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The Doctor wrenches open a hidden maintenance panel. This is going to need some careful rewiring.
“Oh, hello!” Donna exclaims in surprise from behind. “I know you.”
Familiar, even though they’re in an alien airport in 27,708 - narrows it down. Not panicking - definitely a good thing to narrow down. Flirty, narrows it down further. The Doctor could do some complicated things with the sound of approaching footsteps and associated stride length, but actually its the nose that gets there first, providing no truly definitive information except for an instinct and a tingle that spreads to every fingertip and extremity.
Eh, worth the gamble.
The Doctor plants one foot on the wall and starts wrenching out and unspooling the network wires, leaning further and further back, until finally losing balance. And makes no effort to correct it.
A strong pair of arms holds the Doctor up like a dancer, against an equally muscular chest. Good, because in hindsight Donna would definitely have attempted the catch if she had been the one most in range.
“Hello, Jack,” the Doctor says, deliberately keeping both eyes on the wires. An aborted ‘captain’ joke that was a ‘sailor’ joke, jettisoned just to say the word ‘Jack’ and see if it still has the same mouthfeel. Even better, if anything. Very round, very full.
Jack’s arms tense. It makes the Doctor want to check his face, but no, because that’s what Jack’s currently doing, and he’s panicking about it.
There’s too much wire, and the Doctor reaches up and winds it behind Jack’s neck like fairy lights.
“A pathological inability to follow direction; Judoon platoon upon the max security facility; clone farming; a very clever girl- too old to call her a girl, too young not to. Are you keeping an eye on her?” The Doctor asks, finally looking up, not having intended to say any of that last bit, but now needing the answer.
Jack’s eyes look as old-young as they ever do, blinking in confusion but recovering quickly.
“Both of them some days,” he replies, and a little weight would be off the Doctor, if that wasn’t all already being held up by Jack.
The Doctor looks back at the wire, then pulls out more of it, not quite remembering why. But maybe more wire will help with that.
“So… You’ve regenerated back into the same person?”
“Same face,” the Doctor corrects. Which Jack may take to mean that the Doctor is always the same person, rather than being specifically a new person with an old face, but this soul feels little desire to spend time clarifying nuances of the matter. Or most matters.
“Huh. Well it is a good face.”
Slightly older, like Jack’s is, though probably for different reasons. Permanency Drift it’s called, when applied to infinity-engine materials and Fully Force Impermeable Products. FFIPs. A biologic cannot be a FFIP, fifty-thousand reasons why. And yet here Jack is. Like a ‘one free thesis’ coupon, that would immediately get Redacted and have them both blackbagged to wherever people got blackbagged to. No, to Division HQ. That’s a thing the Doctor knows now. As an apparently ex-blackbagger.
What if this face was showing up back then too? How is it possible to know if any of these faces are new? At least without undoing the decision to let go of a past that there can be no control over, in favour of a future of possibility.
The Doctor yanks the wire harder; it releases about ten centimetres more of copper intestine and then gives up, resistant to all further tugs.
“What are you doing?” Donna asks. Brilliant Donna. Because letting go of the past for the future can be done in moderation, surely. That’s called the present.
“Getting distracted,” the Doctor says, suddenly aware that Jack’s arms are shaking slightly.
Just rewire the network to swap intra and internets; cut the code; flip ‘em off and on; bring up a FlexShip V.AI schematic; and dismount process should be…sure, why not.
The Doctor reaches up to Jack’s shoulders to shift back onto two feet again, pressing a kiss to his jaw as he goes, and starts sonicking a rectangle in the air beside the gutted utility panel.
See. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
There’s a slight smell of burning from the eyes singeing the Doctor’s back. Or maybe it’s the backup fuse? Yeah, the skinned end of one of the cables grazed it. It’ll be fine, who needs backups.
Pulling the spectacles out reveals a schematic that is clearly going to take multiple seconds to zoom in on. The Doctor turns back to Jack, finger still on the screen.
“What do you think?”
Jack’s eyes are wide, and the obvious answer is ‘nothing’.
“Hard-light holograms.” The politest thing to do would be to cover for Jack here. With either showing off or nervous habit, the Doctor flicks the sonic in the air, which feels like a bad idea nowadays because one miss and it’s goodnight Vienna, “I’ve been dreaming of this for years, never actually did it though. Why? Because it was a terrible idea. No power efficiency; had to remove half of the sonic’s original functionality to get all the bits in; it’ll ruin the timeline of pretty much any planet it falls out of my pocket on; has a limited amount of cached data and most of the time needs an active connection with the TARDIS; it also needs charging with direct sunlight for the holograms; and if I don’t remember to switch it off it dies in eight hours, and with a screen on it dies in three.”
The Doctor runs out of things to say to buy Jack time, and if he still wants to be frozen by a jaw kiss, he’s kind of on his own.
“You sound like a VOR fanboy,” complains Donna.
“Thought they went under?” the Doctor asks, and realises the schematic’s zoomed in too far into microscopic level and readjusts it.
“I don’t bloody know,” says Donna because of course she doesn’t, that probably comes under ‘alien’. “But they bought Twitter or X or whatever. I blame Musk for making that man look normal. Do you even know what Twitter is? Can’t imagine aliens on Twitter. Except maybe half the people who try and talk to me.”
Jack does a little laugh through his nose. The Doctor wishes it was possible to learn this talent of Donna’s. The ability to cut through any tension like a diamond-tipped knife.
“What can I say, you’re funny. Mostly angry, but very funny with it,” Jack says.
“You follow me? I imagined a bit more of the sweaty basement dwellers.”
“Oh, you should see the size of the basement I live in. But that’s how I ended up with Eric here.”
Startled, the Doctor glances over for Jack’s companion, to see him pull a small fluffy monster with orange felt teeth from a pocket. It’s smile makes it look like a Jarfa.
“Oh! You bought one of Rose’s Gonks! I remember this one!”
“He likes to travel.”
The Doctor looks at the cuddly fur with pronouns. There’s something compelling if bizarre about the human urge to see life where there isn’t any. But it seems to almost radiate it anyway. Like it might come alive just because it’s being treated like it is. A credit to Rose Noble’s handiwork.
“Nice to see you’ve got your memories back, by the way,” Jack says, trying to catch the Doctor’s eye, which the Doctor declines in favour of finalising the network bypass, modifying the error in the data before anything can be reconnected to it, and rebooting it.
“Did everyone know about that except for me?”
“We figured it out. By which I mean your Grandad told us. I had to get a Baksrik out of your attic without you noticing once, that was fun. Might have told little J- Rosie that I was Santa.”
“When she was five? Oh, that explains so much actually.”
It feels odd, hearing them talk about this. Donna feels like she should be the same, and she is, but she isn’t. She’s had so many important things happen to her, so much life. She’s still the same friend as before, yet different. The Doctor stuffs the rest of the wire back in, dissolves the screen, and shuts the metal panel, catching a glimpse of this face’s uncanny reflection. Throwing stones again.
“So has it been a while for both of you? Seeing each other, I mean,” Donna says.
Queen of the damning clarification. A tease, like many each day, served like a tennis ball on fire into the Doctor’s court.
“Not that long, really,” the Doctor says, “Not for me, anyway.” It’s a weak parry, barely over the net.
“And what sort of thing were you two up to?” Second rally, big points.
“Oh, we were in prison together.”
Donna bites her lip, raises her eyebrows. …And… No comeback.
Set to the Doctor.
“Why are you here though?” Donna asks Jack. “I thought you were on Earth? Or do you have a TARDIS too?”
“Layover. My vortex manipulator’s packed up - which is kinda like a TARDIS but less sexy.”
“Infinitely less sexy,” the Doctor clarifies.
“And I was doing a catch-and-release, but then couldn’t get back. Can’t get anywhere. I can tell something’s going wrong in the calculations, but I don’t have the tech to get in to it, and only a level five in T-S-Mathematics so shouldn’t start guessing,” that’s…actually quite impressive, assuming he means Galactic Standard. Always surprising, Jack. “So I thought I’d make my way to the Dyndrion’s largest capital and see if I can find someone who can get me home. This was supposed to be quick. I’m meant to be reporting on the UNIT meeting, and if I forget any more of it, Gwen will use me as a piñata.”
Not into being a piñata, learning a lot about him today.
“Then I saw the TARDIS, set my scanner to binary-vascular system cus that still works, and…” The Doctor just fell into his arms. “So what about you two? What brings you here.”
“Brought, hopefully,” the Doctor says, spying a chunky robot floor-cleaner bustling along the disembarkation hallway while it’s currently free of passengers.
Well, who better to solve a power vacuum than a literal one?
“Hello!” the Doctor calls, waving at the mint-coloured machine the size of a small chest freezer, just in case it has a camera-sensor - it probably does, everything does these days. “Do you have a moment?”
It pauses for the Doctor to hurry over to it.
“How would you like to be the new Head Of Passenger Safety and Security? The position’s just become available.”
The floor-sweeper beeps.
“Oh, I think you’d do an admirable job. You know the layout of this place better than anyone.”
It does a longer, more drawn out beep.
“You’ve probably been here a while, right?” Jack says, fitting himself perfectly into the scenario with his usual fluidity, “There’s gotta be a few changes that you’d make if you were Network Head.”
A warbling beep.
“And I bet no-one ever notices you, do they?” Donna says. “You’re invisible, but that’s basically ideal. And you’re making things better just by patrolling, aren’t you? Cleaning up crime.”
“Beep-beep beep, beep,” it repeats. Then beeps once more, with enthusiasm.
The Doctor cheers, quickly followed by Donna and Jack. The Doctor pulls out a marker, and in the neatest handwriting this hand can muster, labels its new designation above its XestroVac Alphalux logo. Then adds its new slogan below it, for good measure.
“Hearts on the ‘i’s?” Donna queries.
“Looks approachable. Wouldn’t you trust this XestroVac with your safety and security?” the Doctor quickly invents as a reason. “Then let’s just get your unit number, sorry for the impertinence,” the Doctor nips behind it and flips the little dangly bit covering the panel, quickly memorises the thirty-two digit code, and lets it drop again.
“Then we just pop that in here…” the Doctor quickly sonics a screen, then plugs the multiconnector end of the sonic into a port in the wall. Much quicker to connect this time. “And I just pop that in here…” Yes, sure. Yes, sure. Admin passcode again. Yes, sure. And it accepts. “Congratulations!”
Donna claps. Jack salutes it.
“Time to start cleaning up crime. We believe in you,” the Doctor says, patting it on the chassis.
It whirs up, somehow more confidently than before.
“Beep-beep beep, beep!” Then trundles off, polishing the floor to a lovely sheen as it goes.
“We’ve done some good work here today. I assume.” Jack says.
“Think so. Gotta be better than their last Head of Passenger Security anyway,” the Doctor says.
Donna nods.
“Not trying to kill me is definitely a plus. And no laser gun. Or sawblades. You sure you got rid of that dodgy program?”
“Yep.” The Doctor turns to Jack to explain, “Fifteen lines of code got injected into the system, in a language it couldn’t understand but tried to anyway. That’s all. But in fairness, that would’ve been a lot less of a problem if it hadn’t got access to all those weapons.”
“Talk about systemic issues,” Donna quips, “But so long as the murder bit is gone, that’s got to be the main thing. Alright it wasn’t exactly a thorough job interview, but gut feel says a floor cleaner probably doesn’t know what racial profiling is. And I know you should never trust AI, but biggest weapon it has is a spinny mop, so if it ever does come to a tussle…”
It’s probably the diluted bleach spray actually, but you can make anything a weapon if you think about it for two seconds, or maybe that’s just a personal problem. The Security bot really only had a laser and saw for rescue operations, not for unsupervised conflict except in imminent risk to more Dyndrion lives. But all it takes is a bit of rogue programming to affect the personal processor and-
A flash of light hits the wall less than a foot away from Donna, and she shrieks. The Doctor leaps to cover her-
right threat fifteen metres laser microseconds, left corridor eighty-seven, first right twelve baggage claim, back and left again servers already familiar cover with lockers, that way
-And pushes her left, grabbing Jack’s sleeve, and they run.
“Back, back, back to the server room, go!”
“I thought you’d stopped it!” Donna shouts.
“So did I!”
Jack pauses as they enter the narrow hall that spiders off from the pedestrian loop into the staff-only.
“I’ll hold it off. You keep going.”
“We’ll all keep going,” the Doctor insists.
“Maybe I can stop it. It doesn’t matter if I die.”
“Yes it does, dying’s scary. Coming back to life’s even scarier. Let’s avoid it if we can, hm?”
But Jack just pulls his gun and doesn’t move.
The Security Droid has only ever gone at the same pace, and has to stop to shoot. Takes corners wide. Four-point-two-six seconds?
The Doctor darts in front and starts drawing a shield with the sonic, high and wide. It’s not quite as blue as it should be. Needs charging.
Immediately the droid rounds the corner to the hallway. Stops, and shoots. The shield flashes. It probably won’t survive two more shots. But the Doctor really hopes that the droid doesn’t know that. And sure enough, after one failed shot, it conserves power by not shooting again.
Making sure to stand in front of Donna, guiding Jack back and between them, the Doctor calls out to it.
“That’s an illegal laser discharge! You have no authority here, not anymore. Go check your permissions. Go on.”
“Doctor, we are not reasoning with the killer robot!” Donna hisses.
“You can’t, can you? You’ve been terminated from the network, but you’re still going. No wonder you couldn’t find us, can’t navigate without live mapping telling you where you are, that’s an airport for you.” The robot doesn’t respond. “Do you even know why you’re shooting at us? Or is it all just ghost processing? You’re shooting at us because you’re shooting at us because you’re shooting at us.”
The droid starts moving towards them again, extending the — ironically — emergency rescue saw.
“Doctor!” Jack warns, as the droid is a few feet away.
“Come on! Query it! Reboot! Don’t just run it, stop and think!”
The hard light shield breaks the millisecond the metal grazes it.
And Jack shoots it in the head.
That isn’t enough, that isn’t anything. “That’s just the camera sensor! It’s got motion and heat! The processor’s in-”
“It’s meant to keep the passengers safe, right?” Jack barks.
But before the Doctor can even answer, the saw whirs to a stop. Then retracts.
They watch, as the airport logo suddenly appears and starts spinning on the screen in its middle, then spreads out in a series of interconnecting lines, as the droid starts to glow brightly.
“Can’t connect to the network,” Jack says, checking the Doctor’s face for confirmation, but keeping his gun up, “And now it thinks the lights have gone out, so-”
“CAUTION. THIS FACILITY IS EXPERIENCING A FULL POWER FAILURE. PLEASE WATCH YOUR STEP, AND LEAVE THROUGH THE NEAREST EMERGENCY EXIT.”
An emergency procedure override. And a five minute repair job with no damage to the droid’s personal processor.
The Doctor beams at Jack, clever Jack, as he holsters his gun and shrugs almost sheepishly, as if embarrassed for finding a solution the Doctor didn’t.
“So it’s not going to kill us?” Donna asks.
“So it’s not going to kill us!” the Doctor shouts gleefully.
The Doctor double high-fives Donna, then turns back to Jack, and an impulsive thought mixes with the new Newtonian energy and becomes a decision. And so the Doctor ignores the offered high-five and applies the already raised hands to Jack’s face and pulls him in for a kiss instead.
This is fair. After all, Jack started it. Millennia ago. Ok, so Jack didn’t take advantage of the gasp of surprise to stick his tongue in, but maybe he would have if it had been at all surprising back then.
The Doctor waits for some internal sense to say when to stop, but as it becomes clear this body lacks one — and it’s no surprise Jack’s does — the Doctor calls it at seven seconds, and politely ignores Jack staggering sideways into the ex-security droid turned emergency light.
The Doctor turns back to Donna, who has her eyebrows raised and mouth pouted in a clear ‘okay then’.
“So, celebratory food court? Get you your Space McDonalds?”
“Thought you didn’t have any money?” Donna asks, eyes flicking between them.
“Yeah, but we’ve got Jack now.”
“Alright, but you start dipping your fries in my milkshake again, we’re gonna have words.”
The Doctor strides off, making sure to keep at least one step ahead of the anxiety, and Donna quickly joins alongside.
“I think you’ve broken him,” Donna says under her breath, glancing back.
“Jack! Are you coming?!” The Doctor shouts over one shoulder. Just so the invitation’s obvious.
“Don’t know if it was that good of a kiss,” Donna mumbles.
The TARDIS is still where they left it, pretending to be a janitor’s closet by the Dyndrion equivalent of a Starbucks.
The Doctor peers back along where they came, bouncing on tip-toe, trying to see Jack among the increasing crowd of mostly green tendrilled humanoids and fish people. Then does, and gives him a wave.
“Do you want me to leave you two alonnnnne,” Donna drawls, waggling her head.
The only sound is a squeak from air being sucked through the Doctor’s teeth.
“Oh. Oh, right,” Donna says, a little bewildered. “Uh, yeah, okay, right. Well, got to get used to this eventually haven’t I?” Donna says with one of her most desperate of laughs, looking around a little lost.
“You’ll go left, I’ll go right?” the Doctor suggests.
“And neither of us will ever speak of this again, yeah.”
Donna moves to go inside the TARDIS, and the Doctor stops her with a hand.
“Actually could you just talk to him for a bit?”
“About what?”
“I dunno, Nerys?” That’s always good for a quarter of an hour at a bare minimum. “Or have your Space Mac? Just give me ten minutes to freshen up?”
This is supposed to imply toothbrushing and perfume and that sort of thing, certainly does whenever someone like Donna says it. But there’s a truly horrendous moment of eye-contact. That drags, and drags, and-
“Am I a third-wheel or your wingman? Wingwoman?” Donna asks.
“Oh, wingwoman, definitely wingwoman.”
“Fine, piss off, I’ve got you.”
“You can come inside,” the Doctor offers.
Donna pushes past and hurries to the nearest walkway that leads to the left, which happens to be the one straight ahead, as the Doctor immediately throws the coat over a railing.
Jack gasps as he crosses the TARDIS’s threshold.
“Well, lovely to chat to you both,” Donna says in the most falsely polite customer service voice he’s ever heard from her - having never thought she had enough patience to even fake customer service. “But I think I’ll be heading to bed. You two be good. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Second hideous moment of eye-contact, but one the Doctor can win this time, and does with an eyebrow flick.
“Nighty-night,” the Doctor says, with a smirk and finger-waggling wave as Donna retreats with a powerwalk that definitely wants to break into a sprint.
“Night, nice talking to you, good luck with Nerys,” Jack calls to her back.
Then he rushes forward.
“Oh, you look incredible,” Jack breathes, lightly running his fingers so delicately over the TARDIS’s bank of switches, carefully sliding between the gaps in her dials, drawing figure-eights, and trailing his fingertips up her half-raised lever.
It has other, more personal half-raising effects, that the Doctor immediately starts to clamp down on, before realising…why?
Jack grazes up her time rotor with the backs of his nails, so as not to leave fingerprints on her, and peers through her artful glass layering.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, breath briefly fogging her before fading, and the TARDIS’s natural hums seem to breathe back.
“She is, isn’t she?” the Doctor says, basking in the sensation of their mutual adoration of her.
Jack steps back. Runs a hand along a rail that winds down, follows the curve of her ramp down under her skirts to come back up the other side.
“This is so…huge.”
“She’s vast,” the Doctor says, and the TARDIS’s lights shift and ripple in a galactic rainbow from her tip to her base and back again, like the blinking of an angel, before settling on something warm and dusky.
“Oh…” Jack is left wordless and stained with colour from her beauty.
“Come on,” the Doctor says softly, intending to reach for Jack’s arm, or perhaps hand, but instead finding Jack’s waist as if to pull him in a dance. The Doctor guides him to the right, then quickly rushes back to the console.
“Is the right way, the right way?” the Doctor asks her quietly. And a door on the right retracts open from its central point, with a hint of a temperature differential. If it wasn’t, it is now.
“Quite a door,” Jack flirts, running a hand along where it has been pulled open, then leaning in to kiss it. The subsequent twitch of erection makes the Doctor have to hastily swallow a pained-pleasure groan. Every left step has become a challenge, the too-tight trousers have been spoken into reality.
The Doctor trusts the TARDIS to understand the planned intention here, and so when a door opens ahead of them on the right, the Doctor gestures towards it.
“This should be familiar.”
It is a room as expansive as Dan’s, perhaps even more so. There is the lounge area, with multiple corner sofas and a coffee table. And there is a screen, though not playing the football, playing nothing at all, just reflecting them both. There is no giant corner window showing the bustlings of a Liverpool harbour, nor a snooker table, but instead there is a bar with three stools, and behind are many colourful glass bottles and jars of things that make it look almost more like an apothecary. A glimpse of the Platonic underlying form of a drug dispensary.
Multiple doors go off in different directions, one of which probably contains the finest possible en-suite, and with bone-deep irrationality the Doctor knows another will be to a sauna. The others are unknown.
But this is, as it is designated to be, a bedroom. And along the far wall, there is indeed a bed. Big enough for three to sleep like starfish, with warm-grey coloured sheets that shimmer like silk.
The door closes on its own. Like the TARDIS slapping the Doctor on the arse and going, ‘go get ‘im tiger’.
No coat. Lost the coat somewhere. Hopefully it’s in the TARDIS, probably is, Donna’s good at noticing things like coats left in the wild, fifteen years of childcare like training wheels for this.
The Doctor raises a foot and pulls at the shoelaces. Neatly knotted. By whom? But they loosen easily, and the Doctor starts on the other, finding them laced slightly differently. The TARDIS? Or whatever caused this body if it wasn’t her. No. Not important right now, what’s important is using it.
The waistcoat drops. The Doctor loosens the tie and removes it like a noose from the pardoned condemned. And the annoyance that is rolled up shirt-sleeves becomes a sticking point (there should be three-fifths length sleeves, but there aren’t, and the Doctor hasn’t had a personal tailor since the age of sixty-four — one of the possibly many sixty-four’s — though perhaps that’s only because the Doctor hasn’t been inclined to ask recently). The trousers not that hard to peel off, hopefully Donna was just feeling catty; and the pants, that the Doctor didn’t think to really look at are, so very mercifully, not the usual washed-out pair that’s been worn for…too many centuries, but something far shorter, as pristine as if they’ve never been worn. The Doctor flips them right-side out before dropping them on the floor. Now worn once.
The Doctor keeps looking towards the floor for a moment. Takes a steadying breath. Two actually. The desire to do this is not entirely in line with arousal at the moment, veered away from it somewhere in the initiating of mundane practicalities. But this body is not an embarrassment in that regard regardless. No, the embarrassment is in wanting Jack’s…approval?
Then, arms slightly raised, the Doctor faces Jack, looks him in the eyes, and says, “This is what I look like.”
And Jack says nothing. Is still fully clothed. Just staring.
The sensation that’s something like anxiety and possibly is, makes the Doctor’s toes curl in the carpet until they audibly click.
Maybe this body does look too old. Or maybe he wanted to do that part. Could have been sexier. Rushing - bit desperate. He’s built this up and you’ve ruined it. He hasn’t and you’ve been misinterpreting him for centuries.
But Jack’s heart rate is elevating. He swallows, and finally his eyes start roaming.
“Sorry. If I should have done that differently. Uh. I don’t do this a lot.”
Jack’s eyes keep moving, occasionally darting suddenly, drawn moth-like to fire down to genitals, or up to the Doctor’s eyes. In spite of the tension — no, this soul has a distaste for lies in spite of this face, because of the tension — the Doctor feels the pooling and pull that usually signals the need to hastily rearrange a coat. But there is no coat. Just one naked emperor. Jack’s eyes snap to the movement. And that observance only increases the weight that now taps skin against skin lower against the Doctor’s thigh.
“I’ll get better as it goes along, I usually do. With things in general I mean, not- But yeah, I mean this too.”
Jack is still motionless. Except for his chest, which is rising and falling quite rapidly. More rapidly than arousal would usually cause for a man so used to swimming in its waters. If the Doctor didn’t know Jack better, it would look exactly like the beginnings of a panic attack.
“Jack?” The Doctor puts a hand on Jack’s arm, and Jack’s eyes widen, his mouth making shapes with no noise. This is not going at all to plan. Plan. Oh.
“I, uh, I didn’t tell you why I was inviting you in, did I?”
Jack shakes his head minutely, eyes distractedly roaming the Doctor’s body.
“Didn’t get that across. No… Right. Are you okay with…”
Jack nods rapidly, swallowing, “I didn’t- I mean I thought you didn’t-”
“I can. I don’t make a habit of it, don’t usually want to, but I’m alright, I know how it works, I’m not-” well, on every technical level is one, “-uh, clueless.”
“But you want to.”
Some blood can apparently still be spared for the Doctor’s face.
“Mmhmm.”
“Look,” Jack says firmly, endeavouring to keep his eyes on the Doctor’s. “You know how I feel. But it’s okay, that doesn’t mean you have to feel the need to-”
“I had a sexual awakening with Sir Isaac Newton,” the Doctor interrupts, cutting Jack off from his monologue on self-sacrifice. “He was hot. Really hot. Really really hot. I wanted to jump out of the tree and talk science at him until his clothes fell off.” Jack’s jaw hangs open slightly. “But we were really busy, so I didn’t, but I still kinda want to go back, snog him, and leg it.”
Jack huffs a little disbelieving laugh. “You, uh, could just go back and do that.”
“Donna knows. I’d need a good enough excuse, she’d never let it go. If she figures out I fancy her husband a bit too, it’s over.”
“So…I’m an Isaac Newton replacement,” Jack says, eyes flicking down at the Doctor’s area of minor mavity-defyment. Thinking of a man’s lush hair should not be able to do this to a person. But it just begged for a hand in it.
“Uh, no, I think you’re hot too,” the Doctor confirms. Jack’s eyes widen but the only thing that feels right is to steamroll through this, “And I think this might be what it’s like to be you, and I’m not used to it, but I just want to take advantage of it. Not advantage of you, of the- Is this taking advantage of you? It’s not just me being ‘phwoar, men am I right’, it’s you specifically, just not exclusively, I mean- You. Jack. My Jack. I want to do this with you.”
The Doctor shrugs and gestures, not sure if that’s good enough. But Jack does his little laugh again and steps forward.
“Are you sure?” Jack asks softly, and cups the Doctor’s face with his hands. The intensity of his eyes throttles the Doctor’s braincells.
The Doctor just about manages a nod, and Jack leans in and kisses the Doctor like he did the first time. But this time lingers and doesn’t pull away. Desires the Doctor can’t get a handle on but are able to pull this body about like unruly sled dogs, make the Doctor’s mouth move against Jack’s, bring their bodies closer, until the Doctor’s risen cock presses into him, and the Doctor can feel Jack’s hardness flexing too in its confinement. One hand against Jack’s hair, the other drops down, and palms him in its restriction, and Jack moans into the Doctor’s mouth.
Not enough. Needs more. Maybe nothing will be enough. Maybe this is a hunger that can’t be sated, but it is in the Doctor’s nature to always try, regardless of the risk of impossibility.
The Doctor pushes Jack’s coat from him to crumple on the floor at his feet, and flicks the suspenders from his shoulders. Then has an internal battle over staying like this with a barrier hiding Jack’s skin, or standing back for a moment to access it. The Doctor slides a few fingers between the buttons of Jack’s shirt and it feels like electricity, like everything’s focused on it, like the Doctor’s a plasma ball being touched.
A second for more skin then. Everything’s a balance.
“Don’t usually do this bit,” the Doctor admits, fumbling at one of Jack’s shirt buttons that’s gotten stuck. “Not outside of a medical emergency. Don’t suppose you’re having a heart attack?”
“Uh, could be.”
What about the trousers? Would you just leave them around the ankles? That seems a bit silly. And the shoes? Do you bend down to do them? Took River’s heels off enough times, but not in a sexual capacity, just a foot rub. Should have carried on doing those anthropological orgy studies, get the old notebook back out. But then that probably wouldn’t have helped. “The people are usually already naked.”
Jack toes off his shoes (despite them being far too nice to ruin like that, though maybe that’s an occupational hazard with him), and takes over the disrobing.
“I’ve got so many questions,” Jack says.
“Me too. Tell me when you find the person who’s hoarding all the answers.”
Jack laughs, comfortable in a nakedness the Doctor’s seen before in many a distraction, but these eyes delight in seeing again, and Jack scoops up his coat and other clothes, and dumps them onto the sofa.
Then pauses.
He picks up a magenta-and-grey thing stuffed against the arm that the Doctor took to be a cushion, but in fact turns out to be a hoodie in the form of one.
Rose Tyler’s. So she and Jack were sleeping together. Just in none of the ways the Doctor once previously assumed.
The reminder is not an unbearable stab of agony. It brings no more anguished grief than Rose Noble’s name did, before even that wispy ghost of feeling faded, so quickly, into just being her name. It does however bring a slightly complicated feeling in the Doctor’s stomach that sits alongside, but fails to mix with, the arousal of a moment ago; like oil and water.
“She never came back for it,” Jack notes sadly, as if it were yesterday, instead of lifetimes on lifetimes. Perhaps the pre-immortality memories are thoroughly ingrained in his mind. Or perhaps that’s simply how Jack is.
Jack hugs the hoodie tightly for a moment, breathing its scent, before returning it to the corner of the sofa as if its owner might one day come back for it.
“Do you still miss her?” Jack asks.
For a moment the Doctor tries to wrap this tongue around the lie but it hates the bitterness of them.
“No,” the Doctor says quietly, with a shake of the head.
“No?” Jack blurts in surprise. It was meant to be a moment of validation. Bonding over the history between them. At any other point in recent lives this would have been easy. Should have just spat out the ‘yes’. “Really?”
The Doctor looks towards the bundled hoodie that radiates of youth now passed.
“I…feel like missing her is like wishing things were different. I wish I had been different, but what happened…it feels right, how it ended. Not a happy ending, but a good one.”
Then Jack’s hands are suddenly warm and embracing, and so is his mouth. The Doctor never understood what River meant when she said a kiss can say so much. But now the Doctor feels it. Mutual understanding of the pains and relief of acceptance. As plainly as if Jack had dropped every psychic defence.
And it makes it easy to become loose in his arms, let Jack take a little weight, draw Jack’s tongue over and push past its hesitancy, let him know he is allowed in.
There will be a hundred goodbyes with Jack. But there will never be an ending. For better, or worse.
The kiss becomes more of a dance, a back and forth, an entangling. Jack runs his hands up the Doctor’s sides, and the Doctor mirrors to show assent. Jack sucks on the Doctor’s lip, and the Doctor tries not to bite his too hard. The Doctor mindlessly starts tugging at the short hairs at the nape of Jack’s neck, and Jack moans. Jack angles himself so his cock slides up the hollow of the Doctor’s hip, and lust-addlement proving to clear thoughts away better than any ginger ever has, the Doctor starts rutting back against Jack’s stomach.
The dance breaks down as Doctor finds this an impossible cycle to break, tongue in mouth and cock on skin, just stupid, whatever-animal-the-Doctor-is pleasure, with all the consequences of doing this with someone who cannot die, which somehow overflows into feeling like no consequences at all. Just this. Forever.
But Jack breaks it instead, pulling back with a breath they both forgot he needed, that makes the Doctor remember the benefits of that process too. Yet resent it nonetheless. They’re so close to the bed, that Jack has only to step back, and then he is sat on the edge, looking up with eyes that seem almost drunk, mesmerised. The Doctor has to lean down to kiss him, and does so, inexcusably selfishly, despite knowing Jack is still breathless.
There are infinite permutations for what happens next. With sex, as with conversation with strangers, it feels like looking into a glimpse of all of time and space, too much, maddening. But it’s the same solution. Just start doing. Act. Be a thing in progress.
So the Doctor lets Jack catch his breath, drops to the plush carpet that’s easy on the knees, and sucks Jack’s cock instead.
Jack makes the same lung-filling gasp he does when coming back to life.
Bits of the Doctor’s brains turn off, and others turn on. Sparks of light in the form of molecular structures ping in the dark behind the Doctor’s eyelids. Chemical recitations, the soothing nursery rhymes of a childhood in a world with no concept of ‘children’. An illicit sense of peace, that a Time Lord would have had no Freudian excuse for.
This is broken by Jack’s hand suddenly on the Doctor’s forehead. The only wrong place for it to be.
“You d-don’t have to-”
“I don’t have to do anything, Harkness,” the words come out with a tinge of the North, “I like sticking things in my mouth, I promise this doesn’t actually surprise you.”
And the Doctor continues. The flirting feels like it’s working, a skill developed enough in the subconscious to finally manifest, it’s like regenerating being able to play the trombone. Jack makes a wobbly sort of noise, and his cock jumps enough that the Doctor feels the need to steady it at the base before there’s a tooth accident.
With the other hand, the Doctor moves Jack’s to rest among unruly russet fluff. Jack is motionless for a moment before letting his fingers tangle in the Doctor’s hair, stroking, carding through it.
No pressure is forthcoming, just petting, so the Doctor takes the initiative. Sex has never been a talent, or even a pursued interest, but this bit always seemed closer to a competition, where hopefully that can make up for lack of advanced technique.
Jack groans and throbs as the Doctor swallows him. Ego says to remove the fist buffer, but the risks of sandpaper stubble makes that probably counter to the purpose of this after all. But the Doctor reduces it to a single thumb and forefinger and gets as close as possible; going too deep, and then again, and again.
Jack’s thighs tense on either side, the tiniest thrust up. It feels like victory. It feels good. And good to Jack. And there should be more complicated thoughts going on, but they aren’t. Everything’s subsumed beneath repetitive motion, new tongue movements, the taste of Jack, and the insistent tapping against the Doctor’s stomach of a cock that’s done with being ignored.
“I’m not gonna last five seconds with you doing that,” Jack says shakily.
“Won… ‘Oo…”
Jack is apparently too polite to pull the Doctor by the hair, cupping at the jaw instead, drawing the Doctor off and back up for a kiss, even while a dribble of their mixed wetness drips from the Doctor’s lips.
Finally Jack enthusiastically plunders the Doctor’s mouth, like he’s realised he’s definitely not being lied to. That this is what the Doctor wants.
Jack grips the Doctor’s forearms, leaning back so the Doctor’s forced to clamber onto the bed and on top of him. Before any misapprehensions can occur, the Doctor shifts, left arm buckling to smoothly roll off, and re-angles to settle on the pillows instead.
“It’s been a while,” the Doctor says, not entirely sure what exactly this is warning Jack about, but in general.
“When did you last…” the idea of Captain Jack Harkness being unable to say ‘have sex’ — whether for it feeling like prying or as if this will make the Doctor suddenly realise what they’re doing — is rather funny.
Feet sliding back along the comfortable silk, The Doctor looks between both knees framing Jack’s body, his face, with its unexpected expression of what the Doctor imagines the cocktail of virginal anticipation and anxiety to look like - having never knowingly seen it on someone else’s, but familiar with the sensation of wearing it.
“This in particular?” the Doctor clarifies, “That would have been my wife. Have you met a certain Professor River Song?”
The moment Jack’s lips start to quirk in a smile, so do the Doctor’s, beaming, hearts full of pride.
“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” the Doctor says.
“She really is.”
It’s odd, basking in the warmth that was so recently…not ice, never ice, but cold water, certainly. But to remember River is so irrevocably tied to remembering love, a feeling that right now in this shining moment is the opposite of pain (as it has always been supposed to be) that it’s like lying in a sunbeam. The Doctor’s glad she and Jack met — it was not a real question, the answer already known and discussed — glad they have shared adventure, that Jack has appreciated her, known her in the same multitude of ways.
“…But if you weren’t being particular?” Jack asks, his curiosity drawing the Doctor back from the indulgent bathe in emotion; the air is a little nippy and there’s no towel to hand. “Just this sort of thing in general.”
The Doctor waggles a knee, slightly distracting Jack whose gaze is then naturally drawn lower to the hardness that shifts with the movement.
Could lie. Or omit at least. But why? They will be around each other for eternity as it turns out. People about to share eternity together should know the worst about each other, isn’t that right Watson?
“It was…a long day. And in a hideous miscalculation I had almost gotten Y- someone killed, or possibly worse.” Can’t say her name right now, not in this situation, it feels as taboo as praying naked with dirty fingernails. But Jack should be smart enough to guess. They hold each other’s eyes a moment, understanding. “She was trying to sleep off the fact that she thought for a moment, she had gone to Hell. And I could not sleep.” Jack nods, and the Doctor can see the apology for the question in his eyes, it was supposed to raise sexual tension not deflate it. But despite its disturbing nature, a frisson of untempered sexuality of the memory, her memory of it, does heat the blood. “I was angry beyond anger, I was furious, I was afraid. Had to let it out, I had to. Would have to be good and positive and able to think and be right for her in the morning, to end it, solve it, to make her feel better. So I quietly leave the TARDIS to see how my old friend who’s been helping us has been getting along...”
A little head tilt from Jack, a dilation of pupils, a slight lean back. A preemptive cock twitch, steadied with his hand.
“And it’s three in the morning, and he’s still sitting and tapping silently, and I join on another monitor where there’s already a chair waiting for me. So there I am, sitting and tapping too, but I just can’t, and I get up, and I snarl, and I kick boxes of his things on the floor out of my way, and he still doesn’t say a word.”
Jack’s heart rate increases, he starts stroking himself, visualising.
“All that frustration, building and building, and he is becoming more and more the cause of it, and in the back of my mind there’s a whisper that if I wanted, I could take it out on him.”
Pupils dilate, and eyes wide, Jack continues to wank over what sounds like a ghost story; and really, isn’t it?
“And so I storm over. He doesn’t turn around. But he’s breathing quickly now, running a hand through that pretty-boy hair. And then I put my hands on the back of his wheelie chair, and I tip him out of it.”
The Doctor’s cock twitches, in a way the Doctor hopes is indicative of what came next, rather than at the deliberate tiny act of cruelty.
“And he looks up at me from the floor like he’s not even remotely surprised by what I’ve just done, just blinks up at me,” with those big, dark, Bambi eyes, glistening in the computer light, “and then… I had him give me a blow job.” The Doctor pops the ‘b’, and Jack swallows hard, his eyes wide.
Perhaps he’s even surprised that the Doctor could possibly know the term for the act performed just a moment ago. ‘Oral sex’, terrible mouthfeel. ‘Fellatio’, that one’s very nice, very instrumental, but due to a mortifying misspeak in a discussion about clarinet technique with Sidney Bechet, is also a word that’s completely banned from ever passing the vocal chords again.
It could also be from finding out she had a penis actually, no way to know if Jack properly went through the prison records before getting himself arrested.
“We acted like it never happened in the morning,” the Doctor continues. All very allegorical really, and in hindsight probably designed that way on purpose, “And then it turned out he was the Master.”
A fact that she definitely hadn’t known at the time. Definitely couldn’t have and then suppressed, surely? Despite being usually incredibly aware of a partner’s heart rate (eighty-four BPM; eighty-five, eighty-eight-), perhaps she was just too full of feelings to listen properly. That happened a lot. Because the alternative would have been suicidal. But it’s all conjecture. The Doctor doesn’t get to know anything so forcibly withheld once the torch has been lit and passed. Which apparently covers statistically everything.
Jack takes a deep breath in. They have a small exchange done entirely through micro-expressions and a half-shrug, because Jack was witness to a year that never happened and a very public breakdown that can’t leave many surprises on that score. Then finally Jack releases it, moving himself between the Doctor’s knees.
“You know, if you need someone to go down on you, you know where I live.”
'Go down on’, ‘head’, ‘Face Of Bo-’
Jack’s technique is nothing like O’s, there’s respect and gentleness and learning what gets a response. None of O’s sloppiness, desperation, knowing without being taught, with an urge to choke himself on whatever the Doctor had.
Jack makes searching eye-contact as he licks up the Doctor’s cock. ‘Okay?’
It’s not not-okay, at least. Other things preferable. But also regeneration is a lottery without an illegal future-trading ticket, and Jack has come up empty-handed too many times. If things go wrong, if they go backwards more than just a face, it would be nice for him to have something to remember if he wants, something-
“You’re not into this, huh?” Jack says, with no apparent offence. “You can just tell me, you know.”
“I want to make you happy,” the Doctor says, truth coming easier to this tongue than lies.
“Ah. The lover’s paradox,” Jack says jauntily, kissing the tip of the Doctor’s dick perfunctorily and kneeling back up. But then Jack’s eyes flick up with a flash of concern, that the term might have been an overstep. Still open and transparent despite centuries of life, despite having been an intergalactic espionage agent, despite prospective eternity weighing heavy, despite all he’s lost in people and stolen memories.
“Lovers like us, the paradoxes are unavoidable,” the Doctor says.
Jack smiles, beautiful and agonising in equal measure.
The harm you can do by telling someone you love them. The harm you can do by not telling them. And how to ever know the difference?
“I want anything, everything,” Jack kisses the Doctor’s knee to make a point of it, and with evident silliness he lifts the Doctor’s leg and starts kissing down the shin. “What? Do? You? Want?”
The Doctor moans.
“Foot fetish?” Jack asks with laughing glittering eyes.
“Mmm, calf stretch.”
The Doctor plants the other foot on Jack’s shoulder, and the man slowly leans forward until the Doctor hums another low pleasurable tone, eyelids heavy. It’s not instinctual to stroke the sensations higher - well, perhaps it is, but the ancient childhood fear that the subsequent mess would cause some nameless, shapeless woman to manifest and thus incur a bone-breaking beating has never faded. Where this came from the Doctor doesn’t know. Their would-be budding sex-drives had been stifled by social expectation and the imposition of continuous imperceptible dehydration. Their dormitory and beds were cleaned by a Shobagon boy.
“More?” Jack asks.
“Always,” the Doctor mumbles, and Jack continues to fold the Doctor in half.
Groaning as the stretch starts to work all the way along from thighs to hips to back, the Doctor forces those heavy eyes open, to see an unusually close-up view of this area.
Jack must notice this.
“Can you?” he asks.
The Doctor bends slightly to the left and curls up, tongue sticking out. Jack presses down just a little bit more, until the Doctor’s lips can wrap around the head and suck. Tastes like cock. The Doctor lets go with a pop, and Jack slowly eases the Doctor back to the bed.
“Never been one of my skills, though not for lack of trying, so many years of yoga. But then you’ve got the length on me.” Jack says, spanning his hand along the Doctor’s cock under the pretext of measuring, then begins to stroke, and it’s pleasure and relief. “People have had ribs removed to do that.”
The Doctor gestures, then makes the fingers on both hands walk down each rib like a scale on piano keys, until it leaves the left hand wiggling with a different number of fingers.
“Not for this purpose mind you,” the Doctor says. “Just happens.”
“Huh. Well who am I to question the reasonings of Time Lord biology?”
“Time Lord’s my qualification, not my species,” the Doctor says, the truth spurting out unexpectedly, like a premature ejaculation. “It’s mostly just a me thing.” Plus one person. Half-truth. Blech.
“Wh- Since when?” Jack asks, blindsided, hand stilling for a second.
“Forever and ever. Or a bit before the jail thing. Whichever.”
Jack blinks, then nods like this is understandable somehow.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what species are you?” Jack asks.
“Dunno,” the Doctor admits with a shrug, as if that’s not a terror like a black hole but emptier.
But Jack nods at this too, and resumes his stroking as if to comfort. Which oddly it sort of does.
“You’re the Doctor. With two hearts, twenty-three ribs, and an incredible cock.”
It makes the Doctor laugh, and Jack’s face softens into one of its loveliest smiles.
“Fine, but you’re to blame if I get into trouble for introducing myself like that.”
Jack laughs loudly, and it’s an old, familiar comforting sound, that feels like part of what the idea of ‘home’ would sound like. As much of a balm as the TARDIS’s hums. It would be good to hear that for eternity.
The Doctor reaches over, pulls Jack in to a kiss; calm, and relaxing, breathing him in. Though as Jack makes to clamber more on top, the Doctor hurriedly catches him in a knee-pincer, then pushes him back again, to Jack’s look of confusion. He can’t always be this unable to take a hint, not with his reputation.
The Doctor rounds over to reach further — muscles hard-used today still complaining a little in protest — to stroke Jack’s cock in a return of favours. It twitches like the happy animal it is, as quick to attention as Jack, instantly racing for a hardness that currently seems to take the Doctor slightly more time to achieve, and was never reached by the last body at all.
Using it as a bit of an Idiot Handle, the Doctor draws Jack forward, returning both feet to his shoulders, raising a little as Jack shuffles closer until the Doctor’s arse is resting on the man’s knees. Ninety-six. Perhaps now the Doctor’s intentions are clear.
Jack’s cock is certainly slick in the Doctor’s hand. Not unnaturally so, but certainly on the generous end. Fifty-first century benefits, perhaps. Evolution weaving through its little advancements. The Doctor keeps to the tip, sliding him through the ribbing of fingers, just in case it’s somehow still not clear.
It’s such a cliché, ‘softness over steel’ to refer to an erection, but that’s also just Jack really. Softness over steel over softness. But then so’s an erection at its core.
“Better than my last one was. Sort of softness over that stuff you make with cornflour,” the Doctor mumbles.
“I was there,” Jack says, the Doctor scrambling to unpick the meaning of his words. Ah, because of the reference to her cock. O. “You could have come.”
“Not easily…” The Doctor says, eyebrows gesturing, taking Jack’s hand and moving it back again where it can make better use of itself. “Got higher hopes for this one though.”
Jack’s fingers wrap around the Doctor’s cock like a reflex. And his actions feel good. Long strokes with exact firmness as if he knows this body, how it works, how it deviates from the old. Better than the Doctor knows. But for all the horror of being known that used to fill the Doctor’s brains, she tried to help that as she passed, in her own way, and now it feels…easier. This soul does not fear being known as much as it craves it.
The Doctor syncs up hand movements with Jack, brushing knuckles. An old childish game. Something between moving the planchette on a ouija board, and a game of chicken.
“Did the Master make you cum?” Jack asks lightly, conversationally. Jealously.
“It was O, at the time. And as his name suggested,” the Doctor says equally lightly, but this seems unfair, so a bone then, “After he started gagging.”
Jack’s eyes meet the Doctor’s, dilated, fascinated, his cheeks noticeably splashed with colour.
“Really? Didn’t think you’d be the type.”
“I’m not. She was though,” the Doctor says, speeding up fractionally. “But I think he must have been putting it on a bit.”
Looking at the remaining free hand, the Doctor judges the length of these fingers — same as before — then sucks two of them until they’re in uvula-tickling range, and then a bit farther, and farther, until the tears prickle and throat spasms. Then removes them and examines again. “Six inches would’ve been very generous rounding, definitely putting it on.”
Jack is staring, cock more slick than ever, impossible to be harder.
“Jack, I did that to you five minutes ago.”
He shrugs.
“Can always appreciate a different angle.”
The Doctor considers whether or not to wipe the wet away on an unabsorbent surface of chest hair, as opposed to the bedsheets that needn’t be kept clean, but also must.
There are other options though.
The Doctor reaches around to press them where wet fingers are most useful, and Jack’s hand tenses hard enough around the Doctor’s cock that a warning grunt is necessary. Jack hastily loosens his grasp, rhythm now not keeping time at all, and tries to say words that either aren’t ones, or the TARDIS chooses not to translate.
At this point it’s either openly question Jack’s virginity, or just keep ploughing on, and really that was the idea. The saliva-wet fingers are not particularly useful, as they never really are, simply more of a signal than anything, but one that Jack seems currently too stalled to act on. So the Doctor swaps hands, palming the head of Jack’s cock to replace a little of the purloined antifrictive, and, while it’s currently still possible to focus more on Jack’s embarrassing behaviour than to reflect on how this position must look from his point of view, presses a Jack-slick fingertip inside.
“Wh-y-hm?”
'What are you doing?’
“Not making it any harder to run tomorrow than my legs already want to.” Second finger, a breath out, a little extra relaxation, but this body has always been shockingly flexible and resilient, and the new tinge of muscular soreness has not hampered this in the least. Or maybe it’ll be tomorrow’s problem. But it isn’t the present’s, and that’s where they both are.
Jack’s finger joins the Doctor’s. Circling. Touching. A shaking breath. Ninety-nine.
“Do you want…” Jack trails off.
“Do I want? Everyone wants, Jack. Be specific.” Being a dick. You are what you want to be filled up with or something.
But the Doctor needs it, needs to hear it, an acknowledgement from Jack that they’re doing this. Suddenly needs it more than anything else. It won’t be real, even if it happens, not until he says it. Not for either of them, not really.
“Do you want me to…” ’fuck you’, say it, say it, SAY IT.
Jack swallows.
“Do you want me to make love to you?”
Oh, Jack. Romantic, ridiculous, and raw. Whose true miracle is that he has a heart so big it’s incomprehensible the universe could contain it all.
“Yes, Jack. I want you to make love to me.” And the Doctor does. Really, really does.
Jack shifts the Doctor’s legs to lie between them, laying his body flat along the Doctor’s. His weight feels good in unexpected and incomprehensible ways, and the Doctor meets Jack’s kiss deeply and lazily.
This is also apparently a clever ploy to blindly reach into the nightstand. However long it has been for Jack, he still knows that motion. Or perhaps knows that the TARDIS will always put what he wants directly into his hands.
Jack sits back up, pumping a bit of lube along his finger.
“Can’t imagine I’ll need it,” the Doctor says.
“Don’t want to hurt you,” Jack replies.
The urge is to tell him to do so. To hurt, rail, pound until the Doctor’s screaming in agony. …But actually the Doctor doesn’t want that. Doesn’t desire pain at all. In all the unpredictable twists and turns of sexuality, that might actually be the most unexpected.
After a brief tease Jack slips a finger inside with no resistance, and to counterpoint the feeling, the Doctor finally reaches down to the flexing hardness, and then yelps.
Jack freezes immediately. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Just. Feedback loop. Haven’t, uh, touched myself yet,” the Doctor says with some embarrassment.
“…That’s hot.”
It’s always odd, the muscle memory that shouldn’t possibly exist. The thing that immediately lets you stand, and speak, and know how to masturbate. That comes from the same realm as the scars with no cause. But the oddest thing is that it’s not even the same as this body liked last time. The same sensitivity at the frenulum, yes, but Jack’s instincts were thoroughly correct - it wants harder, longer, slow deliberate strokes. Whereas before it was light and quick and furtive. But trying it that way feels noticeably worse, unnatural. Perhaps there is something in the lack of shame of it, despite doing it in front of Jack.
The Doctor blinks back to the room. Might make it better, if anything.
“Sorry, distracted.”
“So am I,” Jack says, stroking himself with one hand, fingering the Doctor with the other, watching the experiment play out. “What do you think?”
“That the differences between the psychological and physiological and what you assume each to govern, are surprisingly fluid in ways you wouldn’t expect.”
“That’s so much smarter than anything I was thinking.”
Jack watches the motions with something like awe, which seems incongruous to the act. His heart rate so high, he could be jogging.
“More?” Jack asks.
“Always,” the Doctor replies for a second time.
Jack’s fingers are wider, the stretch more noticeable. It makes the Doctor hum, metaphorically and literally. Jack is gentle; sliding and twisting slowly, watching the Doctor’s face like he’s memorising every expression. Deeper, crooking his fingers until the Doctor shudders and the hum becomes a moan.
“Another score for Doctor biology,” Jack says, releasing the prostate pressure, then pressing again, rubbing until the Doctor starts squirming, can’t stop squirming, is going to ruin all of this too fast and-
“Jack…”
“Oh? You don’t want more?” Jack quips, his eyes glittering delightedly, but easing off, leaving the Doctor feeling far too empty. There are words for people like him.
“Bitch.”
Jack roars with laughter.
“Always.”
With a slightly wet hand, Jack strokes along the Doctor’s legs — keeping them up is good — then strokes himself, shifting position, canting the Doctor’s hips. Rubs his cock against the valley of slickness, and presses lightly against the Doctor’s arse. Watches the Doctor pause midstroke to collect the wetness that started pooling from Jack’s fingering, slicking up, and holding on to the desperate hardness that begs for movement it does not get yet.
Jack catches the Doctor’s eyes, with pupils like the emptiness of space.
The Doctor nods.
And Jack presses in.
One hundred.
The sigh the Doctor makes feels like every breath ever held all being released at once. There is no effort required to relax against the stretch of Jack’s cock — so much more than his fingers — the relaxation comes automatically, unbidden, free with the tiniest bit of pain that’s just pleasure in a cheap disguise.
After a few inches, Jack slowly starts pulling out to thrust back in deeper each time. This is what the Doctor wants their relationship to be. The fucking. The coming back deeper each time.
“Jack,” the Doctor breathes, not for his attention, but for the word, for how it feels. “Jack…”
His mouth is open, eyes shimmering, face too full of emotion to hold it all. It feels like a mirror. He always is. A reflection once instinctually repelled by subconscious terror, now to be clung to like a life raft for someone who will never stop drowning.
Jack thrusts harder, bending the Doctor further, until the pleasure becomes acute, a higher pitch, along with the Doctor’s voice.
“Jack…”
The Doctor’s body is awash with warmth, no - heat, of curling on a rug in front of the fireplace. Hand stroking faster, Jack speeds up his thrusts, the earlier game going further and further and further.
Everything the Doctor was taught says to keep silent; everything that the Doctor’s learnt says otherwise.
Jack thrusts as deep as he can go, and the Doctor groans, legs dropping to wrap around the man instead, a hand around his back, pulling him closer, skin against skin, hungry for him, for Jack to be more than just inside the Doctor, but inside.
And suddenly everything really is blissfully, peacefully, present. Anchored to the now, because that is what Jack is. A pause in time is no different to eternity, but there’s not a flicker of fear to be found, not here, not with Jack. Eternity seems possible. Eternity seems desirable.
Jack rolls his hips like a wave.
The Doctor reaches up so Jack doesn’t look away. Not that he ever has. Not that he ever will.
“Jack…”
Sweat beads on both their foreheads, it mixes with Jack’s tears like rain.
The Doctor is too close to keep stroking and grips onto Jack’s back instead, digging the nails in deep enough to never be separated again, cock pressing into Jack’s slick skin, and Jack thrusts harder until the Doctor sees stars. One star, in the void. A light to be beautiful, to guide, to revolve around.
And Jack thrusts faster and faster until-
“Jack!”
His face is rapturous, the noises from him divine, then his head finally drops to collapse against the Doctor’s neck, and the Doctor bites hard into Jack’s shoulder, as the strong twitches of his cock emptying into the Doctor triggers the double-beat pulsing spurts between them as if they might never stop, unstoppable forces against Jack’s immovable object of a self.
But they eventually do.
They stay trembling for a moment, in a pool of each other, until Jack’s shaking arms given in, and he rolls off, lying on his side as they both pant for breath.
The sheets are ruined. But no spectre looms. Just the certainty the TARDIS will be happy to take care of them, not least in exchange for her having gotten to watch.
The Doctor has slid down the pillows in all the activity, and ends up tucked under Jack’s chin, against his chest.
“Sorry for the…wounds.”
A life summed up.
Jack nuzzles the Doctor’s hair.
“I don’t mind a vampire.”
The post-orgasmic fugue is great, no pains can keep ahold, it’s so easy to let the universe go.
Jack suddenly moves and the Doctor’s too boneless to stop him, outside of a catlike mewl of displeasure. But there’s just the sound of a drawer again, and then Jack has rolled back close, and starts politely mopping up, albeit with a little impolite fingering mixed in.
The Doctor lies there, indolently, letting Jack do the clean-up. And when Jack is done, he returns back, lying on his side as if to spoon. Hooking both legs over Jack’s so it makes him curl more around, the Doctor rests against his chest again, nuzzling his increasingly cool damp skin, that lust has not deserted for grossness yet, if it ever will. Then the Doctor realises the side effect of this.
“Sorry, sandpapering.”
But Jack’s large hand reaches around the Doctor’s head, tucking it back close again.
“Scrape my skin off if you want.”
In a sense, hasn’t that already happened?
After a while, Jack shifts, and the Doctor should let him go. But Jack has already been let go, so many times, when he shouldn’t have been. So the Doctor lies more firmly on the arm Jack has stretched out under the pillows.
“I want to stay like this forever,” Jack sighs. “But things. Meetings. Responsibilities. People.”
One of whom is Yaz. The other cleaning-up after the Doctor that Jack does.
The post-orgasmic fugue starts to disperse, reality becoming visible again.
The Doctor sighs, not wanting to drop him off, but automatically starting to mentally record Jack’s scent in chemicals, a calming list of them, and wishing there had been a moment to lick him. Then realises this is one, and licks him now.
It is a testament to their relationship that Jack just huffs a laugh, and doesn’t even ask.
“But I suppose,” the Doctor says, “Forever’s what we’ve got anyway, doesn’t matter where you go.” The thought felt more emotionally complicated in the Doctor’s head, but it comes out romantic, and maybe that’s the way it should be.
Jack breathes into the Doctor’s hair, but says nothing.
“I want you to know about me,” the Doctor says, the words conjuring an unscalable mountain. “But can I tell you really slowly?”
Jack pulls back a little to look the Doctor in the eyes.
“However you like.” And Jack waits, until understanding dawns. “Oh, I see what you mean. Hey, we’ve got all the time in the universe. Or at least I do.”
“So do I,” the Doctor says, chipping away at the mountain.
“Thirteen lifetimes,” Jack says, a little tightly.
“And how many have you counted, Jack?”
His eyes widen, then blink rapidly.
“Well, I mean some of them are probably-”
“It’s okay, don’t tell me,” the Doctor asks. One day, maybe one day. Slowly, slowly. “We have all the time in the universe, you and I.”
And hope to gods that the Doctor doesn’t trust, that it works out better with this person than it did before.
Jack swallows. There is a tremor to him the Doctor wants to believe is cold. So the Doctor leans over to the other half of the bed to grasp the silk and drape it over them.
“But I’m making breakfast. Have to, Donna is a demon with low blood sugar.”
“Don’t say that. I’ve fought demons, wouldn’t dream of fighting her,” Jack replies.
“I love her,” the Doctor says, smiling, and Jack’s gaze is so soft. “Love you too, by the way.”
Jack’s expression changes in an instant. Shock, disbelief, and something indefinable that shimmers.
Just in case there’s never another chance to say it. But there is. Right now.
“I love you, Jack.”
Tell him until he hears it. Tell him until he believes it. Tell him until it balances every other time it went unsaid. And the Doctor mumbles it with kisses interspersed until Jack is still, until his face is no longer wet, until their eyes are heavy and time is catching up and…
“Morning,” the Doctor says cheerily, as Donna snatches the plate of fresh bacon sandwich away with a grunt.
“Where’s my-”
“On the table,” the Doctor says cheerfully to her, pointing to the coffee, smiling at Jack over her head, and nodding to a spare seat.
“New table,” Jack notes.
“Well, couldn’t fit the people on it even back then really, could we? This is a brand name one,” the Doctor says pompously.
“What, IKEA?” Donna snaps.
“Exactly.”
The Doctor continues to attempt to juggle the current setup of frying pans, which has managed to be, as usual, one more than the hob has room for.
“Remodelled the kitchen too,” Jack says. The Doctor looks around. Not for a while, but is to Jack. Dark shiny metal, knobs that probably do things here and there. Like a really posh kitchen. Made especially for one person, because the TARDIS loves a compliment. It might never change again.
The Doctor keeps a wide berth when skirting past Donna with Jack’s breakfast.
“One black coffee with that Zeldexian pistachio thing you said you liked-”
“I said I liked that once,” Jack says, staring at his coffee. It should be his mug. Certainly looks the same.
“Wait, don’t you? Was it just a politeness thing?” the Doctor asks quickly.
“No I did, I just-”
“Good.” The Doctor slides Jack the plate. “Then two toast - rectangles, bacon, tomato, mushrooms — I think they’re shiitake, don’t know if that’s a breakfast one, I don’t trust mushrooms — and a fried egg with a firm bottom.”
Didn’t even mean to wink, it just happened.
Donna sniffs.
“I wouldn’t mind a-”
“Good, I made an extra,” the Doctor says, quickly turning around for another frying pan and slipping the fried egg onto her plate.
“I like mine runny.”
“I know, it is.”
Donna peels the remaining half a sandwich, adds the egg, and then dips into it with a corner of the toast.
“Excellent colour, the spread is impressive,” Jack whispers like a golf commentator.
Donna raises her free hand.
The Doctor hastily pulls a bottle of ketchup out of a trouser pocket - no ‘or are you just pleased to see me’ joke, but in hindsight if Donna had noticed that would have probably been worse.
She pours her ketchup onto the open sandwich. Controlled. No tomatoey explosion.
Donna dips the eggy-toast in it and takes a bite.
Chews.
“It’s alright.”
Jack punches the air and the Doctor celebrates behind her.
“You’re too old to do the hip thrust.”
“I dunno, I think I could maybe pull it off.”
The Doctor winks.
Jack raises his eyebrows.
Donna makes a disgusted sound that’s hopefully nothing to do with the breakfast.
“Off you go.”
“Off you go.”
“Off you go.”
Cardiff. Surprisingly quiet for a weekday morning, but Cardiff nonetheless. The TARDIS settles happily in this spot like it’s a comfy chair.
“Off you go.”
“Off you go.”
“Rock-paper-scissors for it?” Jack finally suggests.
The Doctor chooses rock. Jack seems surprised. The Doctor fist-bumps his scissors and crunches.
“Damn.” Something that might be a scream comes from somewhere off to the right. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Jack says with all the chagrin of a father whose child has started acting up.
The Doctor kisses three fingers and waggles them in a wave.
Jack dithers between a salute and a blown kiss, ending up combining the two, then the shout comes again, and he runs off.
For a moment the Doctor watches, then sighs and walks back inside. Donna’s leaning against the console, smirking.
“No, you hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up-”
“Oh, shut up.”