Commentfics Round Two
This is the second set of recent (and not so recent) commentfics, from various places.
Title: Knock, Knock
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Tosh, Gwen, Sarah Jane, Mr. Smith
Rating: PG
Summary: Someone tries to hack Mainframe. Tosh is unamused.
A/N: From a prompt at tw_femficfest: "While Jack is gone post-S1, Gwen stumbles over the existence of Sarah Jane and invites her to give them a hand in Jack's absence."
***
"Now that's odd," said Toshiko, squinting at her screen through her glasses.
"What is?" Gwen came over to her station.
"Nothing." But the word was distracted, a sound made to fill silence and didn't mean anything. "Oh no you don't!" Tosh typed furiously.
Gwen left her to it. Tosh was in Toshworld, a mysterious borderland between virtual reality and the real world, where she barely noticed outsiders, and wouldn't eat or sleep if she weren't reminded. Tosh had spent a lot of time in Toshworld since Jack had left them, coping the best way she knew how. Gwen had had to learn this, learn the various methods of muddling through used by her team. (Her team? She gave the orders because Tosh and Ianto refused to follow Owen after that disastrous first time. They weren't a team, they were a weary band of ex-mutineers, and she was their leader, God help them all.) Owen drank less and swore more. Ianto acted as though spending every hour rebuilding the damaged Hub would somehow magic Jack back to them. Tosh hid inside her head and her programs. Gwen spent her hours worrying about the rest instead of wondering where Jack had gone.
She went back to her own work, keeping half an eye on Tosh. She'd sent the boys out to investigate a sighting of something that could be a Weevil, and could be nothing, mainly to quiet their mutual sniping or at least get them out from underfoot. That left the Hub quieter, for the two of them to catch up on work. Now Tosh had something new to do. Several minutes after her initial outburst, Tosh sat back in her own chair, wearing a satisfied smile.
"You look pleased."
"Someone was trying to hack into Mainframe. I thought UNIT gave that up ages ago." Her smile slipped. "It wasn't their usual methods, either. Whoever it was kept poking around the back doors, slipping out of sight when I shut them."
"Were we compromised?" That was the last thing they needed. Bad enough that they were lying to everyone, claiming Jack was gone on a mission, was away from the phone, was still in charge. It'd be worse to get caught with their trousers down. Figuratively speaking. Were actual trouser-dropping to occur, that would be the time Jack chose to reappear, Gwen was certain. It was very nearly worth a try.
"No," Tosh said with certainty.
"All right." More was probably required. "Good job."
Tosh smiled and nodded at the compliment.
An hour later, Tosh swore at her computer.
"What's wrong?"
"He's back, and he's trying to change the data in my files." Her fingers flew over the keys, fighting a menace only she could perceive. "Oh, he's sloppier this time. I think I can trace him."
"Do it," Gwen said, though she supposed telling Tosh that was unnecessary. This was personal.
Tosh worked at her station, while Gwen tried to concentrate on the report she was writing about last night's messy business at the hospital. No-one had died, that was something.
"It's not UNIT," said Tosh after a while.
"Foreign?"
"England. Ealing. I've traced it back to a neighbourhood. I think we were just hacked by some kid with a laptop." Her outrage grew with every word, and she turned back to her computer. "Let's see if he likes this."
"Tosh, don't start a war with anyone."
"I won't start one. I'll finish it, though." She began to type, and data scrolled by in the background, too fast to read.
Gwen had a thought. "Tosh, wait."
"Why?"
"Think about it. Someone who's bright enough to hack into Mainframe? That's someone who might be valuable to us."
"Or a threat."
"Could be," Gwen admitted. "And if they turn out to be one, you have my permission to destroy their network remotely." She hoped that was the right phrase. Tosh looked appeased, so it probably was. "But for now, let's see who's trying to say hello."
"'Let me break into your house' is not 'hello.'"
"Humour me."
Tosh muttered under her breath. Then as Gwen watched, she typed, "Hello. You know who we are. Who are you?" She opened another window in the background, and began looking over something Gwen didn't recognise, but whatever it was, it made Tosh bite her lip.
Nothing else happened for a long moment. Then words appeared: "You're Torchwood."
Tosh looked up at Gwen, who shrugged. "Yes," Tosh typed. "You?"
"Hold, please."
Tosh and Gwen stared at the screen. Then the display changed and pixelated into the form of a middle-aged woman, dark-haired with a somewhat annoyed expression on her face. "Hello?" she said.
"Hello," said Gwen. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
The woman sighed. "My apologies. My computer sometimes has a mind of his own. He said he was poking around your system 'for fun.' It won't happen again."
"Fun?" sputtered Tosh. "You broke into our system … "
Gwen cut her off. Tosh was very protective of Mainframe, which she understood, but now wasn't the time. "We're Torchwood," she said, and observed a the twitch on the other's face.
"Yes. You are."
"You have a computer that can break into our system. And our system is part alien." It was a gamble, but one she was ready to take. Another twitch. "I can only guess your system is also part alien."
Tosh said, "I saw your computer's files. You have records about aliens." Her other window came up again.
"We can help each other," Gwen said.
"I don't think so," said the woman. "I know about your group. Too many guns, too little understanding."
"That's changing. You could help us change." She put on a hopeful smile. "My name is Gwen Cooper. This is Toshiko Sato."
The woman's arm moved, as though reaching to turn off her screen. Then she paused. "Sarah Jane Smith. All right. I'm listening."
***
Title: The Hole
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Sarah Jane, Martha
Rating: PG
Summary: They all get left behind.
A/N: From a prompt at the Awesome Women Ficathon: "Sarah jane Smith (must) and Martha jones, Donna Noble, Rose or Amy. (optional) This guy's walkin' down a street when he falls in a hole ... "
***
The tea is long cold.
"I still dream about him. Almost every night. Some days it feels like my life isn't real, it's just the bit I need to wake up from, and I'll open my eyes, and I'll be back on the TARDIS. And it's awful." Martha's eyes are focused on a distant point nowhere near this room, and she plays with the diamond on her finger like a prisoner plays with a manacle.
Sarah Jane holds her shiver. "The dreams will stop. You'll wake up one day, and your life will be your life. You'll be glad you left the TARDIS, glad you went on to find out who you really are. You'll always love him." Martha's head shoots up, a protest on her lips, but Sarah Jane waits for it to still unspoken. "Everyone does. But one day, you'll think of it in the same wistful way you loved that one handsome but oblivious boy back in school."
She flinches. "And the memories?" "Martha Jones, who walked the Earth. Be gentle with her," said the message that appeared in K-9's memory banks one strange day. Sarah Jane supposes it's more polite than: "Fix this mess I've made because I can't be bothered."
"The bad ones will fade. The good ones will get rosier with time. Someday you can tell them to your grandchildren." Her pause stretches a little too long, and she wonders if Martha hears the tick of the clock in the quiet house. But Luke has gone out with his friends, like a normal boy, and while that doesn't mean she'll ever have grandchildren on her knee, it means something. "It will get better."
"Thanks," Martha says, her smile easier than it has been in hours. They chat a bit more, happier gossip of mutual acquaintances, and then Martha has to go with a hug and a promise of another visit soon.
As her car pulls away, Sarah Jane watches, and remembers last night's dream (giant robot, a nightmare made real) and wonders how long it will be until she herself wakes up and knows she is home for good.
***
Title: And I'll Stay in My Body
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Lisa
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mention of rape
Summary: AU. This is like forgiveness.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Lisa, pegging," bonus bondage
***
Jack forgave her.
That's the most amazing thing Lisa can fathom, watching him now spread out before her, hands and legs tied to the too-convenient loops at the corners of his bed. She brought a monster who was no longer her boyfriend into his home, fed and loved it and tried to cure it, and watched, sobbing, as Jack and the rest shot it dead.
She wanted to die, wanted to forget, and Jack wouldn't allow her either ending. When she and Tosh were captured by animals who were also no longer people, Lisa thought she was ready to die, as she looked into the freezer and saw only the bodies of dying friends sliced up for spare mechanical parts. She'd made her choice then, giving Tosh a chance to flee when she could. But later, as she lay bound and gagged and beaten, screaming inside her panic of whether they would kill her or rape her first, Lisa knew she wanted to live. When Tosh was awash in her own grief and guilt over Mary, she still found the strength to pause Lisa in the interview and let her know that if she ever wanted to talk, Tosh would listen. And that was when Lisa knew Tosh forgave her, too.
This is like forgiveness.
"Are you gonna stand there all night?" Jack asks, seeking control although he is at her mercy tonight. His gaze crawls down her body, desire obvious as ever. Jack has wanted her since the night in the warehouse, but Jack wants everyone. She thought he would be with Gwen tonight, after he went to such lengths to rescue her from Suzie, but Gwen left with Owen, and Jack is here with Lisa.
"Just considering my options," she lies lightly, always lies for Jack. Truth is blood and screaming, truth is her certainty he would not save her from the cannibals had the rest not also been captured, her understanding that he left her alive after Ianto's death as a greater punishment.
Instead of truth, she fastens the last buckle on the harness, snugging it against her hips and around her waist. The dildo is a peculiar shade of pink, veined and large. She's detached it before to masturbate, found the size uncomfortable. Part of her hopes this hurts him. Jack licks at the sweat forming at his top lip, eyes huge with want in the half-light.
"Lube is in the cupboard," he says as she approaches, hinting or commanding. She considers ignoring him, then opens the door, locating the nearly-empty bottle. "Have you done this before?"
The memory hits her hard: Ianto's fingers, slick and wet and careful, opening her slowly before pushing his condom-slick cock into her arse with a long, low moan.
"Yes."
Her fingernails will hurt him, she thinks, and then she chooses not to care as she covers her fingers with the slippery lube. His arse is hot and tight around her first finger, looser around her second, and just right as he writhes when she slides in the third. Jack is a creature of erotic sensation, who gasps and whines as she wriggles her hand. She could bring him off just like this.
She pulls out her fingers, wipes them on his stomach beside the hard length of his cock. As a tease, she leans over, blows cool air over the head, then touches the slit with her tongue.
Jack thrusts his hips up and Lisa draws back, a smile twisting her lips. He watches her face.
"Tell me what you want," she says.
"I want you to fuck me." His voice is strained but Jack is unashamed, never ashamed.
"Say 'please.'"
"Please. Fuck me." She wanted him to beg but it comes out an order. She ought to leave him tied down.
She touches the dial on the side of her harness, activating the vibrator with a hum. The tiny tips are pressed right against her clit, and the short, thick, rubbery shaft held firmly inside her cunt shivers with the echo of the vibrations. She spends a moment just standing, nerves firing through her.
Lisa is down here tonight for a reason, though.
She straddles him on the bed, and locks her eyes with his. Her ridiculously pink cock fucks into his arse, and Jack's eyes flutter closed, lost in the feeling. Ianto was gentle when he buggered her, careful that every cry was pleasure, careful not to push too fast or hurt her. Lisa fucks Jack hard, enjoying the extra thrusts as the vibrator moves against her, the dildo inside her. The camp bed, small and unwieldy for two, squeaks and rocks with her thrusts as she pounds into him.
Her face squeezes up, chasing her own pleasure. She can hear Jack make a low, guttural sound in his throat. His cock bounces, untouched, and she becomes aware that he is rising to her thrusts instead of pulling away, that he's seeking the same contact.
"Please," he says. "Please." The order is gone, replaced with rough growls.
There's a shift from her thrusts, miniscule, and then the vibration hits her exactly where she needs it and Lisa groans. This is what she's wanted, what she's needed. Long months after Canary Wharf with nothing but her own fingers and toys, no hopes but her fantasies of a life with her lover restored and safe, and then not even those. She's wanted to be touched and loved and held, and this is none of those things, and it's what she needs, her body fucking and fucked (Jack will fuck her later, she wants him to fuck her, she'll beg) and her mind shut off to the memories of bodies carved up by metal and again by men.
She can fuck into Jack, and he will take it, and perhaps take the pain as his own penance for his sins. Lisa lied and lies but Jack let a child be taken away by monsters, Jack let his team be captured by cannibals, Jack killed Suzie again to save Gwen. Jack shot Ianto to save the world, and because Lisa never could, and his hands are bloody and her heart is cold but Jack is warm.
"Ah!"
Her orgasm is tight and hot, convulsing her body and jerking her further into him. The vibrator is loud, and nearly painful, but she moves the dial switch higher as she bucks deliberately into him now, spitting on her hand to touch his prick the way she knows he wants.
"Come on," she says in a harsh whisper. "Come on." She isn't sure if she's telling him or trying for a second peak herself. Her hand wanks him, fast and sloppy, as his body trembles and thrusts into her hand and back against her cock. His eyes are shut tight, a hard dream of someone else winding behind his eyes.
"Please," he says, needy.
It hurts, the vibrator hurts now, and she slams into him, shoving the inner dildo further inside and coming with her own pain. She thinks about Ianto, the last time they made love: in the morning before work on the day it all went to shit. Would he hate her for sleeping with the man who had to kill him? Would he understand that the night is cold and Lisa is cold and that Jack forgave her for her sins? In another life, would he have brought her back here to this city and met this man without blood and carved flesh and become his friend?
Lisa turns off the vibrator, and then she bends over Jack, reaching for his mouth. It's a soft kiss, and patient, and when she pulls back, she says, "I forgive you."
Jack spurts into her hand, and his face is wet with tears.
***
Title: If You Do It With Care
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Nanny Ogg
Rating: Technically? Nothing above a G.
Summary: The two greatest sexual explorers in the multiverse have a chat.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Nanny Ogg (Discworld) Anything for these two. Either as a pairing, or comparing notes."
***
"Have you tried a Reverse Klatchian?"
Jack scratched his head, parsing the concept. "Yes. But only with humans. My turn. Species?"
Nanny sat back. She took a puff from her pipe. "Three. No, I lie, four. You ever met an Igor?"
Jack grinned in memory of a man with extra appendages. "As a matter of fact, yes. I should drop by while I'm on-planet. Oh, I thought you would like to know, I've been experimenting since the last time I visited."
"Oooo," said Nanny, eyes sparkling. "Do tell."
"The Hedgehog Song? Is wrong."
Her laughter echoed down the mountainside.
***
Title: Never a Tear
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Ianto (Gwen and Martha mentioned)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Mpreg porn.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Can we have some pregnant!Jack sex here? Don't care who the other partner is (though having it be Ianto would be nice)." Includes discussion of abortion.
***
Ianto curls a smile around the side of Jack's swollen abdomen, before pressing light kisses over the equator. Sometimes he's met with a fluttering pressure back, though not tonight. He runs a firm hand after his mouth, enjoying the stretched flesh, the places where the skin has pulled tight and dark. On anyone else, there'd be silvery marks later, but not Jack.
Jack flinches.
Ianto's head moves up. "Your back again?"
"Yeah. Sorry." With an effort, Jack rolls onto his side, and Ianto very deliberately does not laugh. "Don't laugh."
"I'm not laughing."
Jack's soft growl says he's not buying it, but Ianto cuddles him from behind and kisses his neck.
The first thing he had to come to terms with was that his lover was pregnant. They'd tracked the artefact to where it appeared right in the middle of a football scrum. Luck was on their side, in part, for although it had instantly scanned the DNA of everyone within range, the device had only jump-started gestation in those who were capable of bearing children, and in the crowd of men on the field, that meant only Gwen and Jack.
Finding out that Jack was capable of being pregnant, and that it wasn't just some bullshit story he'd told them to get a laugh, had been the second thing. "Humans who went to the colonies were genetically engineered," he'd said, when they were finally alone and Ianto had broken his cycle of "You're WHAT?" Extra organs, redundancies, could be activated with hormone treatments if the colony needed, could also apparently be activated by slightly-malfunctioning rift junk.
The third thing was that the other half of the DNA used was from whoever was closest. It could have been anyone. Ianto was halfway across the field, helping to direct players and fans away. Gwen was right there, and for all they knew, she was the father. Gwen herself, as soon as she found out, said, "No," and she took the pills Martha provided. She wanted children, but only with her husband, and not today. "This place is a misery," she said, and nobody objected when Jack gave her the following day off.
Jack handed back the pills.
"Better?" Ianto asks as Jack settles with a pillow shoved under his belly.
"Why did I forget how annoying this was?"
"Survival trait," Ianto rattles off absently, reaching low to find his prize. There. He wraps his hand around Jack's soft cock. Manoeuvring around for a blowjob from this position will not work, no matter how much they both enjoy the times Jack hardens slowly on Ianto's tongue, so Ianto contents himself with setting up an easy rhythm with his hand instead. "If people remembered how obnoxious pregnancy and birth are, the human race would die out in a generation."
"False," Jack says, while making a pleased noise in his throat. He's getting hard. "By the 48th century, humans have perfect sensory recall, and they still do it anyway." He shifts a little, and says, "Like that. Yeah."
Ianto takes the opportunity to trap his own cock between his body and Jack's arse, and sets up a smooth motion.
"It'll change everything," Jack said, only to Ianto. "I won't be as effective in the field. I'll have to hide it, because this time isn't ready. After it's born," still an "it," Ianto noticed, still distancing himself while entertaining the thought, "there will be this little kid who needs time and attention." His face was unreadable. Ianto, who prided himself on reading Jack's emotions before Jack knew them, was at sea.
"What do you want to do?" he asked, because that's what you asked. Every month, in the days leading up to the start of Lisa's period, he'd practised the words in his head in case the question arose. But she'd never come to him with a wet stick and a worried face, and he'd kept the words hidden and safe until Jack prised them out, as he had with so many other things Ianto never thought he'd say.
Jack shrugged. "I think it'd be a good trial run. Someday Gwen's gonna want a kid. You heard her. We can see how it goes with the loss of manpower in the field. Hey, if it works, maybe we can," he took Ianto's hand, but kept his face in a smile to make his words safely joking, safely not real, "use the artefact again."
Ianto snatched his hand back. "No, we will bloody well not."
His hand moves faster, easing into the needy thrust of Jack's hips. His lips find the soft place on Jack's neck, and then his teeth worry the skin as his own hips buck into the warm friction between them, made slicker now but not slick enough.
Jack's hand joins his, far more ready to stroke, and Ianto takes the opportunity to pull his own hand back, lick the palm wet, and there, oh yeah, there's the wet slide he wants. He grabs Jack's hips, grinding as Jack jerks himself. The only noises are the whines in Jack's throat, and the squeaks of their bed, and the quiet blow of the furnace kicking on at the vent. The heat rarely reaches the second bedroom in the flat; they'll have to figure something out soon before it becomes the nursery.
"You don't do that," Ianto said, anger trying to win in his voice. "You don't have a baby as a test, or to talk someone else into something. What happens when you get bored?" He wanted to ask if that was what had happened with Alice. He wanted to ask if Jack, who'd grown up in a place where children were treasured, could imagine a life where every day he was told he was an accident, unwanted, a failed attempt to fix a damaged relationship. Jack ought to understand about the first two, at least.
"I won't." He stance changed, became protective, and his jaw got that particular set indicating he'd made up his mind. Stubbornness was also a terrible reason to have a child, but this was Jack. "I've done this before."
"You never said what happened."
The hurt that flashed and was masked away said enough.
Jack's close, moaning. He's always vocal when they're together, whispers with his want, full-throated with his cries. Some nights, just the sound of Jack's voice is enough to push Ianto over. Some nights, he growls his own nonsense into Jack's ear until Jack screams himself hoarse. He's read that children know the sounds of their parents' voices even from before birth. He's heard that sex can stimulate labour, though Jack says he won't go into labour, merely reach a time when a Caesarean will be appropriate. He's learned that pregnant 51st century humans are awash in the kinds of bodily chemicals that make everyone around them, especially their 21st century lovers, horny as fuck.
With a grind and a cut-off groan, Ianto comes, marking Jack's backside wetly. Tingly and content, he reaches to help Jack finish, takes his bollocks in hand as Jack swears and jerks in his own orgasm. Jack likes to press Ianto's hand on his abdomen after, so he can feel the baby move, but Ianto doesn't like thinking about their built-in audience right after sex.
This will never not be just a little weird.
Last night, Ianto had a nightmare. Gwen and Jack both had body scans in the Hub. Gwen was pregnant, but inside Jack there was a cold, dark thing ticking down to their destruction. In dream-logic, the nightmare had turned to horrors about possessed children, his niece and nephew, drugged monsters in a tank, and worse and worse until he finally woke, confused and frightened, to feel Jack safely next to him.
He holds Jack closer now, not minding the mess. His subconscious mind is clearly worried about what's to come, but his heart is here.
"Will it hurt you?" Could it kill you?
"I'll be okay."
So yes. But his mind was clearly made up. Ianto sighed. "Jack, if you want to have a baby, we'll have a baby. Just promise me this is what you honestly want."
"I do." Jack grinned. "You said 'we.'"
***
Title: Strays
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Amy/Ianto, Rory
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "You dreamed me awake."
A/N: Written for sizeofthatthing prompt: "Amy/Ianto, dabbling"
***
"You dreamed me awake."
The voice is quiet, and sure, and unaccusing. She doesn't turn around. There aren't many people out at this time in the late afternoon, which is why she chose now for her walk.
They seek her out, like butterflies that migrate over great distances to a single island. She thinks of them as ghosts while firmly believing in the solid reality of Rory, of her Mum and Dad. Little Amelia Pond, recreating the world inside her own head, and she brought others back alive in the wake of her fairy tale, and they know her as sure as flowers know the sun.
"I did."
He doesn't ask how. He doesn't ask why. "My family. My ... " He stops. "They don't remember me, this."
She takes a shuddering breath, and turns. She's long past thinking she owes any of them anything. She brought them back to life, and surely that's enough. It's usually enough. But she ought to look him in the face.
He's a little older than she, dark-haired and blue-eyed, the kind of boy who'd be plain until he smiled just for her. He isn't smiling now. "It's hard to explain," she says. "There's been a sort of edit."
He nods. "The timeline reset and stapled itself shut in a different fashion, with certain temporal anomalies left behind. I figured that out."
She takes in his appearance, the rumpled suit and the face too young for the years in his gaze, and she touches his chest without asking. One heart beats under her fingertips, and she drops her hand, disappointment washing over her.
"You thought I was someone else."
She didn't, really, but she hoped. "A friend. He doesn't always look the same, or remember himself properly."
"But he has two hearts," says the young man, and there's a bitterness she can't identify, and a strange sense that he's been here before, confirmed when he says, "I should have known you would be in that particular fan club."
"I can't help you," she says. "Yes, I brought you back. I brought a lot of people back. But that's your life to go live, not mine." The poor ghosts go away after that, the ones who can, and pick up their lives or start new ones.
"My life is gone."
She believes him, in his shabby clothes that used to be fine. She understands about understanding. Too much will kill you as dead as anything. She pulls his head close and presses her lips against it like a mum would. In a way, she's birthed all these people back into the world, and some days that makes her feel good, and on other days, the bad days, it eats at her soul. A few times, she's taken them home like stray kittens.
"Come on," she says, and he walks with her back to the house.
Rory's there, and he gives them both a nod. She doesn't introduce the newcomer, hasn't caught his name, but Rory is as used to this as Amy. He says it's a little like being married to Madonna, but he understands because Rory is full of understanding about the strays and the ghosts.
"He's in bed already," Rory tells Amy. "No fever, I think he's just exhausted, poor thing."
Rory dishes out an extra plate of stew to the man, who thanks him and eats. He's precise and polite and careful, but Amy recognises someone who learned manners over the telly to hide the lack at home, and she doesn't fuss while she eats her own food. Rory talks about the hospital, doesn't ask questions. He's a good man, better than she deserves, she thinks. The man insists on helping wash up and tidy when they're done, fixing them drinks without asking what they like and getting it right regardless.
Rory goes to bed early, and kisses her, and tells her to wake him when she comes up.
"I can't help you," she tells the man, when they are alone. She sits with him, opposite ends of a long sofa and a gulf of existence between them.
"I know."
His hands move towards her like he wants to touch her, but he pulls away before he comes close. Sometimes the ghosts are cold. She presses against him, and feels a moment of resistance before he presses back. "It's all right," she says. "It's going to be all right." She has no idea, of course. Comfort is comfort, in warmth or words.
"Can you undo it? Can you put me back?"
She sucks in her breath. Mostly they ask if she can set things back to the way they were, so their friends and families remember. That's not what he's asking, not with that much death in his eyes. The answer is the same.
"No."
She seals the finality with a sweet kiss, gentle against his lips. He gradually, grudgingly, returns it, mouth parting beneath hers. Her husband is upstairs, and she is here on the sofa with a stranger, his hands holding her arms. Her own hands work under the buttons of his shirt, and work open the zip of his trousers. He's hurting rather than horny, and she fondles him as she might something far more delicate. He makes noises in his throat.
"It's going to be fine," she says, and then his hands are moving across her stomach, and his fingers have found her waistband, and then they are under the fabric of her knickers, seeking and touching.
She arches up on the sofa, electric pulses flooding her. It's good, this simple touch between them. He is lost and alone, and she is the beacon, calling him, pressing her mouth against his shoulder as his fingers and thumb move against her. Her own hand has stopped, and she begins again, a pull and a stroke and a tug on flesh heating quickly to life.
The ceiling creaks above them, as Rory walks across the floor. He's watched, before, but his curious gaze makes the others nervous. Another brush against her, and she sighs loudly, nearly a moan. "Yes, like that," she encourages him, her elbow tiring from its own motion.
This is real. This is life, sparking from the touch.
She will not allow them to lay her down, not one. Hands and mouth, and the slide of body against body, these suffice. Pleasure freely given and taken, pulling touch and heat from the darkness.
His cry is broken when he comes in her hand, like a hawk with a ruined wing. He keeps his own movement against her, sliding one digit into her slickly, and then rubbing that against her clit, and Amy comes in a wave through her body.
"I'm sorry," she says, as she sits half-sprawled in his lap.
"Yeah," he says, without blame.
She makes him up a bed on the sofa, then on a whim, she takes his hand. Up the stairs they go to the little spare room that she hopes one day will be a nursery. There's a child, ten years old, sleeping soundly. "He came yesterday," she says, longing to play with the tousled blond hair on the pillow, knowing it'll wake him if she does. "His mum didn't know who he was. He was cold, and sad, and he found me." She looks at the man. "His life is gone, too."
Amy doesn't play matchmaker. She's had more than enough of playing God. But she recognises a child who needs a caregiver, and a caregiver who needs someone to look after.
Maybe he does, too, because he leans in and kisses her again, chastely this time. "Thank you."
Tonight he'll sleep on the sofa. Tomorrow he will meet the boy properly. By tomorrow evening, he will begin practising the lie that the boy is his son.
It's never a perfect ending, she knows from experience, watching him go back down the stairs. The best she can offer is another beginning, which is good enough for now.
***
ETA: Sequel: Rescues
***
Title: Masterpiece
Author: nancybrown
Characters: River/Liz Ten
Rating: NC-17
Summary: There's a price for stealing from the Royal Collection.
A/N: Written for sizeofthatthing prompt: "River/Liz 10. It's the Royal Collection, and River isn't getting out of there without showing a little submission to the Queen."
***
It's the way she tastes, of salt and scent and the rose water she must have bathed in earlier, that fills River's throat with a moan. The Queen is draped in rust-coloured velvet, which pools around them, Her Majesty nude beneath the folds, River on her knees in her practical tight black outfit to go robbing the Collection. They have at least moved from the stairs. The balcony is enough for the Queen to lean against, as River pays for her theft.
"Softer," says the Queen, and then, "Over, the left. Ah! Ah!"
River smiles around her work, having found the right spot. She's had lovers fresh and new, whom she's had to teach every little thing. She's had lovers teach her. The best know what they want and tell her so, and she takes and gives pleasure easily with them. The Queen is a masterpiece, her hips gyrating in a slow, tidal rhythm in time with River's clever tongue.
"That's a good girl," says the Queen, though the words are breathless and River thinks she doesn't know what she's saying, just babbling as her orgasm coils in her belly. River places a firm hand against that belly now, pushing as she laps and blows and finally nips in for a long suck.
Her Majesty's cry echoes through the gallery. River draws out the moment, stroking only with her lips, enjoying the vocal responses coming from over her head. When at last the final quake has shivered through the Queen, River sits back on her heels and takes a proud look at the perfect sight: a gasping, blissful, gorgeous woman she's just pleasured.
Her work here is done.
***
Title: The Little One Stops
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Master
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In TYTNW, Jack wants the torture to stop.
Warnings: DON'T READ THIS, FR SRS
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Master, sex as a survival mechanism (ie: if I give you a blowjob will you stop torturing me to death?)"
***
Jack didn't know what day it was anymore. Tish had been keeping track since she didn't spend her days dead but she lost count a few weeks back. Of all the things he missed, Jack hadn't thought a calendar would be one of them.
His team was dead. The plane carrying them back from their wild goose chase in the Himalayas had been taken down by the Toclafane in the first wave of attacks. For a while he'd held out hope that they hadn't been on it, that they'd somehow doubled back, escaped, but the reports came in every day of what happened to the names on the Master's Most Wanted List and now Jack soothed himself with the thought that they'd died quickly and almost cleanly.
Someone should.
The vivisection had hurt worse than the fire and his only surcease had been the Master's annoyance that the organs they'd removed during the procedure adamantly refused to work when transplanted to someone else. One less fate to fear, that of being kept solely to provide something for someone else.
He watched the clock. Tish would be in with breakfast soon. She was one bright thing in his day and only a bitter halo of protection, the one that said the Master would rather torture her to death in front of her sister, kept her safe.
When the cell door opened, it wasn't Tish.
"Good morning!" said the Master with a grin. A manic mood again. Those never boded well, though the depressions weren't better. Manic meant someone, usually Jack but sometimes a whole city, was going to die. Depressions were silent, and could only be read later in the bruises on Lucy's face and the empty look in her eyes. She hadn't come out of her rooms for two days after the last one.
"I have plans for you," said the Master in a silky voice. "I've always wanted to find out how long it takes for a human to be eaten alive by ants. I'll have to factor in how quickly you heal as they eat, but what is science for, after all? I've got it all set up in a closed room. Wouldn't want the little devils to get out, would we?"
Something inside of him, something small and soft that Jack hadn't even known was there before he was chained in hell, broke.
"No," he said in a voice that wasn't meant to be shattered.
"No," the Master agreed, and then asked, "or was that a different no?" He came closer, focusing his eyes on Jack. Attention was deadly, and so Jack drew it upon himself whenever possible because he could do nothing else to spare the other prisoners, but this cold appraisal in the harsh light of the next plan made his balls draw up in fear. Just the thought of ten thousand tiny mouths eating away from him filled Jack with the kind of terror he thought he'd left behind hundreds of deaths ago.
"Please."
"'Please,' what?"
Bastard. "Please, Master. I'll do anything."
"Refute the Doctor. Tell me where Martha Jones is."
"The Doctor doesn't care," Jack said with a pained laugh. "He walked out on me, remember? And I don't know where Martha is. I've been chained to a wall for six months."
The Master made a disappointed noise in his throat, then turned away. "If there's nothing else … "
"I can make you feel good." God, what was he doing? "Some things, I'm really good at. Put a smile in your step, brighten up your day." He couldn't wriggle his hips effectively like this, though he tried.
The Master cocked an eyebrow. "Was that a proposition, Captain?"
"One way of putting it."
Intrigued, the Master stepped closer. "I've read your record. It didn't mention you were a whore."
"Man's gotta eat." He was filthy, but he managed a flirtatious smile. "Let me go down on you. I give fantastic blowjobs." He almost continued with, "Ask the last guy I blew," but Ianto was dead and bringing that up would probably make the Master reconsider having Jack's teeth anywhere near his groin.
The Master's mouth went still. Then he nodded to the guards. "Bind his hands behind his back. If he makes a move I don't like, shoot him."
It was always more painful when his wrists were first released, the stretch of the muscles, and he groaned as his arms were dragged behind him. Of course the guards were going to stay and watch. The Master would consider it extra humiliation, but Jack never minded a crowd.
The Master undid his own belt and flies, leaving Jack to nudge out his cock with nose and lips. Human, he looked human like this, and not a Time Lord or a monster. Jack breathed in the scent, and that wasn't human, but it didn't matter as he took the head into his mouth. This was instinct, and understanding. Jack's tongue knew how to work a cock, how to tease the vein along the underside, how to pull out to nuzzle and lick and suck at the scrotum. Never mind who this was. At this angle, Jack could pretend it was anyone's cock as he nipped at the foreskin, as he teased and tasted and licked and sucked. With a practiced move, he took the Master's cock deep into his throat, swallowing around it.
There was a hand in his hair, ripping painfully, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered, not the choking sounds from the Master, or the almost inaudible gasps from the observing guards. Jack could smell arousal rolling off both and wondered if he'd be blowing them too before this was over.
The Master's hips began pumping, and Jack began working the head, wishing for the use of his hands. He could make this good, make the Master happy, stave off a little more torture, one more death. Tears pricked at his eyes. The strangled sound the Master made was the only warning Jack had before cool come shot into his mouth, and he swallowed eagerly, lapping and sucking until the last drops were gone.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Jack leaned back to rest on his heels. His knees and arms were sore, but as he saw the pleased look on the Master's face, he knew he'd done well.
The Master put himself away. "Help the freak up." Arms dragged him roughly to his numb feet. "Bring him. The ants are hungry for their breakfast."
Title: Knock, Knock
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Tosh, Gwen, Sarah Jane, Mr. Smith
Rating: PG
Summary: Someone tries to hack Mainframe. Tosh is unamused.
A/N: From a prompt at tw_femficfest: "While Jack is gone post-S1, Gwen stumbles over the existence of Sarah Jane and invites her to give them a hand in Jack's absence."
***
"Now that's odd," said Toshiko, squinting at her screen through her glasses.
"What is?" Gwen came over to her station.
"Nothing." But the word was distracted, a sound made to fill silence and didn't mean anything. "Oh no you don't!" Tosh typed furiously.
Gwen left her to it. Tosh was in Toshworld, a mysterious borderland between virtual reality and the real world, where she barely noticed outsiders, and wouldn't eat or sleep if she weren't reminded. Tosh had spent a lot of time in Toshworld since Jack had left them, coping the best way she knew how. Gwen had had to learn this, learn the various methods of muddling through used by her team. (Her team? She gave the orders because Tosh and Ianto refused to follow Owen after that disastrous first time. They weren't a team, they were a weary band of ex-mutineers, and she was their leader, God help them all.) Owen drank less and swore more. Ianto acted as though spending every hour rebuilding the damaged Hub would somehow magic Jack back to them. Tosh hid inside her head and her programs. Gwen spent her hours worrying about the rest instead of wondering where Jack had gone.
She went back to her own work, keeping half an eye on Tosh. She'd sent the boys out to investigate a sighting of something that could be a Weevil, and could be nothing, mainly to quiet their mutual sniping or at least get them out from underfoot. That left the Hub quieter, for the two of them to catch up on work. Now Tosh had something new to do. Several minutes after her initial outburst, Tosh sat back in her own chair, wearing a satisfied smile.
"You look pleased."
"Someone was trying to hack into Mainframe. I thought UNIT gave that up ages ago." Her smile slipped. "It wasn't their usual methods, either. Whoever it was kept poking around the back doors, slipping out of sight when I shut them."
"Were we compromised?" That was the last thing they needed. Bad enough that they were lying to everyone, claiming Jack was gone on a mission, was away from the phone, was still in charge. It'd be worse to get caught with their trousers down. Figuratively speaking. Were actual trouser-dropping to occur, that would be the time Jack chose to reappear, Gwen was certain. It was very nearly worth a try.
"No," Tosh said with certainty.
"All right." More was probably required. "Good job."
Tosh smiled and nodded at the compliment.
An hour later, Tosh swore at her computer.
"What's wrong?"
"He's back, and he's trying to change the data in my files." Her fingers flew over the keys, fighting a menace only she could perceive. "Oh, he's sloppier this time. I think I can trace him."
"Do it," Gwen said, though she supposed telling Tosh that was unnecessary. This was personal.
Tosh worked at her station, while Gwen tried to concentrate on the report she was writing about last night's messy business at the hospital. No-one had died, that was something.
"It's not UNIT," said Tosh after a while.
"Foreign?"
"England. Ealing. I've traced it back to a neighbourhood. I think we were just hacked by some kid with a laptop." Her outrage grew with every word, and she turned back to her computer. "Let's see if he likes this."
"Tosh, don't start a war with anyone."
"I won't start one. I'll finish it, though." She began to type, and data scrolled by in the background, too fast to read.
Gwen had a thought. "Tosh, wait."
"Why?"
"Think about it. Someone who's bright enough to hack into Mainframe? That's someone who might be valuable to us."
"Or a threat."
"Could be," Gwen admitted. "And if they turn out to be one, you have my permission to destroy their network remotely." She hoped that was the right phrase. Tosh looked appeased, so it probably was. "But for now, let's see who's trying to say hello."
"'Let me break into your house' is not 'hello.'"
"Humour me."
Tosh muttered under her breath. Then as Gwen watched, she typed, "Hello. You know who we are. Who are you?" She opened another window in the background, and began looking over something Gwen didn't recognise, but whatever it was, it made Tosh bite her lip.
Nothing else happened for a long moment. Then words appeared: "You're Torchwood."
Tosh looked up at Gwen, who shrugged. "Yes," Tosh typed. "You?"
"Hold, please."
Tosh and Gwen stared at the screen. Then the display changed and pixelated into the form of a middle-aged woman, dark-haired with a somewhat annoyed expression on her face. "Hello?" she said.
"Hello," said Gwen. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
The woman sighed. "My apologies. My computer sometimes has a mind of his own. He said he was poking around your system 'for fun.' It won't happen again."
"Fun?" sputtered Tosh. "You broke into our system … "
Gwen cut her off. Tosh was very protective of Mainframe, which she understood, but now wasn't the time. "We're Torchwood," she said, and observed a the twitch on the other's face.
"Yes. You are."
"You have a computer that can break into our system. And our system is part alien." It was a gamble, but one she was ready to take. Another twitch. "I can only guess your system is also part alien."
Tosh said, "I saw your computer's files. You have records about aliens." Her other window came up again.
"We can help each other," Gwen said.
"I don't think so," said the woman. "I know about your group. Too many guns, too little understanding."
"That's changing. You could help us change." She put on a hopeful smile. "My name is Gwen Cooper. This is Toshiko Sato."
The woman's arm moved, as though reaching to turn off her screen. Then she paused. "Sarah Jane Smith. All right. I'm listening."
***
Title: The Hole
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Sarah Jane, Martha
Rating: PG
Summary: They all get left behind.
A/N: From a prompt at the Awesome Women Ficathon: "Sarah jane Smith (must) and Martha jones, Donna Noble, Rose or Amy. (optional) This guy's walkin' down a street when he falls in a hole ... "
***
The tea is long cold.
"I still dream about him. Almost every night. Some days it feels like my life isn't real, it's just the bit I need to wake up from, and I'll open my eyes, and I'll be back on the TARDIS. And it's awful." Martha's eyes are focused on a distant point nowhere near this room, and she plays with the diamond on her finger like a prisoner plays with a manacle.
Sarah Jane holds her shiver. "The dreams will stop. You'll wake up one day, and your life will be your life. You'll be glad you left the TARDIS, glad you went on to find out who you really are. You'll always love him." Martha's head shoots up, a protest on her lips, but Sarah Jane waits for it to still unspoken. "Everyone does. But one day, you'll think of it in the same wistful way you loved that one handsome but oblivious boy back in school."
She flinches. "And the memories?" "Martha Jones, who walked the Earth. Be gentle with her," said the message that appeared in K-9's memory banks one strange day. Sarah Jane supposes it's more polite than: "Fix this mess I've made because I can't be bothered."
"The bad ones will fade. The good ones will get rosier with time. Someday you can tell them to your grandchildren." Her pause stretches a little too long, and she wonders if Martha hears the tick of the clock in the quiet house. But Luke has gone out with his friends, like a normal boy, and while that doesn't mean she'll ever have grandchildren on her knee, it means something. "It will get better."
"Thanks," Martha says, her smile easier than it has been in hours. They chat a bit more, happier gossip of mutual acquaintances, and then Martha has to go with a hug and a promise of another visit soon.
As her car pulls away, Sarah Jane watches, and remembers last night's dream (giant robot, a nightmare made real) and wonders how long it will be until she herself wakes up and knows she is home for good.
***
Title: And I'll Stay in My Body
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Lisa
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mention of rape
Summary: AU. This is like forgiveness.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Lisa, pegging," bonus bondage
***
Jack forgave her.
That's the most amazing thing Lisa can fathom, watching him now spread out before her, hands and legs tied to the too-convenient loops at the corners of his bed. She brought a monster who was no longer her boyfriend into his home, fed and loved it and tried to cure it, and watched, sobbing, as Jack and the rest shot it dead.
She wanted to die, wanted to forget, and Jack wouldn't allow her either ending. When she and Tosh were captured by animals who were also no longer people, Lisa thought she was ready to die, as she looked into the freezer and saw only the bodies of dying friends sliced up for spare mechanical parts. She'd made her choice then, giving Tosh a chance to flee when she could. But later, as she lay bound and gagged and beaten, screaming inside her panic of whether they would kill her or rape her first, Lisa knew she wanted to live. When Tosh was awash in her own grief and guilt over Mary, she still found the strength to pause Lisa in the interview and let her know that if she ever wanted to talk, Tosh would listen. And that was when Lisa knew Tosh forgave her, too.
This is like forgiveness.
"Are you gonna stand there all night?" Jack asks, seeking control although he is at her mercy tonight. His gaze crawls down her body, desire obvious as ever. Jack has wanted her since the night in the warehouse, but Jack wants everyone. She thought he would be with Gwen tonight, after he went to such lengths to rescue her from Suzie, but Gwen left with Owen, and Jack is here with Lisa.
"Just considering my options," she lies lightly, always lies for Jack. Truth is blood and screaming, truth is her certainty he would not save her from the cannibals had the rest not also been captured, her understanding that he left her alive after Ianto's death as a greater punishment.
Instead of truth, she fastens the last buckle on the harness, snugging it against her hips and around her waist. The dildo is a peculiar shade of pink, veined and large. She's detached it before to masturbate, found the size uncomfortable. Part of her hopes this hurts him. Jack licks at the sweat forming at his top lip, eyes huge with want in the half-light.
"Lube is in the cupboard," he says as she approaches, hinting or commanding. She considers ignoring him, then opens the door, locating the nearly-empty bottle. "Have you done this before?"
The memory hits her hard: Ianto's fingers, slick and wet and careful, opening her slowly before pushing his condom-slick cock into her arse with a long, low moan.
"Yes."
Her fingernails will hurt him, she thinks, and then she chooses not to care as she covers her fingers with the slippery lube. His arse is hot and tight around her first finger, looser around her second, and just right as he writhes when she slides in the third. Jack is a creature of erotic sensation, who gasps and whines as she wriggles her hand. She could bring him off just like this.
She pulls out her fingers, wipes them on his stomach beside the hard length of his cock. As a tease, she leans over, blows cool air over the head, then touches the slit with her tongue.
Jack thrusts his hips up and Lisa draws back, a smile twisting her lips. He watches her face.
"Tell me what you want," she says.
"I want you to fuck me." His voice is strained but Jack is unashamed, never ashamed.
"Say 'please.'"
"Please. Fuck me." She wanted him to beg but it comes out an order. She ought to leave him tied down.
She touches the dial on the side of her harness, activating the vibrator with a hum. The tiny tips are pressed right against her clit, and the short, thick, rubbery shaft held firmly inside her cunt shivers with the echo of the vibrations. She spends a moment just standing, nerves firing through her.
Lisa is down here tonight for a reason, though.
She straddles him on the bed, and locks her eyes with his. Her ridiculously pink cock fucks into his arse, and Jack's eyes flutter closed, lost in the feeling. Ianto was gentle when he buggered her, careful that every cry was pleasure, careful not to push too fast or hurt her. Lisa fucks Jack hard, enjoying the extra thrusts as the vibrator moves against her, the dildo inside her. The camp bed, small and unwieldy for two, squeaks and rocks with her thrusts as she pounds into him.
Her face squeezes up, chasing her own pleasure. She can hear Jack make a low, guttural sound in his throat. His cock bounces, untouched, and she becomes aware that he is rising to her thrusts instead of pulling away, that he's seeking the same contact.
"Please," he says. "Please." The order is gone, replaced with rough growls.
There's a shift from her thrusts, miniscule, and then the vibration hits her exactly where she needs it and Lisa groans. This is what she's wanted, what she's needed. Long months after Canary Wharf with nothing but her own fingers and toys, no hopes but her fantasies of a life with her lover restored and safe, and then not even those. She's wanted to be touched and loved and held, and this is none of those things, and it's what she needs, her body fucking and fucked (Jack will fuck her later, she wants him to fuck her, she'll beg) and her mind shut off to the memories of bodies carved up by metal and again by men.
She can fuck into Jack, and he will take it, and perhaps take the pain as his own penance for his sins. Lisa lied and lies but Jack let a child be taken away by monsters, Jack let his team be captured by cannibals, Jack killed Suzie again to save Gwen. Jack shot Ianto to save the world, and because Lisa never could, and his hands are bloody and her heart is cold but Jack is warm.
"Ah!"
Her orgasm is tight and hot, convulsing her body and jerking her further into him. The vibrator is loud, and nearly painful, but she moves the dial switch higher as she bucks deliberately into him now, spitting on her hand to touch his prick the way she knows he wants.
"Come on," she says in a harsh whisper. "Come on." She isn't sure if she's telling him or trying for a second peak herself. Her hand wanks him, fast and sloppy, as his body trembles and thrusts into her hand and back against her cock. His eyes are shut tight, a hard dream of someone else winding behind his eyes.
"Please," he says, needy.
It hurts, the vibrator hurts now, and she slams into him, shoving the inner dildo further inside and coming with her own pain. She thinks about Ianto, the last time they made love: in the morning before work on the day it all went to shit. Would he hate her for sleeping with the man who had to kill him? Would he understand that the night is cold and Lisa is cold and that Jack forgave her for her sins? In another life, would he have brought her back here to this city and met this man without blood and carved flesh and become his friend?
Lisa turns off the vibrator, and then she bends over Jack, reaching for his mouth. It's a soft kiss, and patient, and when she pulls back, she says, "I forgive you."
Jack spurts into her hand, and his face is wet with tears.
***
Title: If You Do It With Care
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack, Nanny Ogg
Rating: Technically? Nothing above a G.
Summary: The two greatest sexual explorers in the multiverse have a chat.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Nanny Ogg (Discworld) Anything for these two. Either as a pairing, or comparing notes."
***
"Have you tried a Reverse Klatchian?"
Jack scratched his head, parsing the concept. "Yes. But only with humans. My turn. Species?"
Nanny sat back. She took a puff from her pipe. "Three. No, I lie, four. You ever met an Igor?"
Jack grinned in memory of a man with extra appendages. "As a matter of fact, yes. I should drop by while I'm on-planet. Oh, I thought you would like to know, I've been experimenting since the last time I visited."
"Oooo," said Nanny, eyes sparkling. "Do tell."
"The Hedgehog Song? Is wrong."
Her laughter echoed down the mountainside.
***
Title: Never a Tear
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Ianto (Gwen and Martha mentioned)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Mpreg porn.
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Can we have some pregnant!Jack sex here? Don't care who the other partner is (though having it be Ianto would be nice)." Includes discussion of abortion.
***
Ianto curls a smile around the side of Jack's swollen abdomen, before pressing light kisses over the equator. Sometimes he's met with a fluttering pressure back, though not tonight. He runs a firm hand after his mouth, enjoying the stretched flesh, the places where the skin has pulled tight and dark. On anyone else, there'd be silvery marks later, but not Jack.
Jack flinches.
Ianto's head moves up. "Your back again?"
"Yeah. Sorry." With an effort, Jack rolls onto his side, and Ianto very deliberately does not laugh. "Don't laugh."
"I'm not laughing."
Jack's soft growl says he's not buying it, but Ianto cuddles him from behind and kisses his neck.
The first thing he had to come to terms with was that his lover was pregnant. They'd tracked the artefact to where it appeared right in the middle of a football scrum. Luck was on their side, in part, for although it had instantly scanned the DNA of everyone within range, the device had only jump-started gestation in those who were capable of bearing children, and in the crowd of men on the field, that meant only Gwen and Jack.
Finding out that Jack was capable of being pregnant, and that it wasn't just some bullshit story he'd told them to get a laugh, had been the second thing. "Humans who went to the colonies were genetically engineered," he'd said, when they were finally alone and Ianto had broken his cycle of "You're WHAT?" Extra organs, redundancies, could be activated with hormone treatments if the colony needed, could also apparently be activated by slightly-malfunctioning rift junk.
The third thing was that the other half of the DNA used was from whoever was closest. It could have been anyone. Ianto was halfway across the field, helping to direct players and fans away. Gwen was right there, and for all they knew, she was the father. Gwen herself, as soon as she found out, said, "No," and she took the pills Martha provided. She wanted children, but only with her husband, and not today. "This place is a misery," she said, and nobody objected when Jack gave her the following day off.
Jack handed back the pills.
"Better?" Ianto asks as Jack settles with a pillow shoved under his belly.
"Why did I forget how annoying this was?"
"Survival trait," Ianto rattles off absently, reaching low to find his prize. There. He wraps his hand around Jack's soft cock. Manoeuvring around for a blowjob from this position will not work, no matter how much they both enjoy the times Jack hardens slowly on Ianto's tongue, so Ianto contents himself with setting up an easy rhythm with his hand instead. "If people remembered how obnoxious pregnancy and birth are, the human race would die out in a generation."
"False," Jack says, while making a pleased noise in his throat. He's getting hard. "By the 48th century, humans have perfect sensory recall, and they still do it anyway." He shifts a little, and says, "Like that. Yeah."
Ianto takes the opportunity to trap his own cock between his body and Jack's arse, and sets up a smooth motion.
"It'll change everything," Jack said, only to Ianto. "I won't be as effective in the field. I'll have to hide it, because this time isn't ready. After it's born," still an "it," Ianto noticed, still distancing himself while entertaining the thought, "there will be this little kid who needs time and attention." His face was unreadable. Ianto, who prided himself on reading Jack's emotions before Jack knew them, was at sea.
"What do you want to do?" he asked, because that's what you asked. Every month, in the days leading up to the start of Lisa's period, he'd practised the words in his head in case the question arose. But she'd never come to him with a wet stick and a worried face, and he'd kept the words hidden and safe until Jack prised them out, as he had with so many other things Ianto never thought he'd say.
Jack shrugged. "I think it'd be a good trial run. Someday Gwen's gonna want a kid. You heard her. We can see how it goes with the loss of manpower in the field. Hey, if it works, maybe we can," he took Ianto's hand, but kept his face in a smile to make his words safely joking, safely not real, "use the artefact again."
Ianto snatched his hand back. "No, we will bloody well not."
His hand moves faster, easing into the needy thrust of Jack's hips. His lips find the soft place on Jack's neck, and then his teeth worry the skin as his own hips buck into the warm friction between them, made slicker now but not slick enough.
Jack's hand joins his, far more ready to stroke, and Ianto takes the opportunity to pull his own hand back, lick the palm wet, and there, oh yeah, there's the wet slide he wants. He grabs Jack's hips, grinding as Jack jerks himself. The only noises are the whines in Jack's throat, and the squeaks of their bed, and the quiet blow of the furnace kicking on at the vent. The heat rarely reaches the second bedroom in the flat; they'll have to figure something out soon before it becomes the nursery.
"You don't do that," Ianto said, anger trying to win in his voice. "You don't have a baby as a test, or to talk someone else into something. What happens when you get bored?" He wanted to ask if that was what had happened with Alice. He wanted to ask if Jack, who'd grown up in a place where children were treasured, could imagine a life where every day he was told he was an accident, unwanted, a failed attempt to fix a damaged relationship. Jack ought to understand about the first two, at least.
"I won't." He stance changed, became protective, and his jaw got that particular set indicating he'd made up his mind. Stubbornness was also a terrible reason to have a child, but this was Jack. "I've done this before."
"You never said what happened."
The hurt that flashed and was masked away said enough.
Jack's close, moaning. He's always vocal when they're together, whispers with his want, full-throated with his cries. Some nights, just the sound of Jack's voice is enough to push Ianto over. Some nights, he growls his own nonsense into Jack's ear until Jack screams himself hoarse. He's read that children know the sounds of their parents' voices even from before birth. He's heard that sex can stimulate labour, though Jack says he won't go into labour, merely reach a time when a Caesarean will be appropriate. He's learned that pregnant 51st century humans are awash in the kinds of bodily chemicals that make everyone around them, especially their 21st century lovers, horny as fuck.
With a grind and a cut-off groan, Ianto comes, marking Jack's backside wetly. Tingly and content, he reaches to help Jack finish, takes his bollocks in hand as Jack swears and jerks in his own orgasm. Jack likes to press Ianto's hand on his abdomen after, so he can feel the baby move, but Ianto doesn't like thinking about their built-in audience right after sex.
This will never not be just a little weird.
Last night, Ianto had a nightmare. Gwen and Jack both had body scans in the Hub. Gwen was pregnant, but inside Jack there was a cold, dark thing ticking down to their destruction. In dream-logic, the nightmare had turned to horrors about possessed children, his niece and nephew, drugged monsters in a tank, and worse and worse until he finally woke, confused and frightened, to feel Jack safely next to him.
He holds Jack closer now, not minding the mess. His subconscious mind is clearly worried about what's to come, but his heart is here.
"Will it hurt you?" Could it kill you?
"I'll be okay."
So yes. But his mind was clearly made up. Ianto sighed. "Jack, if you want to have a baby, we'll have a baby. Just promise me this is what you honestly want."
"I do." Jack grinned. "You said 'we.'"
***
Title: Strays
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Amy/Ianto, Rory
Rating: NC-17
Summary: "You dreamed me awake."
A/N: Written for sizeofthatthing prompt: "Amy/Ianto, dabbling"
***
"You dreamed me awake."
The voice is quiet, and sure, and unaccusing. She doesn't turn around. There aren't many people out at this time in the late afternoon, which is why she chose now for her walk.
They seek her out, like butterflies that migrate over great distances to a single island. She thinks of them as ghosts while firmly believing in the solid reality of Rory, of her Mum and Dad. Little Amelia Pond, recreating the world inside her own head, and she brought others back alive in the wake of her fairy tale, and they know her as sure as flowers know the sun.
"I did."
He doesn't ask how. He doesn't ask why. "My family. My ... " He stops. "They don't remember me, this."
She takes a shuddering breath, and turns. She's long past thinking she owes any of them anything. She brought them back to life, and surely that's enough. It's usually enough. But she ought to look him in the face.
He's a little older than she, dark-haired and blue-eyed, the kind of boy who'd be plain until he smiled just for her. He isn't smiling now. "It's hard to explain," she says. "There's been a sort of edit."
He nods. "The timeline reset and stapled itself shut in a different fashion, with certain temporal anomalies left behind. I figured that out."
She takes in his appearance, the rumpled suit and the face too young for the years in his gaze, and she touches his chest without asking. One heart beats under her fingertips, and she drops her hand, disappointment washing over her.
"You thought I was someone else."
She didn't, really, but she hoped. "A friend. He doesn't always look the same, or remember himself properly."
"But he has two hearts," says the young man, and there's a bitterness she can't identify, and a strange sense that he's been here before, confirmed when he says, "I should have known you would be in that particular fan club."
"I can't help you," she says. "Yes, I brought you back. I brought a lot of people back. But that's your life to go live, not mine." The poor ghosts go away after that, the ones who can, and pick up their lives or start new ones.
"My life is gone."
She believes him, in his shabby clothes that used to be fine. She understands about understanding. Too much will kill you as dead as anything. She pulls his head close and presses her lips against it like a mum would. In a way, she's birthed all these people back into the world, and some days that makes her feel good, and on other days, the bad days, it eats at her soul. A few times, she's taken them home like stray kittens.
"Come on," she says, and he walks with her back to the house.
Rory's there, and he gives them both a nod. She doesn't introduce the newcomer, hasn't caught his name, but Rory is as used to this as Amy. He says it's a little like being married to Madonna, but he understands because Rory is full of understanding about the strays and the ghosts.
"He's in bed already," Rory tells Amy. "No fever, I think he's just exhausted, poor thing."
Rory dishes out an extra plate of stew to the man, who thanks him and eats. He's precise and polite and careful, but Amy recognises someone who learned manners over the telly to hide the lack at home, and she doesn't fuss while she eats her own food. Rory talks about the hospital, doesn't ask questions. He's a good man, better than she deserves, she thinks. The man insists on helping wash up and tidy when they're done, fixing them drinks without asking what they like and getting it right regardless.
Rory goes to bed early, and kisses her, and tells her to wake him when she comes up.
"I can't help you," she tells the man, when they are alone. She sits with him, opposite ends of a long sofa and a gulf of existence between them.
"I know."
His hands move towards her like he wants to touch her, but he pulls away before he comes close. Sometimes the ghosts are cold. She presses against him, and feels a moment of resistance before he presses back. "It's all right," she says. "It's going to be all right." She has no idea, of course. Comfort is comfort, in warmth or words.
"Can you undo it? Can you put me back?"
She sucks in her breath. Mostly they ask if she can set things back to the way they were, so their friends and families remember. That's not what he's asking, not with that much death in his eyes. The answer is the same.
"No."
She seals the finality with a sweet kiss, gentle against his lips. He gradually, grudgingly, returns it, mouth parting beneath hers. Her husband is upstairs, and she is here on the sofa with a stranger, his hands holding her arms. Her own hands work under the buttons of his shirt, and work open the zip of his trousers. He's hurting rather than horny, and she fondles him as she might something far more delicate. He makes noises in his throat.
"It's going to be fine," she says, and then his hands are moving across her stomach, and his fingers have found her waistband, and then they are under the fabric of her knickers, seeking and touching.
She arches up on the sofa, electric pulses flooding her. It's good, this simple touch between them. He is lost and alone, and she is the beacon, calling him, pressing her mouth against his shoulder as his fingers and thumb move against her. Her own hand has stopped, and she begins again, a pull and a stroke and a tug on flesh heating quickly to life.
The ceiling creaks above them, as Rory walks across the floor. He's watched, before, but his curious gaze makes the others nervous. Another brush against her, and she sighs loudly, nearly a moan. "Yes, like that," she encourages him, her elbow tiring from its own motion.
This is real. This is life, sparking from the touch.
She will not allow them to lay her down, not one. Hands and mouth, and the slide of body against body, these suffice. Pleasure freely given and taken, pulling touch and heat from the darkness.
His cry is broken when he comes in her hand, like a hawk with a ruined wing. He keeps his own movement against her, sliding one digit into her slickly, and then rubbing that against her clit, and Amy comes in a wave through her body.
"I'm sorry," she says, as she sits half-sprawled in his lap.
"Yeah," he says, without blame.
She makes him up a bed on the sofa, then on a whim, she takes his hand. Up the stairs they go to the little spare room that she hopes one day will be a nursery. There's a child, ten years old, sleeping soundly. "He came yesterday," she says, longing to play with the tousled blond hair on the pillow, knowing it'll wake him if she does. "His mum didn't know who he was. He was cold, and sad, and he found me." She looks at the man. "His life is gone, too."
Amy doesn't play matchmaker. She's had more than enough of playing God. But she recognises a child who needs a caregiver, and a caregiver who needs someone to look after.
Maybe he does, too, because he leans in and kisses her again, chastely this time. "Thank you."
Tonight he'll sleep on the sofa. Tomorrow he will meet the boy properly. By tomorrow evening, he will begin practising the lie that the boy is his son.
It's never a perfect ending, she knows from experience, watching him go back down the stairs. The best she can offer is another beginning, which is good enough for now.
***
ETA: Sequel: Rescues
***
Title: Masterpiece
Author: nancybrown
Characters: River/Liz Ten
Rating: NC-17
Summary: There's a price for stealing from the Royal Collection.
A/N: Written for sizeofthatthing prompt: "River/Liz 10. It's the Royal Collection, and River isn't getting out of there without showing a little submission to the Queen."
***
It's the way she tastes, of salt and scent and the rose water she must have bathed in earlier, that fills River's throat with a moan. The Queen is draped in rust-coloured velvet, which pools around them, Her Majesty nude beneath the folds, River on her knees in her practical tight black outfit to go robbing the Collection. They have at least moved from the stairs. The balcony is enough for the Queen to lean against, as River pays for her theft.
"Softer," says the Queen, and then, "Over, the left. Ah! Ah!"
River smiles around her work, having found the right spot. She's had lovers fresh and new, whom she's had to teach every little thing. She's had lovers teach her. The best know what they want and tell her so, and she takes and gives pleasure easily with them. The Queen is a masterpiece, her hips gyrating in a slow, tidal rhythm in time with River's clever tongue.
"That's a good girl," says the Queen, though the words are breathless and River thinks she doesn't know what she's saying, just babbling as her orgasm coils in her belly. River places a firm hand against that belly now, pushing as she laps and blows and finally nips in for a long suck.
Her Majesty's cry echoes through the gallery. River draws out the moment, stroking only with her lips, enjoying the vocal responses coming from over her head. When at last the final quake has shivered through the Queen, River sits back on her heels and takes a proud look at the perfect sight: a gasping, blissful, gorgeous woman she's just pleasured.
Her work here is done.
***
Title: The Little One Stops
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Jack/Master
Rating: NC-17
Summary: In TYTNW, Jack wants the torture to stop.
Warnings: DON'T READ THIS, FR SRS
A/N: Written for touchyerwood prompt: "Jack/Master, sex as a survival mechanism (ie: if I give you a blowjob will you stop torturing me to death?)"
***
Jack didn't know what day it was anymore. Tish had been keeping track since she didn't spend her days dead but she lost count a few weeks back. Of all the things he missed, Jack hadn't thought a calendar would be one of them.
His team was dead. The plane carrying them back from their wild goose chase in the Himalayas had been taken down by the Toclafane in the first wave of attacks. For a while he'd held out hope that they hadn't been on it, that they'd somehow doubled back, escaped, but the reports came in every day of what happened to the names on the Master's Most Wanted List and now Jack soothed himself with the thought that they'd died quickly and almost cleanly.
Someone should.
The vivisection had hurt worse than the fire and his only surcease had been the Master's annoyance that the organs they'd removed during the procedure adamantly refused to work when transplanted to someone else. One less fate to fear, that of being kept solely to provide something for someone else.
He watched the clock. Tish would be in with breakfast soon. She was one bright thing in his day and only a bitter halo of protection, the one that said the Master would rather torture her to death in front of her sister, kept her safe.
When the cell door opened, it wasn't Tish.
"Good morning!" said the Master with a grin. A manic mood again. Those never boded well, though the depressions weren't better. Manic meant someone, usually Jack but sometimes a whole city, was going to die. Depressions were silent, and could only be read later in the bruises on Lucy's face and the empty look in her eyes. She hadn't come out of her rooms for two days after the last one.
"I have plans for you," said the Master in a silky voice. "I've always wanted to find out how long it takes for a human to be eaten alive by ants. I'll have to factor in how quickly you heal as they eat, but what is science for, after all? I've got it all set up in a closed room. Wouldn't want the little devils to get out, would we?"
Something inside of him, something small and soft that Jack hadn't even known was there before he was chained in hell, broke.
"No," he said in a voice that wasn't meant to be shattered.
"No," the Master agreed, and then asked, "or was that a different no?" He came closer, focusing his eyes on Jack. Attention was deadly, and so Jack drew it upon himself whenever possible because he could do nothing else to spare the other prisoners, but this cold appraisal in the harsh light of the next plan made his balls draw up in fear. Just the thought of ten thousand tiny mouths eating away from him filled Jack with the kind of terror he thought he'd left behind hundreds of deaths ago.
"Please."
"'Please,' what?"
Bastard. "Please, Master. I'll do anything."
"Refute the Doctor. Tell me where Martha Jones is."
"The Doctor doesn't care," Jack said with a pained laugh. "He walked out on me, remember? And I don't know where Martha is. I've been chained to a wall for six months."
The Master made a disappointed noise in his throat, then turned away. "If there's nothing else … "
"I can make you feel good." God, what was he doing? "Some things, I'm really good at. Put a smile in your step, brighten up your day." He couldn't wriggle his hips effectively like this, though he tried.
The Master cocked an eyebrow. "Was that a proposition, Captain?"
"One way of putting it."
Intrigued, the Master stepped closer. "I've read your record. It didn't mention you were a whore."
"Man's gotta eat." He was filthy, but he managed a flirtatious smile. "Let me go down on you. I give fantastic blowjobs." He almost continued with, "Ask the last guy I blew," but Ianto was dead and bringing that up would probably make the Master reconsider having Jack's teeth anywhere near his groin.
The Master's mouth went still. Then he nodded to the guards. "Bind his hands behind his back. If he makes a move I don't like, shoot him."
It was always more painful when his wrists were first released, the stretch of the muscles, and he groaned as his arms were dragged behind him. Of course the guards were going to stay and watch. The Master would consider it extra humiliation, but Jack never minded a crowd.
The Master undid his own belt and flies, leaving Jack to nudge out his cock with nose and lips. Human, he looked human like this, and not a Time Lord or a monster. Jack breathed in the scent, and that wasn't human, but it didn't matter as he took the head into his mouth. This was instinct, and understanding. Jack's tongue knew how to work a cock, how to tease the vein along the underside, how to pull out to nuzzle and lick and suck at the scrotum. Never mind who this was. At this angle, Jack could pretend it was anyone's cock as he nipped at the foreskin, as he teased and tasted and licked and sucked. With a practiced move, he took the Master's cock deep into his throat, swallowing around it.
There was a hand in his hair, ripping painfully, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered, not the choking sounds from the Master, or the almost inaudible gasps from the observing guards. Jack could smell arousal rolling off both and wondered if he'd be blowing them too before this was over.
The Master's hips began pumping, and Jack began working the head, wishing for the use of his hands. He could make this good, make the Master happy, stave off a little more torture, one more death. Tears pricked at his eyes. The strangled sound the Master made was the only warning Jack had before cool come shot into his mouth, and he swallowed eagerly, lapping and sucking until the last drops were gone.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Jack leaned back to rest on his heels. His knees and arms were sore, but as he saw the pleased look on the Master's face, he knew he'd done well.
The Master put himself away. "Help the freak up." Arms dragged him roughly to his numb feet. "Bring him. The ants are hungry for their breakfast."