Title: In Submission, Redemption
Rating: R for sexual themes
Pairing: Jack/Ten, Master/Ten
Challenge: Comfort
Summary: Pillow-talk goes into a surprising, and dangerous direction
In Submission, Redemption
“This all seems too one-sided.” Jack declared into the stuffy air of his underground bedroom. He lay entwined with the Doctor, naked limbs so confused and jumbled together he couldn’t really tell (and didn’t really care) where his body ended and the Doctor’s began.
“What?” The Doctor asked sleepily, fighting off the post-coital drowsiness.
“You’ve seen inside my head. You know all my perverted fantasies…Don’t snort, you called me kinky last night.”
“I know you. Is that bad? I know how to please you.” The Doctor responded reasonably. Jack hated his ability to deliver intelligent, undeniable arguments even when he was on the verge of sleep after a mind-shattering orgasm.
“But I don’t know any of yours.”
There was a long moment of silence and then the Doctor smiled into Jack’s neck. “You have enough fantasies to keep us occupied for millennia.”
“I want to know how to please you, too, Doctor. Come on, you must have some deep, dark desires.”
“I prefer to keep my desires deep and dark.”
“Why?”
There was a silence and Jack realized the Doctor had no intention of answering.
“What did you do with the others?” he asked quietly, half hoping the Doctor was already asleep.
“What others?” The Doctor's vague response jolted Jack fully awake.
“You never did this with your other companions?”
“Oh, well, occasionally. Never on a daily basis. It depended on the companion, the regeneration. I’m not one for long-term commitments. They don’t fit with my lifestyle.”
“And did you play out their fantasies, too?”
The Doctor smiled fondly, distantly. “Oh yes.”
“And what about you?” Jack nearly shouted, becoming exasperated.
The Doctor sat up, extricating himself slowly and deliberately from the tangle of limbs, and moved to the edge of the bed, his naked legs hanging over, his back to Jack.
“It never works. I can give them what they want for a while. I can give you what you want, but if you try… It never works. We’ll both end up frustrated. You’d hate me.”
“I’m better than that.”
The Doctor laughed bitterly and Jack, feeling helpless and hating it, moved to his side to embrace his bony shoulders, savoring the feel of cool skin against his own. He whispered in his ear as seductively as he could, “What do you want?”
The Doctor sighed and dropped his head. He spoke so softly that Jack almost didn’t hear him.
“The Master.”
Jack froze, the desire to push the Doctor away flooding his limbs, his body instantly recoiling. He forced himself to remain where he was, he had promised to listen.
“Why?”
“He loved me once. A long time ago, back when we were both in school. Time Lords aren’t big on sex, but all the students experimented with it, and Koschei and I were roommates. It seemed natural to satisfy our curiosity that way. Mutually satisfactory.”
“Koschei?”
“That was his nickname at school, before he became the Master.”
“What was yours?”
The Doctor laughed, lost in his memories, “Theta Sigma because I always managed to just scrape by on my exams. I had more important things to worry about. Now don’t interrupt. You wanted to hear my fantasies. I fantasize about those days when we were in school on Gallifrey and everything was beautiful and simple.”
“So you and the Master… a few times? Because it was convenient?”
“That’s how it started. But we carried on long after the experimental stage should have been over, long after our curiosity should have been satisfied. We discovered that the teachers disapproved of it and the other students spent an alarming amount of time whispering about it when they thought we couldn’t hear. I think that, more than anything else, spurred us on. We flaunted our sexuality. It became an odd sort of relationship, a mutually satisfying one. We shared certain… tastes. We were unusual on Gallifrey.”
“How?”
“We… He chose his title, the Master, because I called him that when we were alone. He was my Master and when we chose our names, his was an expression of his commitment to me.”
“You liked that?”
“Being submissive doesn’t necessarily make you someone’s slave. In our relationship, I set the pace. I held the power. Koschei, of course, had no idea. No good slave lets his master realize he is manipulated.”
“What happened?”
“Koschei loved things by owning them. He wanted to fix the world by dominating it. I disagreed. His ideas seemed ridiculous to me and mine seemed ridiculous to him. I couldn’t respect him and that destroyed everything. I felt abused. I ran.”
“And that was it?”
“We met a few times over the years. We had… relations. For old time sake. For all our big brains and telepathic communication, Timelords are just as weak as humans are when it comes to emotion and I always had trouble resisting him.”
“On the Valiant?”
“Yep.”
“While people were dying you were fucking him?”
“No, Jack. When I fucked him no one died. The only times the dying stopped over the whole course of the year were the few minutes we were in bed together. Well, not exactly in bed together, we were never that civilized. It was more like coupling like dogs on the floor, handcuffed to furniture, suspended from the ceiling… you get the picture.”
Jack did, indeed get the picture. He was slightly disturbed by the fact that it didn’t disgust him.
“You like that sort of thing? You’re into pain?”
“No, I’m not. But sometimes it can be very cathartic. Absolving sin with sin.”
“Do you want dominance from me?”
“Not often.”
“When you want it, will you ask for it?”
“No, I won’t.”
“You don’t want me to give it to you?”
“I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do.”
Jack looked the Doctor hard in the eyes for the first time that evening, moving to stand in front of him, unashamedly naked and slightly aroused. Slowly, inexorably, and definitely not gently he pushed the Doctor back onto the bed, pinning his hands over his head in a firm, unrelenting grip.
“I never said I didn’t want it. I won’t hurt you. I can’t be the Master. But I can be a master. I don’t make a great sub, but I make a fantastic master. That I can do. Do you want that?”
“Not always.”
Jack’s grip tightened, his voice became hard and commanding. “I’m not talking about always, I’m talking about right now.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” And Jack kissed him hard, demanding, invasive. The Doctor moaned helplessly, writhing under his body, pinned in place by Jack’s hands, the weight of his body. And at last, at last, he felt the master’s relentless rhythm-the dying echo of the drums that had haunted his dreams since he’d laid fire to the funeral pyre-fade away out of his consciousness.