| Date: 11 December 2007
Characters: Jack Harkness, The Ninth Doctor Location: outside, hotel room Link to IJ: thread #3306 |
 Jack had spent the day eating, dozing and thinking - turning his discussions with Owen and Ianto over in his head, picking them apart for information, then using that information to form and test theories. After the sun was down he left the room he'd taken for the day, and headed outside through the bar.
He was just there, now. Out of the way of any traffic through that door, coat pushed back and his hands in his pants pockets. He tilted his head back to squint upward into the sky. Into a sky with the hazy light of a galaxy spread across it, points of light scattered in no configuration he recognized. |
 "I don't recognize any of the constellations." the Doctor said idly, standing beside Jack, arms crossed over his chest, "Do you?" |
| He stopped breathing, just for a second, and then slowly turned to look at the man beside him. "They look too close to even be proper constellations. More like galaxies. Have you ever been turned on by a corpse?"
...What? It paid to check. What he was checking he didn't know. Besides himself from leaping at the Time Lord. He wasn't even quite sure if it was to hug him or punch his lights the fuck out. He leaned toward the second, though. |
| "Not Earth then. Everything else looks like earth and do you always ask strangers personal questions?" |
| "Definitely not earth, even if the atmosphere and gravity are close enough to be indistinguishable." |
| "Architecture looks like...ancient earth," he hesitated. |
| "Define ancient." |
| "Twentieth century." |
| "Sounds about right," he agreed. |
| "How'd you know?" he raised an eyebrow, studying Jack. |
| "Spent a century or so there once. Nice place to visit." |
| "I hate today," he groaned. "You did not." |
| He pulled his left hand out of his pocket, hiked up his coat sleeve and extended his wrist - and wrist-comp. "I didn't?" |
| "You didn't," he said a little blankly. "What the does a wrist computer mean to me except that you really didn't?" |
| He sighed and stared back up at the sky. "Why would it mean I really didn't?" he asked, in a completely apathetic way. |
| "Didn't have those in the twentieth century," he said smugly. "Wish they had. 70s woulda been more fun." |
| "I said I stayed there, I didn't say I was from there." He gritted his teeth, and put his hands back into his pockets, where they were safe. |
| "For a hundred years," the Doctor reminded him, "And I refuse to believe you've had that much work done." |
| "Is there a reason you're assuming I'm human?" |
| "Smell like one." |
| "Whatever works for you." |
| "Why is everyone getting angry at me today?" |
| "Who else got angry at you?" |
| "Some git with no lips and a chip on his shoulder." |
| "That would be Owen. What did you do to him?" |
| "Why do you think it was something I did?!" |
| "Because it's always something you did." |
| "How would you know?" |
| "You're a Time Lord. You work it out." |
| "Gettin' sick of that word too," he said thoughtfully, before suddenly shifting to grab Jack around the throat. |
| Jack didn't dodge, block or otherwise evade the grab. He let himself be grabbed around the throat without so much as a flinch.
Except the part where he came up and around with the hand mirroring the Doctor's free one in a solid, hard punch. With the angle it was aimed mostly toward his jaw. |
| The Doctor didn't even see it coming, taking it in the face, hand tightening as he staggered, growling "Who are you?"
Because he couldn't open his jaw. Ow. |
| The look Jack gave the Doctor for asking questions while choking him could have set people on fire. People meaning humans, and humans meaning ones with roughly normal lifespans. |
| He loosened his grip though he didn't let go, trying to find his footing again. |
| "Captain Jack," he said, fairly calmly. He slammed the Doctor in the bridge of the nose with the heel of his hand. "Harkness," was a snarl, with the hit. |
| The Doctor let go to grab his nose, stomping on Jack's foot in the process. "Nice to meet you, Captain." |
| He gritted his teeth and fell back against the wall. "Save it for when you *do* meet me, you jack-ass." |
| "Are you planning on breaking me nose then too? Because I might forgo the privilege!" |
| "No. Then you'll be doing the breaking, and I won't get off that lightly," he growled, and then straightened up and half sighed. "Come here." |
| The Doctor took his hand off his nose. It wasn't broken, but it was bleeding. He frowned at Jack, sensing the change in mood, "Why?" |
| "Because you owe me one." |
| The Doctor did some quick arithmetic. Choking + stomping > nose smushing. He came over. |
| Jack grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, pulled him in and kissed him senseless. Not gentle, not loving, but slick and hot and rough and violently angry. There was warmth and light, and he really wasn't in any shape to be healing anyone, but it was just a nose-bleed. |
| The Doctor wrapped his arms around Jack's wrists, genuinely startled, but kissing back because instinct was instinct and it felt good enough that his nose stopped hurting for some reason.
And he was touching someone, actually touching someone, for the first time since he said goodbye to an old friend on Gallifrey. |
| The aggression gradually, gradually, faded and the harsh edge of violence eased. He pulled back as slowly as the kiss moved from punishment and healing, all at once, to just being a kiss. He kept his grip on the coat, left his wrists in the Doctor's grip and backed off just far enough to press his forehead against the Doctor's.
"You son of a bitch," he murmured, roughly. |
| 'I've heard that," The Doctor muttered, still holding onto Jack, thumb rubbing over the pulse of the wrist without the arm band, "I'm sorry." |
| He was a little extra pale, and his jaw tightened. "You can't apologize to me. You don't even know who I am." |
| "The hell I can't be sorry for whatever hurt you that bad. Even if it wasn't me." |
| "Is that a denial or an expression of doubt?" |
| "Neither. Means even if I don't remember doing it, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. Even if it was someone else who did it, I'd still be sorry." |
| Jack had no fucking clue what to do with that. It meant something to him, because the Doctor meant everything to him and had for an impossibly long time, but he didn't know what to do with it.
"The Daleks came back. I helped you save the world from them. You left me for dead." |
| The Doctor tightened his hands on Jack's wrists, paling and losing his footing a bit, "You're the second person today to tell me that the Daleks came back. I killed them. I watched them burn. I would never have left anyone with them." |
| Jack didn't wince, didn't flinch and did tighten his grip on the Doctor's coat and brace himself to steady the Doctor. "There was one that got away." He only knew of the one. "They rebuilt it all, and were headed straight for earth. You left me because you thought I was dead, but you left me. Who was the other person?" |
| "A timelord talking about the void and some wolf named Rose. He's. gone mad, I think." |
| "...Rose is a girl you'll travel with, for a while. I have no idea what he means by wolves and voids. Is he why the word Time Lord made you hit me?" |
| "Guessed that much," he agreed, still holding onto Jack, "A bit, but mostly because they're all dead and I'm sick of hearing 'bout them.' |
| "How long's it been?" he asked, still holding onto the Doctor back. Even tightening his grip a little, like he thought he was going to slip away. |
| "A month." He enunciated carefully, "And I don't know that I like everybody and their dog knowin' about it." |
| "Time travel's a real bitch that way," he said, holding the Doctor's eyes. "You're going to be all right." |
| "Well enough to fuck you over, I hear," he said calmly, little crazy in his eyes. |
| "It's entirely possible that you had a good reason for it. I sure never had any reason to doubt you before." And maybe that was what really hurt. He hadn't, and he'd had plenty of time to doubt himself. |
| "But you did, or you wouldn't be so angry.'" |
| "I can't die. I don't know why, or how. I've been waiting for you and answers for more than a century. And now that I've finally found you, you can't give them to me. Because it hasn't happened for you, yet." He frustrated and desperate enough that not only did his voice go tight, he actually shook the Doctor, a little. |
| The Doctor squeezed Jack's wrists, holding him tight, "I'm still brilliant though. Tell me what happened and I'll found out." |
| Jack exhaled with something between a laugh and a sob. "You're still brilliant." He shook his head, then thumped it back against the wall. "I can't tell you, because I don't know. There were Daleks threatening earth. You were working on a delta-wave. You sent Rose home and kept her safe. I was facing three Daleks, heard 'exterminate'. Then I woke up and heard the TARDIS. I got there just in time to see it leaving." |
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