for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the Sahara Desert

[rude_not_ginger]

follows this.

The Doctor woke only a few short hours later and found himself positively disappointed at his lack of dreams. He'd spent years asleep without dreams, and now, when he really wanted them, he still had nothing. No memories, no twisting nightmares, not even a good brain-dump of nonsensical mental garbage. Just nothing. He was asleep next to Jack on the bed, and then he was awake.

He sighed. His memory was still swiss-cheesed with missing parts of the last two hundred years, but there seemed to be more gaps filled in. And that was something, wasn't it? It meant maybe a few more nights of dreamless sleep and he'd be back to himself completely.

He just hoped there weren't more memories like Mars to discover.

He looked over to Jack, asleep next to him. This was what Jack loved the most, he said. Not sleeping alone. Not being alone. In that instant, the Doctor understood it.

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[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Is that what it is though?" Jack asked, honest and curious. "Justice? Or is that just what we're calling it to... make it sound okay. We're good together, Doctor. We work well together. But if we fell... if we fell together. We're dangerous. What we feel is dangerous. Anger and guilt and regret and loneliness. It's dangerous. We need to make sure that's not what we're doing. Not some sort of... retribution. Righting our wrongs. Because sometimes I sit and I think actually it sounds like a pretty good idea. Pretty sure the TARDIS even got me killed once to stop me thinking it. Just... no justice. Not yet. Not for a while. Nothing. Just... travelling. We just need that."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Part of the Doctor secretly liked that idea. The dark, secret part of him that he often refused to acknowledge liked it that Jack could admit it. If they took on the universe, they could be unstoppable. If they wanted to become vengeful gods, they could be.

He pushed that part of him aside. "Nah, we're too good," he said. "You and me? Save the universe more than the average teenager saves concert tickets. No, no, we'll...travel. We'll sort out the storms later. Once we've got our wits about us."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack glanced at the Doctor and gave him something of a dubious look. He wasn't certain exactly what was there, but something told him what was spoken wasn't the entire truth of what was being thought. It had been hard for Jack to say what he had, he just hoped it was for something.

"I think the universe can wait a bit," he admitted. "Lets start by saving each other."

And that, he supposed, was the crux of what he was saying. What he was asking.

"Please."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

There was no way to save the Doctor. He knew this, deep down. It was far too late. Far too much had happened and...and it was too late. But he didn't have to drag Jack down any further than he already had.

He raised Jack's hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against the palm.

"You sleep," he said. "We'll work on saving each other tomorrow."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't want to rest. He didn't want to rest and he most certainly didn't want to sleep.

But it was there. It was there in the words and in the lack of them, and Jack wondered if what he'd done had worked at all. He hadn't stopped the Doctor from dying. He might have brought him back, but he hadn't saved him.

He'd failed. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did. He'd failed.

For a long moment, he just looked at him, and then he nodded, sighed, and turned on his side, away from him, staring at the wall. He couldn't rest.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor laid opposite him on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn't tell if Jack had fallen asleep, though he hoped he had. At least one of them should've been able to find rest among this. All of this.

After a time he moved from the bed and went to pick up the shattered teapot and tray. He looked at the pieces and thought that they couldn't really be any more metaphorical if they tried.

It was going to be a long night.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

As Jack lay therd, silent and aware of the Doctor's movements around the room, he came to a conclusion. Logically, he knew it was ridiculous, but sometimes (especially in lives like theirs) logic didn't always play a huge role.

And so it was that he realised what was so hard about lying there like that. He needed to speak to him. Every day for almost five years he'd spoken to him; the Doctor, lying dead but there, not quite listening, but his outlet. His way of surviving. It was, he supposed, almost like therapy.

He found himself wanting to be there now. He wanted to be in the zero room, his hand in the Doctor's, and talking.

Though of course if he scratched the surface, he'd know that wasn't what he wanted either. What he wanted was his Doctor, and he wasn't at all sure if he was there any more.