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fictionalTitle: And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Nine/Rose/TARDIS to varying degrees and in varying combinations
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rm & kalichan
Rating/Warning: NC-17, het, slash, recreational intoxication (everyone not Jack is too uptight!!)
Summary: In which Captain Jack Harkness learns a new dance. Begins just after Doctor Who 1x10: The Doctor Dances, and goes on to bookend Doctor Who 1x11: Boomtown.
Wordcount: ~18,500, posted in 3 parts
Authors' Notes: This is a part of our Jack/Ianto series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. While it can be considered a prequel, it is in this position in the arc (after significant Jack/Ianto relationship development) for a timey-whimey reason, which will become clear later. You don't have to read the rest of the series to read this though. However, if you are reading that, you should read this, as it will be useful/relevant later.
And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You - Part 1
Jack prided himself on always being able to find a good time no matter the circumstance. Not just finding it, but getting its number, and having it begging for more in short order. It was a skill that came in handy too. Life was short and cruel, so he figured he might as well take it for everything it had, and then send it back to get some more. Sucking the marrow from the bone, that was him. Sucking the bone too, depending on how you looked at it.
Nothing in his life up till now had prepared him for this.
Woman Wept was beautiful. Utterly gorgeous. The Doctor had actually flown the TARDIS like a regular ship -- no materializing or dematerializing, just straight up flying, and Jack didn't care if he was doing it to impress him, because whether he was or not, Jack had been completely blown away. Flying never felt like this. They'd left the door open and whirled over the planet surface just far enough away to see the shape of the continent, a woman bent over, mourning. And Rose and he'd hung out the doorway and met each other's eyes with absolute glee and wonder.
And then the Doctor had landed the ship -- okay, a few bounces, but who was counting -- and they'd walked through the beach. This planet's sun had gone out, just for a moment and the world had frozen in the middle of a storm. Crashing waves captured forever. The sun'd been re-ignited, but it was just an ember now; it was midnight here, always, the sky encrusted with stars.
They walked under the peaks and crests of the huge waves; starlight glinting off the frozen storm, the ice-sand crunching underneath their feet, and Jack had thought that nothing in his life had ever been so beautiful, so fucking immense, so all encompassing.
No people besides them for thousands of miles. Just this moment, fixed in time.
Jack knew if this thing didn't work out, if they didn't keep him forever -- which at this point, he honestly wasn't sure he could bear -- one thing was certain. He'd never be able to visit this planet ever again.
Beaches and crying women might be right out too.
He'd held Rose's hand, and they'd run for the sheer joy of it, abashed by the silence of the planet at first and then whooping and hollering and chasing each other with abandon. The Doctor had smiled on them affectionately, as if they were children, and then grabbed Rose around the waist, picked her up and spun her around.
Later, of course, they'd stopped at the space station which orbited the planet, to which most of the citizens had relocated after the disaster. Ostensibly, they'd made the stop in order to get Jack some new clothes, as the Doctor seemed unimpressed by men in uniform.
Unfortunately, (and Jack was pretty sure this hadn't just been by chance) they'd discovered that the space station's inhabitants were preparing to convert the whole thing into a Time Vortex-capable craft so the erstwhile citizens of Woman Wept could return to the period of their planet-freeze in order to avert it.
Of course, there were several things wrong with the plan, not the least of which was that they would be crossing back on their own timelines, and oh yes, also the minor fact that trying to make something the size of a space-station into a time-craft would require, among other things, some kind of artificial dark matter and a synthetic black hole -- meaning that in the process, they were almost certain to destroy either all of time and space, or, at the very least, themselves.
The Doctor couldn't be having that, of course, and so they'd had to stop it.
It had involved a surprising amount of running.
"At least sticking with you I'll be sure to keep my girlish figure," Jack had panted at one point.
"Good," the Doctor had replied with a smirk. "Might keep you around then!"
Three near death experiences, a body count of five civilians and one budding dictator (over whom Jack was certainly not about to shed any tears), an alarming episode of having Rose held hostage, a lot of fast talking on his and the Doctor's part, and Rose having the native wit to destroy the station's irreplaceable particle accelerator, and they were done.
"Is it always like this?" he'd asked Rose privately.
"Oh yeah," she'd said and smiled at him.
And he'd known that this was what he'd been waiting for. All his life, before he'd ever seen them, or even known the name by which they called him. For Rose and the Doctor, he was Captain Jack Harkness, and right now, he felt like he'd never want to be anyone else. All that time wondering, searching, never feeling quite right, never feeling like he belonged -- this, this had been waiting for him.
The feeling simply intensified as time went on. When they visited the Soviet space station which had an infestation of "vampires" and blue blobs (scientific term, the Doctor claimed). Or they went to Bromley on 21st century Earth to deal with a Neanderthal who'd been whisked there. Or were faced with the poisonous attack plants of Chimeria. And it was there and growing as they visited Earth's Cretaceous Period and dined on curried dinosaur eggs (good source of protein, the Doctor had said). They simply clicked. Miraculously. It was like home, before the dark times. Before losing... well, everything. He'd still been innocent then. Innocent and full of hope.
So what if he jerked off endlessly into the covers of his bed, thinking of Rose's soft hair, and the smell of the Doctor's leather jacket? That was just between him and the telepathic ship, wasn't it? Jack wondered occasionally if the Doctor knew how he felt. Sometimes he thought yes, other times no. But it didn't really matter as he buried his face in the pillows and pretended the fingers awkwardly prying him open weren't his own.
And if sometimes, in the quietness of the room the Doctor had assigned him, after he'd come into his own hand, biting back the sound -- Jack hadn't gone so long without fucking another sentient being since he could remember, although he supposed sentience was arguable for some of the beings he'd shared bed space with -- he thought that maybe, one day, after the Doctor trusted him, really trusted him, after he'd proven himself for good and for all, maybe the Doctor would help him find what he was looking for. And so what if that took a while? It wasn't like he was in any hurry. Or had an agenda. Not really.
Because they were time travelers, right? And that meant they had all the time in the world.
And when they weren't running or saving the universe, Jack was learning to enjoy the downtime. On some level it seemed ridiculous or lazy, but he knew this ability to sit still, to read a book, to be content without the constant stimulus of violence or danger or thievery was a good thing, a bit of healing and peace he hadn't really seen since he was a teenager leaving what was left of his family behind.
For that reason he didn't, as Rose tended to, constantly press the Doctor for their next adventure -- they came fast and frequent enough, and between them he was happy to explore the TARDIS, touching walls that seemed to have more sympathy for him than most people, and found himself somehow always and invariably winding his way back to the library, a child's pleasure.
As a boy, he'd been active, preferring running to reading any day, but that was largely because the world outside had been something of a luxury. It hadn't cost anything, sure, but it had been, and probably still was, dangerous.
Even before the wars, there was only so much time that could be spent in the sun of his childhood, only so many nights when the sea and its storms were calm enough to really venture near. Woman Wept had awed him for many reasons, not the least of which was the reminder of what it felt like to play on a beach in the dark again. That it was frozen made it just sad enough to seem familiar, even if it was actually completely different.
In his childhood the brightest part of the day was spent in cool shadows. He had always been glad to hide in the library, not for the books but for the long and narrow windows that let him peer at the water through metal shutters. He'd taken to reading the books only so that he wouldn't be thrown out and stuck somewhere with less of a view of the sea and the air. Later, he stole the books, bringing them to various beds so that he might tell stories before he really had very many of his own.
And so he loved libraries, loved books in memory of it all, even if he was always going to be more likely to just flip open whatever was closest at hand than actually search out knowledge from flat pages.
The Doctor clearly thought it was odd. But that was his own fault, for not asking about it. Not that Jack felt he'd be particularly inclined to explain. Not yet anyway. Not when he was clearly still suspect all the time.
"I didn't know you could read," the Doctor said, sauntering in and throwing himself down onto one end of the couch.
"And one day I'll tell you I didn't know you could be nice," Jack said, not looking up from a history of kings whose planet was now no more, despite two divergent lines having been at war for centuries over the claim to its memory.
The Doctor laughed, not unkindly.
"Hope springs eternal, and all that," Jack added, before ostentatiously turning a page.
"What are you reading?"
"Rodian history," Jack said shortly.
"What's the point?" the Doctor asked. "All gone, the Rodians. Millions of years before you came along. Nothing but a pack of idiots left, squabbling over the memories of bones."
Jack put his finger in between the pages to mark his spot and looked up at the Doctor whose eyes were challenging. Another test then.
"It's a good story, anyway. Intrigue, passion, revenge, pain, death, lies, truths. Handsome lads and pretty ladies. All the good stuff. It doesn't matter what you do, right? It's how you're remembered. Style over substance. They're fighting over the only thing that means anyway."
The Doctor grinned. "Want to pay them a call? Rodia in its heyday? See what all the fuss was about?"
It wasn't like Jack was a total neophyte at traveling in time and space, but the TARDIS made his Time Agency-issued vortex manipulator's range look pathetic. Even so, he'd thought he'd got used to it by now, but there were still times when the Doctor's casual indifference to the immensity of the universe took his breath away. This was one of them.
"Really?" Jack asked, trying to keep his voice even.
"Why not?"
"Why not what?" At the sound of Rose's voice, both Jack and the Doctor turned instantly to look at her. Jack didn't know how he'd missed her walking into the room.
"I was offering the Captain a history lesson," the Doctor said. "An interactive one."
Rose walked over to the couch and sat down between them. Jack put down his book and slipped an arm around her, and she rested her head on his chest with a sigh of contentment. Jack felt his pulse start to race.
"Lesson?" Rose said. "Watch out, Jack. He's not got the best track record with those."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor said, bristling a little.
Jack laughed. "Why does that not surprise me?" He let his fingers idly stroke Rose's hair, and she hummed a little with pleasure.
"He took me to watch my planet explode just to make a point," she said.
"We had chips afterwards," the Doctor said defensively.
"Which I had to pay for." Rose turned her head to smile at him in a way that took all the harm out of her words, and the Doctor beamed back at her fondly. She slid down so her head was in Jack's lap now, as her feet came up to rest on the Doctor's legs.
"This is nice," she said, ignoring the way that the Doctor stiffened a bit at the contact, and not, as far as Jack could tell, in any useful way. "I never asked. Is that a real fireplace?"
"Define real," the Doctor said.
"Wood burning. Smoke. If I touched it, I'd get burned?"
"Yep," said the Doctor.
"Is there a chimney?"
"No."
"Where does the smoke go?"
The Doctor smiled. "What happens to footprints in the snow, after the snow melts?"
"That doesn't make any sense, Doctor."
"D'you think if I explained it, you'd understand it any better?"
Rose laughed. "You could have a go anyway."
"It's probably a Noetherian thermodynamic converter. Continuous symmetry of energy in an invariant system. Smoke gets reabsorbed into the fuel, and the whole thing cycles."
Both Rose and the Doctor stared at Jack, who grinned. "What?" he asked. "Thought I was just a pretty face?"
"Well," the Doctor said, after a short pause. "Something like that."
Rose wiggled her toes with glee. "Humans, one, Time Lords --"
"Not fair, two against one," the Doctor interjected, swatting Rose's foot gently.
"Ooh!" she said. "Rub my feet."
"Rub your... feet?" the Doctor repeated, as if they were words in some sort of foreign language and the TARDIS' translation protocols had failed permanently.
"Yeah," she exclaimed.
"Not enough that I take you round about the universe, show you wonders unimaginable, pick you up any boy toy that takes your fancy, now I've got to rub your feet?"
"Hey," Jack protested without too much heat. "Not a boy toy."
"You're not the first, you know," the Doctor said.
"But I'm probably the best," Jack said with just enough humor that he didn't technically have to be slapped for it. It was better than taking the detour being offered into the Doctor's hostility at any rate.
Rose giggled and preened, and Jack found himself hoping she knew what she was doing. He didn't think she did, but it sure would be easier if he were wrong.
"Oi!" the Doctor half-snarled, pushing Rose's feet off his lap. "I need a drink if you're both going to be like that."
Jack and Rose exchanged a look and shrugged.
Jack turned to look over the back of the couch. "Planning to share?" Jack asked, somewhat disappointed that Rose had decided to sit up. He'd been enjoying the tease of her being just that close to his cock. At least she was still leaning against him.
The Doctor sighed. "You'd think being able to take them anywhere and anywhen would be enough to meet the demands of hospitality. But no! They want drinks too! And foot rubs."
Jack smiled, knowing that alcohol was his friend, at least with these two who were decorous and uptight by turns. At least compared to him. Okay, maybe that was unfair. Rose seemed game enough, but, well, the Doctor was key. If he disapproved, she clearly wasn't going to play.
The Doctor was also, Jack thought -- after drinks had been distributed, sampled, drained and replenished -- remarkably good at drunken conversation. For every outrageous story he had about sex, the Doctor had been able to match him with some tale of disrupting governments, overturning markets and generally running for one's life.
Even Rose had been able to keep up, helping the Doctor with some of his tales and telling a few of her own, the ones of her ordinary earth life before she'd found the Doctor or he'd found her, being oddly the most charming to Jack. But then, he felt like he could have listened to either of them for days.
He worried, vaguely, that he was too obviously making moon eyes at them both but then relaxed, figuring they'd just think it was a ploy anyway.
Rose set her drink down on the floor, and then slid down once more to lie draped across his lap, her neck resting on the edge of the sofa arm. Jack could feel her ass pressing against the outside of his left thigh; even that slight contact was making his heart race. He wished he understood why this kept happening to him.
He had one arm supporting the back of her head, idly caressing her hair; the other was resting on the back of the couch, holding his drink. It should have felt peaceful. It didn't.
In a way it seemed a lot like the Doctor, who was sitting all the way on the other end of the couch in a loose, long limbed sprawl that might have been considered relaxed in another person, but was actually full of what Jack was beginning to classify as a dangerous negligence. It could erupt at any moment, without reason, without warning. Jack suppressed a shiver of desire. Or was it fear? Honestly, he was beginning to lose track of the difference.
And then Rose moved, jostling his arm a little and drops of brandy spilled from his glass onto her throat and shirt front. She squealed, and Jack felt himself paralysed for one split second, before he realized that this -- hesitant, unsure, diffident -- was not him, nor did he want it to be.
His eyes darted up to meet the Doctor's. Somehow he managed not to flinch or blink at what he saw in them. Instead he bent his head, gave Rose a grin of apology, and put his tongue to her, licking the brandy off her in a long, wet stripe that started at just the point where her shirt dipped between her breasts and went all the way round her throat to the tip of her earlobe.
She'd stiffened in surprise when he began, but then he'd felt that snap of release as she let herself relax into it.
"Tastes even better this way," he remarked.
"Mmm," she said. "Think you missed a spot."
"Oh yeah?" he asked, delighted at her feistiness.
"Yeah."
"You know, I'm not usually that careless."
He offered her his glass. Instead she stuck two fingers into it and then drew them along the other side of her neck in a silent, wicked dare. Jack grinned, even as he felt himself harden. He sucked her finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, and felt her shiver against him.
He was about to get into trouble here. He just knew it.
The Doctor downed his drink all in one go. It was the only appropriate response. Well, actually that wasn't strictly true, but the other appropriate responses didn't really seem like they'd work out that well.
He couldn't just haul Jack off Rose and pitch him out of the TARDIS, not when Rose was smiling like that. And he couldn't just leave Rose alone with him, not when the Captain was smiling like that. So all he could do was drink his drink. Quickly. And find the whole thing very curious indeed.
In the last thirty seconds, Jack had discovered several things. The first was that Rose moaned in an absolutely stunning way if he breathed against her ear just right.
The second was that he absolutely had to have her, preferably right then. Not because she was beautiful, although she was. After all, Jack had had plenty of beautiful men, women and other categorizations that didn't translate into 20th century English all that well.
But this was different; his body responded to her presence as if it recognized something in her and needed desperately to find its way home. It was weird and ridiculous and made the potential sex just slightly unique in a way that a random pretty girl in a library wasn't or at least shouldn't have been. But Rose wasn't random. Rose was proof the universe had order.
The third thing that Jack had just discovered wasn't the most important, but as he shifted Rose slightly so that she would know just how interested he was, it was quickly becoming the most critical: The Doctor needed to join in or leave or break it all up, or just fucking do something. But Jack wasn't issuing invitations. He didn't think he had to. Because really, wasn't this, wasn't that sound Rose kept making enough?
"Rose, come here," the Doctor said.
Jack froze, and Rose made an effort to push herself into a sitting position that involved slightly less contact with Jack.
"Don't pout at me," the Doctor said, his voice hard but almost amused. "I'm not saying you can't play. Just come here where I can keep an eye on you."
Rose exchanged a glance with Jack who shrugged, and she clambered up from Jack's lap to lean against the Doctor instead.
He reached to the side table, poured himself some more brandy and put his arm around Rose as he offered her the glass.
"I'm guessing this isn't an invitation to pour it all over myself," she said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.
"It's good brandy. Drink it or leave it for someone who will," he said.
She took a sip and handed it back to him. He smiled.
"Well, Captain. Don't let me stop you."
"I won't," Jack said. "Don't let me stop you either," he said, his voice low and ridiculously tinged by sex.
"From what?" the Doctor asked, and Jack just shook his head as he touched Rose's cheek again to see if she were willing to play with the fire that now seemed a hell of a lot more serious than just a friendly roll on the couch.
Jack bent to kiss Rose, and she moved her head slightly so the kiss landed on her cheek instead. Oh, Jack thought. It's like that, is it? He was conscious of a slight twinge of hurt. But then her hand came up to twine in his hair, and she arched her neck just so, and he couldn't help but press a kiss into it.
She made an encouraging noise, and he smiled against her throat, before nipping at her with his teeth. She liked that, Jack could tell, and he was feeling drunker by the second, much more so than could be accounted for by a few glasses of brandy.
He reared back a little. "Your shirt," he said hoarsely. "It's sticky."
"It is," she agreed breathlessly.
"Think we could take it off?" Jack was actually slightly taken aback by his own temerity, but what else could you do besides push at something till it gave or something else did? Either the Doctor would stop him, or.... Jack's felt his mind sort of stutter to a halt there.
He didn't know how he could be so nervous and so excited all at the same time, and all over something so fucking ordinary. But this whole thing was weird, from his reactions to Rose, to the Doctor sitting by them so distantly, and yet so obviously planning on staying right where he was.
Did he want to watch this? Was he even paying attention? Was this some strange kink? Was he about to throw Jack from a moving TARDIS? Jack didn't think so, but he wouldn't have bet his life on it, except for the part where he kind of was.
Rose glanced up at the Doctor. She felt drunk and careening out of control, like she was riding a bicycle before she'd completely learned how and every movement was just part of falling -- like if she stopped moving fast enough she'd immediately plummet to the ground. Things were going so quickly, but it all felt so good. But the Doctor. What would he think of her?
The Doctor, however, was just staring into his glass as if it held the answers to all the questions in the universe, and Rose began to feel a bit offended. You'd think with a naked -- or about to be naked, if she agreed -- girl leaning against his lap, a bloke could show a little more interest.
Fine, she thought. Whatever. She wasn't going to let him stop her, and here was Jack, looking at her so expectantly, as if she'd hung the moon, and that was quite nice, it was. Jack, who'd told more stories and been more experienced than anyone she'd ever seen or thought of, and he wanted her.
She sat up, and defiantly pulled her top off and flung it to the floor.
Jack's eyes widened just a bit and for a second he looked just like any of the boys she'd ever been with. She grinned and pulled him towards her, sinking back to lean her back against the Doctor once again. If he wanted her to stop, he'd have to tell her. The leather of his jacket pressed into her naked back and she shivered at the sensation. It was wrong, what she was doing, but right now, she couldn't bring herself to care.
Rose had pulled him down, so his head was pillowed on her breasts; the lace was scratchy under his cheek, and her skin was so soft. He breathed in her scent, and thought that maybe he was dreaming again. He hoped he wouldn't wake up before he got to be inside her, and then realized not even his subconscious would have included the crackling of the fire and the leather clad Doctor behind her glowering. Because that was just strange.
He sucked Rose's nipple into his mouth, tonguing it through the lace; she moaned and fisted her hands in his hair. He slipped a hand over her denim clad hip and up over her stomach. Her skin felt perfect against his hand, and after so long without the sensation of flesh not his own, it felt like drinking a cold, sweet swallow of water after a long day of thirst.
This just isn't happening, Rose thought to herself, as Jack sucked on her nipples, drawing them up into tiny points of brilliant sensation, as she felt the press of the Doctor's coat, still strange behind her back. His mouth on her was patient and exquisite and relentless, and Rose thought she might come just from this. Her cunt felt heavy and swollen between her legs; it almost hurt, but with a strange pain that felt like pleasure.
Jack needed to see more of her, need to get this fabric away from between them. His hand moved to the fastening of her jeans. He pulled the button open and then slid them off her. And there she was, a little scrap of cotton underwear and lacy bra all that stood between him and feeling her naked and pressed up against him. Well, that and his clothes, and Jack didn't think he'd ever discarded those so quickly.
She felt exactly as good as he'd imagined she would pressed against him, her nails scratching his back, running over his chest, and he kissed her neck, kissed her breasts and stomach.
When he moved to slide off her underwear though, Rose's hand flew down to arrest his, and he froze instantly.
"Jack," she said. "I don't...."
"Sorry!" he said, mortified. What was it about Rose and the Doctor that could leave him so wrong-footed? And misreading signals like some kind of amateur idiot. "I didn't mean to--"
"No, it's okay. It's just, I didn't bring, well I didn't think we were going to..." She trailed off.
Jack looked at her blankly.
"You know," she said, almost stuttering. "You've been around. I don't want to, I mean. It's not safe."
"Oh," Jack said, finally getting it. He laughed, and Rose bristled a little. "I'd never hurt you, Rose, you know that."
"Yeah, but everyone says that, don't they?"
Her shoulders had sunk a bit when he laughed, and her body language was suddenly all folded in on itself and reading all kinds of wrong. Jack looked at the Doctor helplessly, though he wasn't sure why. Not like there'd be any assistance from that quarter.
Humans, the Doctor thought disgustedly. Well, at least this little experiment had stopped itself before it got too tangled up. Then he made the mistake of meeting Jack's eyes, which were pleading, and no wonder, considering the train wreck he'd got himself into. And then he quadrupled or quintupled the error by looking down at Rose, who was looking uncertain and unhappy, when a few minutes ago she'd been radiating pleasure. The Doctor sighed.
Then he cleared his throat.
"I think what the Captain's trying to say is that he's had all his shots, Rose." He petted Rose's hair soothingly. Then, to Jack, with only a slight hint of menace -- nothing to what it could have been -- "You have had all your shots, haven't you?"
"Yes," Jack said simply.
"Everything you could catch and some things you couldn't," the Doctor said to Rose. "Don't worry."
He took another swallow from his drink and wished he didn't metabolize liquor quite so well in this regeneration. It'd be nice to feel drunker. He played with Rose's hair some more. It was soft under his fingers, despite all the peroxide she insisted on using on it.
But it wouldn't be Rose without it, and it wouldn't be her either without getting into situations she couldn't handle and needing him to yank her back out of them. So he supposed that was all right, really. He pulled her back to lean against him, and nodded to the Captain. Surely the man could take it from there, couldn't he?
"Sorry," Jack said again, more softly this time, realizing it was going to be okay and also that Rose's ego needed soothing after that little debacle. Jack remembered what it was like to be so young, although he didn't have the slightest idea what that youth was like when coupled with shame and fear when it came to sex, although Rose seemed better off than many of the 20th century types he'd met. Hard time and place to be from though. Maybe that's why he liked it so much: all of the agonies of his own youth, yet none of the monsters.
"S'okay," she said with a certain mock shyness.
Embarrassed then, yes, but mostly because she only thought she had to be. Jack grinned and rested his chin on her thigh.
"Just a shot then, really?" she asked, and Jack had to work not to roll his eyes. Clearly, there still had to be a discussion, although he supposed he wouldn't blame her if he really thought about it. Thing was, he didn't want to. Big turn off that.
"Well, a few really. But it's pretty standard. Across the whole wide galaxy even," he said, trying to be light about it.
"And there's not going to be some weird future bug you don't even know is a bug and I can get or something?" she asked.
Jack laughed and shook his head. "People haven't changed that much," Jack said.
"I think that's what I'm afraid of," she said with a laugh.
"Don't be," Jack said softly.
"You!" she said, abruptly, cuffing Jack affectionately on the head. "You're not even worried about getting me pregnant or something. Don't you want to even ask if I'm on the pill?"
Jack gaped, wondering if she was going to keep coming up with these things. It was sort of starting to make him feel like a cad.
"All my shots... really," he stammered.
Rose's eyes went wide. "Really? They've finally figured that out then?"
"True as you live.”
Rose giggled. "I think I want shots!" she said, laughing.
"Can't have 'em. No messing about with the timeline for you," the Doctor intoned, clearly bored by the whole thing.
Jack winked at her. "We'll work on him later, okay?" he whispered.
Rose grinned.
"I heard that," the Doctor sniped.
"I don't care," Jack said softly, watching his own hand in fascination as it traveled up Rose's leg and across her skin and seemed so large and greedy, so full of possession.
And that was all it took. Something in his voice, or his manner, or maybe that look on his face, and Rose couldn't bring herself to care about shots or fear or the very cranky and dubiously approving man she was leaning against. There was just Jack, who was touching her like it was worship.
Now, it wasn't like anyone hadn't touched her that way before. Certainly, she'd come to the conclusion that any man who was worth a damn was always a little bit like that. But she'd never had anyone do it before because it seemed they couldn't help themselves. Normally it was a show, a seduction.
While Jack had been all about that in pretty much every moment she'd spent with him, he wasn't now. Shaken loose he was, and it seemed ridiculous to her, that someone who even if he hadn't seen worlds and been from another time and place, would have still been the knowing older man, could possibly look at her like that.
"Why?" she breathed softly, without meaning to, as he caressed her.
Jack just shook his head, and mostly, she found, she wanted to comfort him.
He kissed the inside of her knee, and she smiled and parted her legs to make it easier for him. He fitted his lips against the tendon there and smiled, and she felt his eyelashes against her thigh as he did it.
She ran a hand through his hair and he looked up at her. She expected him to say something. To say please or otherwise ask permission, to beg. She knew those sounds from men, at least slightly, even though her experience of them had mostly been absurd. But he didn't say a thing, just looked at her, and finally, it was she that smiled, that nodded to her mostly bare flesh and said, "Please."
Please.
Jack's hands were everywhere then. Not fast, not frantic, but running over her arms, across her throat, over her breasts, all over her legs, and when he really couldn't help himself, up and over the part of the Doctor's coat she was leaning on, as if it were an accident, the cool leather turning him on almost as much as her skin.
What a mess. He wanted them both, wanted the Doctor in him and telling him just how to fuck her, wanted to be trapped and broken between their mouths. But he was pretty sure that wasn't in the cards right now, even if the Doctor was sitting there, almost as if to make sure this happened.
Jack assumed that one day he would understand. But he'd also resigned himself to realizing that today was not going to be that day. And that was fine, because here he was sitting with his face between Rose's legs, drunk not from the brandy, not really, but from the smell of her cunt and fresh laundry. And he was loving this, this moment before everything. It almost made all the masturbation, all the damn sexual starvation of the last three weeks on this stupid ship worth it.
"Well, go on," she said, taking his hand and hooking it through her panties and then pushing it away so that he would drag them down.
The world caught up to him. And he knew exactly how to do this, moaning unavoidably as he slipped two fingers into her fast and direct. She arched back into the Doctor and Jack saw that he was smiling just a bit wistfully as he held onto Rose like he were the skin that could somehow keep her from flying apart.
But Jack couldn't spare much attention for the Doctor just then because there was Rose's face to look at as his fingers moved faster and faster; as he watched her bite at her own lip; as she panted for air, straining towards the orgasm he wasn't going to let her have, not now, not yet.
Now he had all five of his fingers surrounding her flesh, because he wanted to feel every quiver, every jolt. And then finally when he couldn't take it anymore, not one more second, he took his hand away, and let his cock -- so swollen and hard it didn't even feel like it belonged to him anymore -- plunge inside her.
Jack had to bite the inside of his cheek at that; she was so wet and slick, and god, it had been so long and this was Rose, wrapped around him, and even now, balls deep inside her, he couldn't quite believe it was actually happening.
But it was, and Jack was finally fucking her; finally her arms were twined around his neck; finally the heels of her feet were beating a tattoo on his calves, finally, finally, finally, and his forearms were bracing him so he could give her those quick, deep thrusts that were making her pulse around him.
Oh yes, she liked that, and she liked it when he teased her by pulling out till he was just giving her the tip of his cock, so it was just barely inside her, and then slowly, oh so slowly pushing back in, so she could feel every inch, and she liked it when he could no longer restrain himself, no longer hold back, and then there was no more thought, no more plan, just him and Rose, and an endless, overpowering orgasm that exploded like starbursts behind his eyes and, he suspected, behind hers as well.
When he could think again, he'd collapsed on her, drained and shaking with residual tremors, his head at her breasts. Her hands were gentle on his hair, and Jack wasn't sure if the wetness on his face was sweat or tears.
Rose kept petting Jack's head. She didn't know what else to do to express the overwhelming tenderness that threatened to engulf her. Great sex made you feel melancholy sometimes, she knew: a strange, sweet emptiness and loss, like you'd expect after the ends of things.
But then you got up, made some beans on toast, turned on the telly. And life went on. The world went on, and sooner or later, you did it all again. That was sex. That was life. But not here. Not in this strange ship with these strange men. And god, she was still leaning against the Doctor, and she wasn't sure how she'd ever look him in the eye ever again.
I want to go home, she thought. Not forever, not for good. Just a little bit of time, to remember why she'd left, a little trip to a depth that she understood. She wondered if Jack felt the same way; if that was why he was trembling at her breast, wordless and spent. Not what she'd expected, really. No quips, no gentle praise, no flirting.
Was he all right?
She took a deep breath, no point in being a coward now, and tilted up her head, so she could meet the Doctor's eyes. Wasn't like he had a leg to stand on; he'd let it happen; he'd practically offered her up to Jack -- or Jack to her, she wasn't sure -- like a bloody prize at an arcade.
The look in his eyes was not what she was afraid of, nor what she was expecting. There was no judgment in it. They just seemed a million years old and very far away.
She glanced at Jack and then looked at the Doctor questioningly.
The Doctor gave a short, humorless laugh. "You have to ask?"
Rose nodded.
"Think the lad's in love with you, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said very softly.
She stared at him in shock and felt Jack suck in his breath, as if someone had hit him.
The Doctor shook his head and very gently, slid out from under her. He stood, and suddenly he seemed very tall, very removed, and very alien. And all she wanted to do was run to him and hold him against her, and promise she'd never let anything hurt him ever again. But she couldn't, because she was only a stupid human and naked, and there was Jack, and she had no idea what she was doing anymore.
"Doctor," she said finally. "I want to go home."
The Doctor studied her quizzically.
"Just for a bit," she added hurriedly. "I need... I need my passport. Never know when we might need it. Could've come in handy in Russia, I mean, if it'd been the present day."
"I don't think you nee--"
"You don't know that," she said.
"Actually I do," he started. Then he stopped. "Well, we do need to refuel. We can do that in Cardiff. Rift in space and time, remember?"
Rose felt her mouth begin to quirk into a smile. "Okay. Good."
"But first," the Doctor said, "we're going to visit Rodia."
Rose looked at him questioningly.
"I promised the Captain a history lesson."
Jack lifted his head at that. "Really?" he asked.
"Oh you're alive, are you?" the Doctor said. "I don't talk just for the pleasure of hearing myself, you know. Not like some people."
Jack laughed, and Rose felt her spirits begin to rise again at the sound of it, still infectious, still larger than life. Okay. Maybe everything was okay.
"Get dressed, you two," the Doctor said. "They don't look kindly upon naked people walking through the streets of New Diatholon."
"Now that doesn't sound like much fun," Jack said.
"I think you've had enough naked fun for the time being, don't you?"
"Never enough. How 'bout you take some clothes off and join us?"
"Buy me a drink first," the Doctor said. "One I didn't pay for, and maybe we'll see."
Jack sat up. "Really?"
The Doctor smirked. "I'll see you in the console room. Better hurry. Things to do." And with that, he was gone.
Rose and Jack looked at each other, and then Rose squirmed off the couch and began to collect her discarded clothes.
"So Rodia and then Cardiff for refueling, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Is that home? I mean, is that where you're from?"
"No," Rose said. "God, no. Who'd live in Cardiff?"
Jack laughed. "That bad, huh?"
"You'll see," Rose said. "No, I live in a council flat, in London with my mum. When I'm not here, I mean. It's called the Powell Estate?" Jack looked puzzled, and Rose smiled. "I'll show you on a map or something."
"Okay," Jack said.
"Cardiff's not home," she said, "but it's close enough."
Jack glanced around the room. Like so many places, he thought, but didn't say.
Rose pulled on her jeans, and then her shirt. "I'll give Mickey a ring," she said, almost to herself. "He can bring me my passport."
"Do you really need--"
"Yeah," Rose said, cutting him off. "Listen, about Mickey?"
"He's your boyfriend?"
"Yeah," Rose said. "I mean, we do our own thing, y'know? But yeah. He'll bring it for me, down to Cardiff. D'you think we could...." she trailed off.
"Could what?"
"Well. I mean, he's not... I don't want him to feel...." She gulped. "D'you think you could not say anything? About this?" She nodded towards the couch.
Jack smiled. She was so young. And he didn't know why she made his heart sing.
"Sure," he said. "Silent as the grave. You can trust me."
Rose leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "I know I can," she said.
Jack held her for a moment, and then let go. He pulled on his own clothes with dispatch. "So," he said, offering her his arm. "Tell me more about Cardiff. And your century. 21st, right?"
Continue to Part 3
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Nine/Rose/TARDIS to varying degrees and in varying combinations
Authors:
rm & kalichanRating/Warning: NC-17, het, slash, recreational intoxication (everyone not Jack is too uptight!!)
Summary: In which Captain Jack Harkness learns a new dance. Begins just after Doctor Who 1x10: The Doctor Dances, and goes on to bookend Doctor Who 1x11: Boomtown.
Wordcount: ~18,500, posted in 3 parts
Authors' Notes: This is a part of our Jack/Ianto series, I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling. While it can be considered a prequel, it is in this position in the arc (after significant Jack/Ianto relationship development) for a timey-whimey reason, which will become clear later. You don't have to read the rest of the series to read this though. However, if you are reading that, you should read this, as it will be useful/relevant later.
And I Cannot Know How Long She Has Dreamed of All of You - Part 1
Jack prided himself on always being able to find a good time no matter the circumstance. Not just finding it, but getting its number, and having it begging for more in short order. It was a skill that came in handy too. Life was short and cruel, so he figured he might as well take it for everything it had, and then send it back to get some more. Sucking the marrow from the bone, that was him. Sucking the bone too, depending on how you looked at it.
Nothing in his life up till now had prepared him for this.
Woman Wept was beautiful. Utterly gorgeous. The Doctor had actually flown the TARDIS like a regular ship -- no materializing or dematerializing, just straight up flying, and Jack didn't care if he was doing it to impress him, because whether he was or not, Jack had been completely blown away. Flying never felt like this. They'd left the door open and whirled over the planet surface just far enough away to see the shape of the continent, a woman bent over, mourning. And Rose and he'd hung out the doorway and met each other's eyes with absolute glee and wonder.
And then the Doctor had landed the ship -- okay, a few bounces, but who was counting -- and they'd walked through the beach. This planet's sun had gone out, just for a moment and the world had frozen in the middle of a storm. Crashing waves captured forever. The sun'd been re-ignited, but it was just an ember now; it was midnight here, always, the sky encrusted with stars.
They walked under the peaks and crests of the huge waves; starlight glinting off the frozen storm, the ice-sand crunching underneath their feet, and Jack had thought that nothing in his life had ever been so beautiful, so fucking immense, so all encompassing.
No people besides them for thousands of miles. Just this moment, fixed in time.
Jack knew if this thing didn't work out, if they didn't keep him forever -- which at this point, he honestly wasn't sure he could bear -- one thing was certain. He'd never be able to visit this planet ever again.
Beaches and crying women might be right out too.
He'd held Rose's hand, and they'd run for the sheer joy of it, abashed by the silence of the planet at first and then whooping and hollering and chasing each other with abandon. The Doctor had smiled on them affectionately, as if they were children, and then grabbed Rose around the waist, picked her up and spun her around.
Later, of course, they'd stopped at the space station which orbited the planet, to which most of the citizens had relocated after the disaster. Ostensibly, they'd made the stop in order to get Jack some new clothes, as the Doctor seemed unimpressed by men in uniform.
Unfortunately, (and Jack was pretty sure this hadn't just been by chance) they'd discovered that the space station's inhabitants were preparing to convert the whole thing into a Time Vortex-capable craft so the erstwhile citizens of Woman Wept could return to the period of their planet-freeze in order to avert it.
Of course, there were several things wrong with the plan, not the least of which was that they would be crossing back on their own timelines, and oh yes, also the minor fact that trying to make something the size of a space-station into a time-craft would require, among other things, some kind of artificial dark matter and a synthetic black hole -- meaning that in the process, they were almost certain to destroy either all of time and space, or, at the very least, themselves.
The Doctor couldn't be having that, of course, and so they'd had to stop it.
It had involved a surprising amount of running.
"At least sticking with you I'll be sure to keep my girlish figure," Jack had panted at one point.
"Good," the Doctor had replied with a smirk. "Might keep you around then!"
Three near death experiences, a body count of five civilians and one budding dictator (over whom Jack was certainly not about to shed any tears), an alarming episode of having Rose held hostage, a lot of fast talking on his and the Doctor's part, and Rose having the native wit to destroy the station's irreplaceable particle accelerator, and they were done.
"Is it always like this?" he'd asked Rose privately.
"Oh yeah," she'd said and smiled at him.
And he'd known that this was what he'd been waiting for. All his life, before he'd ever seen them, or even known the name by which they called him. For Rose and the Doctor, he was Captain Jack Harkness, and right now, he felt like he'd never want to be anyone else. All that time wondering, searching, never feeling quite right, never feeling like he belonged -- this, this had been waiting for him.
The feeling simply intensified as time went on. When they visited the Soviet space station which had an infestation of "vampires" and blue blobs (scientific term, the Doctor claimed). Or they went to Bromley on 21st century Earth to deal with a Neanderthal who'd been whisked there. Or were faced with the poisonous attack plants of Chimeria. And it was there and growing as they visited Earth's Cretaceous Period and dined on curried dinosaur eggs (good source of protein, the Doctor had said). They simply clicked. Miraculously. It was like home, before the dark times. Before losing... well, everything. He'd still been innocent then. Innocent and full of hope.
So what if he jerked off endlessly into the covers of his bed, thinking of Rose's soft hair, and the smell of the Doctor's leather jacket? That was just between him and the telepathic ship, wasn't it? Jack wondered occasionally if the Doctor knew how he felt. Sometimes he thought yes, other times no. But it didn't really matter as he buried his face in the pillows and pretended the fingers awkwardly prying him open weren't his own.
And if sometimes, in the quietness of the room the Doctor had assigned him, after he'd come into his own hand, biting back the sound -- Jack hadn't gone so long without fucking another sentient being since he could remember, although he supposed sentience was arguable for some of the beings he'd shared bed space with -- he thought that maybe, one day, after the Doctor trusted him, really trusted him, after he'd proven himself for good and for all, maybe the Doctor would help him find what he was looking for. And so what if that took a while? It wasn't like he was in any hurry. Or had an agenda. Not really.
Because they were time travelers, right? And that meant they had all the time in the world.
And when they weren't running or saving the universe, Jack was learning to enjoy the downtime. On some level it seemed ridiculous or lazy, but he knew this ability to sit still, to read a book, to be content without the constant stimulus of violence or danger or thievery was a good thing, a bit of healing and peace he hadn't really seen since he was a teenager leaving what was left of his family behind.
For that reason he didn't, as Rose tended to, constantly press the Doctor for their next adventure -- they came fast and frequent enough, and between them he was happy to explore the TARDIS, touching walls that seemed to have more sympathy for him than most people, and found himself somehow always and invariably winding his way back to the library, a child's pleasure.
As a boy, he'd been active, preferring running to reading any day, but that was largely because the world outside had been something of a luxury. It hadn't cost anything, sure, but it had been, and probably still was, dangerous.
Even before the wars, there was only so much time that could be spent in the sun of his childhood, only so many nights when the sea and its storms were calm enough to really venture near. Woman Wept had awed him for many reasons, not the least of which was the reminder of what it felt like to play on a beach in the dark again. That it was frozen made it just sad enough to seem familiar, even if it was actually completely different.
In his childhood the brightest part of the day was spent in cool shadows. He had always been glad to hide in the library, not for the books but for the long and narrow windows that let him peer at the water through metal shutters. He'd taken to reading the books only so that he wouldn't be thrown out and stuck somewhere with less of a view of the sea and the air. Later, he stole the books, bringing them to various beds so that he might tell stories before he really had very many of his own.
And so he loved libraries, loved books in memory of it all, even if he was always going to be more likely to just flip open whatever was closest at hand than actually search out knowledge from flat pages.
The Doctor clearly thought it was odd. But that was his own fault, for not asking about it. Not that Jack felt he'd be particularly inclined to explain. Not yet anyway. Not when he was clearly still suspect all the time.
"I didn't know you could read," the Doctor said, sauntering in and throwing himself down onto one end of the couch.
"And one day I'll tell you I didn't know you could be nice," Jack said, not looking up from a history of kings whose planet was now no more, despite two divergent lines having been at war for centuries over the claim to its memory.
The Doctor laughed, not unkindly.
"Hope springs eternal, and all that," Jack added, before ostentatiously turning a page.
"What are you reading?"
"Rodian history," Jack said shortly.
"What's the point?" the Doctor asked. "All gone, the Rodians. Millions of years before you came along. Nothing but a pack of idiots left, squabbling over the memories of bones."
Jack put his finger in between the pages to mark his spot and looked up at the Doctor whose eyes were challenging. Another test then.
"It's a good story, anyway. Intrigue, passion, revenge, pain, death, lies, truths. Handsome lads and pretty ladies. All the good stuff. It doesn't matter what you do, right? It's how you're remembered. Style over substance. They're fighting over the only thing that means anyway."
The Doctor grinned. "Want to pay them a call? Rodia in its heyday? See what all the fuss was about?"
It wasn't like Jack was a total neophyte at traveling in time and space, but the TARDIS made his Time Agency-issued vortex manipulator's range look pathetic. Even so, he'd thought he'd got used to it by now, but there were still times when the Doctor's casual indifference to the immensity of the universe took his breath away. This was one of them.
"Really?" Jack asked, trying to keep his voice even.
"Why not?"
"Why not what?" At the sound of Rose's voice, both Jack and the Doctor turned instantly to look at her. Jack didn't know how he'd missed her walking into the room.
"I was offering the Captain a history lesson," the Doctor said. "An interactive one."
Rose walked over to the couch and sat down between them. Jack put down his book and slipped an arm around her, and she rested her head on his chest with a sigh of contentment. Jack felt his pulse start to race.
"Lesson?" Rose said. "Watch out, Jack. He's not got the best track record with those."
"What's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor said, bristling a little.
Jack laughed. "Why does that not surprise me?" He let his fingers idly stroke Rose's hair, and she hummed a little with pleasure.
"He took me to watch my planet explode just to make a point," she said.
"We had chips afterwards," the Doctor said defensively.
"Which I had to pay for." Rose turned her head to smile at him in a way that took all the harm out of her words, and the Doctor beamed back at her fondly. She slid down so her head was in Jack's lap now, as her feet came up to rest on the Doctor's legs.
"This is nice," she said, ignoring the way that the Doctor stiffened a bit at the contact, and not, as far as Jack could tell, in any useful way. "I never asked. Is that a real fireplace?"
"Define real," the Doctor said.
"Wood burning. Smoke. If I touched it, I'd get burned?"
"Yep," said the Doctor.
"Is there a chimney?"
"No."
"Where does the smoke go?"
The Doctor smiled. "What happens to footprints in the snow, after the snow melts?"
"That doesn't make any sense, Doctor."
"D'you think if I explained it, you'd understand it any better?"
Rose laughed. "You could have a go anyway."
"It's probably a Noetherian thermodynamic converter. Continuous symmetry of energy in an invariant system. Smoke gets reabsorbed into the fuel, and the whole thing cycles."
Both Rose and the Doctor stared at Jack, who grinned. "What?" he asked. "Thought I was just a pretty face?"
"Well," the Doctor said, after a short pause. "Something like that."
Rose wiggled her toes with glee. "Humans, one, Time Lords --"
"Not fair, two against one," the Doctor interjected, swatting Rose's foot gently.
"Ooh!" she said. "Rub my feet."
"Rub your... feet?" the Doctor repeated, as if they were words in some sort of foreign language and the TARDIS' translation protocols had failed permanently.
"Yeah," she exclaimed.
"Not enough that I take you round about the universe, show you wonders unimaginable, pick you up any boy toy that takes your fancy, now I've got to rub your feet?"
"Hey," Jack protested without too much heat. "Not a boy toy."
"You're not the first, you know," the Doctor said.
"But I'm probably the best," Jack said with just enough humor that he didn't technically have to be slapped for it. It was better than taking the detour being offered into the Doctor's hostility at any rate.
Rose giggled and preened, and Jack found himself hoping she knew what she was doing. He didn't think she did, but it sure would be easier if he were wrong.
"Oi!" the Doctor half-snarled, pushing Rose's feet off his lap. "I need a drink if you're both going to be like that."
Jack and Rose exchanged a look and shrugged.
Jack turned to look over the back of the couch. "Planning to share?" Jack asked, somewhat disappointed that Rose had decided to sit up. He'd been enjoying the tease of her being just that close to his cock. At least she was still leaning against him.
The Doctor sighed. "You'd think being able to take them anywhere and anywhen would be enough to meet the demands of hospitality. But no! They want drinks too! And foot rubs."
Jack smiled, knowing that alcohol was his friend, at least with these two who were decorous and uptight by turns. At least compared to him. Okay, maybe that was unfair. Rose seemed game enough, but, well, the Doctor was key. If he disapproved, she clearly wasn't going to play.
The Doctor was also, Jack thought -- after drinks had been distributed, sampled, drained and replenished -- remarkably good at drunken conversation. For every outrageous story he had about sex, the Doctor had been able to match him with some tale of disrupting governments, overturning markets and generally running for one's life.
Even Rose had been able to keep up, helping the Doctor with some of his tales and telling a few of her own, the ones of her ordinary earth life before she'd found the Doctor or he'd found her, being oddly the most charming to Jack. But then, he felt like he could have listened to either of them for days.
He worried, vaguely, that he was too obviously making moon eyes at them both but then relaxed, figuring they'd just think it was a ploy anyway.
Rose set her drink down on the floor, and then slid down once more to lie draped across his lap, her neck resting on the edge of the sofa arm. Jack could feel her ass pressing against the outside of his left thigh; even that slight contact was making his heart race. He wished he understood why this kept happening to him.
He had one arm supporting the back of her head, idly caressing her hair; the other was resting on the back of the couch, holding his drink. It should have felt peaceful. It didn't.
In a way it seemed a lot like the Doctor, who was sitting all the way on the other end of the couch in a loose, long limbed sprawl that might have been considered relaxed in another person, but was actually full of what Jack was beginning to classify as a dangerous negligence. It could erupt at any moment, without reason, without warning. Jack suppressed a shiver of desire. Or was it fear? Honestly, he was beginning to lose track of the difference.
And then Rose moved, jostling his arm a little and drops of brandy spilled from his glass onto her throat and shirt front. She squealed, and Jack felt himself paralysed for one split second, before he realized that this -- hesitant, unsure, diffident -- was not him, nor did he want it to be.
His eyes darted up to meet the Doctor's. Somehow he managed not to flinch or blink at what he saw in them. Instead he bent his head, gave Rose a grin of apology, and put his tongue to her, licking the brandy off her in a long, wet stripe that started at just the point where her shirt dipped between her breasts and went all the way round her throat to the tip of her earlobe.
She'd stiffened in surprise when he began, but then he'd felt that snap of release as she let herself relax into it.
"Tastes even better this way," he remarked.
"Mmm," she said. "Think you missed a spot."
"Oh yeah?" he asked, delighted at her feistiness.
"Yeah."
"You know, I'm not usually that careless."
He offered her his glass. Instead she stuck two fingers into it and then drew them along the other side of her neck in a silent, wicked dare. Jack grinned, even as he felt himself harden. He sucked her finger into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, and felt her shiver against him.
He was about to get into trouble here. He just knew it.
The Doctor downed his drink all in one go. It was the only appropriate response. Well, actually that wasn't strictly true, but the other appropriate responses didn't really seem like they'd work out that well.
He couldn't just haul Jack off Rose and pitch him out of the TARDIS, not when Rose was smiling like that. And he couldn't just leave Rose alone with him, not when the Captain was smiling like that. So all he could do was drink his drink. Quickly. And find the whole thing very curious indeed.
In the last thirty seconds, Jack had discovered several things. The first was that Rose moaned in an absolutely stunning way if he breathed against her ear just right.
The second was that he absolutely had to have her, preferably right then. Not because she was beautiful, although she was. After all, Jack had had plenty of beautiful men, women and other categorizations that didn't translate into 20th century English all that well.
But this was different; his body responded to her presence as if it recognized something in her and needed desperately to find its way home. It was weird and ridiculous and made the potential sex just slightly unique in a way that a random pretty girl in a library wasn't or at least shouldn't have been. But Rose wasn't random. Rose was proof the universe had order.
The third thing that Jack had just discovered wasn't the most important, but as he shifted Rose slightly so that she would know just how interested he was, it was quickly becoming the most critical: The Doctor needed to join in or leave or break it all up, or just fucking do something. But Jack wasn't issuing invitations. He didn't think he had to. Because really, wasn't this, wasn't that sound Rose kept making enough?
"Rose, come here," the Doctor said.
Jack froze, and Rose made an effort to push herself into a sitting position that involved slightly less contact with Jack.
"Don't pout at me," the Doctor said, his voice hard but almost amused. "I'm not saying you can't play. Just come here where I can keep an eye on you."
Rose exchanged a glance with Jack who shrugged, and she clambered up from Jack's lap to lean against the Doctor instead.
He reached to the side table, poured himself some more brandy and put his arm around Rose as he offered her the glass.
"I'm guessing this isn't an invitation to pour it all over myself," she said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.
"It's good brandy. Drink it or leave it for someone who will," he said.
She took a sip and handed it back to him. He smiled.
"Well, Captain. Don't let me stop you."
"I won't," Jack said. "Don't let me stop you either," he said, his voice low and ridiculously tinged by sex.
"From what?" the Doctor asked, and Jack just shook his head as he touched Rose's cheek again to see if she were willing to play with the fire that now seemed a hell of a lot more serious than just a friendly roll on the couch.
Jack bent to kiss Rose, and she moved her head slightly so the kiss landed on her cheek instead. Oh, Jack thought. It's like that, is it? He was conscious of a slight twinge of hurt. But then her hand came up to twine in his hair, and she arched her neck just so, and he couldn't help but press a kiss into it.
She made an encouraging noise, and he smiled against her throat, before nipping at her with his teeth. She liked that, Jack could tell, and he was feeling drunker by the second, much more so than could be accounted for by a few glasses of brandy.
He reared back a little. "Your shirt," he said hoarsely. "It's sticky."
"It is," she agreed breathlessly.
"Think we could take it off?" Jack was actually slightly taken aback by his own temerity, but what else could you do besides push at something till it gave or something else did? Either the Doctor would stop him, or.... Jack's felt his mind sort of stutter to a halt there.
He didn't know how he could be so nervous and so excited all at the same time, and all over something so fucking ordinary. But this whole thing was weird, from his reactions to Rose, to the Doctor sitting by them so distantly, and yet so obviously planning on staying right where he was.
Did he want to watch this? Was he even paying attention? Was this some strange kink? Was he about to throw Jack from a moving TARDIS? Jack didn't think so, but he wouldn't have bet his life on it, except for the part where he kind of was.
Rose glanced up at the Doctor. She felt drunk and careening out of control, like she was riding a bicycle before she'd completely learned how and every movement was just part of falling -- like if she stopped moving fast enough she'd immediately plummet to the ground. Things were going so quickly, but it all felt so good. But the Doctor. What would he think of her?
The Doctor, however, was just staring into his glass as if it held the answers to all the questions in the universe, and Rose began to feel a bit offended. You'd think with a naked -- or about to be naked, if she agreed -- girl leaning against his lap, a bloke could show a little more interest.
Fine, she thought. Whatever. She wasn't going to let him stop her, and here was Jack, looking at her so expectantly, as if she'd hung the moon, and that was quite nice, it was. Jack, who'd told more stories and been more experienced than anyone she'd ever seen or thought of, and he wanted her.
She sat up, and defiantly pulled her top off and flung it to the floor.
Jack's eyes widened just a bit and for a second he looked just like any of the boys she'd ever been with. She grinned and pulled him towards her, sinking back to lean her back against the Doctor once again. If he wanted her to stop, he'd have to tell her. The leather of his jacket pressed into her naked back and she shivered at the sensation. It was wrong, what she was doing, but right now, she couldn't bring herself to care.
Rose had pulled him down, so his head was pillowed on her breasts; the lace was scratchy under his cheek, and her skin was so soft. He breathed in her scent, and thought that maybe he was dreaming again. He hoped he wouldn't wake up before he got to be inside her, and then realized not even his subconscious would have included the crackling of the fire and the leather clad Doctor behind her glowering. Because that was just strange.
He sucked Rose's nipple into his mouth, tonguing it through the lace; she moaned and fisted her hands in his hair. He slipped a hand over her denim clad hip and up over her stomach. Her skin felt perfect against his hand, and after so long without the sensation of flesh not his own, it felt like drinking a cold, sweet swallow of water after a long day of thirst.
This just isn't happening, Rose thought to herself, as Jack sucked on her nipples, drawing them up into tiny points of brilliant sensation, as she felt the press of the Doctor's coat, still strange behind her back. His mouth on her was patient and exquisite and relentless, and Rose thought she might come just from this. Her cunt felt heavy and swollen between her legs; it almost hurt, but with a strange pain that felt like pleasure.
Jack needed to see more of her, need to get this fabric away from between them. His hand moved to the fastening of her jeans. He pulled the button open and then slid them off her. And there she was, a little scrap of cotton underwear and lacy bra all that stood between him and feeling her naked and pressed up against him. Well, that and his clothes, and Jack didn't think he'd ever discarded those so quickly.
She felt exactly as good as he'd imagined she would pressed against him, her nails scratching his back, running over his chest, and he kissed her neck, kissed her breasts and stomach.
When he moved to slide off her underwear though, Rose's hand flew down to arrest his, and he froze instantly.
"Jack," she said. "I don't...."
"Sorry!" he said, mortified. What was it about Rose and the Doctor that could leave him so wrong-footed? And misreading signals like some kind of amateur idiot. "I didn't mean to--"
"No, it's okay. It's just, I didn't bring, well I didn't think we were going to..." She trailed off.
Jack looked at her blankly.
"You know," she said, almost stuttering. "You've been around. I don't want to, I mean. It's not safe."
"Oh," Jack said, finally getting it. He laughed, and Rose bristled a little. "I'd never hurt you, Rose, you know that."
"Yeah, but everyone says that, don't they?"
Her shoulders had sunk a bit when he laughed, and her body language was suddenly all folded in on itself and reading all kinds of wrong. Jack looked at the Doctor helplessly, though he wasn't sure why. Not like there'd be any assistance from that quarter.
Humans, the Doctor thought disgustedly. Well, at least this little experiment had stopped itself before it got too tangled up. Then he made the mistake of meeting Jack's eyes, which were pleading, and no wonder, considering the train wreck he'd got himself into. And then he quadrupled or quintupled the error by looking down at Rose, who was looking uncertain and unhappy, when a few minutes ago she'd been radiating pleasure. The Doctor sighed.
Then he cleared his throat.
"I think what the Captain's trying to say is that he's had all his shots, Rose." He petted Rose's hair soothingly. Then, to Jack, with only a slight hint of menace -- nothing to what it could have been -- "You have had all your shots, haven't you?"
"Yes," Jack said simply.
"Everything you could catch and some things you couldn't," the Doctor said to Rose. "Don't worry."
He took another swallow from his drink and wished he didn't metabolize liquor quite so well in this regeneration. It'd be nice to feel drunker. He played with Rose's hair some more. It was soft under his fingers, despite all the peroxide she insisted on using on it.
But it wouldn't be Rose without it, and it wouldn't be her either without getting into situations she couldn't handle and needing him to yank her back out of them. So he supposed that was all right, really. He pulled her back to lean against him, and nodded to the Captain. Surely the man could take it from there, couldn't he?
"Sorry," Jack said again, more softly this time, realizing it was going to be okay and also that Rose's ego needed soothing after that little debacle. Jack remembered what it was like to be so young, although he didn't have the slightest idea what that youth was like when coupled with shame and fear when it came to sex, although Rose seemed better off than many of the 20th century types he'd met. Hard time and place to be from though. Maybe that's why he liked it so much: all of the agonies of his own youth, yet none of the monsters.
"S'okay," she said with a certain mock shyness.
Embarrassed then, yes, but mostly because she only thought she had to be. Jack grinned and rested his chin on her thigh.
"Just a shot then, really?" she asked, and Jack had to work not to roll his eyes. Clearly, there still had to be a discussion, although he supposed he wouldn't blame her if he really thought about it. Thing was, he didn't want to. Big turn off that.
"Well, a few really. But it's pretty standard. Across the whole wide galaxy even," he said, trying to be light about it.
"And there's not going to be some weird future bug you don't even know is a bug and I can get or something?" she asked.
Jack laughed and shook his head. "People haven't changed that much," Jack said.
"I think that's what I'm afraid of," she said with a laugh.
"Don't be," Jack said softly.
"You!" she said, abruptly, cuffing Jack affectionately on the head. "You're not even worried about getting me pregnant or something. Don't you want to even ask if I'm on the pill?"
Jack gaped, wondering if she was going to keep coming up with these things. It was sort of starting to make him feel like a cad.
"All my shots... really," he stammered.
Rose's eyes went wide. "Really? They've finally figured that out then?"
"True as you live.”
Rose giggled. "I think I want shots!" she said, laughing.
"Can't have 'em. No messing about with the timeline for you," the Doctor intoned, clearly bored by the whole thing.
Jack winked at her. "We'll work on him later, okay?" he whispered.
Rose grinned.
"I heard that," the Doctor sniped.
"I don't care," Jack said softly, watching his own hand in fascination as it traveled up Rose's leg and across her skin and seemed so large and greedy, so full of possession.
And that was all it took. Something in his voice, or his manner, or maybe that look on his face, and Rose couldn't bring herself to care about shots or fear or the very cranky and dubiously approving man she was leaning against. There was just Jack, who was touching her like it was worship.
Now, it wasn't like anyone hadn't touched her that way before. Certainly, she'd come to the conclusion that any man who was worth a damn was always a little bit like that. But she'd never had anyone do it before because it seemed they couldn't help themselves. Normally it was a show, a seduction.
While Jack had been all about that in pretty much every moment she'd spent with him, he wasn't now. Shaken loose he was, and it seemed ridiculous to her, that someone who even if he hadn't seen worlds and been from another time and place, would have still been the knowing older man, could possibly look at her like that.
"Why?" she breathed softly, without meaning to, as he caressed her.
Jack just shook his head, and mostly, she found, she wanted to comfort him.
He kissed the inside of her knee, and she smiled and parted her legs to make it easier for him. He fitted his lips against the tendon there and smiled, and she felt his eyelashes against her thigh as he did it.
She ran a hand through his hair and he looked up at her. She expected him to say something. To say please or otherwise ask permission, to beg. She knew those sounds from men, at least slightly, even though her experience of them had mostly been absurd. But he didn't say a thing, just looked at her, and finally, it was she that smiled, that nodded to her mostly bare flesh and said, "Please."
Please.
Jack's hands were everywhere then. Not fast, not frantic, but running over her arms, across her throat, over her breasts, all over her legs, and when he really couldn't help himself, up and over the part of the Doctor's coat she was leaning on, as if it were an accident, the cool leather turning him on almost as much as her skin.
What a mess. He wanted them both, wanted the Doctor in him and telling him just how to fuck her, wanted to be trapped and broken between their mouths. But he was pretty sure that wasn't in the cards right now, even if the Doctor was sitting there, almost as if to make sure this happened.
Jack assumed that one day he would understand. But he'd also resigned himself to realizing that today was not going to be that day. And that was fine, because here he was sitting with his face between Rose's legs, drunk not from the brandy, not really, but from the smell of her cunt and fresh laundry. And he was loving this, this moment before everything. It almost made all the masturbation, all the damn sexual starvation of the last three weeks on this stupid ship worth it.
"Well, go on," she said, taking his hand and hooking it through her panties and then pushing it away so that he would drag them down.
The world caught up to him. And he knew exactly how to do this, moaning unavoidably as he slipped two fingers into her fast and direct. She arched back into the Doctor and Jack saw that he was smiling just a bit wistfully as he held onto Rose like he were the skin that could somehow keep her from flying apart.
But Jack couldn't spare much attention for the Doctor just then because there was Rose's face to look at as his fingers moved faster and faster; as he watched her bite at her own lip; as she panted for air, straining towards the orgasm he wasn't going to let her have, not now, not yet.
Now he had all five of his fingers surrounding her flesh, because he wanted to feel every quiver, every jolt. And then finally when he couldn't take it anymore, not one more second, he took his hand away, and let his cock -- so swollen and hard it didn't even feel like it belonged to him anymore -- plunge inside her.
Jack had to bite the inside of his cheek at that; she was so wet and slick, and god, it had been so long and this was Rose, wrapped around him, and even now, balls deep inside her, he couldn't quite believe it was actually happening.
But it was, and Jack was finally fucking her; finally her arms were twined around his neck; finally the heels of her feet were beating a tattoo on his calves, finally, finally, finally, and his forearms were bracing him so he could give her those quick, deep thrusts that were making her pulse around him.
Oh yes, she liked that, and she liked it when he teased her by pulling out till he was just giving her the tip of his cock, so it was just barely inside her, and then slowly, oh so slowly pushing back in, so she could feel every inch, and she liked it when he could no longer restrain himself, no longer hold back, and then there was no more thought, no more plan, just him and Rose, and an endless, overpowering orgasm that exploded like starbursts behind his eyes and, he suspected, behind hers as well.
When he could think again, he'd collapsed on her, drained and shaking with residual tremors, his head at her breasts. Her hands were gentle on his hair, and Jack wasn't sure if the wetness on his face was sweat or tears.
Rose kept petting Jack's head. She didn't know what else to do to express the overwhelming tenderness that threatened to engulf her. Great sex made you feel melancholy sometimes, she knew: a strange, sweet emptiness and loss, like you'd expect after the ends of things.
But then you got up, made some beans on toast, turned on the telly. And life went on. The world went on, and sooner or later, you did it all again. That was sex. That was life. But not here. Not in this strange ship with these strange men. And god, she was still leaning against the Doctor, and she wasn't sure how she'd ever look him in the eye ever again.
I want to go home, she thought. Not forever, not for good. Just a little bit of time, to remember why she'd left, a little trip to a depth that she understood. She wondered if Jack felt the same way; if that was why he was trembling at her breast, wordless and spent. Not what she'd expected, really. No quips, no gentle praise, no flirting.
Was he all right?
She took a deep breath, no point in being a coward now, and tilted up her head, so she could meet the Doctor's eyes. Wasn't like he had a leg to stand on; he'd let it happen; he'd practically offered her up to Jack -- or Jack to her, she wasn't sure -- like a bloody prize at an arcade.
The look in his eyes was not what she was afraid of, nor what she was expecting. There was no judgment in it. They just seemed a million years old and very far away.
She glanced at Jack and then looked at the Doctor questioningly.
The Doctor gave a short, humorless laugh. "You have to ask?"
Rose nodded.
"Think the lad's in love with you, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said very softly.
She stared at him in shock and felt Jack suck in his breath, as if someone had hit him.
The Doctor shook his head and very gently, slid out from under her. He stood, and suddenly he seemed very tall, very removed, and very alien. And all she wanted to do was run to him and hold him against her, and promise she'd never let anything hurt him ever again. But she couldn't, because she was only a stupid human and naked, and there was Jack, and she had no idea what she was doing anymore.
"Doctor," she said finally. "I want to go home."
The Doctor studied her quizzically.
"Just for a bit," she added hurriedly. "I need... I need my passport. Never know when we might need it. Could've come in handy in Russia, I mean, if it'd been the present day."
"I don't think you nee--"
"You don't know that," she said.
"Actually I do," he started. Then he stopped. "Well, we do need to refuel. We can do that in Cardiff. Rift in space and time, remember?"
Rose felt her mouth begin to quirk into a smile. "Okay. Good."
"But first," the Doctor said, "we're going to visit Rodia."
Rose looked at him questioningly.
"I promised the Captain a history lesson."
Jack lifted his head at that. "Really?" he asked.
"Oh you're alive, are you?" the Doctor said. "I don't talk just for the pleasure of hearing myself, you know. Not like some people."
Jack laughed, and Rose felt her spirits begin to rise again at the sound of it, still infectious, still larger than life. Okay. Maybe everything was okay.
"Get dressed, you two," the Doctor said. "They don't look kindly upon naked people walking through the streets of New Diatholon."
"Now that doesn't sound like much fun," Jack said.
"I think you've had enough naked fun for the time being, don't you?"
"Never enough. How 'bout you take some clothes off and join us?"
"Buy me a drink first," the Doctor said. "One I didn't pay for, and maybe we'll see."
Jack sat up. "Really?"
The Doctor smirked. "I'll see you in the console room. Better hurry. Things to do." And with that, he was gone.
Rose and Jack looked at each other, and then Rose squirmed off the couch and began to collect her discarded clothes.
"So Rodia and then Cardiff for refueling, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Is that home? I mean, is that where you're from?"
"No," Rose said. "God, no. Who'd live in Cardiff?"
Jack laughed. "That bad, huh?"
"You'll see," Rose said. "No, I live in a council flat, in London with my mum. When I'm not here, I mean. It's called the Powell Estate?" Jack looked puzzled, and Rose smiled. "I'll show you on a map or something."
"Okay," Jack said.
"Cardiff's not home," she said, "but it's close enough."
Jack glanced around the room. Like so many places, he thought, but didn't say.
Rose pulled on her jeans, and then her shirt. "I'll give Mickey a ring," she said, almost to herself. "He can bring me my passport."
"Do you really need--"
"Yeah," Rose said, cutting him off. "Listen, about Mickey?"
"He's your boyfriend?"
"Yeah," Rose said. "I mean, we do our own thing, y'know? But yeah. He'll bring it for me, down to Cardiff. D'you think we could...." she trailed off.
"Could what?"
"Well. I mean, he's not... I don't want him to feel...." She gulped. "D'you think you could not say anything? About this?" She nodded towards the couch.
Jack smiled. She was so young. And he didn't know why she made his heart sing.
"Sure," he said. "Silent as the grave. You can trust me."
Rose leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "I know I can," she said.
Jack held her for a moment, and then let go. He pulled on his own clothes with dispatch. "So," he said, offering her his arm. "Tell me more about Cardiff. And your century. 21st, right?"
Continue to Part 3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 04:08 pm (UTC)I think this is an important part of the arc because it is so easy to forget that Jack once was not bitter (he can say what he wants he totally is) and ridden with the burden of immortality. Back in a time when Jack was all playful and hey he was happy. Thinking about that kind of makes me want to cry...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 06:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-10 06:15 pm (UTC)I love Ianto as a character, how well he develops, how crazy fucking strong he is. It's intense. Can I see myself in his shoes? Not at all.