for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the 27th century

[rude_not_ginger]

Follows this.

It was one thing, watching your companion be ripped apart.

One very terrible thing, mind you, but one thing. The Doctor stayed prone on the ground, the sound of Jack's death screams ringing in his ears as that thing, whatever it was, tore him into several unpleasant pieces. It reminded him of the Year That Wasn't, of Jack's screams while the Master tortured him and the Doctor's frail body keeping him from helping. That was torture, far more brutal than anything the Master's tools could produce.

Once the loud stomps of the creature faded away, the Doctor struggled to get to his feet and limped to the place where Jack had been.

It was another thing, having to find his body for it to regrow.

It took some time to find his upper torso, limp and lifeless. It didn't take too terribly long to drag said upper torso to a safe, empty cave not far from the forest's edge (after all, what Jack no longer had in height, he also lost in weight. It didn't take long for time to start snapping around him and his body to start to regrow.

That was something else all together. Muscle and bone formed out of nothing, and while Jack wasn't coherent, he was still alive, screaming and thrashing as he reformed. The Doctor pressed his fingertips to Jack's temple and tried to take away the pain, but when that failed, he pressed his mind into a quiet, comatose state.

While Jack repaired, the Doctor covered him with his coat and sat, waiting. For all that they'd fought, for all that the Doctor swore he'd never want Jack back on the TARDIS again, he did care about him. He wanted him happy, even if he wasn't certain he could handle having him so close. Jack was willing to die for the Doctor, and this was just another example of how he could.

But the Doctor wouldn't leave. Not this time.

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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor winced a little. "Still healing, Jack, be careful. Though I know you don't mean it and it doesn't hurt that badly, it's probably best not to dislodge the primitive stitching. Stitching! Honestly!"

He was going to need to figure out a way to stop talking. Immediate thoughts came to mind that if he leaned over to Jack and--no he forcibly quelched that thought before it came out of his mouth.

Instead, he wrapped an arm around Jack's shoulder, pulling him closer. "You're warm," he said. "And I like that, so, you're going to stay here, and keep me warm. This thought is---what is retcon, exactly? I don't think I've heard of that one? Sounds like something being recanonized."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Oh stop moaning. A few hours ago, I didn't have any legs, you've just got a scratch, who do you think wins?" he moved his hand back though, and gave the Doctor's leg an apologetic look. It was him after all that'd caused that. Shooting him! What was he thinking?!

"Good," Jack grinned wide and wrapped around the Doctor in turn, tugging him against him to share his body heat.

"Retcon? It's an amnesia drug," he let a hand fall lazily against the Doctor's hair, and twisted a strand gently around his finger. Far too cosy really. It was very comfortable. "Pretty mild one. Usually used to forget a few hours or so. Torchwood used it, though it was my special recipe."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"That's terrible, Jack. People are a sum of their memories. You can't just take that away from them!"

He shook his head at Jack's touch to his hair. "Stop that, now, I'm being unhappy with you, if you keep that up, I won't be able to."

He really hated this drug. Any second now and he'd start going on about---

"Blimey, you're warm. I hate noticing how warm you are in moments like this because I'm trying to be angry. And this drug is ridiculously embarrassing."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Maybe, but if you have to stand and watch a Weevil rip apart a member of your family, or have your world turned upside down by knowing something you shouldn't, most people would welcome the chance to forget." He knew it was wrong really. He knew that very well. What was Jack if not memories? He'd made promises that relied on memory. He'd had his own memories stolen, a fact the Doctor knew only too well. "Trust me," he said, shifting up more comfortably, bringing his leg up to curl over the Doctor's a little, "I've got first hand knowledge of what it's like. It's not a drug I use haphazardly."

And well, that wasn't quite true either. But he did his best, didn't he?

With another grin and a pleased little drunken laugh, Jack shook his head. "Oh well in that case I'm definitely not going to stop."

He raked his fingers up into the Doctor's hair and watched as he did it, smiling dumbly to himself, "I love your hair you know, you've got some amazing hair." He'd never make such a silly observation usually (or at least he'd like to think), but he was feeling more than a little fuzzy.

"Stop trying to be angry," he suggested, "just relax for once. And it's not embarrassing. Doctor it's me. Seriously, I don't think there's anything you could say to me that'd be embarrassing.""

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"They may think they want to forget," the Doctor said. "But they shouldn't."

He sighed.

"You don't know half of my Academy stories," the Doctor pointed out. "Some of them involving the Master and those can be very embarrassing, depending on which they were. Sometimes for me, generally for him, though he was pretty good at getting back at me."

He let out a groan and dropped his head back, irritated. "You had to, didn't you? You had to use a word like 'love', because now my train of thought is going to go straight back to that room in the TARDIS and that conversation and I can't stop myself from talking about it. That's cruel, you know."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Should and shouldn't isn't half as black and white. Sometimes we have to make tough calls." He let out a breath and shook his head. He didn't want to talk about that, it'd get all too serious and neither of them should be talking morality right now.

"Getting back at you?" Jack raised an eyebrow and started laughing again for no particular reason. "Quite the prankster, were you, Doctor? You naughty naughty man you."

Jack rolled his eyes a little, perhaps slightly over dramatically, and leaned his head up on his elbow. "That wasn't my intention, Doctor. You really think I'm trying to highlight the fact I told you I loved you? And look, now I've said it again! See! And it's not like my head's quite straight here either, you know. Wouldn't say that again for one if it was."

His own tongue was loosened by the drink, perhaps not quite in the calculated and precise way the Doctor's way, but in it's own way, forcing his secrecy down. It gave him the courage too, to go on.

"But seeing as you are thinking about it, please don't let me stand in the way of you talking."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Right and wrong aren't paired up with sometimes right and sometimes wrong, Jack. Either it's right, or it isn't. You should make your calls based on what's right."

He focused his train of thought and, after announcing he'd just done that, began to speak about the Master.

"Oh, we used to play tricks on each other," the Doctor said. "Used to practice psychic interference wave augmentors in order to disrupt each others' projects. Once---" and this made the Doctor terribly excited, "--I rigged up a complicated psychic interference program within his project. He'd spent the better part of a decade on this project and the program went off not before he turned it in, not right after, but while he was doing the experiment for the class council. And it didn't just not work, the whole thing fell apart, like a house of cards that had the bottom pulled out. Oh, it was glorious."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah well," Jack huffed a little, "I never had you there to be the voice of reason on my shoulder, did I?"

He flopped back down from his elbow to lying flat when the Doctor continued. Almost infuriated that the Doctor, even now, could manage to avoid what he'd started to say. It didn't really annoy him though, even if it might have usually. Instead, it made him laugh.

Rolling onto his back he looked over at the Doctor and listened, shaking his head amused at the Doctor's apparent enthusiasm. "Doctor! You bully, that's cruel!" he laughed, reaching his hand out to jab the other man playfully in the ribs.

Were his brain making its usual connections, he might note how strangely similar in so many ways that seems to the Doctor weaving himself into the Archangel network. Funny how kids games become a dangerous reality.

But he didn't.

"Well," Jack sighed over dramatically, all mock exasperation, "if I'm not getting you talking now I suppose I never will." He did his very best to hide his smirk.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"He was so crushed. And he knew it was me, that was the best part. Oh, he got me back, though. Though I'm going to work very hard to not think about how he got me back because that is one of those embarrassing stories that I'd rather not share." It didn't escape the Doctor's mind as he weaved the Archangel network during that Year how similar it all was. And he thought, briefly, about how the Master had gotten his own afterwards. Would he catch the Doctor off-guard like that again?

He opened his mouth to say these things, but new thoughts came, instead. "Words are just words, Jack. If I can't show you, then there's no point in feeling anything at all."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack opened his mouth to comment on the Doctor's trickery on the Master, but he swiftly closed it again when the Doctor went on.

He shifted again, turning his head to look at him a little more straight on.

"Huh," he said, intrigued as he looked at him. It didn't escape his mind completely how familiar that concept was. How he felt for Gwen could quite easily squeeze into such an ideal. But this wasn't about him and Gwen, it was about him and the Doctor.

"So show me then."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor would've liked to have thought a lot of mental stimuli would've gone through his head at that moment. He would've been working exactly how to show Jack he cared without having to actually confess anything, and therefore change it. He would've been plotting out exactly what to do next, exactly how to pull him back and show him, because Jack wasn't demanding words, he wanted action. And the Doctor was a man of action, generally.

Instead, the only thing he was thinking was the only thing that came out of his mouth:

"Don't I?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack couldn't help but laugh. Well, no, he probably could usually, but not now.

"Doctor," he said, propping himself back on his elbow, "Over the last few days I've had you accuse me of poisoning you -among other things- and just today I've had you tell me I'm not welcome on the TARDIS." He smirked a little and breathed out slowly, leaning back once more.

"But... I've also had you almost sacrifice the TARDIS for me and try and rip up half the universe. So I suppose it evens out."

He smiled, but his smile was soon replaced by a confused frown. "You know, come to think of it, you're really good at mixed messages you know. How'm I supposed to know where I stand when one minute you're giving us fourteen hours and holding my hands and having talks like that one in the TARDIS and the next minute you're ready to bolt. What are you so scared of? And you know what I'm just going to shut up now. I think I've picked up a touch of that thing you've got."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Well, I hope I pick up what you had."

It started to get very dark outside, and the Doctor moved towards Jack tentatively, nervous again about the closeness. Did he send off mixed signals? Well, the way Jack described it certainly made it seem like he did. He wanted to explain that each of those instances was a different moment, and to live as long as the Doctor had with as many pains and loves as the Doctor held onto, life became nothing but a series of moments. He wanted to explain, but he wasn't sure he could.

"How close we are," he said. "Just---the way we've become. I haven't been like this with someone in a very long time. There are rules and they're there for a reason." He let out a long-suffering sigh that was very nearly genuine. "But with you, Jack Harkness, with you things don't ever follow the rules."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack gazed over at the Doctor and gave him a lazy little cheeky grin. "Oh that's me," he said, proud of the fact, "rule breaker extraordinaire."

His cheeky grin faded though, and he wiped a hand over his face as if trying to sober himself up. It didn't really work, but it helped him focus nonetheless. "I know all that stuff," he said, waving a hand vaguely.

"You forget, Doctor, you're not talking to someone who doesn't understand all that. I distance myself from people for the same reasons you do. Or at least I guess a bunch of the reasons are the same. I don't let myself fall for people for the same reasons. So sure, I'm a bit more, I dunno, open about certain things, than you are, but you're not the only one with rules," he prodded him gently in the chest, "and I'm not the only one breaking them."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Well, you're certainly that," the Doctor said with a small, teasing grin. "But, I don't know how you can open yourself up for one without potentially opening yourself up for the other. Unless you're significantly better at negotiating emotions than I am."

He nodded to the world outside of the mouth of the cave. "It's different out there, now. In a few millenia, when I'm created, well, they'll have set up standards. Emotions are verymuch a not-to-do, but I started in on them early. I learned why they emphasized indifference. It's better than heartache."

He looked back at Jack. "I know, I know, you're not going to. It's habit. For me."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Is it though?" Jack asked, genuinely not sure of the answer. "Is it better to just go on through life that way. You know sometimes I think it is, because caring for people? Loving people and everything that goes with it? It hurts, god does it hurt. Especially when you know it can't last." He shook his head and sighed.

"I've cut myself off from people. Not let them get close. But in the long run I think it's worse. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's just wishful thinking. Trust me, if I ever work it out you'll be the first to know."

He glanced out beyond the cave and quickly back, "And no," he answered belatedly, "I'm not better at emotion. I'm pretty bad at it, actually, just ask... well, anyone. I just pretend I am."

He propped himself up again, fidgeting and getting more animated as he considered. "You know what the problem is? People always want something they can't have from me. People want that ideal view of a relationship and a cosy little home and really, I don't think that'd ever be me. I can't bend myself to fit that idea and that upsets people before I've even done anything. I mean sure, I can do it a bit but it's still not they want. I'm different, and not just because of the whole immortality thing. The people I've known? They rarely see that. I suppose it's ironic really that I'm pretty sure you've got it in your head that's what I want with you. Seriously, Doctor, I thought you knew me better than that. I'm not about to order a picket fence."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The very idea of Jack with a picket fence was almost enough to make the Doctor laugh. He imagined that Jack might've tried it once and decided against it. The Doctor had never had that option. He'd been married once, had children once, and lost all of them because he couldn't stay still.

To his relief, the tongue-loosening effects of the drug appeared to have completely evaporated, leaving all of those thoughts firmly in his mind.

"I don't know what you want from me," the Doctor admitted. "I really wish you'd tell me so I could show you I'm in absolutely no condition for giving anything."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Well it went so great the last time I tried to tell you, didn't it?" Jack scoffed a little. Really it'd gone terribly.

He shook his head and thought about it. What did he want? What exactly did he want? It'd probably be much easier to explain it if he could possibly understand it himself.

"Nothing," he said finally, looking up at the roof of the cave. "Nothing really. I mean- you're my best friend, Doctor, you mean the world to me, you really do. And you know, I'd just really been starting to enjoy whatever was changing. I guess we'd never been alone together for so long before to realise it might. And you know, that sort of stuff?" he shrugged his shoulders back, "How we were getting? I just think that'd be nice. More of that, without worrying about what it means and having to question it. Maybe that's just too much me and not enough you, but I don't know, I don't think it is, and you know I've definitely got a dose of what you had."

He frowned slightly. He was being rather frank, wasn't he? Maybe the effects were just slower on Jack. A delay on his less advanced metabolism.

"Oh and that's a lie," he added, "because you already give so much. And it's a fine line between can't and won't."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

There was. It was a very fine line, he supposed. He wanted to think that he couldn't, but the truth was, he was too afraid. He could admit that, couldn't he?

No, no, he couldn't. In fact, he found he'd forgotten how to speak entirely. Must've been the next stage in this drug. That was, well, really unfortunate. They were almost getting somewhere with this conversation.

It left acting, only. How should he act? Should he kiss Jack? Pull away? Instead, the Doctor sat there, petrified between his options.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack took out a long breath and flopped his head to the side to look at the Doctor.

"I wish I could tell what you're thinking when you look at me," he told him honestly with a slight slur to his voice. "I just can't read you, Doctor."

He sighed and reached his hand out, tapping the Doctor's arm as if to let him off the hook. "Don't worry. You don't have to say anything. I understand."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He wanted to tell him, but more often than not he wasn't certain himself.

Well, that was very nice of Jack. It almost made his paralyzing inability to speak seem all right. Almost, of course.

Unsure how to act next, the Doctor decided to do what felt natural. And, right now, his natural reaction was to try, somehow, to show Jack that he cared. That he was more than mere words.

He leaned forward and brushed a kiss to Jack's mouth.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack closed his eyes. He felt tired. Tired and as though he'd said too much... again. He couldn't help it though, he supposed, but really that was no excuse. There was no excuse at all. He'd made the Doctor uncomfortable, he considered, and he really didn't want to do that. He wanted quite the opposite; for them to feel at ease around each other.

The last thing he expected though was for the Doctor to embrace him further, let alone kiss him.

His eyes quickly opened in surprise, and he almost faltered. Almost. Tentatively, he lifted a hand and just touched it gently against the Doctor's cheek, lifting his own head a little to return the kiss with a soft smile on his lips.

"Okay," he whispered afterwards, staying close. "Okay. Good."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He wanted to say that this couldn't mean with with.

He wanted to say it didn't have to mean with with.

And part of him wanted to say that he desired with with, in a way. It was frustrating, his conflicting emotions. The pangs of jealousy towards Jack's former lovers and the frustration in how much he cared for him. He wanted to express that.

But he couldn't say anything.

Which is when he heard the click of an energy weapon behind them.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

It meant more to Jack than he could really express, that the Doctor had broached the distance there and kissed him. Not the physical distance, of course, they were more than a little close. But a mental distance, and one he could have quite easily widened. It might have hurt a little, but it would, Jack thought, have been safer.

He wanted to thank him, though he wasn't sure how. But he had no time for thanks.

He heard the noise and he breathed out, closing his eyes a moment and internally cursing. "On three, Doctor, I'm going to stand and turn," he whispered to him and slowly, slowly moved his hands away and up.

"One... Two.... Three..."

He pulled himself to standing and turned, hands in the air. In the process, he almost fell. The drugs must have been stronger than he knew.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor's eyes moved to the silvery robot behind them, and his first reaction was to tell Jack not to move. Don't move, the Raston Warrior Robots are based on movement and they'd see him if he moved.

But he couldn't, the words were caught in his throat. He couldn't even move his lips, he just sat there, frozen. He tried, desperately, to tell Jack to stay still with his eyes. Stupid stupid stupid poisoned food!

The robot fired an arrow the moment Jack fell.

The Doctor couldn't even make a cry of protest.