Relict, 2/? (9/R/J, Teen)
The thumps and knocks coming from the control room weren’t at all unusual, even the occasional muttering or expletive that the TARDIS demurely refrained from translating, but the second voice, the shared laughter - that was still new.
Rose felt a silly grin on her face that only widened as she climbed the ramp toward the console. Her fingers lingered on the battered leather of the jacket slung over the back of the old chair with its rakish accents of silver duct tape, and she saw Jack’s head just over the edge of the console opposite her.
She circled around to where the Doctor had pulled up the floor grating and was settled on his back under a mass of exposed circuitry, long legs draped over the grating at the knee. Jack was crouched next to him, neck craned under to watch what he was doing, and she arrived just as the Doctor put his sonic screwdriver in his teeth, reaching underneath some loose wires with one hand as he held the other hand out, palm up.
Jack slapped another tool - which looked almost identical to Rose’s eyes - into his palm as if it were a surgical procedure, and Rose couldn’t help the giggle. Boys and their toys. God, it was like watching Mickey and some of his mates with their cars.
Jack looked up at her, flashing her one of those Hollywood grins, his eyes the same blue as his tight-fitting sky-blue T-shirt (and didn’t he know it, too), but she could see the difference. This wasn’t the conman come-on she had met, only a few days ago. This was much more natural, warm, his entire face and body relaxed, even though he was crammed rather uncomfortably into the crawlspace, one hand clutching the grating to keep him from tumbling over on top of the Doctor.
Not that she thought he’d mind that, really. Nor, frankly, would she, given the opportunity sprawled out like that, lean and strangely young in black jeans and a black T-shirt. She suddenly realized that although she’d seen him without the jacket on a few occasions - always a little rattled that he seemed so skinny and…vulnerable - she had never seen his bare arms. There was Jack, all perfect muscles and bronzed skin on display (was there a little unnecessary flexing going on there?), and here she was, staring instead at long, bony arms wrapped in flat ribbons of muscle and a topological map of blue veins, the skin milk-pale with a fine scattering of coppery-gold hair. It seemed somehow…inappropriate to see him thus exposed, and she felt a blush heating her ears as she looked shyly back at Jack.
She thought she saw a flicker of sympathy in his eyes before their moment was interrupted by a strangled, “Oi!”
They both grinned, brightened by a sliver of relief, and Jack reached up to catch the sonic screwdriver as the Doctor pushed it out of his mouth with his tongue. Rose caught the inside of her lip with her teeth, wondering why on earth that little glimpse of the underside of his tongue made her feel like a thousand little explosions were going on underneath her skin, and she shoved her fists into the cargo pockets of her khakis, rubbing her flaming cheek against her shoulder as it rose involuntarily toward her ear.
Jack retrieved the screwdriver as the Doctor asked him, “Can you get your hand in there and hold this up?”
Jack linked his fingers through the grating so he could lean in, twisting his arm one way, then the other, trying to get in far enough, jerking back with a surprised “Ow!” as a couple of sparks burst out. He shook his hand with an apologetic look at the Doctor, who rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”
“Well, if you can’t-”
“Who sez?” retorted Jack with a cheeky grin, and he flipped over, slinging his legs over the grating and lying back perpendicular to the Doctor. His head resting on the narrow chest, he snaked one of those perfectly muscled bronzed arms in underneath where the Doctor was working.
The Time Lord looked surprised for a brief moment in which Rose held her breath, then he grinned and said approvingly, “Fantastic. Yep. Just a little higher?”
Jack obeyed with another dazzling smile - apparently directed at no one but himself - and Rose tried to calm the rushing of blood in her ears. She recognized that warm tone of the Doctor’s voice. It was the one that said, “Now Rose asks the right questions,” and “I only take the best, I've got Rose.”
“Ah, there we go. That’s perfect. Thanks, Jack. Would ye hand me that gap spanner?”
Jack felt around on the floor beside him and came up with the appropriate tool, passing it to the Doctor. They traded tools with an efficient gesture, pressing palms together to stabilize the metal objects, then changing the grasp with a brush of their fingers that made Rose’s hand tingle. She might not know those arms, but she knew those fingers, that palm. She knew how her hand fit inside their grasp, where the calluses were, how strong and secure that clasp was, how gentle. Her hand was tiny in his. Jack’s was just as big - the palm as broad, the fingers thicker if not so long. A good match.
She didn’t realize she was gnawing on her lower lip until Jack’s blue eyes caught hers and he winked - even his eyelashes were longer than hers, she noted petulantly; at least longer than her real ones, before the generous daily application of Boots WonderLash™. But his cheeky grin, the way he wriggled a little, settling in comfortably to help the Doctor not despite but because of their casual intimacy, surprised her. It wasn’t the superior look of triumph she expected; or, that frankly, she would have given him had she been smart enough to get herself into that particular position. It was a look that suggested teamwork.
She returned the grin instinctively, her teeth still catching her lip, and he stretched, his body undulating gracefully in the form-fitting clothes, adjusting so that his head rested perfectly in the arch of ribs a little too clearly delineated beneath the thin black cotton knit. When he turned his head against the Doctor’s breastbone to pass the next requested implement, the action hitched the black T-shirt up a little on one side. Just a flash of pale skin, the curve of hip-bone above the loose waistband, and Rose felt her blush creeping over entire body.
A little grunt and a metallic clang preceded a whoosh of relief that made Jack’s head dip under the diaphragmatic pressure. “There you are, you old sweetheart,” he said affectionately, patting the metal panel, and Jack’s grin was incandescent. With a cheeky glance at Rose, Jack reached up, drawing his fingernail lightly down the inside curve of the wiry bicep, toward the tendons arching beneath soft, sandy hair revealed by the loose sleeve, and the sudden contraction of the thin body and deadened thud of bone on metal was accompanied by an explosive curse of the variety that apparently made the TARDIS blush, its colours warming from green toward gold.
Jack clearly knew when to beat a hasty retreat, and Rose fell back, giggling as he scrambled out of the crawlspace with surprising agility, followed quickly by a long, thin streak of black. Whether the Doctor tripped him or he fell on his own, Jack sprawled laughing on the grating, quite happy to be trapped underneath the rangy body, even when he twisted around to get a blast of gunmetal blue eyes in full stormcloud mode. “So, ticklish, Time Lord?”
Rose held her breath, faintly terrified that Jack was so brave - or foolhardy.
The Doctor sat back on his heels astride Jack’s hips as the Time Agent settled fully on his back underneath him, challenge in his perfectly handsome face. “C’mon,” he said softly, seductively, his fingers slipping underneath the long fingers spread on the black-jeaned thighs. He was caressing both hands and legs as he lifted his chin defiantly toward the powerful alien. “Play a little.” Jack’s nervousness was betrayed only by the flick of his tongue around his lips.
“What makes you think I’m not?” he asked, in his “I am so impressive” voice, just a moment before his face broke into that blinding grin. “C’mon, Jack, you got exactly what you wanted - a chase. I’m just too fast for you.” A cocky little tilt of the head prompted a surprised laugh from Rose, and the Doctor flashed her a conspiratorial grin before returning his attention to Jack, who had taken the opportunity to lace his fingers with the Doctor’s, pressing palm to palm.
The smile faded as he turned his eyes back to Jack, and he took the subtle momentum of Jack’s gesture to lean forward, pushing their hands toward the flooring. Jack gave him resistance, but only to ease him down, their hands beside his head.
The silence seemed to increase, filling up the console room as it expanded through time. Rose held her breath, watching Jack’s body relax, warm, yearn upward, without perceptible motion. Storm and sky met, and the tiny motion of Jack’s thumb against the inside of the Doctor’s wrist suddenly seemed huge.
The wiry arms bent, flat muscles tightening as he leaned closer, inexorably. Rose could hear nothing but the rush of blood in her ears, and before she could even wonder whether it was from arousal or jealousy, Jack’s eyes flashed with concern.
“Doctor?” he asked, and only then did Rose see the trembling in the muscles, the wavering in the taut frame, and Jack was clearly poised to catch him.
Rose stepped forward instinctively, and the waver became a sway, elbows buckling.