the end of a poker if needed and call it an arm workout and—
He almost drops the kettle and rest of the items he’s carrying when he spots the neatly made double bed of sorts in front of the fire. His and Ethan’s blankets are set side by side, pillows at the end furthest away from the fire, ensuring no one is on the colder side and… It makes sense. It’s practical. The value of sharing body heat is… Undeniable. Even necessary, right now. Given the circumstances.
And yet, somehow, Will had not really anticipated the reality of it. Of him and Ethan. And body heat.
“Will?” Ethan’s standing by the makeshift bed, one of the pillows in his hand. Most of his expression is hidden by the flicker of light and shadow from the flickering flames, but if Will had to put a label on it, he would call it… Wary. Watchful. “This okay?” Ethan asks. He doesn’t have to clarify what he’s referring to, Will knows.
“Yeah, it’s…” Will clears his throat, walks around the cushions and the blankets and crouches by the fire. “Makes sense.” It’s not like he’s opposed to the idea. Or even nervous. Just… Adjusting.
Ethan seems to understand and doesn’t push. Instead, he prepares their mugs while Will hooks the kettle to the end of one of the iron pokers and holds it close to the fire. They don’t really need the tea, but it’ll help to warm them up, and… Well, there’s something about being in a dark, quiet house, surrounded by snowy hills, that makes it easy to shut away the rest of the world, their jobs, the case, their myriad obligations and to just… Exist. To sit together in silence and wait for the water to boil, to pour it over teabags, breathe in the steam of lemon and ginger, to wrap cold fingers around warm mugs.
They settle on the edge of the cushions, toes pointed toward the fire and sip their tea. This could be a moment to strategize, to list out everything that needs doing tomorrow if the power is not back by the morning, and what can be done if it is. But neither of them seems inclined to break the silence. Eventually, the long day before an interrupted sleep catches up and Will can feel his eyelids growing heavy. He doesn’t bother taking the mugs back to the kitchen, simply setting them on the floor out of the way. Ethan adds more wood to the fire, enough to keep it going at least for a few hours.
And then they crawl into the bed. The fire has taken off the edge of the cold in the living room, especially after they’d closed the heavy curtains and all the doors, but it is still cool enough that the extra duvets they’d hauled from the hall closet are welcome. Underneath them, Will curls himself small and when Ethan’s hand tentatively touches down on his side, he simply shuffles backwards, leaning into the warmth. Ethan stills for a second or two, so quick that no one but another trained agent would’ve be able to tell, but then he wraps his arm around Will’s middle and pulls him closer, tucking his knees behind Will’s, his chest flush against Will’s back.
It's the first time they’ve slept like this but somehow it feels like the hundredth. Maybe because of the intimate familiarity they’ve build of each other’s bodies over the years, what they can do, how they can break, how to fix and soothe, how to save and shelter. When you think about it that way, maybe this is more like a natural evolution, the inevitable next step.
Sleep tugs Will under while he’s still thinking about what others may come after this one, how he’s looking forward to taking them together.
***
Title: Power Cut
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Pairing: William Brandt/Ethan Hunt
Tags: Power Outage, Snowed In, Huddling For Warmth
Rating: G
Word count: 2,022
Summary: Will wakes up to silence. Or, to be more precise, it’s the silence that wakes him.
Author notes: Written for
jenab for fandomtrees. This is unbetaed so if you spot a typo/mistake, you should absolutely tell me about it.Power Cut on AO3
Will wakes up to silence. Or, to be more precise, it’s the silence that wakes him. It’s… too quiet. It takes him a few second to figure out what’s missing until it clicks. The central heating, which has been humming on and off all evening and night ever since they arrived and turned it on to ward off the persistent cold that creeps into all unoccupied buildings, is silent.
It’s not supposed to be. Will has kicked some of his blankets off in the night and he’s distinctly chilly. Chillier than he should be. Almost as cold, in fact, as when he and Hunt had navigated the winding roads of Northumberland in the twilight, driving a stolen card, one that was barely in road condition, and definitely didn’t have a working heater. They had taken a circuitous route to the out of the way safe house, just in case they were followed.
Slowly, Will cracks an eyelid. Darkness. The clock-radio on the bedside table is not showing the time, and the outside light above the porch that had been casting a gentle glow against the curtains is nowhere to be seen. There’s only the faint blueish tint of starlight reflecting on freshly fallen snow.
The power is out.
They’d been sure they were in the clear, but maybe they’d been overconfident in their assessment. Or just plain tired. It had been a long case, one that didn’t seem to be coming to a close anytime soon, and mistakes were bound to happen, even in their line of work where those mistakes were likely to get you killed.
The training kicks in just like it’s designed to do. Will doesn’t open his eyes fully, lest the gleam of them catches any torches of an intruder, and he doesn’t move his body even though his left leg and side are really, really cold and he wants to roll himself up into the duvet like a burrito. Instead, Will lies still for another full minute, listening for any unusual noises, any hint of movement inside the house or outside it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A creak of a door, somewhere down the corridor.
Will tenses, listens to the steps, light but unhesitating, approaching his room. He counts down in his head, imagining the assailant’s hand reaching for the handle, turning it, easing the door open, stepping to the room…
Will rolls off the bed and kick out, feet hitting something warm and solid.
The pained grunt that follows is awfully familiar. Will realises who his late-night visitor is at the same time as Ethan says,
“Brandt, it’s me. A little less violence, thank you.”
“Jesus Christ, Hunt!” Will gets to his feet and tucks the gun he’d grabbed from under the mattress into the back of his jeans. There’s no cosy pyjamas on the job. “What did you expect, creeping in like that?”
“I don’t know!” Will can just about the see Ethan’s outline against the window, enough to make out the way he runs a frustrated hand through his hair, and the distinctive shape of a gun in his other hand. “An intruder?” Ethan says. “One of McIntyre’s cronies strangling you with a piano wire?” He shrugs.
In retrospect, they’re probably lucky that they didn’t accidentally shoot each other in the dark. The agency would probably dissolve from the shared sense of embarrassment as a result if that happened, and the Director would find a way to make them pay even beyond the grave.
Will huffs. “No intruders other than you. Power’s out,” he adds, entirely unnecessarily.
Ethan is tired enough to let it go. “There’s torches in the kitchen. We make it there and then clear the house.”
That’s exactly what they do, moving in tandem, guns out, shoulders pressed against each other, first along the upstairs corridor and then down the stairs. The kitchen is around the corner, and nothing waits for them there except silent appliances and the promised torches, thankfully with working batteries.
After that, it takes them less than five minutes to cover rest of the house, separated now for efficiency. They find no uninvited guests.
“I’ll do a sweep outside,” Ethan says once they reconvene in the kitchen.
Will would argue but Ethan is already pulling his boots on, so he stays behind, waiting in tense silence for any indication of trouble, such as engine noise. Or gunshots.
The only sounds are the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall and his own breathing. And the howling of the wind. In less than ten minutes, the sound of the front door opening has Will stepping behind the kitchen door, his gun in his hand, safety off. Just in case.
Ethan, who clearly anticipates the reaction, however, calls out. “It’s just me. No one’s around, no new tracks on the snow.”
Will sighs and steps out, torch back on now that it’s safe. He finds Ethan in the process of shaking snow out of his hair and hanging his jacket to dry.
“It’s really coming down out there,” he says.
Will can see that. “So probably a storm-related power cut then?”
“Probably.”
Now that the adrenaline is fading, there’s no escaping the fact that the house is cold and getting steadily colder. Luckily…
“There’s a fireplace in the living room,” Will remembers.
Ethan frowns. “Is it actually functional? Dying of smoke inhalation is a less pleasant way to go than hypothermia.”
Will rolls his eyes but dutifully goes to find the information pack for the house. It’s kept in a safe, which is in a cupboard under the stairs, hidden behind the cleaning products and garden chairs. The code to it is fifteen digits long and burned into every agent’s memory with several mnemonics and some not so light conditioning. The code is the same everywhere, and so is the location of the safe. If a house didn’t have stairs or a cupboard under them to begin with, they sure did after the agency renovated.
The folder is thin, but includes the reassuring words ‘woodburning fireplace, serviced annually’ and, under ‘local information’ also, ‘winter power cuts common’. Reading all of this last night might have saved them some skulking around in the dark but by the time they’d gotten to the house, the need to rest had overridden anything else.
“There’s enough wood here for tonight.” Ethan points the torch toward two baskets of neatly packed firewood sitting on the floor.
The folder had promised more wood in the garden shed but Will didn’t relish the idea of going out into the storm to get it now. They’d have to do it in the morning if the power wasn’t back on by then, but at least they’d have daylight on their side then. Right now, he rummages in the kitchen drawers and the large cabinet in the living room until he finds a block of fire starters, and a couple of old copies of the local newspaper.
After that, it’s a work of few minutes to get the fire going, Will feeding it patiently with kindling until the flames are strong enough to catch hold of the bigger pieces.
Meanwhile, Ethan is pulling the cushions off the sofa and arranging them on the floor in front of the fire. When Will raises a questioning eyebrow in his direction, he shrugs and says,
“Well, I’m not sleeping in a freezing bedroom but I’m also not dragging a double mattress downstairs for this, so this will have to do.”
He’s got a point, so Will follows him upstairs as they each duck into their bedrooms, come out with armfuls of pillows and blankets and miraculously don’t break a single bone while carrying them downstairs in the dark what with no hands left to hold a torch.
Will drops his bedding on the cushions and goes to the kitchen to find any foods that can be eaten without cooking, or, barring that, cookware suited for open fire. They ate last night, but the packet of cereal bars he finds will be welcome come morning. The water is thankfully working, and he comes back triumphant with a stainless-steel kettle, teabags and mugs. There were no hooks on the fireplace, but he and Ethan can take turns holding the kettle at the end of a poker if needed and call it an arm workout and—
He almost drops the kettle and rest of the items he’s carrying when he spots the neatly made double bed of sorts in front of the fire. His and Ethan’s blankets are set side by side, pillows at the end furthest away from the fire, ensuring no one is on the colder side and… It makes sense. It’s practical. The value of sharing body heat is… Undeniable. Even necessary, right now. Given the circumstances.
And yet, somehow, Will had not really anticipated the reality of it. Of him and Ethan. And body heat.
“Will?” Ethan’s standing by the makeshift bed, one of the pillows in his hand. Most of his expression is hidden by the flicker of light and shadow from the flickering flames, but if Will had to put a label on it, he would call it… Wary. Watchful. “This okay?” Ethan asks. He doesn’t have to clarify what he’s referring to, Will knows.
“Yeah, it’s…” Will clears his throat, walks around the cushions and the blankets and crouches by the fire. “Makes sense.” It’s not like he’s opposed to the idea. Or even nervous. Just… Adjusting.
Ethan seems to understand and doesn’t push. Instead, he prepares their mugs while Will hooks the kettle to the end of one of the iron pokers and holds it close to the fire. They don’t really need the tea, but it’ll help to warm them up, and… Well, there’s something about being in a dark, quiet house, surrounded by snowy hills, that makes it easy to shut away the rest of the world, their jobs, the case, their myriad obligations and to just… Exist. To sit together in silence and wait for the water to boil, to pour it over teabags, breathe in the steam of lemon and ginger, to wrap cold fingers around warm mugs.
They settle on the edge of the cushions, toes pointed toward the fire and sip their tea. This could be a moment to strategize, to list out everything that needs doing tomorrow if the power is not back by the morning, and what can be done if it is. But neither of them seems inclined to break the silence. Eventually, the long day before an interrupted sleep catches up and Will can feel his eyelids growing heavy. He doesn’t bother taking the mugs back to the kitchen, simply setting them on the floor out of the way. Ethan adds more wood to the fire, enough to keep it going at least for a few hours.
And then they crawl into the bed. The fire has taken off the edge of the cold in the living room, especially after they’d closed the heavy curtains and all the doors, but it is still cool enough that the extra duvets they’d hauled from the hall closet are welcome. Underneath them, Will curls himself small and when Ethan’s hand tentatively touches down on his side, he simply shuffles backwards, leaning into the warmth. Ethan stills for a second or two, so quick that no one but another trained agent would’ve be able to tell, but then he wraps his arm around Will’s middle and pulls him closer, tucking his knees behind Will’s, his chest flush against Will’s back.
It's the first time they’ve slept like this but somehow it feels like the hundredth. Maybe because of the intimate familiarity they’ve build of each other’s bodies over the years, what they can do, how they can break, how to fix and soothe, how to save and shelter. When you think about it that way, maybe this is more like a natural evolution, the inevitable next step.
Sleep tugs Will under while he’s still thinking about what others may come after this one, how he’s looking forward to taking them together.
***