The Guided Tour
It was impossible to deny the certain feeling of apprehension that she felt in the pit of her stomache as she walked down a not-so busy Cardiff street with Jack. Some of it was eagerness but a good part of it was nervousness. Was this going to work without her ruining Jack’s life? Kate still had her doubts. The hand she had linked with Jack’s was squeezed as she turned her head and smiled at him. “I still can’t believe that you bought a house.” A house that she had tried to get in a sneak peak but that had not gone well. “What made you do it?” After asking her question, she turned and looked at the neighborhood. It seemed decent enough, more than decent actually.
Jack, for the record, was in an exceptionally better mood that day than he'd been in for, well, a week and some change. Relaxed, perhaps even downright blissful, as he walked the residential Cardiff street with Kate in hand. "I can't, either. Weird, right?" He grinned as they came upon the townhouse in question, a semi-detached Edwardian number at the end of a row of similar, yet not identical, houses. He opened the wrought iron gate for her and followed after, free hand scooping out keys from the pocket of his greatcoat. "Well...I wanted some place that wasn't my office basement to sleep, didn't like any of the flats I looked at, so why not go for something vintage? Besides, I kind of miss...space. If you've ever lived for any amount of time in the TARDIS, you get used to this fantastic amount of space all the time." And it was easy to live in the basement under one's office when the Doctor was missing from one's life, but after a few recent visits it was difficult to forget that feeling.
“Oh, this whole situation is just a bit weird. I don’t think you’re alone in that.” Kate smiled again at him. “It’s pretty.” Kate remarked on seeing the exterior. She had no trouble in acting like she liked the house already. The house was gorgeous. The garden could use a bit more color but that was easily fixed. “Thank you,” Kate said and stepped in through the gate. She grinned at him. “Jack, you’re the only person that I know who would refer to a house as vintage.” Kate looked up at the house again, “It looks like it’s not lacking in space. The yard seems decently sized too.” Already she was picturing a play area for the baby and it was a little bit scary. “I’ve never lived on the Tardis,” and she didn’t know that she wanted to either. “So I can’t imagine.” Kate stuck out her tongue at him. “How many bathrooms and bedrooms did you say it had?”
"Never even had a peak inside it? I mean, he keeps the damn thing in his office when he's at the Institute. It's -- a lot bigger on the inside." Every companion said that, even the ones from the future who'd learned to expect the unexpected when it came to non-human life forms. It must've been a rule. Jack wondered if the Doctor ever tired of hearing the exclamation. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, you know. It's a time machine and a space ship and everything all fit into this improbable space. You could walk around in that thing forever and still not find all the rooms and closets and spaces -- " It was almost but not quite entirely disturbing to think about. Jack led the way up the front steps and moved to unlock the door, holding it open for her. The house, for the most part, was empty aside from paint buckets and a linger smell of fresh renovation. "Seven bedrooms. Only two bathrooms, but I'm fixing that as we speak."
“No. It would be rude to peek inside without being asked in.” She had more manners than that. “Oh I know. It’s like wizarding space, it’s bigger on the inside.” Kate hadn’t watched that much Doctor Who but she knew how it worked at least. It also helped that she enjoyed reading science fiction which right now seemed pretty ironic to her. “We’ll get you a carrier. You can strap the baby to your backside and tell the sprog all about it.” Kate grinned a bit, it was amusing to picture it in her mind’s eye. “Two bathrooms?” Kate asked, or rather repeated as she stepped inside. “And seven bedrooms? The math does not add up sir.” She took a few steps away from Jack and looked around the first room. “Really? Are you going to do it yourself or hire someone?” If it was the first one, then pardon the pun, he was a jack-of-all-trades. “Speaking of renovations, you wouldn’t mind if I planted something a bit more colorful to look at in the gardens would you?” It was kind formal, almost too formal.
"I'd like that." Honestly, he would have. There'd be no end to the stories the kid would hear, though he'd probably end up censoring them for young and impressionable ears, but the more he thought about that part of parenting the more he found himself excited for it. Jack closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, watching Kate take in the foyer and first few rooms with interest not entirely misplaced on her reaction to it all. "I know. I think these places used to be popular with college kids or something. Squeezing half a dozen people in and sharing two bathrooms is preferrable to communal dorm living? No idea." He grinned. "I can do it myself. I know how to handle your primitive hammers and circular saws, you know." Well, all right, the last time he handled any tools had been a few years ago, mending Estelle's garden fence for her, but how difficult could it be to engage in even more manly gender role behavior? "I don't mind at all. Any renovations you want to make, feel free. I'm not too picky and I love surprises. What plants did you have in mind?"
Kate grinned. Would the baby be fond of bananas? Would he or she have their very own sonic something or be completely sonic? Would the baby have matching suspenders too? "I'm sure you will." She continued to grin at the mental picture. "I don't know. When I was in college I made it my mission to have my own apartment to avoid the communal living. Do you have any idea how unclean most college kids are?" She made it sound like she was so much older when really she was only twenty-four.Kinda KIutzy: Kate shot him a saucy look, "Well I knew you were good and handling your tools but I didn't know you were a handyman as well. I'm a little bit shocked that you're stepping into a gender role though." Oh yeah, she was corrupted. "Oh, right now just a few annuals to brighten things up. I'd like to plant some irises but I don't know how well they'd over here, maybe some roses."
Jack flourished under saucy looks, and Kate's was no different. He pushed up from the door and crossed to tug her gently into an embrace. "You're awful, I've corrupted you," he decided, though his voice and amused look didn't reflect that corruption was necessarily a bad thing. "It isn't a really real gender role. I'll go back to baking cookies and saving the world from aliens and breaking everyone's brains with my complex-by-twenty-first-century-terms sexuality as soon as I'm done, I promise." Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I like roses -- " There was that painful little twinge of doubt concerning Rose Tyler again, but what could he do? " -- and I'll help you plant whatever you think is best."
She wrapped one arm around him while her other hand came to rest on his chest. "You have. You should be punished," she reached out and flicked a suspender strap. "When I think of a suitable one I'll let you know." Her eyes closed from the kiss and she gave him one right back, a gentle peck on the cheek. "You'd better. I don't know what everyone else would do if you were breaking brains." She would've had to have been completely obtuse to not notice that subtle shift on his voice. Kate looked up at him sympathetically. "Are you sure? I could do something else." She smiled a bit, "Oh, Jack. Don't worry about me. I was going to get Horatio to do all of my dirty work. He hasn't had any manual labor in a while, I think it's getting to him." She really was awful.
"Ow!" That was definitely an exaggerated response, though it gave him a perfect excuse to reach up and grab the offending hand. Fingers curled around her own and he leaned down to meet the hand halfway, brushing a soft kiss across its back. "Mm, it's great. Roses are great. I don't think Horatio will take too kindly to being bossed by a woman into planting them, but if you ask him nicely enough he'd probably move the world for you, Kate. Just be sure he wears a sunhat." Because Jack was a jerk sometimes. And also because Horatio looked so damn cute in a little straw hat.
"Oh, you big baby," Kate admonished in mock-severe tone. "Mmm, Jack." He ought naught to start with that. If he started then she would have to finish it and then they might not get to see the rest of the house a few a bit. Those startling green eyes of her watched his actions intently. "Oh Jack. I don't boss anyone around. I bribe them. Don't worry about Horatio. I'll make sure he's adequately protected from the sun." Then a slow and steady smile spread across her face, "So which room is mine?"
He left it simply at a kiss, however, because her question had him interested in showing off the upstairs and other parts of the house. With her hand still in his, the Captain headed up stairs. "What, you don't want to share mine?" Jack asked teasingly, though the inquiry painted a pretty shamelessly sexy picture in his imagination that he would probably never give words to because twenty-first century people considered certain things sexual deviance and he was only just getting back on speaking terms with Ianto without casually slipping into the conversation that they should make a Kate sandwich. "Seriously, though, whichever you want. Horatio can live in the attic." He sounded almost unserious.
"On occasion, maybe.” Kate replied with a wink. She has issues with threesomes. Deep down she just knows that she’ll be the odd man out, little more than a voyeur. She doesn’t think that her self-esteem could handle that. “Really? I was going to tell Horatio that he was more than welcome to continue to live in my apartment. I don’t think he’s much of an attic person.” She peered into one bedroom. “Well, if you didn’t pick out mine did you pick out one for the baby? We could stay downstairs. You might appreciate it when the sprog wakes in the middle of the night.” Did she really want to be banished to the first floor? Not really but she was willing to take one for the team.
"Don't let him fool you, he's lived in attic spaces before," Jack supplied, apparently knowledgable on the subject. "I offered, he's thinking it over. Something makes me doubt his ability to live in New York City by himself for a prolonged period of time." He shook his head, then nudged into her lightly. "You're not staying downstairs. Pick a proper bedroom for you and a proper bedroom for the baby and stop being such a martyr. Damn you Catholics." He only meant that in the most playful sense -- though it was a little bit of an annoyance at times -- and leaned over for a quick kiss as if to better convey that.
"Did he tell you what I did?" Kate asked, peering into another bedroom. She was refering to buying him some more modern clothes. So far, she had yet to see him in them. Oh, she liked this bedroom. It was on the corner of the house and offered two sets of windows though it was smaller than the last two. She made her way deeper into the room. "You've lived here a while, can you explain why most Brits insists on wardrobes and not real closets? I don't get it." She stuck her tongue at him after he kissed her. "I think I've sworn off the Church. The martyrdom thing is going to take a while to break though. It's hard wired into my DNA." She turned her head back towards the room. "I think I'd like this room for the baby.
"He doesn't tell me much, believe it or not. Though he will run off to find me if you're being inconsolable because, hey, emotions are not something you can divide by pi and therefore he does not understand them." This was entirely true, but Jack thought for a brief moment about sticking Horatio in the same room with the Doctor's eighth regeneration, juuust to see what emotional, not-understanding he'd personally engage in. "I have no idea. Wardrobes are proper? Dunno. It kind of freaks me out, but I guess at the same time it saves on building space and construction." He nodded, giving a glance 'round the room. "It's got more windows, it'll be nice and sunny. You know, on the days we actually get sunlight."
"Ahh. I bought him some new clothes." She smiled a bit, "Nothing too modern, no jeans or sneakers and I didn't get rid of his old things either. Aren't you proud of me?" Not that she would, mind you, it would have just been rude. Horatio was very dear, albeit sometimes frustrating. "I can't fit very many shoes in one." Her expression was almost woobie-ful. "Oh the weather is going to be fine," she remarked. "Another reason you'll be proud. I found a non-gender specific set of baby bedding that I like.”
"Clothes?" Jack sputtered, very amused by this idea. "Well...as soon as you manage to get him into something modern, we should try and get him back out again." Oh, how could he resist? On a long enough timeline, after all... "Non-gender specific, really." Was that a little disbelief? He masked it very well behind an amused grin. "I am proud. What sort of non-gender specific bedding did you find?"
"Yeah, some khakis and a few shirts. I think he's more concerned that they are civilian clothes rather than modern, personally." Kate lightly socked him in the arm. "You're horrible." She grinned at him. He really was but she found it impossible to be offended or annoyed by his antics. That's what she liked about him. "Don't act so shocked, Captain Harkness. It's still very cute. It's chocolate brown with different shades of green blocks and elephants." She just couldn't do grey. White was unsuitable for a baby and she hated yellow.
"I'm a bad, bad man." He would admit to it. He'd grin and look exceptionally smug and pleased with himself, yeah, but he'd still admit to it. "But, c'mon, you've got to admit that would help. People in the twenty-first century don't seem to have sex enough, God help those poor bastards in the Regency era." He acted shocked, even more so after being told not to, but it didn't hold for long against his grin. "That sounds pretty. And I'm relieved, I thought for a second you'd gone with something yellow. Which would've been a tragedy."
"Yes you are, you'll get your spanking later." She kissed him. "Yes, yes it would. I thought you were helping him in that area or am I wrong?" She eyed him dubiously. Was she wrong? "It's very cute." She took a step towards him. She was close enough that she could reach out and tug his suspender though she didn't immediately release it. "I don't like yellow," she replied. "And if, in my pregnancy induced hormonal state, I want to do something that terrible, please stop me.”
"I...well, not lately," he answered, perhaps a little inexplicably, because it was difficult to explain. "He's a complicated man -- " Oh, one of the horrors of being blissfully unaware of certain pop culture aspects, was accidentally referencing one without realizing it. Jack swayed easily forward at the tug, grinning. "I don't like yellow, either. Unless it's on Quentanicomoraqthogwesfen. Whole city devoted to yellow, you know, with all the banana-flavored drinks you could want. But for decorating? Nonono, definitely not. I'll try and keep you restrained from bad decorating ideas."
"And no one understands him but his navigator?" It certainly wasn't his woman. Haha. "You know I still owe you several deserts. Would you like me to bake you a banana cream pie. I know that your deeply fascinated with bananas." Her fingers locked tighter around his suspender and she pulled him just a little bit closer. "I'll hold you too that." What? They were handles after all. "Now.. why don't you show me your room."
" -- well, first lieutenant?" Jack was not getting the Shaft reference, obviously. He let himself be tugged closer. "I'm deeply fascinated by you. You're all the dessert I need." -- Was he the king of cheesy one-liners, or what? Yes. The answer was definitely yes. But he pulled them off so well! Really. "It's this way." Jack grinned, trying to look less smug than he actually felt, and walked backwards back into the hallway, counter-tugging at Kate via her grip on his suspender, and headed for the master bedroom.
Kate sighed. "Whatever they call it. I don't know." She was too horrified by the punishments to focus on anything else. He was easily the king of cheesy one-liners but he was so cute when he said them that he was easily forgiven for it. “I’ll have to be careful that I don’t give you a toothache.” Cheesy one-liner meet cliched response, table for two please. Kate didn’t bother to hide her grin as she was lead, rather pulled down the hallway to his bedroom. Once he had stepped inside, Kate gave him a gentle shove forward before stepping in herself. She turned and closed the door before facing Jack. She had quite the predatorial look on her face.
Jack grinned at being man-handled about, allowing himself to be shoved before turning to face her as the door closed. The latch caught with an audible click. "So...here's my room," he explained with appropriate flash and motion about the place, apparently still having his wits enough about him to remember their original intent in entering the master bedroom. It was a large room, currently sparsely furnished with a small bed, side table, and wardrobe, walls still white and curtains conspicuously absent from the windows. Distinctly, there was a bay window monopolozing one wall, which overlooked the front garden, while a door to the bathroom and a fireplace occupied their own wall space respectively. " -- I was thinking about a blue color scheme," Jack continued in an attempt to be coy, though the predatorial look had him thoroughly distracted.
"Blue would be good," Kate remarked moving even closer now. She was so close that she was able to start backing Jack backwards towards that small bed. Kate reached out and flicked a suspender strap. "Now, I believe you said some things that were very naughty and I think that I'm going to have to do something about that." She placed both hands on his chest before reaching up on the tips of her toes, to kiss him. It was by no means a deep kiss, it was more to tease. With a grin, Kate ended the kiss almost as soon as it had begun and roughly pushed him backwards onto his bed. "Now what am I going to do with you?" This question was soon answered as Kate immediately began to undress him. Perhaps the pregnancy hormones had already started to kick in?
"Blue -- yeah -- " He was really trying not to grin as he was edged back, with clear intent, by her closer proximity and body language, but he was enjoying this far too much. But could he help it? It was infrequent, at best, that a woman from an earlier century took such an actively assertive role, he couldn't help but get excited. And the way she teased did nothing to help suppressing that immediate response. Oh God...
Jack blinked up at the ceiling for a few seconds after hitting the mattress roughly, then lifted himself onto his elbows to look down at her. "...oh, you can do whatever you want." Which -- included undressing him. He could definitely, definitely live with that.
There were two soft 'thunks' that happened to be his shoes hitting he floor, this was followed by his socks. "I've heard it's relaxing." Now she didn't go for his trousers right away, she wanted to prolong his punishment. Kate did push his head back down onto the bed, "Did I say that you could do that?" She kissed him again, this one almost painfully chaste. "You're only making it worse on yourself."
For the next few moments she didn't touch him at all. "Mmm, I think I'll let you look but only look." Reaching up, she undid the barette that held most of her hair off of her face. She reached up and ran her hands through her hair, loosening the curls before giving her hair a final shake. Her hair free, Kate reached down to her waist and undid the belt of her green wrap-dress. Ever so slowly, she slipped out of her dress and let it fall to the ground.
Say you could do that -- Jack pulled what might've been considered a comical face for all the expression shoved into it: surprise, excitement, lust, and something that must've been the wicked cousin of amusement. "Yes, ma'am," he answered in a quietly polite voice that was so submissive it might have easily belonged to another person entirely.
With permission to look, Jack certainly got his fill of it. He sucked in a sharp, surprised breath at the way her hair fell free around her shoulders, eyes following the bounce of the curls, then trailing further down to watch the belt being discarded. It took a concentrated amount of willpower to stop the automatic response to reach out for her when the dress followed, the purely instinctive need for touch relegated to an obvious twitch of muscles and exerted control, the eventual outlet for the supressed response being a quiet moan hitched in his throat. And he wasn't even sure if that was 'allowed,' which only made the excitement and desire even stronger.
"Oh did I say you could do that?" She leaned her body over his, her breath hot in his ear. "And I was going to let you remove the rest of it. Now you'll have to wait." The rest if it being her undergarments which consisted of a pair of black panties and matching bra. "I was really hoping that you'd be good." There was a certain amount of ache in her voice. "Oh Jack, don't you want to be good?"
Kate tilted her head up enough so that she was able to lightly nip at his earlobe. One hand helped to give her suport while her other began to unbutton his shirt. One suspender was lowered and it's mate soon followed. All the while her hands were doing that, her mouth was playing with his neck. There was a nip here and there, his jawline was kissed before she again found his mouth. This time the kiss was anything but chaste.-d
Although he took a deep, steadying breath before even attempting to answer, his voice still came out tense and just a little strained, "Yes, I -- yes." It was entirely likely that second affirmative had absolutely nothing to do with her question and his answer to it, but rather the sharp and sudden nip at his ear.
Now that he knew a little more about the rules, Jack was actively attempting to be good, relegating his expressions of pleasure to little more than sharp intakes of breath and shaky exhales. The entire dynamic of the situation had every nerve ending in his entire body electrified. He was on the verge of asking nicely -- begging might've been a more correct term -- when she kissed him, finally, in the particular way he'd been wanting. Unfortunately, he was entirely unsure what a good response to that would be and found himself taking the tentative route, following her lead, instead of something a little more assertive. It was -- good in a surprisingly different way.
"Good." She felt hot and she felt sexy, taking control like that. She wasn't thinking of the future but was living in the here and now. Oh, she was going to make him beg for it. Kate ended the kiss, gently. He had been a good boy and so he would be rewarded. She shifted her body, scooting a bit lower. This time his belt was undone and finally his trousers and boxers were pulled off of him. Kate moved and stood between his legs, her body bending over him again. His lips were kissed as she took one of his hands and guided it to her hips. He was allowed his touch as her other hand reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra. Free of that, she then brought his other hand up to her hips. "Touch me, now."
Difficult might have been the word to describe the good fight Jack had fought with restraint, keeping himself quiet only by virtue of the fact that he'd bitten into his bottom lip. If it had been difficult to keep quiet before, it was impossible to do so once she'd done away with the rest of their collective attire, relief and desire meshed together in a way that could only be expressed in the half-silenced way he groaned. -- And then he could touch her, he was allowed and told to, and it almost broke his brain a little, going from nothing and everything in the matter of moments, shifting without a clutch. It wasn't surprising then, reeling from the change and the dynamic, that he just gave her hips a gentle squeeze for a moment as he recovered and asked, "...how?" Because he was also sure that as soon as he did recover, he'd take that ambiguous command very, very seriously -- and he wasn't sure if that still qualified as being good.
Her lips were moving away from his, gentle caresses until she found the pulse point on his neck. She was going to be evil, and not answer that question just yet. Instead Kate did that tongue thing that she knew he liked so well, only this time it was on his neck. Her hands had moved away from his after he squeezed her hips. Now, they rested on his bare shoulders, her nails just slightly digging into his flesh. Finally, she did answer his question. "Surprise me."
Oh, was that evil? He could definitely wait if she was going to do that thing with her tongue, well, anywhere. When she did finally answer his question, Jack chuckled quietly, a reaction he buried against the curve of her neck with the slightest inclination of his head. Thumbs, in the meantime, brushed over the soft skin of her hips slowly, exercising quite a lot of restraint still, before his hands moved up, mapping out the delicate curves of her body with a dedicated precision that might've suggested he hadn't actually done it before. -- And then all hope of being good was lost entirely because the map ended in lovely territory and Jack was soon terribly preoccupied with caressing her breasts, lips working up her throat and jaw.
It was the good kind of evil. The sort of evil that promised tea and cake when you converted to the dark side. It was daylight when they started but by the time that two, sweat slickened, exhausted individuals collapsed in a tangled heap of flesh and sheets, the sun was just starting to set. As for Kate, she lay next to Jack with her head resting on his chest, the mass of her brown hair falling over them like silk. "Mmm... That last thing you did?" She said after several long moments of laying there, breathing heavily. "I didn't think that was physically possible."
"Kama Sutra," Jack supplied simply, half mumbled around the sheer stupid grin he was wearing, while exhaustedly attempting to catch his breath and pull her closer and find where the sheet ended all at the same time. Eventually he gave up, settled for the second of the three options, and just waited for the rest of reality to move back into focus. "It's got practically a religious following in the fifty-first century, you know."
"I like it," Kate replied in an almost dazed tone. She was unaware of the stupid grin her face simply because of the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that coursed throughout her body. "You must show me more." She meant later of course. Kate didn't quite have Jack's stamina. No one had Jack's stamina. Right now, she was more than content to lay in his bed. Maybe later they could have a bath, together, and eat. Then perhaps they could have a repeat performance.
Jack laughed, though he didn't quite have the breath to pull it off, at her dazed assessment of the experience. "I don't think there's any way not to like it," he concluded, wondering if someone could be out of their head enough to hate anything about contorted but highly gratifying sex positions. "I will." Of course not right at that moment, she was tired and he was -- well -- she was tired. "...I really like your decorating advice, Kate," Jack said, still grinnined stupidly, a moment later.
"Good thing I'm flexible, huh?" She was very amused but that's not to say that Jack hadn't had his moments. Kate turned her head so that she was looking at him now. "I'll hold you to that elsewise I'll have to consider you a bad boy again." And he should know what would happen then. The way he reacted to her she was starting to wonder if anyone else had taken control like that. "Huh?" She reached up and pushed back the strands of her hair that was concealing her face. "Which idea was that? The blue room? A bigger bed?"
It had been a very long time, let's just say that. Jack, for his part, concluded that throwing around 'rank' in the earlier centuries as a sign of authority also doubled as an indication of sexual dominance for primitive cultures, leading to a lot of misunderstanding. He didn't necessarily mind, but he was a very open guy and too much of the same thing after so many years got to be a little -- well, it wasn't boring, but it was normal and that was a very scary term for him. "Mm, the part where it all ended in sex somehow, because that's always great." He flashed her a grin.
Jack, for the record, was in an exceptionally better mood that day than he'd been in for, well, a week and some change. Relaxed, perhaps even downright blissful, as he walked the residential Cardiff street with Kate in hand. "I can't, either. Weird, right?" He grinned as they came upon the townhouse in question, a semi-detached Edwardian number at the end of a row of similar, yet not identical, houses. He opened the wrought iron gate for her and followed after, free hand scooping out keys from the pocket of his greatcoat. "Well...I wanted some place that wasn't my office basement to sleep, didn't like any of the flats I looked at, so why not go for something vintage? Besides, I kind of miss...space. If you've ever lived for any amount of time in the TARDIS, you get used to this fantastic amount of space all the time." And it was easy to live in the basement under one's office when the Doctor was missing from one's life, but after a few recent visits it was difficult to forget that feeling.
“Oh, this whole situation is just a bit weird. I don’t think you’re alone in that.” Kate smiled again at him. “It’s pretty.” Kate remarked on seeing the exterior. She had no trouble in acting like she liked the house already. The house was gorgeous. The garden could use a bit more color but that was easily fixed. “Thank you,” Kate said and stepped in through the gate. She grinned at him. “Jack, you’re the only person that I know who would refer to a house as vintage.” Kate looked up at the house again, “It looks like it’s not lacking in space. The yard seems decently sized too.” Already she was picturing a play area for the baby and it was a little bit scary. “I’ve never lived on the Tardis,” and she didn’t know that she wanted to either. “So I can’t imagine.” Kate stuck out her tongue at him. “How many bathrooms and bedrooms did you say it had?”
"Never even had a peak inside it? I mean, he keeps the damn thing in his office when he's at the Institute. It's -- a lot bigger on the inside." Every companion said that, even the ones from the future who'd learned to expect the unexpected when it came to non-human life forms. It must've been a rule. Jack wondered if the Doctor ever tired of hearing the exclamation. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, you know. It's a time machine and a space ship and everything all fit into this improbable space. You could walk around in that thing forever and still not find all the rooms and closets and spaces -- " It was almost but not quite entirely disturbing to think about. Jack led the way up the front steps and moved to unlock the door, holding it open for her. The house, for the most part, was empty aside from paint buckets and a linger smell of fresh renovation. "Seven bedrooms. Only two bathrooms, but I'm fixing that as we speak."
“No. It would be rude to peek inside without being asked in.” She had more manners than that. “Oh I know. It’s like wizarding space, it’s bigger on the inside.” Kate hadn’t watched that much Doctor Who but she knew how it worked at least. It also helped that she enjoyed reading science fiction which right now seemed pretty ironic to her. “We’ll get you a carrier. You can strap the baby to your backside and tell the sprog all about it.” Kate grinned a bit, it was amusing to picture it in her mind’s eye. “Two bathrooms?” Kate asked, or rather repeated as she stepped inside. “And seven bedrooms? The math does not add up sir.” She took a few steps away from Jack and looked around the first room. “Really? Are you going to do it yourself or hire someone?” If it was the first one, then pardon the pun, he was a jack-of-all-trades. “Speaking of renovations, you wouldn’t mind if I planted something a bit more colorful to look at in the gardens would you?” It was kind formal, almost too formal.
"I'd like that." Honestly, he would have. There'd be no end to the stories the kid would hear, though he'd probably end up censoring them for young and impressionable ears, but the more he thought about that part of parenting the more he found himself excited for it. Jack closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, watching Kate take in the foyer and first few rooms with interest not entirely misplaced on her reaction to it all. "I know. I think these places used to be popular with college kids or something. Squeezing half a dozen people in and sharing two bathrooms is preferrable to communal dorm living? No idea." He grinned. "I can do it myself. I know how to handle your primitive hammers and circular saws, you know." Well, all right, the last time he handled any tools had been a few years ago, mending Estelle's garden fence for her, but how difficult could it be to engage in even more manly gender role behavior? "I don't mind at all. Any renovations you want to make, feel free. I'm not too picky and I love surprises. What plants did you have in mind?"
Kate grinned. Would the baby be fond of bananas? Would he or she have their very own sonic something or be completely sonic? Would the baby have matching suspenders too? "I'm sure you will." She continued to grin at the mental picture. "I don't know. When I was in college I made it my mission to have my own apartment to avoid the communal living. Do you have any idea how unclean most college kids are?" She made it sound like she was so much older when really she was only twenty-four.Kinda KIutzy: Kate shot him a saucy look, "Well I knew you were good and handling your tools but I didn't know you were a handyman as well. I'm a little bit shocked that you're stepping into a gender role though." Oh yeah, she was corrupted. "Oh, right now just a few annuals to brighten things up. I'd like to plant some irises but I don't know how well they'd over here, maybe some roses."
Jack flourished under saucy looks, and Kate's was no different. He pushed up from the door and crossed to tug her gently into an embrace. "You're awful, I've corrupted you," he decided, though his voice and amused look didn't reflect that corruption was necessarily a bad thing. "It isn't a really real gender role. I'll go back to baking cookies and saving the world from aliens and breaking everyone's brains with my complex-by-twenty-first-century-terms sexuality as soon as I'm done, I promise." Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I like roses -- " There was that painful little twinge of doubt concerning Rose Tyler again, but what could he do? " -- and I'll help you plant whatever you think is best."
She wrapped one arm around him while her other hand came to rest on his chest. "You have. You should be punished," she reached out and flicked a suspender strap. "When I think of a suitable one I'll let you know." Her eyes closed from the kiss and she gave him one right back, a gentle peck on the cheek. "You'd better. I don't know what everyone else would do if you were breaking brains." She would've had to have been completely obtuse to not notice that subtle shift on his voice. Kate looked up at him sympathetically. "Are you sure? I could do something else." She smiled a bit, "Oh, Jack. Don't worry about me. I was going to get Horatio to do all of my dirty work. He hasn't had any manual labor in a while, I think it's getting to him." She really was awful.
"Ow!" That was definitely an exaggerated response, though it gave him a perfect excuse to reach up and grab the offending hand. Fingers curled around her own and he leaned down to meet the hand halfway, brushing a soft kiss across its back. "Mm, it's great. Roses are great. I don't think Horatio will take too kindly to being bossed by a woman into planting them, but if you ask him nicely enough he'd probably move the world for you, Kate. Just be sure he wears a sunhat." Because Jack was a jerk sometimes. And also because Horatio looked so damn cute in a little straw hat.
"Oh, you big baby," Kate admonished in mock-severe tone. "Mmm, Jack." He ought naught to start with that. If he started then she would have to finish it and then they might not get to see the rest of the house a few a bit. Those startling green eyes of her watched his actions intently. "Oh Jack. I don't boss anyone around. I bribe them. Don't worry about Horatio. I'll make sure he's adequately protected from the sun." Then a slow and steady smile spread across her face, "So which room is mine?"
He left it simply at a kiss, however, because her question had him interested in showing off the upstairs and other parts of the house. With her hand still in his, the Captain headed up stairs. "What, you don't want to share mine?" Jack asked teasingly, though the inquiry painted a pretty shamelessly sexy picture in his imagination that he would probably never give words to because twenty-first century people considered certain things sexual deviance and he was only just getting back on speaking terms with Ianto without casually slipping into the conversation that they should make a Kate sandwich. "Seriously, though, whichever you want. Horatio can live in the attic." He sounded almost unserious.
"On occasion, maybe.” Kate replied with a wink. She has issues with threesomes. Deep down she just knows that she’ll be the odd man out, little more than a voyeur. She doesn’t think that her self-esteem could handle that. “Really? I was going to tell Horatio that he was more than welcome to continue to live in my apartment. I don’t think he’s much of an attic person.” She peered into one bedroom. “Well, if you didn’t pick out mine did you pick out one for the baby? We could stay downstairs. You might appreciate it when the sprog wakes in the middle of the night.” Did she really want to be banished to the first floor? Not really but she was willing to take one for the team.
"Don't let him fool you, he's lived in attic spaces before," Jack supplied, apparently knowledgable on the subject. "I offered, he's thinking it over. Something makes me doubt his ability to live in New York City by himself for a prolonged period of time." He shook his head, then nudged into her lightly. "You're not staying downstairs. Pick a proper bedroom for you and a proper bedroom for the baby and stop being such a martyr. Damn you Catholics." He only meant that in the most playful sense -- though it was a little bit of an annoyance at times -- and leaned over for a quick kiss as if to better convey that.
"Did he tell you what I did?" Kate asked, peering into another bedroom. She was refering to buying him some more modern clothes. So far, she had yet to see him in them. Oh, she liked this bedroom. It was on the corner of the house and offered two sets of windows though it was smaller than the last two. She made her way deeper into the room. "You've lived here a while, can you explain why most Brits insists on wardrobes and not real closets? I don't get it." She stuck her tongue at him after he kissed her. "I think I've sworn off the Church. The martyrdom thing is going to take a while to break though. It's hard wired into my DNA." She turned her head back towards the room. "I think I'd like this room for the baby.
"He doesn't tell me much, believe it or not. Though he will run off to find me if you're being inconsolable because, hey, emotions are not something you can divide by pi and therefore he does not understand them." This was entirely true, but Jack thought for a brief moment about sticking Horatio in the same room with the Doctor's eighth regeneration, juuust to see what emotional, not-understanding he'd personally engage in. "I have no idea. Wardrobes are proper? Dunno. It kind of freaks me out, but I guess at the same time it saves on building space and construction." He nodded, giving a glance 'round the room. "It's got more windows, it'll be nice and sunny. You know, on the days we actually get sunlight."
"Ahh. I bought him some new clothes." She smiled a bit, "Nothing too modern, no jeans or sneakers and I didn't get rid of his old things either. Aren't you proud of me?" Not that she would, mind you, it would have just been rude. Horatio was very dear, albeit sometimes frustrating. "I can't fit very many shoes in one." Her expression was almost woobie-ful. "Oh the weather is going to be fine," she remarked. "Another reason you'll be proud. I found a non-gender specific set of baby bedding that I like.”
"Clothes?" Jack sputtered, very amused by this idea. "Well...as soon as you manage to get him into something modern, we should try and get him back out again." Oh, how could he resist? On a long enough timeline, after all... "Non-gender specific, really." Was that a little disbelief? He masked it very well behind an amused grin. "I am proud. What sort of non-gender specific bedding did you find?"
"Yeah, some khakis and a few shirts. I think he's more concerned that they are civilian clothes rather than modern, personally." Kate lightly socked him in the arm. "You're horrible." She grinned at him. He really was but she found it impossible to be offended or annoyed by his antics. That's what she liked about him. "Don't act so shocked, Captain Harkness. It's still very cute. It's chocolate brown with different shades of green blocks and elephants." She just couldn't do grey. White was unsuitable for a baby and she hated yellow.
"I'm a bad, bad man." He would admit to it. He'd grin and look exceptionally smug and pleased with himself, yeah, but he'd still admit to it. "But, c'mon, you've got to admit that would help. People in the twenty-first century don't seem to have sex enough, God help those poor bastards in the Regency era." He acted shocked, even more so after being told not to, but it didn't hold for long against his grin. "That sounds pretty. And I'm relieved, I thought for a second you'd gone with something yellow. Which would've been a tragedy."
"Yes you are, you'll get your spanking later." She kissed him. "Yes, yes it would. I thought you were helping him in that area or am I wrong?" She eyed him dubiously. Was she wrong? "It's very cute." She took a step towards him. She was close enough that she could reach out and tug his suspender though she didn't immediately release it. "I don't like yellow," she replied. "And if, in my pregnancy induced hormonal state, I want to do something that terrible, please stop me.”
"I...well, not lately," he answered, perhaps a little inexplicably, because it was difficult to explain. "He's a complicated man -- " Oh, one of the horrors of being blissfully unaware of certain pop culture aspects, was accidentally referencing one without realizing it. Jack swayed easily forward at the tug, grinning. "I don't like yellow, either. Unless it's on Quentanicomoraqthogwesfen. Whole city devoted to yellow, you know, with all the banana-flavored drinks you could want. But for decorating? Nonono, definitely not. I'll try and keep you restrained from bad decorating ideas."
"And no one understands him but his navigator?" It certainly wasn't his woman. Haha. "You know I still owe you several deserts. Would you like me to bake you a banana cream pie. I know that your deeply fascinated with bananas." Her fingers locked tighter around his suspender and she pulled him just a little bit closer. "I'll hold you too that." What? They were handles after all. "Now.. why don't you show me your room."
" -- well, first lieutenant?" Jack was not getting the Shaft reference, obviously. He let himself be tugged closer. "I'm deeply fascinated by you. You're all the dessert I need." -- Was he the king of cheesy one-liners, or what? Yes. The answer was definitely yes. But he pulled them off so well! Really. "It's this way." Jack grinned, trying to look less smug than he actually felt, and walked backwards back into the hallway, counter-tugging at Kate via her grip on his suspender, and headed for the master bedroom.
Kate sighed. "Whatever they call it. I don't know." She was too horrified by the punishments to focus on anything else. He was easily the king of cheesy one-liners but he was so cute when he said them that he was easily forgiven for it. “I’ll have to be careful that I don’t give you a toothache.” Cheesy one-liner meet cliched response, table for two please. Kate didn’t bother to hide her grin as she was lead, rather pulled down the hallway to his bedroom. Once he had stepped inside, Kate gave him a gentle shove forward before stepping in herself. She turned and closed the door before facing Jack. She had quite the predatorial look on her face.
Jack grinned at being man-handled about, allowing himself to be shoved before turning to face her as the door closed. The latch caught with an audible click. "So...here's my room," he explained with appropriate flash and motion about the place, apparently still having his wits enough about him to remember their original intent in entering the master bedroom. It was a large room, currently sparsely furnished with a small bed, side table, and wardrobe, walls still white and curtains conspicuously absent from the windows. Distinctly, there was a bay window monopolozing one wall, which overlooked the front garden, while a door to the bathroom and a fireplace occupied their own wall space respectively. " -- I was thinking about a blue color scheme," Jack continued in an attempt to be coy, though the predatorial look had him thoroughly distracted.
"Blue would be good," Kate remarked moving even closer now. She was so close that she was able to start backing Jack backwards towards that small bed. Kate reached out and flicked a suspender strap. "Now, I believe you said some things that were very naughty and I think that I'm going to have to do something about that." She placed both hands on his chest before reaching up on the tips of her toes, to kiss him. It was by no means a deep kiss, it was more to tease. With a grin, Kate ended the kiss almost as soon as it had begun and roughly pushed him backwards onto his bed. "Now what am I going to do with you?" This question was soon answered as Kate immediately began to undress him. Perhaps the pregnancy hormones had already started to kick in?
"Blue -- yeah -- " He was really trying not to grin as he was edged back, with clear intent, by her closer proximity and body language, but he was enjoying this far too much. But could he help it? It was infrequent, at best, that a woman from an earlier century took such an actively assertive role, he couldn't help but get excited. And the way she teased did nothing to help suppressing that immediate response. Oh God...
Jack blinked up at the ceiling for a few seconds after hitting the mattress roughly, then lifted himself onto his elbows to look down at her. "...oh, you can do whatever you want." Which -- included undressing him. He could definitely, definitely live with that.
There were two soft 'thunks' that happened to be his shoes hitting he floor, this was followed by his socks. "I've heard it's relaxing." Now she didn't go for his trousers right away, she wanted to prolong his punishment. Kate did push his head back down onto the bed, "Did I say that you could do that?" She kissed him again, this one almost painfully chaste. "You're only making it worse on yourself."
For the next few moments she didn't touch him at all. "Mmm, I think I'll let you look but only look." Reaching up, she undid the barette that held most of her hair off of her face. She reached up and ran her hands through her hair, loosening the curls before giving her hair a final shake. Her hair free, Kate reached down to her waist and undid the belt of her green wrap-dress. Ever so slowly, she slipped out of her dress and let it fall to the ground.
Say you could do that -- Jack pulled what might've been considered a comical face for all the expression shoved into it: surprise, excitement, lust, and something that must've been the wicked cousin of amusement. "Yes, ma'am," he answered in a quietly polite voice that was so submissive it might have easily belonged to another person entirely.
With permission to look, Jack certainly got his fill of it. He sucked in a sharp, surprised breath at the way her hair fell free around her shoulders, eyes following the bounce of the curls, then trailing further down to watch the belt being discarded. It took a concentrated amount of willpower to stop the automatic response to reach out for her when the dress followed, the purely instinctive need for touch relegated to an obvious twitch of muscles and exerted control, the eventual outlet for the supressed response being a quiet moan hitched in his throat. And he wasn't even sure if that was 'allowed,' which only made the excitement and desire even stronger.
"Oh did I say you could do that?" She leaned her body over his, her breath hot in his ear. "And I was going to let you remove the rest of it. Now you'll have to wait." The rest if it being her undergarments which consisted of a pair of black panties and matching bra. "I was really hoping that you'd be good." There was a certain amount of ache in her voice. "Oh Jack, don't you want to be good?"
Kate tilted her head up enough so that she was able to lightly nip at his earlobe. One hand helped to give her suport while her other began to unbutton his shirt. One suspender was lowered and it's mate soon followed. All the while her hands were doing that, her mouth was playing with his neck. There was a nip here and there, his jawline was kissed before she again found his mouth. This time the kiss was anything but chaste.-d
Although he took a deep, steadying breath before even attempting to answer, his voice still came out tense and just a little strained, "Yes, I -- yes." It was entirely likely that second affirmative had absolutely nothing to do with her question and his answer to it, but rather the sharp and sudden nip at his ear.
Now that he knew a little more about the rules, Jack was actively attempting to be good, relegating his expressions of pleasure to little more than sharp intakes of breath and shaky exhales. The entire dynamic of the situation had every nerve ending in his entire body electrified. He was on the verge of asking nicely -- begging might've been a more correct term -- when she kissed him, finally, in the particular way he'd been wanting. Unfortunately, he was entirely unsure what a good response to that would be and found himself taking the tentative route, following her lead, instead of something a little more assertive. It was -- good in a surprisingly different way.
"Good." She felt hot and she felt sexy, taking control like that. She wasn't thinking of the future but was living in the here and now. Oh, she was going to make him beg for it. Kate ended the kiss, gently. He had been a good boy and so he would be rewarded. She shifted her body, scooting a bit lower. This time his belt was undone and finally his trousers and boxers were pulled off of him. Kate moved and stood between his legs, her body bending over him again. His lips were kissed as she took one of his hands and guided it to her hips. He was allowed his touch as her other hand reached behind her and undid the clasp of her bra. Free of that, she then brought his other hand up to her hips. "Touch me, now."
Difficult might have been the word to describe the good fight Jack had fought with restraint, keeping himself quiet only by virtue of the fact that he'd bitten into his bottom lip. If it had been difficult to keep quiet before, it was impossible to do so once she'd done away with the rest of their collective attire, relief and desire meshed together in a way that could only be expressed in the half-silenced way he groaned. -- And then he could touch her, he was allowed and told to, and it almost broke his brain a little, going from nothing and everything in the matter of moments, shifting without a clutch. It wasn't surprising then, reeling from the change and the dynamic, that he just gave her hips a gentle squeeze for a moment as he recovered and asked, "...how?" Because he was also sure that as soon as he did recover, he'd take that ambiguous command very, very seriously -- and he wasn't sure if that still qualified as being good.
Her lips were moving away from his, gentle caresses until she found the pulse point on his neck. She was going to be evil, and not answer that question just yet. Instead Kate did that tongue thing that she knew he liked so well, only this time it was on his neck. Her hands had moved away from his after he squeezed her hips. Now, they rested on his bare shoulders, her nails just slightly digging into his flesh. Finally, she did answer his question. "Surprise me."
Oh, was that evil? He could definitely wait if she was going to do that thing with her tongue, well, anywhere. When she did finally answer his question, Jack chuckled quietly, a reaction he buried against the curve of her neck with the slightest inclination of his head. Thumbs, in the meantime, brushed over the soft skin of her hips slowly, exercising quite a lot of restraint still, before his hands moved up, mapping out the delicate curves of her body with a dedicated precision that might've suggested he hadn't actually done it before. -- And then all hope of being good was lost entirely because the map ended in lovely territory and Jack was soon terribly preoccupied with caressing her breasts, lips working up her throat and jaw.
It was the good kind of evil. The sort of evil that promised tea and cake when you converted to the dark side. It was daylight when they started but by the time that two, sweat slickened, exhausted individuals collapsed in a tangled heap of flesh and sheets, the sun was just starting to set. As for Kate, she lay next to Jack with her head resting on his chest, the mass of her brown hair falling over them like silk. "Mmm... That last thing you did?" She said after several long moments of laying there, breathing heavily. "I didn't think that was physically possible."
"Kama Sutra," Jack supplied simply, half mumbled around the sheer stupid grin he was wearing, while exhaustedly attempting to catch his breath and pull her closer and find where the sheet ended all at the same time. Eventually he gave up, settled for the second of the three options, and just waited for the rest of reality to move back into focus. "It's got practically a religious following in the fifty-first century, you know."
"I like it," Kate replied in an almost dazed tone. She was unaware of the stupid grin her face simply because of the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that coursed throughout her body. "You must show me more." She meant later of course. Kate didn't quite have Jack's stamina. No one had Jack's stamina. Right now, she was more than content to lay in his bed. Maybe later they could have a bath, together, and eat. Then perhaps they could have a repeat performance.
Jack laughed, though he didn't quite have the breath to pull it off, at her dazed assessment of the experience. "I don't think there's any way not to like it," he concluded, wondering if someone could be out of their head enough to hate anything about contorted but highly gratifying sex positions. "I will." Of course not right at that moment, she was tired and he was -- well -- she was tired. "...I really like your decorating advice, Kate," Jack said, still grinnined stupidly, a moment later.
"Good thing I'm flexible, huh?" She was very amused but that's not to say that Jack hadn't had his moments. Kate turned her head so that she was looking at him now. "I'll hold you to that elsewise I'll have to consider you a bad boy again." And he should know what would happen then. The way he reacted to her she was starting to wonder if anyone else had taken control like that. "Huh?" She reached up and pushed back the strands of her hair that was concealing her face. "Which idea was that? The blue room? A bigger bed?"
It had been a very long time, let's just say that. Jack, for his part, concluded that throwing around 'rank' in the earlier centuries as a sign of authority also doubled as an indication of sexual dominance for primitive cultures, leading to a lot of misunderstanding. He didn't necessarily mind, but he was a very open guy and too much of the same thing after so many years got to be a little -- well, it wasn't boring, but it was normal and that was a very scary term for him. "Mm, the part where it all ended in sex somehow, because that's always great." He flashed her a grin.