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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"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.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack felt the sharp burn of the shot as it penetrated through his chest. It narrowly avoided his heart, but hit and punctured squarely through his left lung. He let out a gasp of air as he fell to the floor, and tried to breathe with his one functioning lung; shallow breaths to keep himself going.

"Doctor..." he breathed, hoarse, not really words. He reached an arm back with a flailing hand, feeling himself dizzy and lightheaded and he couldn't tell if it was from the lack of oxygen or the drugs in his system.

He blinked slowly a few times, trying to make the world come into focus, and he pushed a hand uselessly against the ground to try and stand. But it was pointless, and with a last ditch deep breath he fell back, flat to the ground, and collapsed.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

No, Jack---

The Doctor wanted to drop down and help Jack, but if he moved, the next arrow, the one positioned on the robot's other arm, would go straight for him. He stayed perfectly still, struggling to not even breathe.

Any moment now. Any moment now, Jack. It will leave and the Doctor would help him. He couldn't even offer up a word of comfort to his friend. Nothing, just frozen out of fear of the monster with his voice caught in his throat.

The robot leveled another arrow for Jack's head, but changed its mind and turned, fleeing in a burst of light.

The Doctor dropped down to Jack's side instantly. He put a hand to the other man's throat. Pulse. Faint, but there. He wouldn't last much longer with the arrow in his chest, that must've been why the creature fled.

He wanted to say something, but he couldn't. Instead, he took a breath, took a hold of the arrow, and pulled it sharply from Jack's chest.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Oww!" Jack let out a large noise in pain as the arrow was pulled from his chest; his eyes opening wide and suddenly as air rushes back into his lung. It doesn't last long though, and even as he sits up sharply, he could feel himself losing breath as the air escaped through the puncture wound in the tissue.

"Jesus Christ that hurt," he said, struggling for words but feeling he has to say them, his body overcome with the urge to speak everything he though, just as the Doctor earlier had.

"What wa--" he clutched a hand to his chest, trying to concentrate and breathe deep breaths enough to fill his functioning lung.

"Doctor, can't- can't breathe-"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor wanted to calm him, but he couldn't find the words to comfort. Instead, he pulled out the wadded-up scrub bottoms and pressed them against his bleeding wound.

Interesting, he wanted to say. It appears without actually dying, your wounds stay fairly intact. Is this a common thing, Jack?

But he couldn't.

He reached out and patted Jack's cheek with his other hand.

It'll be all right, he also wanted to say.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack reached a hand up and covered it over the Doctor's on his chest. He could just about breathe, but barely, and it was getting worse as fluid from the wound seeped into his open lung.

Looking at the Doctor, with his vision swimming in front of his eyes, he shook his head. "No," he said, taking too much effort to speak.

He suspected what might happen here, it had happened before, if in different ways. Somehow this was worse than a terribly gruesome death like the one he had earlier. This was barely a death at all. It was a slow painful loss of the ability to live. His breathing would get harder, and the pain would get worse, and he had to strain himself through it.

"No, Doctor," he said again, struggling against the lack of air. He fumbled his hand out and tried to reach for the bloodied arrow, his fingers fumbling and not reaching.

"Are you-" he breathed in, wheezed, "are you okay?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Don't speak, he wanted to say, but couldn't. He pressed down on the wound, but he knew this was fatal. Jack would drown in his own blood. A few years ago, he might have even watched the process with indifference. After all, Jack would just come back to life.

Now, he knew it hurt. He knew this wasn't as easy as life and death. He didn't want Jack to die.

He nodded in response to Jack's question, because he couldn't say anything else.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

With a second attempt, Jack managed to grab hold of the arrow. He lifted it, his hand clasped tightly around it, and he pressed it to the Doctor's hand over his chest.

"Finish it," he asked hoarsely, coughing and tasting iron in the back of his throat, "please. Quicker."

He was going to die. If that was something he guessed at before he was certain of it now. He'd grown to the point he could almost be blase about dying. It was so much more pleasant to have it over and done with. He thought it was a recklessness with life that might get him in trouble one day. It had certainly got himself in trouble.

He didn't want to ask the Doctor to kill him. It'd never be a nice thing for someone you cared about, and who cared about you to have to do. But, if it meant the pain would go, and it meant that he might be better quicker, then it seemed the most logical option.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor wanted to say No and promise Jack that he'd fix it, he'd save him. But the fact that his throat was locked up was not the only reason he didn't.

Jack could die, and then he wouldn't be in pain.

The Doctor had done far worse in his life. And Jack needed him. He'd turn the universe upside down for Jack, couldn't he do this?

He nodded, and then took Jack's head, turned it roughly to the side, and stabbed the arrow in the base of his neck, up to the brain stem. Quick and painless. Even a Raston Warrior Robot couldn't be that efficient.

Jack's blood was warm against his fingertips, and brain matter came out with the arrow as he pulled it free of Jack's skull.

He wanted to say he was sorry, but he couldn't.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Five minutes. Five minutes or not even that, that's how long Jack was dead in the Doctor's arms, his body limp and limbs loose.

The blood from his wounds was still wet, but the damage behind it had healed, and his body as ever reset itself as though nothing had ever happened. Like a mistake rubbed off a blackboard. All gone.

Five minutes or less and he opened his eyes and took a deep gasp of breath. His muscles awoke and tightened, and his grip firm on the Doctor's arm. His eyes searched in confusion before he, seconds later, acclimatised to his situation.

"Doctor!" he breathed out deeply, deep breaths to fill his fixed lungs. "Doctor what was that thing?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor clung to Jack during those five minutes. Five minutes can, potentially, seem like an eternity when you're holding someone you've just killed. Panic had set in, the worry that maybe he could've saved Jack and now he wouldn't wake up. Then guilt over what had become of Jack, how much potential Jack had. Then grief, briefly. Had he the ability to wail, he would have. Instead, he allowed himself a few moments to cry.

After all, while Jack was dead, he was alone.

He had to snap himself together. Jack was not going to stay dead. Even limp in his arms, the Doctor could feel the wrongness of him. He felt time twist and snap back together, and Jack was alive again, breathing and asking questions the Doctor wanted to answer but couldn't.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack took stock of himself. In one piece, right; the Doctor was there, good; in a cave on Gallifrey, yep; just been shot with an arrow by a robot and killed by the Doctor. All memories present and correct.

"Thank you," he said on a long breath out, still trying to gather himself completely. "Thank you."

As much as dying was something normal for Jack, that didn't mean it was something pleasant, and though he made the best attempts to brush it off, it was more than nice to have someone there when it happened, if only for a moment.

Ianto had become that person before; he'd learned by getting to know a different part of Jack, that the hurt wasn't always just physical, and things like a hug (or a kiss in more private times) had become ritual to Jack's recovery. He'd got used to that to the point where it was unremarkable. To the point where he hadn't realised how much it meant to him.

With a nod Jack turned his body intn the Doctor's and wrapped an arm around him, pulling him into a quick and tight hug. A thanks that went further than words. Before he pulled back completely he pressed a small kiss to the Doctor's lips. He didn't care right now if that wasn't quite right or not, he wanted it, and that was enough.

Pulling back he looked at the Doctor, one hand on his shoulder, and he considered him before shaking his head. "You can't talk, can you?" he asked, finally.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor wanted to kiss Jack properly, but he couldn't, not with his blood on his hands---literally and metaphorically. It felt wrong to kiss him in the wake of what he'd just done.

But he'd done it once before, when times called for it. This just felt more visceral, more real. No simple bolt of electricity, he had to stab him. Had to watch him recover.

He shook his head to Jack's question and gave him a small, pitifully apologetic look. He had a lot of things he wanted to say. Oh! He reached into his pocket and produced the psychic paper.

Raston Warrior Robot appeared instantly on the small white sheet, along with a makeup of its abilities. Moves like lightning, dotted all over the Death Zone.

After all of that information, another sentence appeared. Are you all right?

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Well that's a first with you," Jack teased gently, smiling at the Doctor before adding more seriously, nodding, "I'm sorry you had to do that, but thank you, trust me it was better than the alternative."

His brow etched into a frown as the Doctor produced the paper, but he quickly understood and read the words, taking in the information. "Warrior robot, right, better keep our eyes peeled for them then. And arrows? I mean really? They ride around on horse back too with their capes flowing behind them?" He rambled, and sadly couldn't even blame it on the drug, his death had cleared that right from his system.

"I'm fine," he smiled as the new words appeared in front of him, "I promise, never felt better. Are you? I mean, aside from the whole voice thing? It's not hurting you, is it?"

Jack felt protective, especially with the Doctor hindered. He turned a little and reached for the Doctor's hand, finding the blood all over it. He took it between his own, and grabbed the scrubs from against his chest to try and soak it up.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gestured for him to get away. There was no use, the scrubs were coated in blood, too. He moved back, away from Jack. Away from the wrong of the new awakening, away from the wrong of what he'd done to him.

He handed Jack the psychic paper again, this time with the Doctor's comprehensive analysis of the drug and why the effects were in the order he believed they were. 1) Euphoria for a relaxed, giddy effect, 2) Constant talking in order to attract enemies, 3) Silence in order to finish them off because they couldn't call to each other in battle. Very clever.

"I'm sorry," he managed, but his voice was quiet and thin and he felt like he'd run a marathon simply by saying them.