Yrs,
The Hon Cpt. Urwen, BSc, CJD.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"I won't be long, okay? I just want to let mum know I'm okay." Rose said. "Y'know what she was like last time. Promise you won't fight?"
"On my honour as a dirty scoundrel." Jack said, leaning against the door post of the Tardis and smiling winningly. Rose noticed the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners and blushed when she realised she had.
"Give my love to Jackie." The Doctor said, with a gerbil-faced grin..
Rose nodded and decided she would do nothing of the sort. She paused for a second, looked down, then looked up again. "I'll be back soon."
"Off you go." The Doctor said, making pushing motions with his hands.
Rose paused again, smiled, then ran off past the garages. Jack and the Doctor stepped back inside the Tardis and closed the doors. Both smiles instantly disappeared.
"Phew, for a minute there I thought she was gonna ask me to meet her mom.." Jack sighed.
"Oh, I'm sure you're the sort of boy everyone wants to take home to mother." The Doctor replied, checking the controls of the Tardis. "The Tardis is low on power." He looked up. "I believe we'll be taking a little trip to Wales when Rose comes back."
"Woo. Wales." Jack gave the double thumbs up. "This thing runs on rain then?"
"I wish."
Jack found a chair to sprawl in and sprawled in it (god forbid he should sit normally) while the Doctor ignored him in an elaborate fashion which involved lifting up several previously invisible hatches in the Tardis floor and disappearing into them in succession and emitting a high-pitched whining sound, or rather a high-pitched whining sound was probably coming from the Doctor's screwdriver or the Tardis itself.
Jeez, I'm already bored. Jack thought. "Jeez, I'm already bored." He said.
"What do you expect me to do about it?"
That was the sort of comment that made a man want to be as annoying as he could possibly be. "Need any help?"
"No."
"I'm gonna take a walk."
"Not dressed like that you're not." The Doctor said, from under the floor.
"What are you, my mother? I'll say I'm going to a 1940s theme costume party."
"I'd say get the Tardis to give you a change of clothes, but it has a funny sense of humour sometimes. And absolutely no dress sense. Actually, yeah, get the Tardis to give you a change of clothes."
One could almost feel the grin oozing up through the floor panels. A bank of lights in the central control panel flickered, but whether the Tardis was amused by the comment or offended by the insult to its fashion powers was unclear. Jack unsprawled, went over to where the Doctor's legs were the only visible part of him and crouched down.
"We need to have a talk." He told the Doctor's shoes.
"About what?"
"You know what."
"If I want to play word games I'll buy a puzzle book." The Doctor said.
"I know you're in love with Rose."
There was a thump, such as might be made when a head connected rather sharply with a metal bar set into the floor of a time machine. Then there was laughter. The Doctor slid out from under the floor and rubbed his head, still laughing. Jack grinned and raised an eyebrow. "Something's funny?"
"Hmm. Yeah. Humans."
"Well, whatever. I'm pretty sure she's in love with you."
The Doctor's face darkened. "I know." He looked up.
"Okay, enough with the enigmatic bullshit. Do you love her or not?"
"You mean can you have her?" That half-teasing half-sarcastic tone was back.
"Yeah, of course."
"You people. Why does everything have to be about sex? What's so strange about me wanting to have someone to show the universe to? The answer to both questions is no. No, I don't love her, and no, you can't have her."
"Well, that's pretty selfish of you..."
"You don't get it. You never get it, any of you. You have your fun and then run off with the first Trojan Prince or Eco-Warrior who comes along." The Doctor emphasised his statement with rapid and angry hand movements.
It was Jack's turn to laugh. "So you're seriously telling me you're acting all bitchy 'cause you think I want to take away your travelling buddy?"
The Doctor stared at him. "Yes, that is what I'm telling you. Is that so hard to believe?"
"Nothing about Rose appeals to you? That body, those lips? The way she smiles?"
"Nope."
"You just want her to go "ooh, yeah, that's so great" when you show her some pretty stars?"
"Yep." The Doctor nodded.
"You cannot be serious."
"Yes I can."
"Well." Jack raised his eyebrows. "I sure hope I don't live nine hundred years if it means ending up as frigid as you."
"I'm not frigid. I just enjoy higher pleasures. Good company, adventures." The Doctor grinned again. "A pretty face is gone all too quickly, but saving the universe never gets old." He waved a finger.
Jack looked at him sidelong. "You remind me of some guys I met in Borneo in 1842. All bravado and adventures and "what-ho chaps, bring on the guns", but mention sex and watch them change the subject faster'n they'd shoot a native who looked at 'em funny. No passion, no soul."
"Yeah, well, people got put in prison for that sort of thing back then."
"Ugh, don't remind me." Jack said. "So uptight. At least Algy was good for a..."
"I'll stop you there." The Doctor interrupted. "For the sake of my sanity. I am not uptight."
"You are." Jack laughed. "You won't even let me talk about it."
"You're wrong, anyway. Oh how wrong you are. I've had... y'know... "liasons". Quite recently even. Within the last few decades. There was this cardiologist..." He looked confused. "Mind you I was acting really weird then. Something about shoes, and clocks. Unlimited rice pudding? Chicken vol-au-vents? No, that was earlier. A man can get very sick of jelly babies, you know." He said, with the air of someone revealing a vital, universal truth.
"Quit it, you're making me hungry."
"I don't see why I should have to justify myself to a time-criminal. And a bad one at that."
"Ah, but you want to." Good grief, this man was easy to wind up. He was like a loose tooth that you can't help poking at just to feel it wiggle. "You can't back down from a challenge, can you?"
"You think you know me." The Doctor laughed, irritatingly smug.
"Prove it then. Prove you're not uptight." Jack said. "I dare ya. I double dare ya."
"What do you want me to do? Go to a strip club? Buy a dirty magazine? Lower myself to your level? Hah."
"I said passion, not porno."
"Either way, I'm not playing."
"Really?"
"Really."
Jack paused, looked away and then looked back. "Chicken."
The Doctor looked at him, exasperated. "So childish. Shut up."
"You shut up." Jack replied, teasingly, pushing the Doctor to the floor and leaning over him. The time lord smelt of leather and something curious and oily that was probably whatever the Tardis' moving parts were greased with.
"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked, looking slightly panicked.
"What does it look like?"
"I said I'm not playing."
"Who says it's a game?" Jack replied, and kissed him. The Doctor froze underneath him, which put the captain right off. He was used to a sort of soggy melting motion from the recipients of his affections. He pulled away, smiling triumphantly.
"See. Uptight." He rested a hand on the Doctor's chest. "Woah, maybe not. Your heart is pounding."
"Which one?" The Doctor asked, still managing to be cheeky from a compromising position.
"Oh yeah." Jack removed his hand and replaced it with his ear, which he then moved to the right hand side. The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"You'll try it on with anything that moves, you."
"Within reason. Shut up, this is cool." Jack waved a hand and moved his head to the left hand side again. "If you get them at the right angle, it sounds like disco."
"Stop taking liberties with my chest cavity. I am not a beat box!"
"Sorry, yeah." Jack said, lifting his head up so he could see the Doctor properly. "Where were we?"
"Nowhere. Get off me."
"What if I don't want to?"
"What you want doesn't come into it. Get off me. Rose might come back."
"She can join in."
"That's not funny."
"I'm serious."
"Oh God, you are, aren't you?" The Doctor looked slightly disgusted.
"Yep."
"Get off me."
"Uptight and frigid."
"Get off me now."
Jack leaned down a little until his face was right up close to the Doctor's. "No."
The Doctor shrugged and tried to shove the other man off him. This resulted in a roll sideways and ended up with Jack now on the floor and the Doctor pinning him. Jack responded by slinging his arms around the Doctor's neck and dragging himself up and the Doctor down into another kiss, pressing his body close along the other man's, so he could almost feel the double heartbeat in his own chest. They stayed like that for about as long as the Doctor could support both their weights on his arms, and then his bending at the elbows and collapsing on top of Jack broke it. Jack fell back onto the floor and looked up at him, smiling. There had been the slightest of thaws that time.
"Look." The Doctor said, quietly, moving slowly away in case Jack tried to grab him again. "Stop it. You've had your fun. All right, I'm uptight, whatever you say. It doesn't matter. You win, just stop it."
Jack looked into his eyes. They were unreadable as usual. Even when they seemed to show an emotion, you couldn't be sure it was real. He lied with his whole face. The Doctor still thought he was playing a game. He reached up and rested a hand on the Doctor's cheek.
"I can look at stars with you." He smiled. "For as long as you like. I don't have to go home to my mom. We can have all the adventures you want."
The Doctor gave him a very old look. It contained mostly anger at serious things being taken lightly and hopelessness and elements of betrayal. "I bet you say that to all the boys." He said, bitterly sarcastic. "I shouldn't have told you anything."
"I'm serious!" Jack said, sitting up and dusting his jacket with displaced aggression.
"Oh yes, I'm sure you are."
"If all you want is someone to travel in time with... that's not a chore, it's great. I'll do it."
Something that might possibly have been a flicker of hope was rapidly quelled by suspicion. "If you think I'm going to be another one of your conquests..."
Jack moved closer across the floor. "Just let me in, Doctor. You spend all your time taking care of the universe, and you don't let anyone take care of you." These were old lines, lines he'd used before, obviously with slightly different subject matter, but they usually worked. He was starting to wonder whether or not he was serious. There was certainly something interesting about "conquering" a time lord, but he was also telling the truth about wanting to explore time and space. Not that he hadn't done plenty of that already, but in a ship like this and with a man who turns armouries into banana plantations because he wants to. Sometimes it was darned irritating being able to lie so well you almost believed you were telling the truth. Jack carefully moved in. The Doctor did not try to stop him, although he looked rather tense.
But when their lips met, it was like someone had tripped the power switch. He went from tense to intense in under a second. Jesus Christ, Jack thought, you'd need to be a cardiologist to put yourself back together after this. The strength of the man, the energy. He was vaguely aware that the walls of the Tardis seemed to be convulsing, but perhaps his head was going funny under the onslaught.
When it was over, he lay spent underneath a leather jacket and the slightly crushing weight, noting just how fast a double circulation system really could go and watching a row of pink lights slowly changing from lurid magenta to dusky rose.
"Rose." Said the Doctor.
"Oh hell." Said Jack, exasperatedly. "Don't tell me you're regretting it already..."
The Doctor sat up and rapidly covered himself with a shirt. Confused, Jack sat up too. The door of the Tardis was open and Rose stood in the doorway, covering her mouth with her hands.
"Oh my god." She said.
"Rose.. it's ..." The Doctor began.
"Exactly what it looks like." Jack finished, smiling winningly at her. "Care to join us?"
"You're despicable, you are.." The Doctor glared at him.
"Easy, Tiger. You're pretty despicable yourself. I think I have bruises."
"I can't believe you two." Rose lowered her hands. "I said don't fight, I didn't mean do... this..." She turned around to run away, but the door of the Tardis shut in her face and refused to open again. Lights blinked, apologetically. She turned to the Doctor. "Let me go! That's not fair."
"It's not me." He said, hopelessly. "It's the Tardis. I said, it likes you."
"Then why won't it let me go?"
"It does what it thinks is best."
"Hey, you want a foursome Tardis? I like the way you think." Jack patted the control panel he was leaning against. "Would that even be possible?" He said, thoughtfully. The control panel purred.
"Shut up." Said the Doctor. He turned to the control panel. "Both of you."
Lights flickered, affronted.
"If I have to stay here, at least put your clothes on." Rose said, covering her eyes and waving a hand.
There was an uneasy few minutes while they tried to identify whose shirt was where.
"Okay, you can look." Jack said.
Rose uncovered her eyes and immediately got back into causing guilt. "I can't believe you'd do this!" She said. "Okay, I can believe Jack'd do this, but not you." She told the Doctor.
"Gee, thanks." Jack said. "Okay, yeah, you got me there."
"You shut up." Rose turned to the Doctor, tears in her eyes. "I thought you were better. I thought you..."
The Doctor looked away, unable to meet her eye.
"I don't understand what the problem is here." Jack said, although he understood perfectly well and was just enjoying the fun in a slightly disturbing sociopathic sort of way. "We're all consenting adults, it's legal in this time period. You like him, I like you, he likes me.. at least I think he does."
"Look, would you just shut up, this is serious." Rose snapped.
"I'm serious! Why does everyone keep saying I'm not serious? I'm perfectly serious. Rose, you're a goddess, you're beautiful. We both think so. Don't we?" He looked at the Doctor, who nodded, slowly. "See? Let us express all the love and passion that can pass between two men and a woman."
Lights flickered.
"Two men, a woman, and a time machine." Jack said, without a change in expression. "Whaddaya say?" He smiled and held out his hand.
Rose sniffed and wiped the running mascara from under her eyes, tossed her head proudly and said:
"All right. I will." She took his hand.
"Attagirl." Jack swung her round into his lap.
"I don't believe it. You're insatiable." The Doctor said, folding his arms, exasperatedly.
"Oh now, you're not going to let us down, are you Doctor?" Jack asked, offering his other hand.
"It's all a big joke to you, isn't it?"
"It's an adventure. I thought you liked adventures."
The Doctor glared at them. Jack raised an eyebrow questioningly and kept his hand out. Rose looked hopeful.
Finally, the Doctor sighed.
"Oh, all right then..."
THE END