Ficlet: Holes
Title: Holes
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Coat, Jack, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Coat and Jack have become casualties again. It’s a hard life being Jack’s Coat.
Word Count: 475
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Jack's Coat, A Whole Lotta Holes In My Life,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC
Coat fluttered feebly. This hadn’t been a good day; the aliens’ weapons might have been a bit on the primitive side compared to what it was used to, but buckshot could do as much damage to fabric as it could to the human body. It wasn’t much consolation that its owner hadn’t fared any better than it had, since the Captain was currently dead, his blood soaking into its fibres.
Ianto arrived soon after, straightening Coat’s folds and cradling the Captain in his arms. At least Ianto seemed to be undamaged, which meant that when they all returned to base he would be able to take care of Coat’s wounds, the way he always did. If Ianto had been damaged too, Coat didn’t know what it would have done.
The Captain gasped, flailing around and worsening Coat’s condition by grinding the parts of it that were underneath him into the blood-soaked earth they were both lying on. Ianto calmed him quickly and he stopped struggling, which was a relief to Coat as it had felt a couple of its holes tearing further. Before long, Ianto was helping the Captain to his feet and dusting Coat down as best
he could.
“Oh dear, you’ve really been through it, haven’t you?” Ianto sighed, fingering a tear.
‘There’ve been a whole lot of holes in my life, but this takes the cake,’ Coat silently agreed. It liked to think Ianto understood.
“Well, best get both of you back to the Hub and cleaned up. Then it looks like I’ve got quite a bit of repair work to do.”
“What about the aliens?” the Captain asked. It was a good question, Coat wanted to know the answer too; it didn’t like the thought of being shot at again, especially as it hadn’t had time to heal yet.
“Dead,” Ianto said shortly.
“I thought we’d decided to take them alive if we could?”
“We had, but they weren’t in on that discussion. As soon as we had them cornered and they realised they were out-gunned, they shot each other. Owen tried to save them, but they were so completely alien he didn’t know where to start.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Coat sympathised; even though they’d shot holes in it and in its owner, it couldn’t really blame them. By the look of them, they’d been plucked from the middle of a battlefield and dumped in a strange, seemingly hostile place. It was hardly surprising that they’d panicked and started shooting; it was just fortunate that no civilians had become casualties of a war light years away. Although, the signposts outside Cardiff must have seemed threatening, considering the way they’d been blasted to bits. Coat had never been more relieved that it wasn’t a road sign.
On the whole, a few holes that could be stitched up until they healed wasn’t so bad.
The End