Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Jack, Ianto

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 1,339 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 282 - Over/Under

Summary: Jack has a problem that only Ianto can fix.

Ianto gently poked his finger through the hole in Jack's coat and sighed. 'I don't know how you do it,' he said, inspecting the hole and feeling just how big it was. 'Did somebody skewer you in the liver when I wasn't watching?'

Jack attempted to look sheepish. It was one thing for his coat to get damaged in the line of duty, but even he couldn't deny that tearing it on the corner of their flux generator when he'd been down there tweaking their engines was a little careless. In fairness he shouldn't have even been wearing it, but it was always cold down in the engine room which didn't join up to the rest of the ship's heating system. Since no one lived down there, it didn't need heating, and secondly, heating was one thing their engines didn't need. The cool air was one of the things that kept everything working in peak condition. Jack just couldn't help but go down there and fiddle with things, though. He'd always been a tinkerer, ever since he'd first learned how to tune his very first one man pod.

'I'm sorry, okay? Just put it down to me being a klutz,' Jack said, knowing Ianto wasn't overly angry with him. That never tiring sense of disappointment was something Jack had a tendency to foster rather than eliminate. He couldn't help it that he wasn't perfect.

'Well,' Ianto said, turning the coat over and checking the hole from the back, 'we're three hundred light years from the nearest way station or major planet, unless you want to make a detour to get this sorted out. I suppose that means I'll have to mend it.'

'I'd love you forever if you would,' Jack replied. He didn't want to have to make a detour from their planned route to reach the farthest depths of Delta Six where lay the most perfect slice of paradise Ianto had never seen. Jack had been trying to get them there for ages for a bit of well deserved rest and relaxation. This was the equivalent of losing your passport right before boarding the plane for your sunny three weeks in Barbados. A detour would cost them weeks in travel time.

'Let me go fetch my emergency kit,' Ianto said. 'I know I've got some needles and thread in there somewhere.'

It took Ianto twenty minutes to pull everything out of the wardrobe to find the little pouch tucked right at the back. He'd always known that one day he was going to have need of some of the little knickknacks he'd diligently packed over a year ago. You just never knew when they might come in handy. He double checked the little spools of cotton tucked away, finding reels in red, white, navy and black. With a bit more rifling, he found the one that was somewhere between blue and grey, just the right shade to match Jack's faithful coat. Small wonder he hadn't needed this earlier, he thought, but mostly, when things needed dry cleaning or repairing, they just took it to the local shops wherever they ended up. Just because they were traveling the universe on their own didn't mean they had to be totally self sufficient. It wasn't much of a holiday if you had to do everything for yourself. They could afford to pay people to do the menial tasks so that they could spend their time enjoying the universe.

'You're in luck,' Ianto said, returning to their living quarters where Jack had his coat bundled up in his lap.

Jack beamed at him. 'I knew I could count on you.'

'Always,' Ianto said, sitting down on the sofa next to him. He began laying the coat out over his knees but there was so much of it that the weight of it kept trying to slip off.

Jack grabbed Ianto's legs and pulled them up across his lap so that he could sit sideways on the sofa. 'That better?'

'Much,' Ianto said, able to now lay it lengthwise along his legs, which had the added benefit of keeping them toasty and warm. He unzipped the little pouch containing the needles and thread and began measuring out a length of cotton, doubling it over and cutting it free with a tiny set of scissors also in the pouch before carefully slipping the thread through the eye of the needle and tying it off. He pulled Jack's coat back up close to his face and made his first stitch, pulling the fabric together as he went, watching the hole very slowly closing in on itself. 'You can put the TV on if you want,' Ianto suggested. 'I might be a while.'

'That's okay,' Jack said, massaging Ianto's lower leg. 'I like watching you sew.'

'Which makes you the strangest person I know,' he replied, methodically letting himself get into a rhythm. The needle went over and under and over and under in a fluid motion that was very calming. As annoying as mending things was, at least the action itself was soothing.

Jack continued to watch with morbid fascination, as if he'd never before seen someone sewing. Ianto's fingers with were like dancers, coordinating from one side of the fabric to the other. How he even knew just where the needed would come up without having x-ray vision baffled Jack. Every time it came back through the wool it was in just the right spot for that next perfect stitch. 'That's incredible,' Jack said.

'Not really,' Ianto replied. 'It's just sewing. Nothing fancy.'

'Ah, is this some of those master tailor's skills shining through?'

Ianto gave him the eye, taking it momentarily off the needed in his fingers. 'You know it isn't,' he replied. They'd established long ago that Ianto's father was not the master tailor he'd once claimed that he was. 'Dad was a glorified shop assistant with an eye for getting a suit to fit just right, that was all,' Ianto insisted.

Jack raised his eyebrows at the comment. 'Your dad didn't teach you to sew?'

Ianto snorted at that. 'He could take in the inner leg and adjust a hem, but we didn't really talk about it. It wasn't exactly a cool topic of discussion when I was a teenager.'

'So?' Jack said, letting the question hang in the air. 'You didn't just master sewing all by yourself.'

'My mum,' Ianto admitted. 'She patched up everything at home. She said everyone should know how to fix holes in their own socks or to touch up a thread come loose.'

'She taught you well then,' Jack said.

He shrugged off the praise. 'It's just practice. A needle and some thread is a lot cheaper than buying new socks all the time. Sock money is better spent as beer money, at least it is when you're a student. These days I think I'd rather have new socks than a cold pint.'

'So true,' Jack agreed. 'Nothing beats a brand new pair of socks.' Jack laughed at himself. 'Now I know I'm getting old and mellow. I'm lauding the merits of good socks.'

Ianto smiled despite himself. 'There you are,' he declared, holding up the section of coat for Jack's inspection.

Jack fingered the spot that had once borne a large tear, finding it completely gone. The stitches and the wool were like a seamless piece of fabric that had never been torn in the first place. 'That's amazing. I can't even find the hole.'

'You're not supposed to.'

'Just when I thought coffee was your only magic trick.'

'Just don't expect me to start darning all your socks,' Ianto warned him. 'If I can learn to sew, you can too.'

'Okay, fair enough,' Jack conceded. 'I never did master the needle and thread myself, though. Can I practise on your holey socks?'

Ianto narrowed his eyes at Jack. 'No. You can fix your own holey socks.'

'I'll just borrow your socks to wear if I muck them up.'

Ianto sighed. 'Of course you will.'