Fic: Up To A Point
Title: Up To A Point
Pairing: Jack Harkness/Himself (pre-canon Jack/post-canon Jack), Doctor/Jack (mentioned)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Thanks to the Doctor, Jack has to take the slow path to get back home to the fifty-first century. By the time he gets there, he has solved a few of his own mysteries, and he has one last thing to do before he leaves the Earth behind him.
Warning: Tiniest hint of non-con, if you squint, but it's harmless really.
Length: 3,770 words
Written for: The Jack/Jack fest
When he next sees the Doctor - and he will, there can’t be any doubt about that - he’s going to choke him. No, not choke, he’s going to punch him, just once, in the face. Hard.
Captain Jack has had to take the slow path to get here. He’s well over three thousand years old now. He could work out exactly how old, if he could remember when his birthday was, but sometime in the late twenty-first century, it all stopped being important. Five hundred was the last landmark he celebrated, alone in his office with a bottle of scotch and a fruit cake with a candle in it.
Three thousand years, he has discovered, is a lot longer than it sounds. It’s a finite number, but it feels infinite. Getting up, feeding himself, working, saving the world, trying to catch a few hours sleep, failing, getting up… over and over again, for three thousand years. Some of it felt quite exciting at the time, but even excitement becomes mundane, after too long.
After Torchwood fell, he found himself becoming detached. He’d drift through the streets of the world, wandering from Cardiff to London to Paris to Prague, just moving, always moving, barely seeing where he was, and with no sense of purpose or direction. He drifted from Europe to Africa to Asia. Some nights he spent in palaces, curled up beside a courtesan or a noble, and other nights he rested at the side of a dirt road, or on a beach, or high in the branches of a tree.
He’s seen everything. Every corner of planet Earth, every occupied inch - or so it seems. Three thousand years worth of experience, and he still can’t quite believe he’s here, or what he is about to do.
The inn is opposite the Time Agency headquarters. The Captain often wondered what the hell was going through the mind of the landlord when he bought the place. Time Agents are trouble, a necessary but bothersome annoyance on the rest of the world. It could be a noble enough career for a young person, certainly better prospects than joining the army, but the job gets to you on a level so deep you don’t know you have it until it’s corrupt.
There’s some kind of argument going on, judging by the levels of shouting he can hear as he rounds the corner, skirting the edge of magnificent sky-scraper that houses the Time Agency. He doesn’t remember a fight breaking out, but the noise could be useful. He could use the cover.
Inside, he stops and stares. The millennia slide away from him, and suddenly, he’s twenty-nine years old again, still naïve, still stupid, still convinced that he’s something. He remembers all of this. The rough wood of the walls under his hand, and the laugh of that awful old man who’s always hanging around the pool tables, and the other regulars, in little clusters of familiarity. A group of Time Agents he recognises, some people from the surrounding streets. But it’s the smell that stuns him and glues him, momentarily, to the spot. Smells are the most evocative aids to memory the Captain has ever discovered. You can forget all the names and faces, all the scenes and stories you like, but you never, ever forget a scent.
He shakes himself out of it. He’s got work to do, and then, maybe, he can leave. He’s thought about abandoning this silly little planet hundreds of times since the rise of the space age, but he had to make sure a number of things went as they should. This is the last of them. His final duty on planet Earth, and then he can go.
He finds his old friends easily enough, gathered together in their usual corner. They’re still dressed in their field uniforms, literally just back from a mission. And what a fucking mission. What a god-damned screw up of a thing - and they had branded it a success. Not just the bosses back at HQ, but every single one of them who was there agreed they had done what was right.
Stupid bloody kids. Nothing important - the Captain long ago decided - should ever be undertaken by anyone under the age of three hundred.
And there he is. Pushing past his lieutenant (and copping a feel on the way) is Captain Jack Harkness. Uniform rumpled, face still smeared with oil and someone else’s blood. An expression of relief and victory on his face as he strides with terrible pride and confidence towards the bar.
“I’ll have a double vodka,” he says. “No, a triple. Need it after the day I’ve had! You wouldn’t believe me if I told you about it.”
Vodka? Dear god, he hasn’t touched vodka in centuries.
The Captain leans on the bar, placing one hand on young Jack’s shoulder. “How about I get that?” he says.
There’s a moment where the Captain is certain everything is about to go wrong. The look of surprise, the spark of fear. He takes advantage of it in order to tweak a twenty out of his younger self’s back pocket and pay the barman, but the moment’s gone again as abruptly as it came.
Jack laughs. “They warned me stuff like this could happen. Should you be touching me?”
“Why not?” says the Captain. “You’re young, cute-”
“There were lectures on this sort of thing,” says Jack, pausing for a sip of his drink. “Don’t step on butterflies, don’t screw your grandmother. Don’t give yourself a friendly pat on the back. Something to do with matter imploding in on itself or… I dunno, I wasn’t listening.”
“I know you weren’t. It’s okay though. The effect is only applicable if the alternate versions of the same being are from within a certain time-range of each other.”
“Oh yeah? When did they discover that?”
“About ninety seconds ago, when I touched your shoulder.”
Jack chokes, then laughs, spraying his drink. The Captain winces. God, he was such a tit.
“So. You’re me aged… what? Forty? Forty five?”
“A bit older than that.”
“Really? Wow, I age well. And if I know me, in twenty years time I’m rich as well as still gorgeous, so you can get me another drink.”
The Captain rolls his eyes, and nods at the barman, who produces another large vodka and completely fails to comment on the fact that his customer seems to have duplicated.
“You’re not drinking,” says Jack.
“No.”
“Why not?”
The Captain keeps his expression carefully neutral. “You’ll find out soon.”
“Oh crap, I don’t join the Church of the Ninth Seal, do I? You’re not one of those Bible-thumping teetotallers?”
“No.”
“Well thank fuck for that.”
The Captain watches young Jack sip at his drink. He’s still resting one hand on the boy’s shoulder, just to make sure no one tries to interrupt. By this time, it’s become a gesture of temporary sexual possession. ‘This one’s mine right now, wait your turn’, a simple, subtle sign that has probably averted wars.
“So, what? You’ve come to give me advice? Tell me next week’s winning lottery numbers so I can afford that flash coat you’re wearing?”
“No.”
“What then?”
The Captain shakes his head. “Soon. First, I’ve got to give your memory something to latch onto.”
“What does that mean?”
The Captain stands up, waves the barman over again. “Do you have any rooms tonight?”
Jack says, “What?”
“You’ve got one with dark blue walls and a painting of a city-scape in a bronze frame. The door squeaks and there’s a blue flower embroidered on the pillow. The bed springs can be heard from a mile off.”
The barman still doesn’t bat an eyelid, but produces a key and then ambles off again. The Captain smiles at himself.
“Shall we?”
“Give my memory something to latch onto?”
The Captain shrugs. “I assume that’s why we do it. I could just kick you in the balls if you like. That’d be fairly memorable.”
Strangely enough, young Jack declines. He follows at the Captain’s heels as he makes his way up the stairs, and finds the right door straight away.
It’s taken a long time, and a lot of concentration, but he remembers all this quite vividly now.
Young Jack pulls off his uniform shirt and chucks it into the corner. The Captain leans his back against the wall and watches. He might have been stupid and bordering on useless all those years ago, but can say this for himself - he was never deluded about his own appearance.
“Anything I should know about?” says Jack. “Weird tattoos? Extra bits? Missing bits?”
“Nothing like that. Just a bit older.”
“Not too old, though, right?”
The Captain grins. “With age, kid, comes experience. Get your pants off. I don’t actually have all evening.”
Jack raises his chin, and barely contains his smirk as he unfastens his trousers. The Captain doesn’t bother to hide his interest, lets his eyes linger on the younger man as he shrugs off his own coat and braces.
“Get over yourself, you old bastard.”
“Never going to happen.”
“I hope you came prepared, because I’ve just got back from a mission. I don’t tend to take supplies out in the field. But I suppose you know that.”
The Captain catches the underwear that young Jack pings across the room at him. “Of course I’m prepared.” He throws his own trousers in the general direction of his coat, gives Jack a little shove, and grins as he flops back on the bed. The springs creak horribly. Jack sprawls, leaning back on his elbows, and spreads his legs.
The Captain kisses him firmly, pushing him down on the bed, exploring his own, much younger body. He had certain impressions about himself at that stage of his life, certain notions he had convinced himself of and, fair enough, they were all just about right. He was perfectly in shape - not too much muscle, not an ounce of flab - and he was, it had to be said, a damn good kisser. He can remember flaunting this body, using it as a tool to fight or seduce, and being just a little too proud of it. It’s more than a little strange to be experiencing it from the outside.
Jack’s hands are all over him, running down his back, grasping his arse, stroking his hair, reaching between them to slide his fingers along the Captain’s cock. When they break the kiss, he’s laughing.
“Still smooth as a fucking sonnet. I love me.”
The Captain shrugs. His fingers massage little circles on the insides of Jack’s thighs as his eyes roam over the perfect young body before him. He knows he’s changed, more than young Jack will acknowledge. There are scars that won’t fade, lines around his eyes, and little flecks of grey in his hair. It worries him, not because he’s vain, but because it’s only been three thousand years. He’s got several trillion left still to go.
“So, tell me,” says Jack, as the Captain leans over him again. “Besides the perfectly excusable urge to screw yourself, why are you here?”
“I’ve never seen my own nipples up this close,” says the Captain, before biting one.
“Wow. Deep stuff. And there I was thinking you were gonna tell me how to save the universe or invent something spectacular or… I dunno, save a life, maybe. Tell me to get a haircut so I don’t get beaten up. Advise me away from that girl who just joined the squad, because if you don’t, I’ll do her, and I don’t care how many tentacles she’s got.”
The Captain hooks Jack’s legs up around his waist as he bites and kisses the younger man’s collar bone. Jack twitches his hips, grins at the little hiss of pleasure from his older counterpart.
“Tell me.”
“You should get a haircut.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine,” says the Captain. “But you won’t like it.”
Jack lies there, ruffled and red, as the Captain rolls across the bed and grabs for his coat. He pulls a tiny bottle out, and throws it to Jack.
“Retcon,” he reads. “What the hell is that? A wonder drug? Do I sell it?”
“No. It was banned anywhere on planet Earth a little over two thousand years ago. There were a few too many accidents.”
“How’d you know that?”
“It was me that banned it. I also happened to help invent it.”
An attractive little frown line appears between Jack’s eyes. “You came back in time, though.”
“Nope,” says the Captain, tersely. “No time travel. Not lately.”
He snatches the bottle and slips it back into his coat. He settles himself between Jack’s legs again. Takes the youngster’s cock firmly in his hand, and starts stroking, rhythmically. Jack hitches his knees up, bunching the sheets around his heels, lifting his hips in a less than subtle gesture.
“For god’s sake,” he complains. “I’m getting impatient here. Tell me, or fuck me, or do both at once. I don’t care, just put me out of my misery one way or another.”
The Captain takes a breath. “I retconned you,” he says. “That’s what I came here to do. It’s a drug that wipes the memories of anyone who takes it, usually retroactive over a half-dozen hours, but I gave you enough to take out the last few years.”
Jack’s eyes widen, and his mouth opens, but before he can say anything, the Captain grabs him by the shoulder and flips him face-down on the sheets. Jack tries to push himself up, but the Captain pins him with his slightly heavier bulk.
“You don’t get to punch me, kiddo. And you don’t get to question me. You get a simple explanation, you get fucked, and you wake up tomorrow wondering who in the galaxy left you with an ass that sore.”
Jack struggles against the older man’s weight. “You bastard,” he snarls. “You drugged me! You drugged my god-damned drinks!”
“Yep.”
The Captain nudges young Jack’s legs apart, still holding him firmly down. Jack isn’t trying to get away from him, he’s trying to twist himself round, to look his older self in face, to understand what’s happening to him. The Captain can’t have that. He spent so many years hating whoever did this to him, whichever high-ranking Time Agent seduced him, stole his memories, and left him with barely a clue who he was. He can’t do this face-to-face. Can’t look himself in the eye.
“Why?” Jack asks. The word comes out short and sharp as the Captain starts to push into him.
“Because you’re an idiot. You’re a nasty, thoughtless, heartless idiot. You did some shitty stuff today, kid, made some stupid mistakes. You’ve spent your entire career making mistakes. You don’t think so now, and no one will tell you because they’re idiots too, but you’ll grow up, and you’ll learn. And there will come a time when you won’t be able to cope. You’ll hate yourself, hate the universe. You’ll want to die, but not quite enough to hurt anyone else in order to destroy yourself. I’m here to take away the worst of your memories. The stuff you did when you had a choice. When it wasn’t your life on the line, but someone else’s, and you took the path that was easy rather than the path that was right. And you’ll forget about it all for so long that, by the time you realise the Doctor was right to let you snatch that bomb out of thin air, you’ll be old and jaded enough to laugh about it.”
He can tell Jack is listening, despite the low hissing sound he makes as the Captain holds him too roughly, thrusts into him too hard. He can remember hearing each sentence as he says it. It’s taken a long time - almost too long - but he finally demolished the walls that the retcon put up in his mind, and that his own defences reinforced. Too many centuries of picking apart those barriers, of jolting out of day-dreams where he was staring up at dark blue walls behind a head of greying hair and a blur of a face. And when the memories started to trickle back, when he began to realise what sort of a man he had been before the Doctor saved him, he didn’t even have to remember learning about retcon before he knew what he had to do.
“First,” he growls, slamming hard into Jack, “you’ll remember the flower on the pillow. Open your eyes. It’s right in front of you, take a long, hard look. It’ll plague you for years. You’ll find yourself thinking about it when you’re trying to concentrate. You’ll start to hate daisies for no good reason. It’ll be one of hundreds of things you remember but can’t place, and at first you’ll dismiss it. But then you’ll remember you were having sex when you saw it, and you’ll remember the blue of the walls and the squeak of the bedsprings. And then you’ll start to remember all the things that came before…”
Jack pushes himself up, arching his back against the Captain. His skin is flushed red, his hair damp with sweat.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he gasps.
The Captain laughs. “You’ll learn, lad. You’ll learn more than you believe possible.” He quickens his pace, taking Jack by surprise. “You can’t,” he says, grinning at the back of his own neck, “fuck the universe over without getting fucked in return. You can’t. It’s the law of conservation of selfish bastardness. That’s karma to you.”
“I don’t understand!”
“And you won’t. Not for thousands of years.”
“What? Aah!”
The Captain wraps his hand around young Jack’s cock. He’s been over this night in his mind, drawn it out of his subconscious, examined it in detail a million times, but he still can’t recall whether the older version of himself ever came. Was it a silent, teeth-clenched jerk and nothing more? Did he climax before his younger self, or at the same time? It probably wasn’t after, if it ever occurred at all.
He’s focusing entirely on young Jack, on his back and shoulders, on the hair sticking to his neck. On the sounds he makes, undignified and desperate. His fingers move out of time with his thrusts, slowing as he quickens, his thumb rubbing the tip of Jack’s cock with every third stroke. It’s strange, hearing his own laboured breath, his own moans of pleasure. This is… not something he’s going to make a habit of.
He knows exactly when Jack has passed the point of no return because he stops making any sounds at all. His muscles clench, and the Captain, mercifully, moves his hand a little faster, laughing at the beautiful irony as he brings himself off.
***
“How old are you?” says Jack. His voice is heavy, and the Captain knows he’ll be asleep before long.
“Old enough.”
“Fifty? Was I just nailed by a fifty year old?”
“Older.”
“You’re kidding.”
“A lot older.”
Jack makes a disbelieving noise. They’re lying face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes. Examining themselves across the millennia.
The Captain should leave. He should really, really leave. He should find a ship and get off this rock, go somewhere with no chance of crossing paths with himself. He knew the risks before he set out, but at the same time, he knew he need not worry. He’s a walking paradox already. The universe doesn’t know what to do with him so, generally, it lets him get away with anything.
“I’m going to forget everything?”
“Just the last couple of years. You’ll remember being made captain. Mum and Dad at the ceremony, smiling. So proud of you. That memory will stick, but after that… nothing much until tomorrow morning.”
Jack nods. “So you can tell me, then,” he says. “If I’m going to forget by morning… tell me how old you are.”
The Captain tells him. Jack laughs. But he believes him.
“So. When I’m done being a bastard, do I lead a good life?”
“Yeah. Eventually. Pretty good.”
“Do I ever fall in love? Proper love, I mean. The kind that makes you want to tear your teeth out.”
The Captain smiles. “Oh, yes.”
“What’re they like?”
“Oh. He’s nasty, ruthless, rude, hypocritical, mad as a brush, and absolutely the most amazing person in the universe.”
Jack smiles. “Does he love me?”
“Yeah. As much as he can. More than he should.”
“That sounds right,” says Jack. “Sounds how love should go.” He stretches and yawns. His eyelids are starting to flicker shut. “What do I do now?”
“You’ll flee the Time Agency in the morning. Steal a vortex manipulator, make a living pulling cons, like you did in the war. Eventually, you’ll steal a ship, and you’ll make the last huge mistake of your life. So far, anyway,” he adds, with a grin.
“That’s my life, is it?” says young Jack.
“That’s your life, lad. Up to a point.”
Captain Jack lies on his side and watches himself drifting off to sleep under the influence of far too much retcon. Up to a point, he thinks. And he laughs. And he wonders just how much of a clueless, aimless, embarrassing little git he will look to himself in another three thousand years time.
It’s time to move on. He’s had enough of planet Earth and its little solar system, enough of humans for the time being. He needs something new. Something exotic. He wants to fuck someone and not quite know what he’s doing, where all the bits should go, and he wants to eat something and not know whether it’ll make him puke, and he wants to drink something without knowing what it’ll do to his head.
He wants the Doctor, but that’s a given. That’s his constant. He’ll want the Doctor until the day the universe comes crashing down around him. Maybe he’ll find him on the other side of the galaxy. It’s definitely worth a look.
He gathers up his clothes, and dresses quickly, quietly. Same clothes as always. Shirt, pants, braces. He wants…
He wants a new coat. New era, new Jack, new outfit.
He pauses at the door, and looks back over his shoulder. Young Jack rolls onto his side, taking up the space where the Captain no longer lies. He looks ridiculously youthful, and far more attractive than anybody has any right to be. The Captain doesn’t envy him one jot.
“Good luck, kid,” he says, before closing the door behind him.
Pairing: Jack Harkness/Himself (pre-canon Jack/post-canon Jack), Doctor/Jack (mentioned)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Thanks to the Doctor, Jack has to take the slow path to get back home to the fifty-first century. By the time he gets there, he has solved a few of his own mysteries, and he has one last thing to do before he leaves the Earth behind him.
Warning: Tiniest hint of non-con, if you squint, but it's harmless really.
Length: 3,770 words
Written for: The Jack/Jack fest
When he next sees the Doctor - and he will, there can’t be any doubt about that - he’s going to choke him. No, not choke, he’s going to punch him, just once, in the face. Hard.
Captain Jack has had to take the slow path to get here. He’s well over three thousand years old now. He could work out exactly how old, if he could remember when his birthday was, but sometime in the late twenty-first century, it all stopped being important. Five hundred was the last landmark he celebrated, alone in his office with a bottle of scotch and a fruit cake with a candle in it.
Three thousand years, he has discovered, is a lot longer than it sounds. It’s a finite number, but it feels infinite. Getting up, feeding himself, working, saving the world, trying to catch a few hours sleep, failing, getting up… over and over again, for three thousand years. Some of it felt quite exciting at the time, but even excitement becomes mundane, after too long.
After Torchwood fell, he found himself becoming detached. He’d drift through the streets of the world, wandering from Cardiff to London to Paris to Prague, just moving, always moving, barely seeing where he was, and with no sense of purpose or direction. He drifted from Europe to Africa to Asia. Some nights he spent in palaces, curled up beside a courtesan or a noble, and other nights he rested at the side of a dirt road, or on a beach, or high in the branches of a tree.
He’s seen everything. Every corner of planet Earth, every occupied inch - or so it seems. Three thousand years worth of experience, and he still can’t quite believe he’s here, or what he is about to do.
The inn is opposite the Time Agency headquarters. The Captain often wondered what the hell was going through the mind of the landlord when he bought the place. Time Agents are trouble, a necessary but bothersome annoyance on the rest of the world. It could be a noble enough career for a young person, certainly better prospects than joining the army, but the job gets to you on a level so deep you don’t know you have it until it’s corrupt.
There’s some kind of argument going on, judging by the levels of shouting he can hear as he rounds the corner, skirting the edge of magnificent sky-scraper that houses the Time Agency. He doesn’t remember a fight breaking out, but the noise could be useful. He could use the cover.
Inside, he stops and stares. The millennia slide away from him, and suddenly, he’s twenty-nine years old again, still naïve, still stupid, still convinced that he’s something. He remembers all of this. The rough wood of the walls under his hand, and the laugh of that awful old man who’s always hanging around the pool tables, and the other regulars, in little clusters of familiarity. A group of Time Agents he recognises, some people from the surrounding streets. But it’s the smell that stuns him and glues him, momentarily, to the spot. Smells are the most evocative aids to memory the Captain has ever discovered. You can forget all the names and faces, all the scenes and stories you like, but you never, ever forget a scent.
He shakes himself out of it. He’s got work to do, and then, maybe, he can leave. He’s thought about abandoning this silly little planet hundreds of times since the rise of the space age, but he had to make sure a number of things went as they should. This is the last of them. His final duty on planet Earth, and then he can go.
He finds his old friends easily enough, gathered together in their usual corner. They’re still dressed in their field uniforms, literally just back from a mission. And what a fucking mission. What a god-damned screw up of a thing - and they had branded it a success. Not just the bosses back at HQ, but every single one of them who was there agreed they had done what was right.
Stupid bloody kids. Nothing important - the Captain long ago decided - should ever be undertaken by anyone under the age of three hundred.
And there he is. Pushing past his lieutenant (and copping a feel on the way) is Captain Jack Harkness. Uniform rumpled, face still smeared with oil and someone else’s blood. An expression of relief and victory on his face as he strides with terrible pride and confidence towards the bar.
“I’ll have a double vodka,” he says. “No, a triple. Need it after the day I’ve had! You wouldn’t believe me if I told you about it.”
Vodka? Dear god, he hasn’t touched vodka in centuries.
The Captain leans on the bar, placing one hand on young Jack’s shoulder. “How about I get that?” he says.
There’s a moment where the Captain is certain everything is about to go wrong. The look of surprise, the spark of fear. He takes advantage of it in order to tweak a twenty out of his younger self’s back pocket and pay the barman, but the moment’s gone again as abruptly as it came.
Jack laughs. “They warned me stuff like this could happen. Should you be touching me?”
“Why not?” says the Captain. “You’re young, cute-”
“There were lectures on this sort of thing,” says Jack, pausing for a sip of his drink. “Don’t step on butterflies, don’t screw your grandmother. Don’t give yourself a friendly pat on the back. Something to do with matter imploding in on itself or… I dunno, I wasn’t listening.”
“I know you weren’t. It’s okay though. The effect is only applicable if the alternate versions of the same being are from within a certain time-range of each other.”
“Oh yeah? When did they discover that?”
“About ninety seconds ago, when I touched your shoulder.”
Jack chokes, then laughs, spraying his drink. The Captain winces. God, he was such a tit.
“So. You’re me aged… what? Forty? Forty five?”
“A bit older than that.”
“Really? Wow, I age well. And if I know me, in twenty years time I’m rich as well as still gorgeous, so you can get me another drink.”
The Captain rolls his eyes, and nods at the barman, who produces another large vodka and completely fails to comment on the fact that his customer seems to have duplicated.
“You’re not drinking,” says Jack.
“No.”
“Why not?”
The Captain keeps his expression carefully neutral. “You’ll find out soon.”
“Oh crap, I don’t join the Church of the Ninth Seal, do I? You’re not one of those Bible-thumping teetotallers?”
“No.”
“Well thank fuck for that.”
The Captain watches young Jack sip at his drink. He’s still resting one hand on the boy’s shoulder, just to make sure no one tries to interrupt. By this time, it’s become a gesture of temporary sexual possession. ‘This one’s mine right now, wait your turn’, a simple, subtle sign that has probably averted wars.
“So, what? You’ve come to give me advice? Tell me next week’s winning lottery numbers so I can afford that flash coat you’re wearing?”
“No.”
“What then?”
The Captain shakes his head. “Soon. First, I’ve got to give your memory something to latch onto.”
“What does that mean?”
The Captain stands up, waves the barman over again. “Do you have any rooms tonight?”
Jack says, “What?”
“You’ve got one with dark blue walls and a painting of a city-scape in a bronze frame. The door squeaks and there’s a blue flower embroidered on the pillow. The bed springs can be heard from a mile off.”
The barman still doesn’t bat an eyelid, but produces a key and then ambles off again. The Captain smiles at himself.
“Shall we?”
“Give my memory something to latch onto?”
The Captain shrugs. “I assume that’s why we do it. I could just kick you in the balls if you like. That’d be fairly memorable.”
Strangely enough, young Jack declines. He follows at the Captain’s heels as he makes his way up the stairs, and finds the right door straight away.
It’s taken a long time, and a lot of concentration, but he remembers all this quite vividly now.
Young Jack pulls off his uniform shirt and chucks it into the corner. The Captain leans his back against the wall and watches. He might have been stupid and bordering on useless all those years ago, but can say this for himself - he was never deluded about his own appearance.
“Anything I should know about?” says Jack. “Weird tattoos? Extra bits? Missing bits?”
“Nothing like that. Just a bit older.”
“Not too old, though, right?”
The Captain grins. “With age, kid, comes experience. Get your pants off. I don’t actually have all evening.”
Jack raises his chin, and barely contains his smirk as he unfastens his trousers. The Captain doesn’t bother to hide his interest, lets his eyes linger on the younger man as he shrugs off his own coat and braces.
“Get over yourself, you old bastard.”
“Never going to happen.”
“I hope you came prepared, because I’ve just got back from a mission. I don’t tend to take supplies out in the field. But I suppose you know that.”
The Captain catches the underwear that young Jack pings across the room at him. “Of course I’m prepared.” He throws his own trousers in the general direction of his coat, gives Jack a little shove, and grins as he flops back on the bed. The springs creak horribly. Jack sprawls, leaning back on his elbows, and spreads his legs.
The Captain kisses him firmly, pushing him down on the bed, exploring his own, much younger body. He had certain impressions about himself at that stage of his life, certain notions he had convinced himself of and, fair enough, they were all just about right. He was perfectly in shape - not too much muscle, not an ounce of flab - and he was, it had to be said, a damn good kisser. He can remember flaunting this body, using it as a tool to fight or seduce, and being just a little too proud of it. It’s more than a little strange to be experiencing it from the outside.
Jack’s hands are all over him, running down his back, grasping his arse, stroking his hair, reaching between them to slide his fingers along the Captain’s cock. When they break the kiss, he’s laughing.
“Still smooth as a fucking sonnet. I love me.”
The Captain shrugs. His fingers massage little circles on the insides of Jack’s thighs as his eyes roam over the perfect young body before him. He knows he’s changed, more than young Jack will acknowledge. There are scars that won’t fade, lines around his eyes, and little flecks of grey in his hair. It worries him, not because he’s vain, but because it’s only been three thousand years. He’s got several trillion left still to go.
“So, tell me,” says Jack, as the Captain leans over him again. “Besides the perfectly excusable urge to screw yourself, why are you here?”
“I’ve never seen my own nipples up this close,” says the Captain, before biting one.
“Wow. Deep stuff. And there I was thinking you were gonna tell me how to save the universe or invent something spectacular or… I dunno, save a life, maybe. Tell me to get a haircut so I don’t get beaten up. Advise me away from that girl who just joined the squad, because if you don’t, I’ll do her, and I don’t care how many tentacles she’s got.”
The Captain hooks Jack’s legs up around his waist as he bites and kisses the younger man’s collar bone. Jack twitches his hips, grins at the little hiss of pleasure from his older counterpart.
“Tell me.”
“You should get a haircut.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine,” says the Captain. “But you won’t like it.”
Jack lies there, ruffled and red, as the Captain rolls across the bed and grabs for his coat. He pulls a tiny bottle out, and throws it to Jack.
“Retcon,” he reads. “What the hell is that? A wonder drug? Do I sell it?”
“No. It was banned anywhere on planet Earth a little over two thousand years ago. There were a few too many accidents.”
“How’d you know that?”
“It was me that banned it. I also happened to help invent it.”
An attractive little frown line appears between Jack’s eyes. “You came back in time, though.”
“Nope,” says the Captain, tersely. “No time travel. Not lately.”
He snatches the bottle and slips it back into his coat. He settles himself between Jack’s legs again. Takes the youngster’s cock firmly in his hand, and starts stroking, rhythmically. Jack hitches his knees up, bunching the sheets around his heels, lifting his hips in a less than subtle gesture.
“For god’s sake,” he complains. “I’m getting impatient here. Tell me, or fuck me, or do both at once. I don’t care, just put me out of my misery one way or another.”
The Captain takes a breath. “I retconned you,” he says. “That’s what I came here to do. It’s a drug that wipes the memories of anyone who takes it, usually retroactive over a half-dozen hours, but I gave you enough to take out the last few years.”
Jack’s eyes widen, and his mouth opens, but before he can say anything, the Captain grabs him by the shoulder and flips him face-down on the sheets. Jack tries to push himself up, but the Captain pins him with his slightly heavier bulk.
“You don’t get to punch me, kiddo. And you don’t get to question me. You get a simple explanation, you get fucked, and you wake up tomorrow wondering who in the galaxy left you with an ass that sore.”
Jack struggles against the older man’s weight. “You bastard,” he snarls. “You drugged me! You drugged my god-damned drinks!”
“Yep.”
The Captain nudges young Jack’s legs apart, still holding him firmly down. Jack isn’t trying to get away from him, he’s trying to twist himself round, to look his older self in face, to understand what’s happening to him. The Captain can’t have that. He spent so many years hating whoever did this to him, whichever high-ranking Time Agent seduced him, stole his memories, and left him with barely a clue who he was. He can’t do this face-to-face. Can’t look himself in the eye.
“Why?” Jack asks. The word comes out short and sharp as the Captain starts to push into him.
“Because you’re an idiot. You’re a nasty, thoughtless, heartless idiot. You did some shitty stuff today, kid, made some stupid mistakes. You’ve spent your entire career making mistakes. You don’t think so now, and no one will tell you because they’re idiots too, but you’ll grow up, and you’ll learn. And there will come a time when you won’t be able to cope. You’ll hate yourself, hate the universe. You’ll want to die, but not quite enough to hurt anyone else in order to destroy yourself. I’m here to take away the worst of your memories. The stuff you did when you had a choice. When it wasn’t your life on the line, but someone else’s, and you took the path that was easy rather than the path that was right. And you’ll forget about it all for so long that, by the time you realise the Doctor was right to let you snatch that bomb out of thin air, you’ll be old and jaded enough to laugh about it.”
He can tell Jack is listening, despite the low hissing sound he makes as the Captain holds him too roughly, thrusts into him too hard. He can remember hearing each sentence as he says it. It’s taken a long time - almost too long - but he finally demolished the walls that the retcon put up in his mind, and that his own defences reinforced. Too many centuries of picking apart those barriers, of jolting out of day-dreams where he was staring up at dark blue walls behind a head of greying hair and a blur of a face. And when the memories started to trickle back, when he began to realise what sort of a man he had been before the Doctor saved him, he didn’t even have to remember learning about retcon before he knew what he had to do.
“First,” he growls, slamming hard into Jack, “you’ll remember the flower on the pillow. Open your eyes. It’s right in front of you, take a long, hard look. It’ll plague you for years. You’ll find yourself thinking about it when you’re trying to concentrate. You’ll start to hate daisies for no good reason. It’ll be one of hundreds of things you remember but can’t place, and at first you’ll dismiss it. But then you’ll remember you were having sex when you saw it, and you’ll remember the blue of the walls and the squeak of the bedsprings. And then you’ll start to remember all the things that came before…”
Jack pushes himself up, arching his back against the Captain. His skin is flushed red, his hair damp with sweat.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he gasps.
The Captain laughs. “You’ll learn, lad. You’ll learn more than you believe possible.” He quickens his pace, taking Jack by surprise. “You can’t,” he says, grinning at the back of his own neck, “fuck the universe over without getting fucked in return. You can’t. It’s the law of conservation of selfish bastardness. That’s karma to you.”
“I don’t understand!”
“And you won’t. Not for thousands of years.”
“What? Aah!”
The Captain wraps his hand around young Jack’s cock. He’s been over this night in his mind, drawn it out of his subconscious, examined it in detail a million times, but he still can’t recall whether the older version of himself ever came. Was it a silent, teeth-clenched jerk and nothing more? Did he climax before his younger self, or at the same time? It probably wasn’t after, if it ever occurred at all.
He’s focusing entirely on young Jack, on his back and shoulders, on the hair sticking to his neck. On the sounds he makes, undignified and desperate. His fingers move out of time with his thrusts, slowing as he quickens, his thumb rubbing the tip of Jack’s cock with every third stroke. It’s strange, hearing his own laboured breath, his own moans of pleasure. This is… not something he’s going to make a habit of.
He knows exactly when Jack has passed the point of no return because he stops making any sounds at all. His muscles clench, and the Captain, mercifully, moves his hand a little faster, laughing at the beautiful irony as he brings himself off.
***
“How old are you?” says Jack. His voice is heavy, and the Captain knows he’ll be asleep before long.
“Old enough.”
“Fifty? Was I just nailed by a fifty year old?”
“Older.”
“You’re kidding.”
“A lot older.”
Jack makes a disbelieving noise. They’re lying face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes. Examining themselves across the millennia.
The Captain should leave. He should really, really leave. He should find a ship and get off this rock, go somewhere with no chance of crossing paths with himself. He knew the risks before he set out, but at the same time, he knew he need not worry. He’s a walking paradox already. The universe doesn’t know what to do with him so, generally, it lets him get away with anything.
“I’m going to forget everything?”
“Just the last couple of years. You’ll remember being made captain. Mum and Dad at the ceremony, smiling. So proud of you. That memory will stick, but after that… nothing much until tomorrow morning.”
Jack nods. “So you can tell me, then,” he says. “If I’m going to forget by morning… tell me how old you are.”
The Captain tells him. Jack laughs. But he believes him.
“So. When I’m done being a bastard, do I lead a good life?”
“Yeah. Eventually. Pretty good.”
“Do I ever fall in love? Proper love, I mean. The kind that makes you want to tear your teeth out.”
The Captain smiles. “Oh, yes.”
“What’re they like?”
“Oh. He’s nasty, ruthless, rude, hypocritical, mad as a brush, and absolutely the most amazing person in the universe.”
Jack smiles. “Does he love me?”
“Yeah. As much as he can. More than he should.”
“That sounds right,” says Jack. “Sounds how love should go.” He stretches and yawns. His eyelids are starting to flicker shut. “What do I do now?”
“You’ll flee the Time Agency in the morning. Steal a vortex manipulator, make a living pulling cons, like you did in the war. Eventually, you’ll steal a ship, and you’ll make the last huge mistake of your life. So far, anyway,” he adds, with a grin.
“That’s my life, is it?” says young Jack.
“That’s your life, lad. Up to a point.”
Captain Jack lies on his side and watches himself drifting off to sleep under the influence of far too much retcon. Up to a point, he thinks. And he laughs. And he wonders just how much of a clueless, aimless, embarrassing little git he will look to himself in another three thousand years time.
It’s time to move on. He’s had enough of planet Earth and its little solar system, enough of humans for the time being. He needs something new. Something exotic. He wants to fuck someone and not quite know what he’s doing, where all the bits should go, and he wants to eat something and not know whether it’ll make him puke, and he wants to drink something without knowing what it’ll do to his head.
He wants the Doctor, but that’s a given. That’s his constant. He’ll want the Doctor until the day the universe comes crashing down around him. Maybe he’ll find him on the other side of the galaxy. It’s definitely worth a look.
He gathers up his clothes, and dresses quickly, quietly. Same clothes as always. Shirt, pants, braces. He wants…
He wants a new coat. New era, new Jack, new outfit.
He pauses at the door, and looks back over his shoulder. Young Jack rolls onto his side, taking up the space where the Captain no longer lies. He looks ridiculously youthful, and far more attractive than anybody has any right to be. The Captain doesn’t envy him one jot.
“Good luck, kid,” he says, before closing the door behind him.