Torchwood: Fanfic: A tale of two coats

[m_findlow]

Title: A tale of two coats
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Coat, OC (Other Coat), mentions Jack and Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 912 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, Jack's Coat falls in love" at fic_promptly
Summary: Coat has met the perfect someone

Coat loved Jack. They'd been best friends for over seventy years and nothing could ever part them. No matter how much trouble Jack got into, and how badly damaged or dirty Coat ended up, it always forgave its trusty friend and sidekick.

Coat had gotten to know many of Jack's lovers over the years as well, but none it liked so much as Ianto. Ianto was special because Ianto loved Jack's Coat just as much as Jack did, if not more. He relished attention on Coat, always making sure it was clean and repaired from any damage Jack had sustained, or aliens had inflicted. He loved to be wrapped in Coat's folds when it was cold, and Coat gladly let Jack take him off to warm up his lover. It was the least Coat could do to say thank you for being looked after so well.

So it really came as no surprise that when it came to falling in love, it was Ianto's coat that stole its heart. They'd been thrown together more times than it could count, but suddenly one day, Coat realised that there was no other coat it would rather spend time with. Ianto's coat was always brushed and neat, and smelled like Ianto, just as Coat smelled like Jack. It was an irresistible scent that made Coat's fibres stand on end, and made it wish its buttons were shinier than they were.

Coat adored the deep charcoal colour of Ianto's coat, and how it coordinated seamlessly with anything he wore. Sometimes Coat felt self conscious, draped around Jack's shoulders when he wasn't wearing blue, feeling like they were mismatched, even though Jack would never have traded Coat for any other, regardless of what colour he was wearing. It also worried that Ianto's coat would see all of the ragged edges and the repair jobs, neat and fine as Ianto's needlework was, and felt scruffy in the presence of its perfection. Coat enjoyed staring at the perfectly polished black buttons when it thought Ianto's coat wasn't looking.

It didn't matter though. Ianto's coat, shy as it was, had secretly fallen for Coat as well. Coat just looked so dashing running headlong into certain danger that it could only sigh and admire Coat's bravery, before sucking up its own courage to join the fray, hoping that Coat would be safe and that Ianto would help keep it safe.

When Jack was unable to prevent himself and Coat getting hurt, he always looked to Ianto's coat for strength to get through the worst of it, feeling Ianto's coat cradling him as he and Jack lay there bleeding and hurt. He tried to be strong for Ianto's coat, assuring it that Jack would be okay and that the bleeding could be cleaned, and that Ianto would fix Coat up good as new, for whatever injuries Coat itself couldn't fix. Coat wasn't totally impervious like Jack, but there were lots of small cuts and stains that it could sort out all by itself. If it hadn't, it would have been destroyed long ago. Something of Jack's special powers had been imbibed by Coat over the years. It didn't make Ianto's coat worry about it any less, though.

Just like his owner, Coat loved nothing more than to come home at the end of a long day and spend some time alone with its lover. It looked forward to being hung up on the coat rack by Ianto, who neatly hung his own coat right alongside, so close that they were touching. It loved the feeling of Ianto's coat leaning into its lapels, and it would slip its long sleeves into Ianto's coat pockets, loving it best when Ianto hung Coat on top of his own, able to wrap itself fully around its lover. Since coats had limited movement on their own, this was as close as they could get. Many a night they'd fallen off their hooks and onto a pile on the floor, enjoying a night spent lying together in each other's arms. It was of course always slightly embarrassing the next morning when Ianto returned, muttering that he thought he'd hung them up properly the night before, and here they were, sprawled on the floor like a pair of lusting teenagers.

Coat loved it when they went out on a date, wrapped arm in arm and enjoying the splendor of the city streets lit up at night, or the warm spring sunshine as they strolled along the bay and sat together by the Norwegian Church, just enjoying the view. Sometimes it was just as nice when they were laid out over the back of the sofa, curled up with their respective owners, just watching a movie or spending a quiet night cuddling.

Even though Jack would never go anywhere without his trusty coat, the same couldn't be said for Ianto. Luckily though, the weather was never too far from cold, so Ianto's coat never went permanently into the wardrobe for months on end like some other coats might. It was hard spending time apart, but it made their reunion on those bitterly cold nights all that much sweeter.

Whatever happened, Coat knew that there was no other coat for it, now and always. It prayed that Jack would find a way for them to be together forever. As much as it loved Jack, it had found a different kind of love, and one that Jack could never replace.

Comments

[milady-dragon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved that! It was so sweet! They do deserve to be together, forever, just like their wearers.

[bk_forever]

Awwww, sweet Coat love! Sounds like Jack's Coat gets just as frisky as Jack does, and I love the thought that when Jack and Ianto go on dates, their coats do too =)

Thanks for this!

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. It was heaps of fun to write. Hope it did the prompt justice. ;)

[bk_forever]

It certainly did =)