| Date: 29 December 2007
Characters: Jack Harkness, The Ninth Doctor Location: hotel bar, a TARDIS Link to IJ: thread #21594 |
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 "It's meant to!"
And one nothing like whatever liquid he'd just tasted. "I'm starting to feel sympathy for Arthur Dent, Christ, tell me you weren't a Nutrimat machine in a previous regeneration." |
 "A what? Who?" |
| "Oh, come on." Jack shot the Doctor a disbelieving look, and gave up on trying to drink the pseudo coffee, heading over to the machine himself to see if any of Ianto's magic had transferred to him. "There's no way you've been knocking around the universe this long and not bumped into the Heart of Gold. Infinite Improbability takes care of that one." |
| "...Cept it's not real?" |
| "I would love to see Zaphod's faces when you said that." |
| "...What?" |
| "Try telling him he's not real." Jack wrinkled his nose at the coffee machine, and carried half of it over to the sink for rinsing through. "Infinite universe, Doctor, infinite possibilities. Y'know, I think I'm kind of distantly related to that guy somehow?" |
| "...Really." he raised an eyebrow. |
| "Don't give me that look." |
| "What look?" he lied innocently. |
| "The look that tells me you don't believe a damn word that comes out of my mouth." |
| "I've been believing you!"
Up until Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. |
| "Right." Jack reassembled the coffee machine carefully. "Do me a favour, Doctor? Don't bullshit me, and I won't bullshit you. D'you have any real coffee around here?" |
| "Above there," the Doctor pointed. |
| It wasn't an answer, but it pointed him at coffee, anyway, which was progress. Jack nodded, turned his back, and retrieved the coffee, sniffing cautiously at the beans. Ianto would probably turn his nose up, but hell, they weren't ready to evolve into a new life form yet, so they were probably okay for consumption. |
| Probably. It wasn't bad coffee and that was no thanks to the Doctor- Rose and the other Jack were completely responsible for the stocking of the TARDIS. Beyond the purple spider. That was the Doctor. |
| Focused on coffee, Jack completely overlooked any trace of the purple spider in favour of setting the beans into the grinder. "How long since...you said you'd not met me, right? How about Rose?" |
| "Keep hearin' bout her, not met her yet." |
| "Planning on visiting Earth any time soon?" |
| "Not really thought about it," he admitted, eyeing Jack. |
| "Might be worth a stop," Jack advised, turning on the grinder. |
| "I keep hearing that too." |
| "Nice place. Good chips." |
| "Nice place to visit- wouldn't want to live there again." |
| "You get used to it after the first century or so." |
| "I didn't," he argued. |
| "Don't worry, you won't have to again." Probably. As long as what the Doctor had told him later...earlier...when they'd travelled together. Whenever that had been or will be. As long as it was accurate, anyway. |
| "That you know of," he snorted. |
| "That I know of," Jack agreed, and tipped the grounds into the filter. "Still, a century of good chips...it's not all bad." |
| "Humans and chips. What is that?" |
| "Snack for a cannibal?" |
| "...Beg pardon?" |
| "Humans and chips." Jack filled the reservoir and set the coffee machine going. "Snack for a cannibal. Or, y'know, maybe some kind of cannibal feast, or I'm pretty sure I've found a few cultures that see humans as food." |
| "You taste delicious." he rolled his eyes. |
| Jack laughed, turning to lean against the counter. "You've said that before." |
| "Have I?" he asked pleasantly. |
| "Will do, then." |
| "Will I?" he grinned. |
| "More than once." Jack emptied the contents of his mug down the sink, rinsed it out, and refilled it from the freshly prepared jug of coffee sitting in the machine.
Not a patch on Ianto's, of course, but an improvement on what the Doctor had offered. |
| "Tell me about it," he half-asked, half-ordered, watching Jack with a complete lack of shame about his crap coffee. |
| "Wouldn't that screw with the nature of time and causality?" Raising an eyebrow, Jack calmly confiscated the Doctor's mug, rinsed it out, and refilled it.
It probably wasn't worth even thinking about milk. |
| There was fresh milk!
Not from the Doctor's doing, but it was there. "Nope. Don't think we'll remember or it already would have, yeah?" |
| "I wouldn't - you might." Temporal continuity was a bitch. |
| "I think I've seen enough." |
| "Of?" Jack was thrown, and possibly finding the logic of the nature of causality a little hard to follow. |
| "Of this world that if I remembered it would already have changed reality." |
| "So it's safe to tell you about the time you and I had, have, or will have, a threesome with your TARDIS?" |
| "Could have guessed that, actually," he said sweetly. |
| Jack grinned and huffed a laugh, far too familiar with that look and the way the Doctor had learned to use it to irritate him. Not going to wash that time. "How's the old girl running, these days?"
Away from the central chamber, the TARDIS was a more distant presence in his mind. Still very definitely there, but more distant. |
| "A lot happier lately," he sounded petulant, just a bit. |
| "What's happened lately?" |
| "You and Jack." |
| "Me and me?" Jack blinked, thought, and then laughed. "Oh, Doctor, you've not been servicing her regularly enough. Got to keep her running sweet." |
| "I'm good to her!" he protested immediately. |
| "Yeah, but are you good to her?" |
| "How do you manage to make everything sound lecherous?" |
| Jack threw him an offended look. "This isn't everything! This is your TARDIS, and she's one special lady." |
| "You still made it sound lecherous!" |
| "You've never felt lecherous about a sweet girl like this?" |
| "No!" He lied, protesting. |
| "Not once?" Jack pressed, incredulous. |
| "Jack!" he growled softly. |
| Oh, that growl was far too tempting not to push further. "Come on, Doctor, you've been travelling around with this lady for what, centuries now, and you expect me to believe you've never looked at her for the sexy, desirable creature that she is?" |
| "I think I expect you not to talk about her like that." |
| "What?" Jack's grin spread into a laugh. "She's incredible!"
He didn't mean any kind of disrespect. Just very, very sincere appreciation. Wide ranging appreciation. |
| He raised an eyebrow disbelieving. |
| "Oh, come on." |
| "What?" |
| "She's amazing," Jack said sincerely, leaning back to take a drink of his rapidly cooling coffee. "Beautiful, intelligent, insanely loyal to you, you can't deny that she's also really hot." |
| "No arguments," he nodded, "But I wouldn't talk about her like that." |
| "Why the hell not? Getting jealous, Doctor?" |
| "No!"
A little. |
| Jack's expression shifted to calculation. "You know, if you're having trouble satisfying her..." |
| "No," he said firmly, glaring a bit, but not without some humor. "No, Jack." |
| "What?" |
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