m_findlow

Title: A prickly situation
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,168 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, Sewing on a button" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack is feeling defeated by domesticity.

'Ouch!' Jack muttered, shoving his finger in his mouth, tasting the metallic tang of blood. 'Stupid thing,' he cursed, leaving the heap of grey wool sitting in his lap whilst he tried to pep himself back up to carry on.

'Is it dead yet?' Owen smirked, watching Jack's pitiful efforts. 'I thought Teaboy had you better domesticated than this,' he added, enjoying being able to taunt Jack so easily. 'I can't wait to tell him. That'll be guaranteed to cheer him up, or at least give him a good laugh.'

'You'll do no such thing,' Jack said, giving him a warning glance. Nobody was cheering up Ianto at Jack's expense unless it was him.

He picked up the coat and needle again and began trying to stitch in earnest, his face contorted in deep concentration. This required some sort of wizardry, he decided. How was he supposed to know where the needle would appear when it was in his hand underneath his coat? There was some hand eye coordination trickery that made it impossible for him to get the needle to appear in just the right spot. He'd watched Ianto do this a hundred times, and he made it look like the easiest thing in the world. Up, through, down, up, through, down. He certainly didn't want Owen telling him he couldn't even manage to sew a button back onto his coat.

It was meant to be something of a surprise. For days now his lover had been downstairs recuperating from his latest injuries, which had been terrible burns from a piece of alien tech that had leaked corrosive fluid when part of it overheated and cracked whilst he'd been carrying it. Owen had fortunately acted immediately, washing off the worst of it, and setting his hands in plastic gloves full of a gel that would help heal the burns and eliminate any scarring. Jack shuddered to think of those beautiful, soft hands marred by terrible chemical burns. It had however meant having his hands fully bandaged, such that he couldn't use them at all until Owen was satisfied that they were sufficiently healed to allow for less restrictive bandaging.

Whilst Jack was pleased with Ianto's progress, having watched Owen change the gel gloves twice a day, seeing the skin going from a angry marbled red, back to its usual vanilla complexion, he could tell that it continued to frustrate his lover. Whilst his hands were out of action, he struggled to do anything for himself. Even Jack's attempts to make being spoon fed entertaining were falling flat, which was to say nothing of his annoyance at not being able to properly shower himself, go to the bathroom or even read a book. He could watch television just so long as he didn't want to change channels. He'd even come upstairs a couple of times, just to sit and watch, chatting with the others for a bit of stimulation, but soon grew annoyed as he saw things that needed doing, and being completely unable to do them. Jack understood perfectly that he was back downstairs sulking at his lack of usefulness.

The buttons on Jack's coat needed repairing. The tussle he'd had this morning with a hoix had fortunately not done damage to the fabric itself, only sent a spray of buttons flying off as it clawed at his coat, trying to get to the edible flesh underneath. Jack made sure not to leave the alley until he'd collected every last roundel of brass. Ianto would have a box of spares somewhere, but he couldn't bring himself to ask, knowing it would only irritate the young man even more that he couldn't fix Jack's coat for him, as he so often did. He also didn't fancy having to admit he should have had backup for the early morning callout, which would have been Ianto had he been capable. Instead he'd gone it alone and had his damaged coat to show for it, along with several deep gashes which had since healed, just in time for him to visit Ianto and help him eat breakfast, completely unaware of the event.

Jack shoved the needle into the wool again, trying to get closer to the spot and letting out a frustrated sigh of his own. How had he lived all these years but never had to sew anything? He supposed he knew the answer. When something got torn or damaged he'd always just thrown it out and bought something new. Even when he'd been stuck in the trenches during the war, he'd somehow managed to never even darn so much as a single sock. Officer's privileges, he supposed.

When it came to his coat however, he always made a point of getting it fixed. All through the 1800's and the early twentieth century, he'd paid upwards of five shillings to women who could patch up his coat - more than some might earn in a month, and then only from undesirable professions like prostitution. He'd dated a young seamstress for a while in 1912 who had delighted in the task before her untimely death. He'd even had a landlady who would tut at him when he stalked home at all hours, practically tearing the coat off him to rush off and repair it. Ianto was like the best of both worlds in that respect - sex and sewing.

Right now though, he wanted to sort this out for himself. Ianto's own coat needed two buttons replaced after Owen had torn it off him in order to prevent the corrosive fluid from soaking into it and affecting more skin. Jack thought it was better to practice on his own coat, perfecting the art, before attempting to fix Ianto's coat. It was going to be a surprise gift, returning it dry cleaned and in mint condition. He thought he'd done quite well, rifling through drawers until he found a few spools of cotton thread and needles, in just the right colours for what he needed, taking them back to his office and settling down to the task at hand. Now however Jack was beginning to doubt that he could manage it, struggling as he was with his own. Just getting the thread through that tiny little hole in the top of the needle had taken him a good fifteen minutes. He was starting to think the hole was just a ruse and that he was trying to thread it through nothing at all.

He pushed the needle through again and managed to completely miss the spot where the button was hanging by a few loose stitches, but not his thumb, nearly an inch away. Funny how the needle went much easier through his finger than it did the thick wool coat.

'Ow!'

'Harkness, you're going to bleed to death if you poke yourself with any more holes,' Owen quipped, hearing the cry of pain. 'You'll be joining Ianto downstairs in the ward at this rate.'

Jack growled, feeling close to defeat. Super glue was looking ever more like a good option.