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It started on a dull Tuesday morning, while the team were walking into town to check out a site of unusual rift activity. Tosh was working on her phone as she walked, tracking the signal. Gwen and Owen were bickering. Jack was sweeping along in the lead. Until a man bounded up to him, said 'Jack!' and kissed him on the lips.
This is not as rare for the Captain as for most people, but he was still struck by a moment of confusion. The man was young, tall, jawline to die for, godawful bow tie, nice hair, and clearly - very clearly - interested.
The man's hands were cupping his face gently, drawing him in. Behind him was the horrible silence of his team leaping to conclusions, and this made him draw back, though not before giving the stranger's lower lip a playful bite.
The man was looking at him as if he was - something pretty amazing. That smile...
'Hi,' Jack began, offering a hand automatically, frantically casting his mind back over a long and eventful career. Ex-lover, extra-terrestrial, someone who wants him dead? Could even be all three at once. 'Uh - have we met before?'
'Smooth, Harkness, very smooth,' Owen muttered behind him. The man's face went pensive. Jack had seen this look before, on fellow Time Agents who had turned up demanding money you hadn't borrowed off them yet, or occasionally wanting to kill you because of something you wouldn't do til next year.
Automatically, he glanced at his wriststrap, but it was reassuringly doing absolutely fuckall. So, not a Time Agent.
'What's the date?' asked the man, confirming some of Jack's suspicions.
Jack told him. Behind him, he could hear Owen's told-you-so grin, Tosh's look of anxious disbelief.
The man licked his finger and held it up, turned round on the spot, thought about it, and said 'Yes. Um. I can come back...?'
Jack had enjoyed that kiss.
'Nine o'clock tonight,' he said decisively. 'Meet you at - ' he named Torchwood's bar of choice. Torchwood being Torchwood, it was the one the shortest possible distance on foot from the Hub.
'Yes, good plan. Brilliant plan. See you then.' The man leaned to kiss him once more, on the cheek, and turned away.
Jack turned round to look at his team. Owen was grinning at his own feet. Tosh had busied herself with the phone again.
'Who was he, then?' asked Gwen, trying not to smile.
'No idea,' said Jack, 'but my hunch is, we have a history. Will have a history,' he added. He shook his head, turning and beginning to walk. Tosh said, hastening to keep up, 'Rift activity at fifty meters.'
' - told you. I told you, I said, World War 2 gear is not the choice of a heterosexual - ' Owen was saying.
' - shut up!'
'OK, let's go, guys.' Jack swept ahead, his coat billowing. He didn't have the time or the inclination to listen to his team trying to put a 21st centruy label on him.
' - you owe me a fiver, Cooper.'
Only Tosh looked round at the odd whirring noise on the edge of hearing, and saw a blue box fading gently out of sight.
'Was that a - no, never mind,' she said, forestalling the question.
'A what?' asked Jack.
'Looked like one of those old phone boxes. I've seen something like that before...' Owen glanced in the direction of her gaze but the street was clearly deserted. She shook her hair off her face, embarrassed, and looked back at the rift monitor on her phone. 'Must have imagined it.'
Jack stared back at the empty street.
* * *
The Doctor didn't turn up.
Left alone, all his questions unanswered, and feeling like he'd been made a fool of, Jack got very drunk on his own in the bar, and then more so in the Hub. He was found passed out on the sofa by Ianto, who turned up an hour early the next morning for some reason.
He had an intense five-mintue conversation with Tosh in his office as soon as she arrived. She pinned her recollection of the phone box down to what Owen referred to as the 'day of the space-pig' - not without reluctance, because Jack wasn't supposed to know she'd been there, covering for Owen.
When she left him, biting her lip anxiously, afraid she'd dropped Owen right in it, he cursed softly for a minute and then threw himself into a chair and stared blankly at the wall. Inwardly, he was seething with anger. How dare the Doctor leave him sitting on his ass in Cardiff for a hundred fucking years, then turn up, kiss him, and fuck off again? He decided he'd never liked the Doctor that much anyway. He upbraided his own stupidity - a hundred years to study the documents and then, when it mattered, he'd forgotten the Doctor changed his face, and not even recognised him. How slappably dense is that? So, there went his only chance of getting fixed, sailed off across the galaxy again, possibly never to return.
These thoughts ran on loop in his head in a long cycle of irritation and despair that he couldn't shake off. The atmosphere in the Hub responded to his bad temper. Cracks made themselves felt among the team.
* * *
Six weeks later, there was a really horrible day. One of those tidying-up days that comes just after a major incident; non-violent, not life-threatening in any way, but very stressful. Tosh had had a rare fit of temper over the third last-minute find-a-body-and-fake-a-suicide crisis to land on her desk that afternoon, and then had gone off to cry quietly in the Ladies. Owen was trying as hard as he could to get into a fight with Gwen, and Ianto was not making eye contact with anyone. He seemed preoccupied, not that anyone really noticed.
It was gone ten o'clock before Jack dismissed them, with one last order: Go get drunk. They departed to the bar, as soon as Tosh had put the Rift monitor to bed for the night, with the hopeful prognostication that there was only a 15.5% chance of any activity before morning.
So Jack was sitting alone in the Hub, checking paperwork, when he heard the lift whirring. Without looking up, he shouted, 'What'd you forget?'
An unexpected voice came back to him.
'That's brilliant! That is amazing!'
Jack darted out of his office and stood staring up at the slowly descending stone. His heart lurched heavily in his chest, with a mixture of anger and blinding relief.
'Sorry I'm late,' the Doctor called down, looking terribly thrilled to be on a perception-filtered lift. 'I was trying to track you by artron energy, but the Tardis just landed out there, so I waited around for a bit and then I saw a perception filter and I thought 'I bet I can guess who lives there,' - and here I am!' The stone grated into place.
'I brought some Proximal vodka,' he added, bounding down off the lift. He looked incredibly cheerful, but Jack wasn't in the mood.
'OK, first things first. Are you jerking me around?' he demanded, hands in pockets, his chin tilted up.
Pause, anxious look. 'No - I'm not. Why?'
'Because you look - wrong, you abandoned me on that fucking Dalek satellite with an attack of incurable immortality, you haven't been in touch with me for a hundred years,' he paused for breath, 'and you made a fool of me.'
'Oh. Listen, I can explain - well, at least one of those.'
'Yeah?'
'Yes. I regenerated.'
'You're telling me,' said Jack, looking at him appraisingly. In a better mood, he would have added "and getting hotter every time", but he's still angry.
'So, wanna explain the rest of it?'
'Jack,' the Doctor looked at him very intently. 'Can we have the row after the vodka, please?'
Jack sighed. If he's getting any explanations tonight, he figures he is going to need a stiff drink. He turned and went into his office, found some glasses.
They sat on the tatty old sofa. The Doctor poured them some vodka, waited for Jack's temper to cool.
'First of all,' said the Doctor, 'I can explain all of it, but if I do I'll spoiler you.'
'Spoiler me?'
'There's a whole bit of my past and your future coming up, and I can't spoiler you because if I do the world will probably end.' He gulped his vodka, gasped slightly. 'Again.'
Jack can just about accept this. 'Uh huh.'
'I need to get a blue book,' the Doctor murmured, in a note-to-self voice. 'But, listen, when you see me again - which is soon, and then I can explain it, because I know I did - but when you see me, I won't look like this. I've regenerated twice since Bad Wolf.'
'So how will I recognise you?'
'The blue box is a bit of a giveaway. So I'm told,' said the Doctor, drily. 'Also - you're not going to like me that much.'
'Why - '
'Spoilers. If it's any consolation, I am sorry.'
Jack takes this on board. Time Agency work is pretty good training for situations like this.
'How about the six-weeks-late thing?' he asked, more aggressively than he'd intended to. 'I figured you'd just come back to screw with me.'
'Six weeks?'
'Yeah.'
'It's been six weeks?'
'Yeah.'
The Doctor frowns. 'I need to stop doing this,' he muttered. 'I thought I saw you this morning.'
Jack really wishes he hadn't given away how much this delay bothered him. Change of subject.
'So why are you back here, crossing your own timeline and everything?' he asked.
'Because of - oh, hang on. That hasn't happened to you yet. Oh. Listen, when it does - '
'When what does?'
' - you need to not tell me about this time, because you didn't. Alright?'
'When what happens?'
'Um, a couple of weeks ago in my timeline, I came to find you.' There was a long pause. 'And we - well, we - ' he glanced at Jack, and his voice died away.
'Nah!' But Jack is beginning to grin, because this incident in his future clearly had such an effect that the most articulate man in the galaxy just went silent trying to explain it.
The Doctor looked intently at his glass. 'And I - haven't really stopped thinking about it since,' he admitted, quietly.
This gives Jack pause, and he covers it by gulping the last of the vodka and refilling his glass.
'But I thought you - I mean, there was that time I asked you and you said - '
* * *
On the way back from Raxacoracofallapatorius, while Rose was wandering in the Tardis library, Jack had made a pass at the Doctor - as only Jack knows how to make a pass - and been turned down. Politely, almost casually, while the Doctor tinkered about with some recalcitrant bit of the Tardis.
'What, you don't do humans?' Jack had asked. He had felt horribly put-down. In the space of a few days, the Doctor had unknowingly got past all his boundaries of self-preservation, and he's in deep crush territory already - something he had been getting pretty good at avoiding.
'I just - don't do anyone.' The Doctor stopped working and looked him in the face. 'Jack, you're a lovely lad, but I don't. It's not you, it's me!' Said in tones of slightly manic revelation, as if with that phrase the Doctor had prevented all-out galactic war. And then he'd grinned that grin that made Jack want to kiss him and then punch him.
* * *
'So I figured you were basically asexual,' Jack explained.
'I was. Only, not this regeneration.'
'Why?'
'Don't know. Must have been - ' he counted on his fingers ' - years and years since I last - but that was ages ago.'
'And now...?
'New everything. Sex drive included. Scared me witless. So, I came looking for you. I thought you might still be - interested.'
Jack choked back a laugh. Might?
'I must have ended up some time in your future. Maybe about a year, two years - I forgot to check, it was all a bit - surprising.'
Jack has to ask.
'Was it good?'
The Doctor looks somehow more relaxed now he's talked his way out of the difficult bit. Only Jack's vanity remains to deal with, so he answers the question Jack wants answered, rather than the one he asked.
'You were amazing,' he said. 'Really amazing.'
'I bet you were too,' but Jack's flirting entirely on automatic, while his mind spins off on a wild, exultant monologue of delighted disbelief -
- I don't believe this, he came back for me at last and god he's cute and we had sex and hang on, he came back TWICE ohmyfuckingGOD -
- and Jack leans back on the sofa, allowing himself to tilt gently towards the Doctor. The Doctor sighs, leans back onto the arm that Jack has very casually draped along the back of the sofa.
'I was lucky,' the Doctor murmured. 'First time in - oh, quite a while - and I get you.'
'You only ever had to ask,' Jack said, feeling oddly protective. And leans in further, breathes deeply, half a second off kissing him.
The pterodactyl chose this moment to swoop across the Hub, down past the water tower and back up to some eyrie high in the walls.
'You've got a pteradactyl!' cried the Doctor.
For Jack, this phrase is the equivalent of "but it's bigger on the inside". You never get tired of hearing it.
'Yeah. She fell through the rift. Cute, isn't she?'
'She's - beautiful.' The Doctor stares up at the pterodactyl, getting herself settled in the ledge above them. 'Totally wrong, so far out of her time, gives me the shivers how wrong she is, but - oh, she is beautiful.'
Jack reaches for the back of his neck as he stares up at her. And encounters no resistance, just a slight lean back into the caress, which turns from a brief stroke to a slow, insistent rub. The Doctor drags his eyes away from Myfanwy and turns and looks intensely at Jack.
The Doctor remembers the conversation they had while Jack fixed the footprint couplings. Knowing that Jack doesn't, he has no chance to tell him how cruelly wrong he was, then, about beautiful things out of their time, things that feel so wrong you have to run away from them.
And then Jack kisses him.
For Jack, this is new. Wonderfully, utterly new. He tasted good - not like anyone Jack had ever kissed before. On some subtle, pheromonal level, he does not taste quite human, but it works for Jack.
The Doctor, who is gaining confidence since last time, is taking the lead, almost imperceptibly. He's the first one to slide his tongue against Jack's mouth, the first to bite, gently, at Jack's lower lip. Oh. Two weeks and he hasn't, really, stopped thinking about doing this again. His hands run over Jack's chest and grip him, pull him closer. He has that scary, delicious feeling that his solar plexus is singing within him, and only by pulling Jack close, locking his arms tight round him, can he make it stop.
Jack grips him back, and then they are almost fighting for closeness, squeezing the breath out of each other. Jack drags his hands through the Doctor's hair, up from the softness of his neck to the crown, deliberately ruffling it, pulling him closer. They shift positions, rapidly, so the Doctor is kneeling astride Jack's lap. Jack has a brief struggle with the Doctor's jacket, tugs it off and slings it onto the table, in the company of discarded pizza boxes and old Cardiff Gazettes. The Doctor undoes Jack's shirt, tugging fiercely at buttons that won't undo, til Jack assists him with his right hand, his left returning to stroke the Doctor's hair. Jack is resisting the hunger to press upwards and rub against him. But, once the shirt is unbuttoned, the Doctor's hands keep moving, one pulling it off Jack's shoulders, the other slipping lower, past the waistband of his trousers and brushing his abdomen, his thigh, and then -
'Ah.'
The way the Doctor says it, he might have just found something rather technologically interesting. Jack gives in and pushes up against the hand which is curved over his hard-on, not too roughly, just held there, feeling him through his trousers. Forgetting what he was doing to the Doctor, he arches his neck, almost painfully aroused.
'Ye-ah - yeah - ' And the Doctor is kissing his mouth again, silencing him, and teasing - no more than teasing, nothing like firmly enough - at Jack's erection, stroking him slowly through the material. Jack struggles free of his shirt, leaning forwards and almost headbutting the Doctor accidentally in the face as he does so.
'Sorry!'
Then they reach a pause, looking at each other, breathing deep.
'So - what do you wanna do?' Jack asked first, placed the Doctor in the position of deciding. The Doctor leans back, considers him.
'Not sure. Hm,' he thinks about it. Jack sits back, looks up at him, opens his mouth to make a suggestion, and then his eye catches a gleam in the dark above them.
'Uh - Doctor,' he says seriously, looking fixedly over the Doctor's shoulder. This is an excellent way to startle an itinerant Timelord. The Doctor spins to look behind him, hand automatically reaching for where the inner pocket of his jacket would have been if he was still wearing it, expecting Weeping Angels or Cybermen or something terrible to appear in the depths of the Hub.
'What? What is it?' he demanded.
Jack recognises the manoeuvre and laughs.
'Relax! I just remembered the cameras. We're on the CCTV, that's all.'
'Oh - is that all? I though space-time had split open or something...' and he's still scanning the opposite side of the room as if expecting something to grin at him out of the dark.
'Hey. My room. C'mon.' He squeezes the Doctor's thigh and the Doctor gets up. He rescues his jacket, checks the screwdriver is still in the pocket - he is worried he might need it - and follows Jack across to the other side of the Hub.
Jack's room is small and plain. The bed is neat. There are a couple of photos, a small wardrobe. The Doctor throws his jacket across the only chair.
'You know, right across the galaxy there are incredibly dirty songs being sung about this bed,' he said, meditatively.
'Not this bed. You're the first,' said Jack, who is aware of his place in legend, and ambivalently amused by it. He put the vodka and glasses down on the bedside table. 'I can't bring anyone back here. Dosing people up with Retcon the morning after is not my style.'
'Torchwood,' the Doctor said, slightly disdainfully. 'So do I get Retconned?'
'You get special privileges,' said Jack. He doesn't yet remember the row he had with the Doctor about Torchwood, his sudden outburst about doing it all in the Doctor's honour. Probably this is just as well.
He sits down on the bed, gestures the Doctor to join him, pours some more vodka. Still not looking at Jack, the Doctor said, 'You said something before...I mean, you will... I shouldn't tell you this, really...'
'Go on,' said Jack, tempting him. The Doctor smiles, and leans over to whisper in Jack's ear, eyes closed, face slightly flushed.
'You said you - you wanted - to make me come in your mouth.' It feels weird to say this aloud, to admit to how much it turned him on. But it's not like he doesn't know Jack's into it.
'Oh, yeah.' Jack half-laughs, totally sold on the suggestion. 'Yeah, that's a good idea.'
He put one arm round the Doctor, kissed him fiercely, pushed him down so he's lying on the bed, and unbuttoned his shirt. One hand moves slowly down the Doctor's body, taking its time, stopping to tease his nipple before rubbing lightly over his abdomen and fastening on his trouser buttons. Without losing the rhythm of the kiss, which is intense and hungry on both sides, he undoes the buttons and slips a hand inside.
Heat, the constriction of fabric. And he has got the Doctor gasping as soon as he's touched him, purely by pacing it right and building the anticipation. So he pulls his hand away, and slips down the bed, kissing everywhere he just touched, even slower now. This is taking some restraint, because he loves doing what he's about to do, but it's worth it for the sheer buildup, for feeling the Doctor tense and shift beneath him. Curling up at the bottom end of the bed, his knees tucked beneath him, he drags his tongue downwards from the Doctor's navel, glancing up to meet his eyes. The Doctor is leaning up on one elbow, staring down at him, looking bewildered and unfocused.
'This what you want?' Jack likes doing this, likes pushing for the acknowledgement of desire.
'Yes,' the Doctor breathes. Without looking away, Jack pulls away the intervening layer of fabric, then dips his head smoothly to the Doctor's cock. He traces his tongue along it once, stops, breathes. He tastes salt. The shudder beneath him gives him a thrill. He does it again, running his tongue up from the base to lap at the tip before pulling away again. He is deliberately unrhythmic, keeping the Doctor off balance, and spins out the licking as long as he can before taking the tip in his mouth.
The Doctor is flat on his back now, one hands very gently stroking Jack's hair, the other stretched out, gripping the blankets. He is not saying anything coherent, but there are possible words mixed with his ragged breathing - affirmatives, terms of endearment. Jack traces his tongue in a circle, then switches direction, teasing him, feeling the heat and hardness in his mouth increase. This is amazing, he can feel every tiny move, every breath, and now his own arousal has faded into the background while he focuses on gently driving the Doctor frantic. And it's working, he's moving now, trying to hold back but not entirely managing it, and Jack shifts position to give him more room to arch up his hips and speed up.
The words become more coherent.
' - ah - ah - Jack, I'm - oh, don't stop - I'm so close - '
Jack, taking him deeper in his mouth with perfect technique, is using his hands as well, gently caressing his balls, tweaking - not so gently - at his right nipple. He -
' - oh, Jack - Jack - '
- feels the Doctor clench and writhe, and speeds up, moving with him as he comes - he's crying out, his hand involuntarily gripping Jack's hair. Jack swallows, god he tastes good, keeps moving til he feels the last pulse of the climax, and begins to lead down, slowing his pace, licking very gently, and then drawing away.
He moves back up the bed to wrap his arms round the Doctor, who is lying flat, gasping for breath, his eyes shut. Jack kisses him, carefully, prepared for him to pull away a little - some guys can't stand the taste, though Jack has never got why - but not this time, the Doctor kisses back eagerly, clearly wanting to taste himself on Jack's lips.
Jack suppressed a shiver that was nothing to do with the temperature. After all this time, not only was he with the man he'd waited for, but he was holding him, kissing him - it felt so good he thought he might fall apart with happiness.
'Mmm...oh, that was ...amazing,' the Doctor said, once he'd got his breath back. 'You're very very good at that.'
'Uh huh, I know,' laughed Jack.
'Now,' the Doctor rolled on his side, resting up on one elbow, chin on his palm, 'what do you want?' His eyes search Jack's face, intense, perceptive.
It's a good question. Jack would have liked to fuck, but the moment when they would both have enjoyed it has now gone. He is at a bit of a loss - his lover's orgasm having taken the edge off his excitement too.
'Uh...'
'Here,' says the Doctor, 'turn over,' and he lets Jack turn, curls up against his back. Because he's slightly taller, this is comfortable, he's able to kiss Jack's neck from here, inhale the fragrance of his hair.
'What do you want?' he whispered, insinuating a hand round Jack's hip and allowing it to slide down to his fly buttons. Jack sighed. The arousal which had cooled a little returned with a vengeance. This time he didn't hold back, but wriggled, grinding unashamedly against the Doctor's hand.
The Doctor kept his touch teasingly light for a while, then gave in and stroked him properly, rubbing his cock through the cloth of his trousers. Jack shuts his eyes, pressing against the Doctor's hand. The Doctor was still kissing and licking at the back of his neck, breathing quickly. A couple of times he nearly spoke, and then bit the words back.
'Oh god that's good,' Jack moaned, breaking the silence as the Doctor speeded up.
'Yes?' It was barely a whisper. And it was, the tension was matched with a feeling of being enclosed, embraced. Protected.
Jack decided to find out how kinky this gets.
'Just don't you fucking stop,' he sighed, and instantly the Doctor stopped, took his hand away. (Jack is very good at topping from the bottom).
'Oh?'
Jack gave a frustrated moan that was more real than he'd intended, and reached for the Doctor's hand, trying to pull it back. The Doctor twisted his wrist in Jack's grip and then suddenly he was holding Jack's forearm, pulling it backwards.
So, quite kinky, then.
'Bastard,' Jack gasped.
'Don't - ' The Doctor tangled his other hand in Jack's hair and pulled gently, ' - tell me what to do.'
It's that voice. Wow. Utter confidence. Perfectly placed emphasis. He can sway empires and defend planets; Jack feels a stab of guilty enjoyment that he gets that voice, just for being bratty and difficult in bed.
He rolls over, fighting to free his wrist, twisting away from the firm grip on his hair. They physically fight for a minute, with no clear aim in view, Jack is just enjoying the struggle, and the Doctor, looking perfectly calm, is matching his attempts with neat moves that pin him back in place. Not til Jack is breathless does he stop, relax into the Doctor's grip -
- and twists again as soon as he feels the Doctor loose his hold, rolls away from him, gets free, sits up. He smiles triumphantly at the Doctor, almost challenging him.
'Am I going to have to handcuff you?' asked the Doctor, still lying on the bed, looking relaxed.
This question gives Jack pause. When he moved into Torchwood, most of his possessions fetched up in a storage locker four miles away, including all the bondage gear he owns. Which, given his chequered career has included a couple of months AWOL on the San Francisco kink scene in the late seventies, is an interesting and varied collection.
'Like to see you try,' he said, on an endorphin rush.
'Jack. You know I hate using force,' said the Doctor, lazily. 'Don't make me.'
'Even if it's consensual?' Jack asked, grinning wickedly at him.
'Oh, well, consensual's all right,' said the Doctor, sitting up swiftly. 'Your safeword is spaghetti, and you're into almost everything,' and the Doctor has gone into making-plans mode, he's talking quickly and working out what he's going to do next. 'Any hard limits I should know about? Other than breath control?'
Jack paused. 'That's not one of my limits - ' and the Doctor winced.
'Sorry, spoilers. Forget I said it.'
'But I like - '
'Spoilers,' said the Doctor, warning in his voice.
'OK, fair enough.' No point discussing it now, and Jack returns his focus to the original question. He has tried pretty much everything there is to try, including some things the 21st century hasn't thought of yet, but his set of absolutes is small, because kink is something he uses to play around with his own limits.
'Uh - hard to say. I'll tell you if we find one. Oh, and if you could try not to kill me, I find it really breaks the mood,' and now he's winding the Doctor up.
Distracted, the Doctor asked, 'Has that ever happened?'
'Only once. She did not get a second date.'
It would be fascinating to hear the story, but it's going to be more fun to do things to Jack.
'All right, take your clothes off, and find me some handcuffs. In that order.'
Jack stripped off hastily, while the Doctor looked at him, at once eyeing him up and trying to look like he wasn't. As he frequently does, he forgets to remove his watch and wrist strap.
'You've still got that?'
'Yeah. Dunno why. The Vortex Manipulation circuits are broken - it's only worked like a remote control since I got back to Earth. And I guess I - feel kinda naked without it.'
'Looks good though,' said the Doctor very casually, aware that this is the best way to make sure Jack's still wearing it when they next meet. 'Now. Handcuffs.'
A hasty search revealed nothing but condoms, lube, and a rather ancient blindfold. Even in this utterly celibate room, Jack's supplies for cruising the Cardiff night-life have ended up in the drawer by the bed.
'I'm surprised at you,' said the Doctor. 'You must have handcuffs, this is Torchwood.'
'Thoght you disapproved,' Jack said, sarky. The Doctor caught him by the hair again and pulled his head back, his facial expression steady. Jack gasped, took a second to adjust. He could probably have wriggled free - but where was the fun in that?
'There's some in the armoury - ' he said, breathlessly.
'Armoury,' muttered the Doctor.
'Hey, you suggested handcuffs,' Jack pointed out.
'So go and get them,' said the Doctor, releasing his grip.
'I'm naked. And there are cameras,' said Jack, just a trace of brattiness in his voice again.
'Defabricator,' muttered the Doctor.
'Fair point.'
So long as nothing goes horribly wrong, no one will ever see that footage anyway.
* * *
But when Lisa is discovered in something under forty-eight hours' time, it will get tacked on to the list of worries in Jack's head. At the top: 'Is my whole team going to get killed in front of me?' And a long way down: 'Is my whole team going to see those pictures?'
* * *
Jack returns with two sets of handcuffs. They're Torchwood standard issue, and they're meant to hold Weevils. The Doctor turns them over in his hands, and then puts the sonic screwdriver on the bedside table.
'What's that for?' Jack asks, slightly suspiciously.
'So I can get you out of these fast if I need to,' said the Doctor. Jack relaxed slightly - he wouldn't have put it past the Doctor to adapt them, make them even more resilient.
He sits down next to the Doctor, leans over, kisses him gently. He risks nipping at the Doctor's earlobe and is immediately, efficiently pinned to the bed and cuffed to the barred headboard.
'Right!' The Doctor sits astride his lap, grins down at him. 'Got you. Now...'
Without warning, he raked his fingernails harshly down Jack's chest. Jack gasped and tried to pull away. Vivid red lines appeared on his skin. The Doctor pauses til Jack is still, then does it again, down his sides this time, reaching up under his back a little, making him writhe. He's already fighting the handcuffs.
'Fuck,' muttered Jack, feeling the heat of those scratches warming him all over.
'Quiet,' said the Doctor peremptorily, shooting him a severe look. It's a new look to Jack, who is used to manic and wistful and furious. Severe is new. And it suits him.
The Doctor resumes the scratching, got a slow rhythm going, til Jack was beginning to gasp and feel he could take it a bit rougher -
The Doctor suddenly stopped, leaned down and kissed the reddened skin. It felt weirdly intense. Jack is getting pleasantly tuned in to his own sensations, everything he is feeling is magnified. Endorphins, enforced passivity - it felt fantastic.
The Doctor is leaning in now, licking softly at his chest. Jack tries his topping-from-underneath thing again. 'Not the nipples...?'
He gets exactly the right amount of appeal into his voice, but the Doctor doesn't even look up.
'Don't try to fool me, Jack,' he said, and pinched Jack's nipple hard, gave it a vicious little twist and let go. 'I know you like that.'
'Damnit!' Jack laughs a little, but mostly he's distracted by the wave of excitement that started with that twist and has gone straight to his cock. 'Gonna have to try double-bluffing you.'
'Hush.' The Doctor looked up, and slipped a finger into Jack's mouth, effectively silencing him. Jack licks gently at the flesh of his finger tip, circles the nail with his tongue. The Doctor, relenting a little, scrambled off him, lies alongside, and starts squeezing at his nipple with his free hand. He tilts his head and looks down Jack's body stretched on the bed. He's beautiful - muscled, smooth, and getting rapidly harder.
'I wan yoo to - ' Jack began, muffled somewhat. The Doctor withdrew his finger from Jack's mouth, carefully grasps his throat, tipping his head back.
'I said don't tell me what to do.' Jack wriggles his hips slightly, he really does want the Doctor to touch his cock, but he's going to be teased relentlessly first. Maybe the Doctor will make him beg... He shuts up, easing his head back to loosen the pressure on his neck. Oh yeah...
The Doctor leaned over to the bedside table.
'The thing about Proximal vodka,' he informed Jack, picking up a half-finished glass, 'is that it's brewed from photochemically-stimulated grains grown in the Proxima Centuri system and exposed to really high levels of infra-red radiation. Which means it can cause interesting thermoception reactions if it's exposed to a particular stimulus, like - '
He splashed a little vodka on Jack's chest. It doesn't feel any different to ordinary vodka.
' - approximately - '
Until the Doctor leans over and blows gently on it, and then it gives off a very slight blue glow as it responds to the Doctor's breath, and begins to feel like something between an ice cube and Deep Heat.
'- this one.'
Jack shivers. The Doctor leans closer, licks it off him very slowly, working over Jack's nipple with his tongue til it grows hard, then biting at it softly. Jack groans, twists his head. This is fucking tormenting.
The Doctor repeats the process on the other nipple. A droplet of the vodka runs down Jack's side, and the Doctor licks that up too, unhurriedly, making very sure to get all of it. It feels hot and cold and so sensual. Then the Doctor splashes vodka onto his navel, which tickles and burns slightly and, as the Doctor licks it off, Jack is edging, as unobtrusively as possible, trying to get some contact with his cock. Like that was going to work.
'Oh?' The Doctor looks up. One hand on Jack's thigh, carefully not touching anywhere too sensitive, but Jack's whole skin is hyperaware of contact now. 'Is this what you want?'
He wets one finger with the vodka, puts the glass down on the bedside table, and smoothly drags the finger along the line of Jack's cock, stopping just short of the tip. Jack gasps.
'Hm?'
'Oh, yeah. Please.'
When the Doctor leans over, agonisingly slowly, and exhales against his cock, it feels unbearably intense. Jack is gasping for breath. In one long stroke, the Doctor licks along Jack's cock, tracing over the line of hot cold, and eliciting a deep moan. Thinking that he's going to continue, Jack closes his eyes and relaxes against the bed, waiting for the next touch.
Which doesn't happen. Jack's eyes snap open. The Doctor's looking down at him, smiling a very Timelord smile. Jack loses the control he's been just about hanging on to.
'Stop teasing me you fucking evil bastard,' he begins, trying ineffectually to pull free of the handcuffs holding his wrists. 'Stop fucking playing with me.'
The Doctor reached over and gave his nipple a twist, hard enough to make him whimper suddenly.
'Sorry, was that too much?' he asked innocently.
Then, as if aware he's being cruel, he leans over and kisses Jack on the lips, deep and affectionate. Jack responds hungrily, still aching for more -
- and he's unlocking both sets of handcuffs with his thumbs, because after this long working for Torchwood he knows much better than to use handcuffs he can't get out of -
Snap! he gets them free, hooks one leg round the back of the Doctor's knees, rolls wildly over and gets him unscientifically pinned face down, one hand gripping his hair for emphasis.
For the first time, the Doctor is genuinely surprised, and goes lax in Jack's grip, not even struggling, his breathing suddenly rapid. Jack gasps in his ear, 'Fucking tease. How do you like it, huh?' He kisses the Doctor's neck, bites him savagely enough to raise a scarlet mark, and then shifts position to hold him more comfortably, finally getting to press his aching cock against the Doctor's thigh. The Doctor gave a small moan.
'God, I wanna fuck you so much,' Jack groans, and loosens his grip a little as if to compensate for the roughness of the words, because he's not pushing, just expressing desire without expectaton.
'Oh, yes,' said the Doctor, trying to turning towards him. 'I'd like that.'
'Uh huh?' Wow.
'Only, gently? I haven't ever...'
'Sure.'
Jack rolls off so the Doctor can turn over to face him, and they cling together - the Doctor slipping one thigh between Jack's, so Jack can feel the press of a hard-on through the Doctor's trousers - and kiss hard, as if sealing an agreement. Now the power game is settled - Jack has evened it up by switching so abruptly, and is back to taking charge, but why would he argue?
He leans over to fish the lube out of the drawer. 'OK, this is gonna be really slow. Won't hurt.'
The Doctor doesn't say anything, but glances down at Jack's cock and back to his face in a slightly concerned (and really quite pleasing) way.
'It's all about the warm-up - '
'I know,' said the Doctor, unexpectedly. 'Last time. You - you did things with your fingers.' He's stripping of his trousers, rolls over on the bed looking kind of shy and wicked hot.
'OK.' Jack is quite prepared to take as long as the Doctor needs, to get this right, but he isn't prepared for the eagerness with which the Doctor falls back into his arms, he's expecting slightly more reserve. Last time is clearly going to be good.
'Right - how about you lie - this way - ?' He nudges the Doctor over so he's lying on his other side, his back against Jack's chest. The Doctor turns his head to kiss him once and then fidgets comfortably. He's got one calf across Jack's feet, and his head leaned back against the pillow.
With one lubed fingertip, Jack dips very gently inside, and the Doctor sighs and relaxes, totally trusting. One finger, moving very slowly, til Jack can feel by the Doctor's breathing that he's getting used to it, and slips a second finger inside. He's leaning up on one elbow, watching the Doctor's face, picking up signals, entirely tuned in. And the Doctor seems to be enjoying himself, though he's gone a bit quiet, retreated into somewhere in his own mind. Jack is familiar with this state of nervousness, almost fear of receiving pleasure. Also, he suspects, fear of losing control. But when he murmurs questions - 'Like that?' 'This OK?' - he's getting responses, yes, it's all good, a bit more, yes, so he keeps moving.
The Doctor turns his head to look up at Jack.
'Mmm...do that thing you did before,' he whispers. Jack stops, but the clever response is redundant, the Doctor's remembered already why that's not a helpful request. 'That beckoning thing,' he said, with a hint of impatience.
'Na-ah, not yet,' said Jack, teasing him. The Doctor bit his lip. Jack relented, curved his fingers very gently, and touched the right place. Instantly, the Doctor exhaled and twisted, edging against him, trying to get more contact. Jack does it again, kisses the Doctor's neck, inhales the smell of his skin. He's breathing faster, now, moving with Jack's fingers, his right hand stroking hesitantly at his own cock. Jack pauses, slips a third finger inside, and the Doctor twitches and gasps.
'Fu-uck. Oh.'
'Too much?' Jack asked quickly, pausing.
'No, just - oh! That's - '
Indescribable, apparently, because the Doctor doesn't complete the sentence. Jack picks up speed, just a little, elicits another half sentence.
'I want - oh! - I want you to - '
'Hm?'
Jack is going to make him say it. Partly to be quite sure he's not going too far, partly because he likes the verbalizing of desire, and partly because he's basically a colossal fucking tease.
'Please, Jack - '
'Tell me,' Jack whispers in his ear, and kisses him.
'I want you to fuck me.' It's barely a whisper, but it's a definite yes. Jack eases his fingers out, handles the condom moment with practised speed, and lubes up his cock. He moves to slip inside, and the Doctor tenses automatically. Jack switches back to fingers, circling, til he feels the muscles relax, and tries again, and this time - 'Oh. Oh,' - slides in. Not too far, just enough. Stilling the impulse to move, he reaches round and strokes the Doctor's chest. The frantic thudding of twin hearts makes him pause for half a disoriented second, but then the Doctor is moving, holding his breath and trying to push back and take more.
'Breathe,' Jack reminds him. He does, and that makes it easier, they lock together and Jack feels like he's going to lose control, but from what he can feel the Doctor is really close as well. He dips a hand down and feels the hasty rhythm of the Doctor's hand, and seamlessly takes over stroking his cock. The Doctor lets his own hand fall on Jack's thigh, his head half turned towards Jack, who is starting to move, carefully, shifting his hips and changing the angle very slightly, still focused on controlling the overwhelming urge to speed up, to come right now.
'Oh fuck Jack that's good don't you dare stop now,' the Doctor said, all in one breath, as if to be certain of saying it all before Jack thrust again, gently, and touched that spot, and his hand clenched on Jack's leg, his nails accidentally raking across Jack's skin.
'If I - god - I'm gonna come really soon,' Jack growled, pushing again, harder, still in control but barely.
The Doctor's voice is tense, creaky, and he must be holding back too.
'Go on - come for me. Come for me now,' and he nudges Jack's hand aside from his cock and takes over, rapid, hungry, and Jack clenches his fingers against the Doctor's hip bone and speeds up, finally, letting the expertise and the carefulness go, losing control. And -
'- oh - oh - oh yes, Jack, yes!'
- he can feel the Doctor coming, feel the throb and tense of his muscles, and it tips him over the edge.
* * *
Afterwards, Jack is lying curled up in a breathless, spacey state, one arm wrapped tight round the Doctor's chest. He can feel the heartbeats against his arm, and lapses gently into their rhythm, somewhere on the edge of consciousness. The Doctor strokes gently at the clinging arm. He feels - warm and a little buzzy and elated. But not enough to actually move yet. Sticky with lube and sweat, he closed his eyes.
They slept for maybe an hour before Jack, thrashing in his sleep, woke the Doctor. The Doctor sleeps curled up on one side with his knees drawn up, vulnerably pretty. He jolted awake when Jack's stray elbow caught him in the back.
'What?' The Doctor's standard response to unexpected things is a little more alert than most people's. He sat bolt upright, looking round wildly for something, one hand scrabbling for the screwdriver on the bedside table. Jack, woken by the move, sat up too, put a hand on the Doctor's back.
'What's wrong?'
'You made me jump.'
'Sorry.' Jack stretched, crunched his neck noisily. 'I'm hungry. You hungry?'
'Mm. Yes, actually.'
'OK.' Jack got up, wandered off in the direction of the kitchen, The Doctor, after one last glance round the room to make sure no cracks in space-time had opened up in the walls, scrambled up, put his trousers back on, and followed,
Jack's kitchen was originally the office kitchen, and was tiny and rather grubby. There was a Baby Belling hob, a kettle, and lots of mismatched mugs. Jack was checking the fridge.
'Uh...bacon sandwiches?' he offered.
The Doctor gave a tiny shudder.
'Not bacon,' he said.
'You a vegetarian now?' Jack asked, looking for other things that had got to the back of the fridge.
'No, I'm not!' the Doctor snapped.
Jack looked round, bewildered. 'Just asking,' he said, slightly hurt.
The Doctor rubbed his hands over his eyes.
'Sorry. Sorry, that was... Um, tricky subject.'
Jack quietly fished out some bacon, bread, a bottle of ketchup.
'How about cheese sandwiches?' he suggested.
'Yes please. Look, I'm sorry. There was this - ' the Doctor hesitated.
He was used to not talking about what was going on in his head, because who do you tell? Weird and terrible stuff happens to him all the time, pretty much daily, and he's never stopped moving long enough to deal with it. He doesn't ever let on to his companions, because you can't lay that sort of stuff on humans. But this has been niggling away at the back of his mind since he left for Cardiff, which - if he was honest with himself - was as soon as he could, to avoid the questions he knew Amy would ask him. Having thrown something shiny ('I know, let's go to Rio!') in her direction, he had dropped her and Rory off in Leadworth to get changed and pack beach gear, and spun straight over here to find Jack. Partly because of the sex. But not entirely. If he can't talk to Jack about Weird Stuff, he is totally alone.
But it's still hard to break the habit of silence.
'There was this - thing, and it's been worrying me.'
Jack bit back a comment about the Doctor being unnecesarily cryptic, and turned to look at him. The Doctor rubbed his eyes again.
'Um. Look, I don't want to - you know, it's not a major thing.'
Jack is good at telling when someone needs to talk. He reached out a hand, patted the Doctor's arm.
'Go ahead.'
It was complicated. There was dream-pollen, and pensioners inhabited by Eknodine, and a cold star, and apparently Amy ('Who?') was pregnant ('What?') and there was this sinister little man in a suit who the Doctor kept coming back to. He was worried, he said, because they'd left Amy alone with this man and he'd -
'Well, I don't know what happened, she hasn't told me. And that's worrying, because usually I hear about it if she's annoyed. So I think he was - horrible. Obscene. I don't know.'
'But who was he?' asked Jack, turning from the frying bacon which was spitting gently and smelling really good
'He was me,' said the Doctor flatly, not trying to make light of it as he had for Amy and Rory's benefit. 'He was the manifestation of my internalised self-loathing.'
'Wow. You should go talk to Freud.'
'Freud's an idiot. And he smokes too much.'
Jack laughed.
'Yeah. But, seriously - ' he can't conceive of not trusting the Doctor, it's impossible to imagine not feeling safe to leave someone alone with him. ' - how bad could he be?'
'I don't know,' said the Doctor, frowning. 'I mean I know those thoughts, but usually they're just bouncing back at me off the inside of my skull, and if I talk fast enough I can drown them out. I don't know how they'd sound to someone who isn't used to them. And Amy's - I've not known her that long. But the Dreamlord frightened me.' He shuddered. 'Facing that side of yourself, it's - horrible.'
'So are you worried because you secretly fancy her or are you worried because she's found out?' Jack asked, a shade too flippantly, pouring hot water into two mugs.
'I don't know!' The Doctor looked properly annoyed for a second. 'I don't think I like her in that way, but - it's been a long time, and I don't - don't go there, not since Rose, and that was different because, no sex drive, I didn't need to worry about that, so the way I love Rose is just - less complicated. This, on the other hand, is very complicated. Because - he kept saying this - she's going to have to chose between me and Rory, and obviously she needs to chose him, I mean what can I - you know - what good am I to her?'
'Hey, I can hear your internalised self-loathing talking,' Jack teased, and handed him a plate of cheese sandwiches.
'I'm nine hundred and seven, Jack. She's twenty-two.'
'Yeah, and I'm - hell, I lost count - but we both still look pretty hot to me.'
The Doctor looked at him, raised an eyebrow, almost smiled.
'So,' Jack continued, 'the way I see it, you can do what looks like a good idea, which is push her at Rory and then vanish while her back's turned - '
'No. Nonono, not good, not happening.' The Doctor couldn't have explained his instinctive reaction - maybe it was because the way Jack put it sounded cold and manipulative, maybe because he recognised it as exactly what he would have done not so long ago.
' - or you can talk to her. She's a grown up. Tell her.'
'I can't tell her, how can I tell her? I'm not even sure she likes me like that.' He paused. 'She did try to sleep with me, but I'm pretty sure that was pre-wedding nerves.'
Jack looked up. 'Told you.'
'Told me what?'
'You're hot,' said Jack, shrugging and biting into his bacon sandwich. 'Look, Doctor, take it from a guy who's been there. You gather up ordinary people and whisk them away in the Tardis, and they fall for you. Not necessarily want to marry you and settle down, but they will all get a huge hero-worshipping crush on you, because of you just - being who you are.'
'And what does that make me?' asked the Doctor, gloomily. 'Some sort of perverse egotist?'
'Somethin' special,' said Jack, grinning.
'The only time before - there was - ' he remembered just in time that Jack hasn't met Martha. ' - one person. She - fell for me, and eventually she told me about it, and then she walked out. Just walked away before I had a chance to say anything.'
'Yeah,' Jack nodded. 'I've done that. If you don't wanna waste your life pining, it's a good idea.'
There was a pause. Jack is eating his bacon sandwiches with relish, the Doctor has picked a cheese sandwich apart and is nibbling at the cheese as if not sure he likes it.
Jack continued, slower now. 'I guess if you'd - ' he saved himself from being accusatory very neatly, ' - if I'd come with you after the Daleks - I'd probably have done the same. Eventually.'
The Doctor looked at him, his tea mug pausing halfway to his lips.
'Really?'
Since this is an evening of drinking and deep confessions, it will have to be said.
'Yeah. I - think I was too in love with you to stay. It wouldda been - ' he broke off.
'Painful,' the Doctor acknowledged. 'For both of us.'
'Mm.'
'Not that I don't - you know, like you a lot,' said the Doctor. 'But - we couldn't have - '
'And there was Rose.' Jack said it softly, thinking of Canary Wharf, and how she looked when she danced.
'Mm.' Noncommital, a let's-not-go-there-now tone. Jack let it drop.
'Besides, I'da had to vanish once you started looking younger than me,' he teased, trying to lighten the tone. 'No-one does that to me any more.'
'How - how is that with, you know, lovers and - people?' asked the Doctor.
'I'm - actually, I never told most of the people I got serious with,' Jack said. People within the old Torchwood were the exception, given that his records dated back to the nineteenth century, but with most of his other lovers it hadn't been a choice, so much as an impossible subject to raise. Same with his current team, in fact.
'Doesn't that get tricky a few years on?'
'Yeah. But usually something happens and I have to leave. A convenient World War or something.' Jack half-laughed. 'I think - I wouldda told Estelle, but - tides of war, and all - I had to leave, and never got round to coming back.' Jack paused, withdrawing into something like grief. 'She's an old lady now. We got back in touch. Seeing her again after all that time - well, call me a coward. I was kinda glad I left. I don't think I could look someone in the face every day knowing they'd get old and die and I'd still be the same.'
The Doctor nodded.
'That's the thing. If Amy and I - if she did stay - what then?' I'd lose her, one way or the other. I'm too careless not to. I always lose people,' he said with intense, bitter self-reproach.
'You haven't lost me,' Jack reminded him.
'Mislaid you for a century, though. Anyway, you're a fixed point. I couldn't lose you, even if I tried.'
The Doctor feels a surge of annoyance with his past self, who did try. And failed, and hurt Jack, and screwed it all up. Bastard, the Doctor thinks, he was such a bastard. The Dreamlord was right. Right now, it was no use trying to drown out that voice bouncing back at him, reproaching him for what another man did and he had to live with.
By way of making some, small recompense for events Jack hadn't experienced yet, the Doctor said, with complete tenderness, 'I don't want to lose you, Jack.'
'Oh, you won't,' Jack laughed, taking this lightly, inwardly touched. 'I'll keep turning up. A thousand years from now, we'll be sitting in some bar, talking about the good ol' days.'
'Re-fighting the old battles,' laughed the Doctor, cheered by Jack's optimism. 'I hope so.'
There was a pause. The Doctor was acknowledging that, in this universe which held no home for him any more, no one like him, nowhere to run to - Jack is probably the closest he will get to a kindred spirit.
Jack is thinking much the same. Probably just as well we got to the sex after the first century, he thought. Millennia of unresolved sexual tension could put a strain on the - on whatever sort of relationship this was going to be.
'So, this Dreamlord character. Apart from being a total bastard - and hell, we've all got one of them inside us somewhere - what else did he say?'
The Doctor frowned.
'Oh, a fair bit of - insults about my clothes and my age and - actually, sexual guilt. Not you, though.'
'Do you feel guilty about me?'
'Not the sex.' Maybe other things.
'I kinda assumed you - I mean, after I clocked that you and Rose were - y'know - I thought, maybe you were more into girls.' Jack still can't quite believe his luck.
'It's different where I come from,' said the Doctor, shrugging. 'Less - binary.'
Jack laughed. 'Tell me about it. You shouldda heard my team playing "is-he-isn't-he-gay?" I mean, c'mon. It's so fucking outta date it's unreal.'
Jack finished his tea and put the mugs in the sink. He picked up the plates. The Doctor had picked all the cheese out of the sandwiches and just eaten the bread.
'Didn't you like it?'
'Mmmno.' The Doctor pulled a face. 'I still don't know what I like.'
'That's not the impression I got,' said Jack, and pinched the Doctor's bum playfully.
'Hey!'
The Doctor looked very pretty, leaning on the fridge with his hands in his pockets. Jack moved in and kissed him, with no agenda this time, no impetus for more sex, just warmth and affection.
'C'mon, let's get some sleep. I'm working tomorrow.' He fluffed up the Doctor's hair and turned to go back to bed. The Doctor followed, smoothing his fringe down again.
Jack rolled into bed, curled up comfortably on his side. The Doctor lay down, still half-dressed - on his back, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. He looks pensively at the ceiling.
'Something still worrying you?' Jack asked, tugging at the duvet.
'Just - thinking about the Dreamlord. Trying to work out why I feel particularly guilty about Elizabeth the First.'
'You and Elizabeth the First?' Jack asked, frankly impressed.
'I just cured her gout.'
'Cured her gout. So that's what the cool kids call it these days, huh?'
'Well - it wasn't gout, it was a mutated Mandraxian spore - but then she proposed to me. And it got complicated.'
'Still, impressive.'
'All right then - ' because the subject is irritating him, and anyway he's always wanted to ask Jack this ' - who's the most interesting person you've every slept with?'
'Uh - tough one,' Jack laughed. 'If this is gonna turn into Truth Or Dare, we need some more to drink.' He reached for the depleted vodka bottle, took a swig, passed it over.
'I guess, evens between, um, Casanova - '
'No, really?'
'Yeah - and I'm telling you, I was not his first guy.'
'Hmm. I still owe him a chicken,' said the Doctor, inconsequentially. 'Who was the other one?'
'You,' said Jack, meeting his eyes. The Doctor smiled, having no response to this.
'C'mon, move over.' Jack pulled at the duvet til the Doctor got up, stripped of his clothes, and crept back into the bed. He put an arm across Jack's chest, kissed him lightly on the shoulder.
'So,' came Jack's voice from the darkness. 'You said we're gonna do this again?'
'Yep. Remember it distinctly,' mumbled the Doctor, already drifting.
Jack exhaled deeply.
'Good.'
* * *
They were woken early by the rift monitor beeping urgently for attention. Jack got up to check it - nothing too unusual, it would wait til the team arrived - came back and dressed. He made more tea, provided painkillers against the interesting aftereffects of the Proximal Vodka.
('Have you got any paracetamol?'
'Why, you allergic to aspirin?'
'You could put it like that.')
Eventually, just as a little daylight filtered down into the Hub, the Doctor got up - looking cutely sleepy - and dressed. Jack came over to tie the bow tie for him, forbearing comment. Jack is better at bow ties anyway - taking the long way round through the queerer corners of the nineteenth century has its benefits.
'There.' He kissed the Doctor's lips briefly. 'You look hot.'
'I should probably go,' said the Doctor. 'Don't want to cause awkward questions with your little gang.'
Jack tolerantly let the aspersion on Torchwood pass by him.
'Are you sober enough to fly?' he asked. 'You had a lot of vodka.'
'I've only got to pick up Amy and Rory and get to Rio,' said the Doctor. 'I could do it in my sleep.'
'Yeah, well, don't crash into anything, OK? Don't wanna have to fish you outta the bay. And god knows what we'd make of the Tardis. New HQ, possibly - we're kinda short on space down here.' He was teasing, partly because it's fun to wind the Doctor up, partly, semiconsciously, to delay his departure.
'You dissect the Tardis over the dead body of my final regeneration. And even then, watch yourself. Anyway, she could fly herself. Half the time I'm just hanging on.' He checked his pockets, smoothed back his hair. 'Right.'
There was an awkward pause. Jack broke it by giving the Doctor a powerful hug.
'Travel safe. See you soon.'
The Doctor kissed him gently.
'Thanks.'
And was gone.
Jack wandered back to the kitchen and boiled the kettle for coffee. Slowly, a thoroughly pleased grin spread over his face, the grin of a man who had got what he was waiting for and found it even better than he'd hoped.
END