The Worst Sort of Cruelty, Jack/Ten, PG-13
Title: The Worst Sort of Cruelty
Author: faelinn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: S3 spoilers, angst.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Disclaimer: They’re not mine.
Summary: Jack knows his touch upsets the Doctor, no matter how much the other man tries to hide it, and he hates waking alone.
A/N: Okay, so my guilt over not posting anything has finally managed to get the best of me, so here is a new fic. However, by new, I mean an OLD, OLD, SUPER OLD fic that I just never posted. There was something glaringly wrong with it at the time that I needed to fix or something, but I’ve unfortunately forgotten what it was. In fact, there might have been no problem at all, just me not liking it or something. Still, here it is, so I hope someone will enjoy it. I wrote this directly after seeing that episode in season 3 where the Doctor talks about how Jack’s whole situation thingy is wrong/unnatural (something like that….), so this fic takes place after that but at no particular time, just on the Tardis at some point. Sorry if it’s a bit (more likely a lot) AU; I’m seriously behind on my episode watching.
The Tardis would be empty if the Doctor wasn’t there; Jack knows this. There isn’t enough in him to fill up the Tardis. He walks forward, but the Doctor walks in circles, pacing around the center console and muttering quietly to himself in nonsense words that once were never nonsense of any sort. Now, the words hold no significance to anyone but this one man, this twitching, energetic Doctor with his deep rifts of worries, his gashes of lines, his marks of weariness and time. Those marks, those faint cobwebby lines that run around his eyes like little blood vessels without blood, they don’t fit with his actual age. The Doctor’s body is not old. Still, his eyes are.
“Doctor,” the word escapes Jack’s mouth, but he has nothing to follow it with, no clever joke, no witty banter. There is a silence in his mind that feels louder than noise.
The Doctor still walks in circles, but his muttering ceases, halted by the sound of his own name echoing in the quiet Tardis. A hand raises, reaches his head, tousles his already tousled brown hair, and lingers there, running through the almost curt shortness of the strands. Jack’s mouth forms unvoiced syllables. He watches.
“I won’t say you’re wrong again,” the Doctor tells the air. Jack listens as an eavesdropper would listen, a spy capturing words directed elsewhere, just as the Doctor wants him to do. The words are not really his to hear, kept indefinite through the Doctor’s indirect addresses. It leaves room for escape.
The Doctor never cringes when Jack kisses him, but his skin always shivers with the contact.
“Will you leave before morning?” asks Jack. He stares straight at the Doctor, forcing his vision to almost violently capture the sight of the other man. When he moves, Jack’s eyes stab to the side, following him.
“Again, you mean?” The Doctor pauses, wets his lip with an almost delicate flick of his tongue, and stares down at the floor, speaking to the flashy smartness of his shoes. “Maybe.”
“I’m supposed to be the one who loves and leaves.” Jack’s voice is sour citrus in his own mouth, twisting his lips into a sick grimace.
“And you’re such a good role model. Can’t blame me for trying to emulate my hero, right?” The Doctor’s smile is cheeky, sharp, cutting. It is hard to look at, hard to see. Jack thinks about wincing, but that deliberation means it’s not reflexive. Right now, the Doctor still can’t make him flinch away in any sort of natural way. It gives hope, that knowledge.
It is, of course, not a reciprocal situation.
“I don’t like waking up to an empty bed,” Jack mutters, resorting to the indirect methods of the Doctor and looking away. He, however, speaks to the incongruous box of Wheaties that lies, overturned and forlorn, near the Tardis’s warm-colored, curving walls.
“We were on the floor.”
“Fine,” Jack huffs, exasperated. “An empty floor, then.”
“Floors can’t be empty.”
“This one was.”
“No, it wasn’t.” The Doctor speaks in bold statements that destroy any arguing room with their hammer-strike strength.
Jack grimaces and turns away from the box, unable to look away from the Doctor for any extended period of time. His eyes crave the other man, needing to see his helplessly geeky and hopelessly smart figure to reaffirm his existence, his presence.
But Jack doesn’t want to say the next words that come out of his mouth. He is the hopeless heroine of his own story, and that knowledge burns him.
“Do you want me to say an empty life? That I hate waking up to an empty life?”
The Doctor flinches, a movement that stabs at Jack.
“No,” he unwillingly says, still avoiding Jack’s eyes.
Jack walks toward him, taking his steps at a slow, measured pace that he tries to feel in his mind. His feet feel heavier with each step, but the Doctor doesn’t walk in circles this time. He stands still, paused, waiting. The lines around his eyes are full of dark shadows and unspoken worries that deepen the aging creases.
Jack stops when the creases are hard to see, when he’s so close that everything about the Doctor can’t be taken in and recognized at once. Their temperatures meet, the differing warmths of their bodies exuding outward from their skin and entwining together. The close proximity makes the Doctor’s breath feels like his own.
“Don’t leave me in the morning. I can’t stand it again. It’s a murdering sort of cruelty. I won’t forgive you,” Jack says in short, deliberate sections that he bites out, deliberately pulling back any emotion from the words. The air is a numbing presence around him.
The Doctor nods slowly, leans in slightly, and stares straight at Jack. Their bodies still don’t quite touch, but it is impossible to get any closer without actual contact. They hold this pose, silent and staring, watching each other in a quiet that feels outside of Time and Space. It is the Tardis that they stand in, though, so Jack feels that maybe that’s fitting and maybe...maybe that’s the only way this will ever work, in this place that’s not really of the world at all. It is a bitter thought.
When they kiss, the Doctor’s body still shakes under Jack’s fingers.
A/N: Comments, please? I really appreciate feedback! :) Also, in case anyone was wanting to know, I am working on fics that actually are new and will hopefully have a few posted soon. School keeps getting in the way, but I am trying to catch up to fandom stuff. I’ve missed it too much!
Author: faelinn
Fandom: Doctor Who
Warnings: S3 spoilers, angst.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Disclaimer: They’re not mine.
Summary: Jack knows his touch upsets the Doctor, no matter how much the other man tries to hide it, and he hates waking alone.
A/N: Okay, so my guilt over not posting anything has finally managed to get the best of me, so here is a new fic. However, by new, I mean an OLD, OLD, SUPER OLD fic that I just never posted. There was something glaringly wrong with it at the time that I needed to fix or something, but I’ve unfortunately forgotten what it was. In fact, there might have been no problem at all, just me not liking it or something. Still, here it is, so I hope someone will enjoy it. I wrote this directly after seeing that episode in season 3 where the Doctor talks about how Jack’s whole situation thingy is wrong/unnatural (something like that….), so this fic takes place after that but at no particular time, just on the Tardis at some point. Sorry if it’s a bit (more likely a lot) AU; I’m seriously behind on my episode watching.
The Tardis would be empty if the Doctor wasn’t there; Jack knows this. There isn’t enough in him to fill up the Tardis. He walks forward, but the Doctor walks in circles, pacing around the center console and muttering quietly to himself in nonsense words that once were never nonsense of any sort. Now, the words hold no significance to anyone but this one man, this twitching, energetic Doctor with his deep rifts of worries, his gashes of lines, his marks of weariness and time. Those marks, those faint cobwebby lines that run around his eyes like little blood vessels without blood, they don’t fit with his actual age. The Doctor’s body is not old. Still, his eyes are.
“Doctor,” the word escapes Jack’s mouth, but he has nothing to follow it with, no clever joke, no witty banter. There is a silence in his mind that feels louder than noise.
The Doctor still walks in circles, but his muttering ceases, halted by the sound of his own name echoing in the quiet Tardis. A hand raises, reaches his head, tousles his already tousled brown hair, and lingers there, running through the almost curt shortness of the strands. Jack’s mouth forms unvoiced syllables. He watches.
“I won’t say you’re wrong again,” the Doctor tells the air. Jack listens as an eavesdropper would listen, a spy capturing words directed elsewhere, just as the Doctor wants him to do. The words are not really his to hear, kept indefinite through the Doctor’s indirect addresses. It leaves room for escape.
The Doctor never cringes when Jack kisses him, but his skin always shivers with the contact.
“Will you leave before morning?” asks Jack. He stares straight at the Doctor, forcing his vision to almost violently capture the sight of the other man. When he moves, Jack’s eyes stab to the side, following him.
“Again, you mean?” The Doctor pauses, wets his lip with an almost delicate flick of his tongue, and stares down at the floor, speaking to the flashy smartness of his shoes. “Maybe.”
“I’m supposed to be the one who loves and leaves.” Jack’s voice is sour citrus in his own mouth, twisting his lips into a sick grimace.
“And you’re such a good role model. Can’t blame me for trying to emulate my hero, right?” The Doctor’s smile is cheeky, sharp, cutting. It is hard to look at, hard to see. Jack thinks about wincing, but that deliberation means it’s not reflexive. Right now, the Doctor still can’t make him flinch away in any sort of natural way. It gives hope, that knowledge.
It is, of course, not a reciprocal situation.
“I don’t like waking up to an empty bed,” Jack mutters, resorting to the indirect methods of the Doctor and looking away. He, however, speaks to the incongruous box of Wheaties that lies, overturned and forlorn, near the Tardis’s warm-colored, curving walls.
“We were on the floor.”
“Fine,” Jack huffs, exasperated. “An empty floor, then.”
“Floors can’t be empty.”
“This one was.”
“No, it wasn’t.” The Doctor speaks in bold statements that destroy any arguing room with their hammer-strike strength.
Jack grimaces and turns away from the box, unable to look away from the Doctor for any extended period of time. His eyes crave the other man, needing to see his helplessly geeky and hopelessly smart figure to reaffirm his existence, his presence.
But Jack doesn’t want to say the next words that come out of his mouth. He is the hopeless heroine of his own story, and that knowledge burns him.
“Do you want me to say an empty life? That I hate waking up to an empty life?”
The Doctor flinches, a movement that stabs at Jack.
“No,” he unwillingly says, still avoiding Jack’s eyes.
Jack walks toward him, taking his steps at a slow, measured pace that he tries to feel in his mind. His feet feel heavier with each step, but the Doctor doesn’t walk in circles this time. He stands still, paused, waiting. The lines around his eyes are full of dark shadows and unspoken worries that deepen the aging creases.
Jack stops when the creases are hard to see, when he’s so close that everything about the Doctor can’t be taken in and recognized at once. Their temperatures meet, the differing warmths of their bodies exuding outward from their skin and entwining together. The close proximity makes the Doctor’s breath feels like his own.
“Don’t leave me in the morning. I can’t stand it again. It’s a murdering sort of cruelty. I won’t forgive you,” Jack says in short, deliberate sections that he bites out, deliberately pulling back any emotion from the words. The air is a numbing presence around him.
The Doctor nods slowly, leans in slightly, and stares straight at Jack. Their bodies still don’t quite touch, but it is impossible to get any closer without actual contact. They hold this pose, silent and staring, watching each other in a quiet that feels outside of Time and Space. It is the Tardis that they stand in, though, so Jack feels that maybe that’s fitting and maybe...maybe that’s the only way this will ever work, in this place that’s not really of the world at all. It is a bitter thought.
When they kiss, the Doctor’s body still shakes under Jack’s fingers.
A/N: Comments, please? I really appreciate feedback! :) Also, in case anyone was wanting to know, I am working on fics that actually are new and will hopefully have a few posted soon. School keeps getting in the way, but I am trying to catch up to fandom stuff. I’ve missed it too much!