Title: Woven Into The Fabric
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Jack/Various Past Lovers
Rating/Warnings: R – sexual references, character deaths
Spoilers: COE compliant, mentions a character from the novel "Twilight Streets"
Wordcount: 1,240
Summary: Ianto may have been able to replace Jack's coat - but there are some things that just can't be replaced.

A/N: This is a prequel, of sorts, for Served Cold (my Fix-It). It explores a moment in Jack's wanderings in space, and I hope gives some idea of how Jack gets to the point where we first see him in Served Cold.

Woven Into The Fabric

The air was bitingly cold, like gnarled hands reaching around and clawing at the skin of his cheeks. He was sure that, if he had any tears left to cry, they would be frozen onto his cheeks, constant sculptured reminders of a world that had done nothing but tear him apart.

It was a quick stop for fuel on a long journey, a drop-off point on this cold, windswept land before they picked up on their journey. Usually, the crew of the ship he'd boarded did not take too kindly to hitchhikers, but the call of his ragged vortex manipulator had been intriguing, a lonesome call in the dark that had drawn them towards him. Whilst he was there, he had skills to use, and a need to distract himself that meant his work was his life – he was useful to them, and they would drop him off at the next port.

That was the agreement.

But, for now, he'd walked away for some breathing space. It felt good to feel the flakes of snow biting into his flesh, catching on his eyelids and obstructing his view. He'd been so numb for such a long time, and now he could finally say that the lack of feeling spreading up from his toes was as a result of a natural phenomena, rather than his own twisted survival instinct. It felt good to know that this feeling was something real, something attacking at his body rather than his mind.

Shivering hard, he wrapped the coat tightly around him, leaning his back against the cold rock.

The coat didn't feel right. It never had. It sat in all the wrong places, too stiff and too clean even after so many months crawling across the dirt of the Earth. It didn't hang off his body in the way that he remembered so well, didn't wrap him in its embrace like his real coat had done – in the hardest of situations, that coat had been the ultimate comforting touch. This coat kept him warm, but the warmth was only skin deep.

Each stitching of his old coat had held a story, a memory, and the touch of the fabric against his skin had seemed to bring each recollection alive before his eyes.

He'd remember the moment when Greg had pulled it off with such a force that it tore. He would run fingers up the along the tiny stitch, imagining exactly how the fiery skin had felt beneath his own.

He'd remember clutching at his dying comrade on the beaches of Normandy as the lifeblood seeped from his neck. He'd fondle the crusted section where the crimson stain, his futile attempt to staunch the flow, had never washed out, tears springing to his eyes.

He'd remember the moment when Lucia had accidentally knocked over a bottle of perfume onto the collar. The gentle huff of laughter against his neck as she fought against his wandering hands to wipe it off was loud and clear in his ears as he breathed in the faint scent.

He'd remember holding Alice for the first time, her gentle baby smell curling from her quiet breath and embedding itself into the fabric. He could imagine her small frame, swamped by his huge hands as fairy-like fingers twirled in that loose strand just there.

He'd remember that night when he'd given into Ianto's wishes, and let the Welshman fuck him whilst wearing the coat. The musky smell of sweat and arousal, unique to that one man, had clung to the fibres, sending a spark of satisfaction through Jack's mind with each catch of the memory.

This new coat was second hand – there were smells, emotions, memories within these fibres, but they were someone else's. He held himself at a distance, unwilling to intrude on those private moments that he could feel itching against him.

These weren't his memories. His memories were gone.

Maybe it was easier that way. Perhaps it was harmful to always be reminded, to live in the past and not look to the future. But right now, with his tired mind unable to quite grasp at the sharp details of those moments that had defined him, he wanted nothing more than to curl up deeply into the coarse wool of the garment, snuggling and tasting and breathing into the folds. He wanted to hide away in the blanket of his memories, plunge his hand into his trouser and bring himself off to the scent of so many lovers that he just hadn't been able to save.

He'd done it so many times in the past, bucking his cock into his eager fist as he sought out each separate smell, bringing each face before his eyes as he came with quiet completion. It was like he was back there, touching and tasting and inside and outside and every which way that he could possibly find himself, clutching each unique person between the hands of his memory and squeezing tightly.

Ianto was the only one he didn't have, the only one whose memory he didn't have the chance to relive. He'd never had the chance to mourn by wrapping his naked form in the coat, never had the opportunity to cry and choke and inhale Ianto's scent from within the haphazard stitching. He'd searched this new coat for any semblance of the Welshman, hoping beyond hope that some of his self had been imprinted onto the fabric, even in those rapid moments in between his life and his death.

But nothing had stuck. There hadn't been enough time. He found himself counting every lost moment, decrying that he hadn't taken Ianto up on his offer, that he hadn't forced Rhys to leave, that he hadn't taken the oppurtunity to wrap the coat around them both and fuck him into the stone floor of the warehouse, if only so that some remnants of that troubled, intriguing man had been left for him to wallow in now.

Breathing in tightly, he pushed the coat away from his limbs, ignoring the cold that whistled through the exposed fabric of his clothing. He could feel those unfamiliar memories sliding against his skin with each brush of the coat, and he shivered at the thought that the imprinted reminders of his skin were being washed away by these alien thoughts.

Slipping it from his shoulders, he stood up and hooked it over his arm, the weight pressing heavily against the pulse point in his wrist. Whereas before, that one familiar piece of fabric had sung of life and love and a million wonderful people, this heavy cotton monstrosity was a dead weight on his arm. He shuddered slightly, resisting the urge to fling it to the snow and walk away.

Because Ianto had bought him this coat. And whilst he hadn't understood why Jack was less than enthusiastic, whilst he could never have realised how that gesture had never been able to replace what Jack had truly lost, he had tried. It was something that Ianto had done. Something that Ianto had gifted. It was something that was him.

Breathing deeply, he took the coat from his arm and held it in front of his face, his eyes boring deeply into the fabric. Eventually, he slipped the coat over his shoulders, hugging it tightly around his shivering frame as he headed back towards the beauteous distraction of the anchored ship.

He didn't look back.

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