Just Circles -- 10/Jack

[A Moment In Subtext]

Doctor Who
Just Circles
By. A Moment In Subtext

After the Master had died, when he'd lost everything (again), when Martha left him but Jack changed his mind and came back, the Doctor stopped being able to use the word 'no.'
He'd thought (when he'd regenerated) that he'd gotten over it. Open wounds had become old scars and so on and so forth, he could let go of the past. He'd thought this this him could get used to the solitude, the silence in his head, that he could live without always have a companion. This him wasn't going to need. (He'd been so determined.)
He let Jack have anything he wanted, things he'd never let any of his companions have. He let him have pets and 'playmates' and weapons. He even went back, in one of the rare moments when Jack was either asleep or busy, and rebuilt the gun factor over the banana grove (because banana's were good, but he needed Jack more than he needed potassium.)
He knew he was pathitic, the Last of the Time Lords, clinging to beings with the lifespans of flireflies. Except for the Very Wrong Thing named Jack, the once firefly that wouldn't burn out and he couldn't let go.

--

"Are you alright?" Jack asked, once they were on their way through the Vortex.
'Yeah, of course I'm alright, why wouldn't I be,' he thought. It was on the tip of his tongue. But what came out was, "No." Because he couldn't lie to Jack.
Jack's face seemed to soften, to melt a little bit at the admission. He didn't hesitate to wrap the Doctor in his arms and move with him, almost hypnotically. Almost-dancing, they moved around the console room. Jack seemed content to just hold him and rock until the Doctor had his breakdown.
And have a breakdown he did, eventually.
An indeterminable time later, he still held him, idly stroking his hair through the Doctor had calmed hours ago.
"Better now?" He whispered against the Doctor's ear.
"Yeah, little bit."

--

"Where to now?" The Doctor asked, douncing around the console.
"Anywhere."
"Anywhere? You've gotta have a preferance."
"Not really." Jack shrugged. "You pick. Surely you've been places."
The Doctor stopped bouncing. "I can't." He said quietly, after a moment.
"There can't be that many choi-"
"Jack." The Doctor cut him off. "I can't."

--

Jack leaned back, not letting go, not pulling away, just leaning back so he could see the Doctor's face. His eyes weren't tear swollen, or red, or any of the other things that human eyes do when they've been crying. The only evidence was in the pale silver tear-tracks streaking his cheeks.
"Are you sure?"
The Doctor hesitated. ". . .no."
"What can I do to help?"
"Stay with me."
"I will." Jack promised, and they both knew it was a lie. He loosened his grip on the Doctor to bring one hand up to his face, tipping his chin slightly. Jack leaned in and kissed him. The Doctors lips were thin and dry, a bit like paper (but not in a bad way), and he tasted of ashes, and bubblegum, (unlike the previous incarnation's cinnamon), and something Jack can't put a name to but seemed so familiar.
And it would have been nice, if it had been less like kissing a statue and more like kissing a person, because the Doctor just stood there and let him do it.
"Respond." Jack breathed, and the Doctor did, with a desperation that only half-surprised Jack, and left them pressed tightly against a column of the Tardis.

--

"But we always go where I want."
"Yep."
"And we always do what I want to do."
"Yep."
"You used to pick places for us to go, things for us to do. You don't do that anymore. Why don't you do that anymore?"
"Jack. . ."
"What do you want, Doctor?"
"I just want you to stay." The Doctor said quietly.
"Oh." Jack said, just as quietly. "Alright."

--

Lost somewhere in the Doctors head are the words 'Jack really is as good as he claims,' the sentance abandoned and the line of thought completely derailed by the time Jack's hands found their way under his shirt. The words were true, of course. So true, that the Doctor was only mildly surprised to find that when he looked around they weren't in the control room anymore.
"Your skin is cold." Jack said, wiggling out of his own shirt with a speed and precision that left the Doctor staring.
"Lower body temperatue." He murmured. "Two hearts and I'ves till got a lower bloody dody temperature than you stupid apes."
Jack chuckled. "I think its nice."

--

They travelled for what felt like forever. Sometimes they'd pick up passengers, random strangers, girls who fancy them, but they didn't stay long. A week, or a month, once for a year (the dear, brave woman) But they were generally left alone, just the two of them.
Life settled in as fairly routine after a while: shag, save the world, shag, pick up a passenger, shag again, save the world, shag, lose the passenger, shag some more. . .

--

Jack stopped when his hands reached the edge of the Doctor's trousers, and he looked up anxiously. The Doctor stared back at him and tipped his head. Acquiesance, acceptance, approval, Jack couldn't tell, but when he hesitated too long the Doctor shifted and oh! that was all the encouragement he needed.
It wans't rushed, but it wasn't particularly slow, and it wasn't gentel but it wasn't exactly rough. Nor did it fit under any catagory either of their respective species had ever discoverered or named.
It was friction and texture and repentance and forgiveness and skin and hands, and it was Jack's body as a furnace to the Doctor's ice, the fire burning Gallifrey again, and it was bitterswet and angry and sorrowful, and so much more that neither of them could identify.
It just was.

--

Finally, as always, they ended up running for thier lives. Which was rather pointless since both were (practically) immortal anyway. But they still ran from the angry villagers with their pitchforks and their technologically screwy tasers.
Jack was faster, always faster, and he held onto the Doctor's arm, dragging him along behind as they ran through the forest, before, eventually, running into a trap.

--

As the Doctor sat up and prepared to leave, Jack grabbed his wrist. He glanced back in concerne but Jack was almost smiling.
"No." Jack mumbled through the afterglow. "Don't go."
So the Doctor didn't. He laid back down beside Jack, hands loosely intertwined and closed his eyes.
The Doctor woke up with Jack spooned up against his back, his arms clasped loosely around his waist. He tried to sit up and oddly enough the grip only tightened, pulling him closer to the still sleeping man.
Well, huh, he thinks dumbly, the infamous Jack Harkness is a closet snuggler. Who'da thunk?

--

It shouldn't be surprising to learn that the villagers did indeed kill the two men. They were then so surprised and frightened by the following regeneration and ressurrection that they ran into the forest and didn't bother the Doctor or Jack as they made their way back to the Tardis.
The new Doctor wasn't quite like the old Doctor. He was shorter, for one thing, making him about eye level with Jack. His eyes were a startlingly clear green, and his short, strangely bouncy (yet still masculine) curls were ginger. His lips were fuller now, and he wasn't quite so remnicient of a holloween skeleton. His fashion sense was still a bit hinky (not that Jack would ever be caught dead using a word like 'hinky' in anything like the proper context), but his sense of humor stayed in tact. Mostly. Sort of.
He didn't taste the same either. There were no longer ashes in his kisses (which is good), nor was there bubblegum, instead, a faint mint mixed with wild cherries, and there still that unidentifiable, familliar taste that might just have the Doctor, or that might have been Gallifrey.
He wasn't as needy, either, nor as desperate. He was still the Doctor, and he still needed Jack.

--

"You're going to make me lazy." The Doctor drawled. (Because with that hair and those eyes, the drawl was so neccessary. Jack wasn't jealous. Not at all.)
Jack lifted his head from where he was sprawled across the bed and took a moment to admire to Doctor before answering. "Yeah?"
"Yep." The Doctor said emphatically. "Never have to worry about you wandering off and getting killed."
"Guess not."
"And we shaf. A lot." He added helpfully. As if Jack could forget.
"And. . .?"
"And I'm going to start expecting immortality and sex from all my companions from now on!" The Doctor whined. "And its all your fault."
It was the first time he'd spoken of have other companions since, well, since before Rose, and it almost made Jack's breath catch. He was making progress after all. "Well," He said carefully, "We couldn't change that."
"How?" The Doctor asked suspiciously.
"We could stop shagging?" Jack suggested innocently.
The Doctor snorted.

--

After three hundred years, the Doctor and Jack part ways on the aptly named planet Serendipity. Jack had met a girl ("There's always a girl," The Doctor said, rolling his eyes), and he'd shagged her as per usual, but due to the high fertility rate on Serendipity (something they conveniently "forget" to tell the tourists about) he'd gotten her pregnant and been forced to either stay, or be slowly and painfully killed until he stayed that way.
He'd opted for the second option when the Tribal Leader had given him the ultimatum.
The Doctor pulled him away from the throng of people and stared at him.
"I'm sorry." Jack offered. "We could make a break for it and -"
"No," The Doctor said, shaking his head. "Its time for me to let you go, Jack."
Jack pulled him into a hug.

--

"Hey, Doc." Jack said, the very last time they met. Which was just after the first in the Doctor's chronology, and wasn't the last in Jack's.
"Jack." The Doctor said levelly. "Or should I be calling you The Face of Boe now?"
"Hey, hey, easy with all the capital letters-"
"You can't possibly know I'm capitalizing - oh, what am I saying, of course you can!"
The Face of Boe rumbled in laughter. "Jack will be fine, Doctor. I've missed you."
"And I you. How have you been?"
"Well. Well, fairly well, anyway."
"Yes, I can see that. Just one thing, I've always wondered, the whole. . .'actually turning into just a face' thing? STD?"
"Very funny."
"I thought so."
"It was supposed to be a way to preserve beauty when aging."
"Like Cassandra?"
"Don't remind me."
"Ooh, right. Sorry."
"But. . .I suppose it was a bit like that."
"You didn't need it. Probably wouldn't have turned out looking better if you hadn't."
"Thanks. So. . ." He drew out the word. "Fancy a shag, for old times sake?"
"Jack!"
"What?"
"You'rea face in a jar, for crying out loud. I hardly think you can - no. No, no, no, nevermind. Stopping that line of though before it makes it past my brain."
Jack laughed.
"Doctor?" A female voice said, and a twenty-ish looking brunette Seredipitan walked in.
"Ah! I knew I was forgetting something!" The Doctor exclaimed, and the woman gave him a look that said she was sick of hearing that. "Jack, this is my daughter, Dotty."
"Dotty?" Jack asked sceptically.
"I was feeling slightly nostalgic!" The Doctor protested. "Besides. She's your sixty-seventh great-great grandchild. See, Dotty, I told you you'd get to meet your ancestors if you travelled with me."

--

When Jack's daughter, Rosann, was eighteen years old, the Doctor took her on a trip in the Tardis, and brought her back a few seconds before she left. Jack met him as he returned her, older and more mature, with several other children, and, apparently, grandchildren on the way from Rosann. Not that she'd though to mention being pregnant with twins while they were running for their lives from that swarm of Paruvian Ding-Bats.
"I'll stop disrupting your life." The Doctor promised. "I'll leave Serendipity and not come back until you're gone."
"I'll miss you." Jack said.
"I know. But I need to move on. Really move on, this time. Not just come back for your children."
Jack laughed. "Alright. Then do me one last favor?"
"Anything."
"Tell me you love me?"
So the Doctor did, and only Jack knew it was a lie.