Author's Notes: Rated M for a reason, people. Fair warning. And yes, I know that I have WIP's hanging around on here, but my soul has been stolen by bandom, and honestly writing Pete/Patrick or Jon/Spencer is, at the moment, more fun. I might get back on my fics here, although not for a while. Who knows.

--

Jack bounces himself back to Earth, aiming for the 21st Century, but hoping for something a century either way. The newspaper he picks up tells him, in between the information that America now has the world first transcontinental railway and reporting the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association, that the year is 1869.

Could be worse, he supposes. At least he isn't on a deserted space station anymore.

Or dead. That's always going to be a plus.

Actually, he's not so sure about that after a while. Certain…situations keep cropping up, and Jack keeps surviving. The first few times, he chalks it up to luck and gets on with things. Surviving. Working, in a way. Forgetting them. Avoids those certain situations.

He makes it all the way to 1909 before he has to admit it to himself that he's changed. In the middle of a diamond scam it becomes necessary for him to take the identity of an officer in charge of fifteen men, soldiers. Which is how he winds up the only one left alive in a train carriage travelling through rural Lahore, surrounded by the petal-strewn body of a group of guys he was just getting to know.

Not that knowing them was part of his plan, but after they left he grabs every chance at fleeting friendship he can. That he gives a false name every time is of no matter; it's the contact that counts, the momentary glimpse he gets into normal lives.

After that he stops with the scams unless he needs money and can't get it legally. The job with the circus is not much a job as a way for Jack to try and understand himself. The flash and report of the revolver play over and over in his head even after the circus vanishes, leaving him to make his own way again.

The First World War comes and goes, Jack joining up and saving whoever he can in a futile effort to keep up the expectations he somehow knows he will have for him, wherever he is.

Once a hero, always doomed to be a hero, Jack thinks sometimes.

He comes out into the new Europe with medals and several commendations, and spends the intervening years wandering. He shies away from anything that brings back memories, avoiding London in case he meets himself and does something hinky to the universe that might bring them back his way.

Jack's bitter, so shoot him. It's not like either thing does any good.

There's a moment that haunts him for several years, when he's in America. He gets work on the Empire state building, pure physical labour that chases away the demons that plague him during the day because he doesn't sleep at night. At all.

Working up high one day, he looks down and catches sight of two people who clearly don't belong wandering around. He's about to dismiss them as guests of Mr. Diagoras when the man makes a gesture, clearly pointing something out to his partner. Jack nearly falls off his perch on a girder.

It's him. It has to be; the hair and clothes might be different, but then who knows what the TARDIS can do to a person who doesn't want to be recognised. Jack sure doesn't. The movements are inherently him, and that's more than enough to make Jack quit and leave.

Seeing him would be almost as bad as not seeing him, which is fucked up but then so is Jack. He notices that she isn't there, and lets himself wonder for a moment.

Ending up back in London he keeps to the shadows, waiting out the years until the ominous rumbles of another war become reality and a new generation of boys sign up for glory, honour and patriotism. Jack signs up as well, although his reasons are less to do with any sense of duty and more to do with boredom.

Then, as before, certain situations occur, and he finds himself looking at a very confused and very pissed off Jack Harkness. Seeing himself isn't as odd as he'd imagined it would be, although the possible ramifications if he gets involved make him pause before following himself and a pretty Japanese woman into a dance hall, the vibrant 1940's music echoing around the streets as they slip inside.

Watching himself meet the original Jack is…painful. He can't quite get his head around things, honestly. He's here, but he's also there, and somewhere in the distant future he's also frantically searching through a forgotten archive on a library planet for a man whose identity he can inhabit.

The original Captain Jack is charming, confident and so very, very repressed.

Watching through the inevitable argument, explanation and frantic running around trying to save themselves and the planet – god, couldn't he have picked a less heroic job? – Jack realises that the man he's going to become is so much more than he'd ever imagined.

Their kiss as the 'rift', the Japanese woman calls it, opens, takes his breath away, and once he's safely back in the future, leaving behind a shocked man who knows he's going to die tomorrow, the Jack Harkness who hasn't yet learnt how to be a hero or even deal with being permanently alive steps out into the chill Cardiff streets and follows his ears.

They lead him to yet more music, a USO dance in a smaller but no less packed venue. He leans against a wall and lets the melancholy music wash over him, allowing it to seep in between the whirling thoughts. He had once tried to explain time to Jack and her, but it had devolved from a lecture to basically a flip of his hands and something about a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey…stuff.

As couples move across the dancefloor in front of him, returning to their seats as the song ends, Jack wonders how being in three, four, maybe even five places at once has affected that ball. He stares at the band, not seeing them for several moments he's that engrossed in wondering whether he should've introduced himself, just to see what would've happened.

Probably nothing; Jack has learnt that expecting something to happen generally means it won't. That's part of the reason why he never expected them to find him. It hurt too much.

Then he shakes it off and focuses. He can do nothing but live and wait for his life, such as it is, to unfold to the point where he's in charge of another group of people who rely on him but don't seem to entirely trust him. He doesn't blame them; after Lahore, he never opens up.

Jack watches the band, noting how obvious it is that the hair of the guitarist on the right is only barely restrained by the thick layer of hair cream. He scans the others, taking in a shorter man who looks like he could take care of himself in a fist fight, but probably has problems taking orders – Jack would know,
he's one of those guys – and a blond guy on a set of drums who tries and mostly succeeds to stay unnoticed while pounding out a rhythm.

Then the man-boy, really, on a bass guitar catches his eye and - - fuck, no. She had left him with more than just an occasionally annoying tendency to keep coming back to life (was it too much to ask to be able to get drunk still?). Jack can see the boy flickering; can see a beach in faded sepia tones behind him, the blond man frantically trying to bandage him up while the guitarists hold back a third man while bullets fly.

Who, Jack now notices through his anger at being forced to see this – this ending because of her and her stupid fucking bad wolf – is the singer, stepping up to the microphone to sing in a voice that has the couples watching each other carefully. The song is slow and soft, but Jack can hear the underlying energy building.

If he's honest, something he always is with himself if rarely anyone else, the singer is captivating. His jet black hair curves off his forehead and back, exposing his fine-boned face and dark eyes for Jack's scrutiny. Pale hands curl around the microphone as he sings, his lips forming words that strike at Jack's…not his heart, exactly, but a part of him that he exposed, that's still raw and learning to be pulled at by things, by people's words and heartaches.

Then he looks up, and Jack's caught. Instantly and unavoidably; he can't look away. The guy's mouth quirks up at one corner as he fixes Jack with a look so pointed it makes him wonder if there's not more to the singer than he seems. Over the years Jack has come across more aliens than he ever really needed or wanted to, and none of the finely-tuned triggers in his head are telling him to move away.

In fact, they're telling him to move closer, to get as close as he can to this man – Christ, how old is he, really? Younger than Jack, obviously, although Jack's not sure how old he is anymore – who delivers the chorus in a voice which makes Jack shiver and, twistedly, remember John. Then the singer leans forward, cradling the microphone, and John fades out of memory in a flash.

The song ends at some point, Jack knows this, but there doesn't seem to be anything in between the look which smoulders its way across the room to burn in his stomach and the point where he has the singer standing in front of him, head tilted and a smile in his eyes.

"Hi." He raises one graceful hand, but Jack barely notices the cool, smooth skin beyond his eyes. "I'm Gerard."

Hell. The real Jack is in the same city, only about a mile away – "Jack."

"Jack." The sing-Gerard says it like it's something exotic, voice catching on the hard –ck and making it into almost a suggestion.

Wait, no, definitely a suggestion. He tugs on Jack's wrist, the smile in his eyes extending to his mouth and making it look darkly promising as he pulls Jack along a corridor and into an empty room. He presses Jack against the door, looking at him intently as he flicks the lock shut. When he speaks it's onto sensitive skin, the juncture of neck and shoulder exposed by the loosened collar of his dress shirt.

"You know something, Jack. Something about one of my friends."

"How the hell do you know that?" Jack's instincts kick in, but Gerard's arms are blocking his path and he really doesn't want to move away from the heat building between them. Something that has been lurking in the back of his mind since they first locked eyes hits him; he's hard, wants this guy with his artfully coiffed hair and his low voice.

Wants him, and at the same time vaguely realises that he knows Gerard already knows what to do to him to make it perfect. Dangerous, a voice in his head whispers, bit it's a mere murmur compared to Gerard's silky tones. "Who is it, Jack, who's going to die?"

"How. The. Fuck. Do you know that?" Harsher now, he's making some attempt at being Jack Harkness, the lone joker who's afraid of nothing he can't imagine and no one he can't understand. Gerard's smile changes, growing and at the same time closing off a little.

"I'm different. I know things, things about people. But you…you I have to ask, you're different as well."

Jack nods, accepting it. His body is taking over now, the press of Gerard against him too much for a man who's kept himself away from this particular contact for so long. He was a hard act to follow, even after one kiss too plain and too rushed to mean anything. Boy was she going to be in trouble when he left her behind. In this moment, though, he could let himself react to the way Gerard's thigh was between his legs, Gerard looking up at him through long eyelashes and waiting.

Jack spoke before the part of him most affected by him could object. "The one in the glasses. Him, he'll -" Can't make himself say it, not after seeing Gerard's face twist and something in his eyes shatter. The messy and dirty kiss is something he can deal with though, gasping and letting Gerard just take. More than that is impossible right now; it's all he can do to get his arm to move so he can thread a hand through soft hair.

Gerard's own hand, so pretty and pale around the garish metal of a microphone, gets his trousers – the word sticks, even though he's supposedly American and being roughly jerked off by another American – undone with unsurprising dexterity. The words bitten into his lips taste like Mikey, my fucking kid bother, but he's trained himself to ignore words said in pain now.

He was right. Gerard knows exactly how to play him, his grip tight and slick once he licks his palm with a look in his eyes which makes Jack wish he was going to stick around, that this wasn't happening like this because of an unfortunate accident with a time vortex that left him with the unfortunate ability of knowing Gerard's brother was going to die in a hail of bullets soon.

He wanted to know more about Gerard, more than what he was going to find out once the singer stopped fucking teasing him with gentle trails of fingernails and soft nips at his neck and Jack sank to his knees. He pulls Gerard in for a deep kiss, making it as full of apologies as he can. For what, exactly, Jack doesn't know; that Gerard is going to lose a brother, maybe, or that it's Jack who told him.

Hot and sticky against his thighs, seeping through the material of his pants as his mind whites-out to an accompanying groan from Gerard. Not being able to die hadn't curtailed his ability to orgasm, thankfully, nor his ability to give head. The tricks he'd learnt back in the 51st century – or was it forward in the 51st century? Don't go there, too confusing – would have Gerard well-repaid for teasing him in moments.

Jack summons some energy and spins them, his calloused hands catching on the rough material of Gerard's dress uniform as he mouths at the slick head of his cock, grounding Jack in the here-and-now like nothing else so far had managed to. He licks and sucks, mouth attempting to stretch even wider in a smile that would've been sharp if it weren't for the dick filling it as Gerard's hands pulled on his hair.

Pain is something Jack knows, relishes even. It means there's feelings, and that a person can express those feelings. Gerard's thighs shake as Jack goes down until his nose touches wiry hair and skin, fingers pressing Gerard's hips against the door with such pressure that Jack knows he will be hiding a set of bruises under the soldiers clothes come tomorrow.

Salty bitterness fills his mouth and flows down his throat when he hums, Gerard gasping. When Jack looks up his eyes are fixed on Jack's as he slides his mouth off slowly, dark eyes made darker by the dim light of the solitary bulb hanging above their heads. He pulls Jack up, kisses him the taste of himself out of Jack's mouth so sweetly Jack aches to tell him 'stay, don't go, stay here with me'.

They are words he'll never utter though, and both of them pull apart at the same moment. Whether or not Gerard survives as well, Jack can't tell; he doesn't have enough of the vortex to be able to tell more than one thing at a time, but again that's something he can't think about. Gerard strokes gentle fingers down his cheek, suddenly seeming much older and wiser than Jack.

Not that wiser is difficult, but it's disconcerting no a guy so much more…untarnished than Jack is.

Gerard's voice cuts though the soft silence and the faint echoes of dance music. "Thanks. For telling me, and – "

"I get it." He gets another look, a considering one this time.

"Yeah, you do" Gerard says slowly, "you really do. but thank you anyway. I'm gonna…" he motions towards the door, and at Jack's nod presses one last kiss to his slick and red lips. There's no uncomfortable atmosphere; Gerard asked, Jack told, and then they both took what they needed to cope with it. He lets the door swing to, returning to his friends and his brother to take last looks and store away last memories.

A few moments later Jack leaves as well, stepping through an empty corridor then threading his way through the braver couples now slow dancing to another band, sitting at the bar and making a gesture he hope the bartender can interpret as 'alcohol over here, as strong as you've got'. Being a USO dance, what he gets is bourbon, which stings still as it travels down his throat, but the warmth in his stomach is an echo of what it used to be. Before.

Jack switches to water, the phantom feeling of heat in his veins not to his tastes tonight. He glances along the bar at one point, as the band takes up a large section and call for drinks. Gerard turns for a moment, eyes searching for Jack with an uncanny accuracy he isn't surprised at, not now. He tips his half-empty glass, smiling crookedly before turning back to his friends and slinging an arm over his brother's shoulder, leaning down to speak to him.

Jack watches as Mikey blinks behind his glasses and nods, and watches as they raise a toast to something like brotherhood or solidarity. Jack's had enough of that as well, seen too many men abandon their values to have any but the most minimal faith in it.

He nods a thank you to the bartender and makes to leave. Something prompts one last look, and he barely resists it. Gerard doesn't to anything but look; no smile, no gesture, but even so Jack knows what he's saying. Mikey will die, and Gerard will be devastated, but at least he's prepared.

Jack steps out into a fine drizzle, unsure of whether that's a good or a bad thing, and not sure he ever wants to know the answer to that.