fannishliss: The Sixth Hive (Eleven/Jack) [NC-17] (SUMMER HOLIDAYS PROMPT 13)
Title: The Sixth Hive
Author: fannishliss
rating: Adult / NC17
Pairing: Jack/Eleven
Words: 8300
Spoilers: up through The Angels Take Manhattan
Author’s Note: Thanks to my beta, aililinnea. Any remaining errors are my own!
Prompt 13: 60th Anniversary, Diamond, Xenobotanist of the Sixth Hive, the Mutation
Summary: Jack has always loved the Doctor, but when the Doctor shows up to pick him up after hundreds of years have passed for both of them, Jack says no.
====
Jack sat crosslegged on his mat in the small clearing outside his cell, meditating, waiting, humming along with his sisters and brothers around the comb. The hum of the Hive was busy and pleasant on a calm afternoon. The sun was shining, the sky bright and clear. After a few days of rain, the clouds had cleared away, so that the trees around Jack's comb glistened with verdure. The Hive felt peaceful to Jack, its meaningful work proceeding, so many workers dedicated and happy, and Jack's cell was at the center of it all. Gentle tendrils of his awareness threaded along with his humming throughout the comb. He smiled. All was well.
"Jack, my brother."
Jack opened his eyes to the soft greeting. "Grelfth!" Jack rose to give his Hivemate a warm embrace. Grasping the tall, lanky canid by the arms, Jack gave a soft nuzzle to the cheek, and Grelfth returned the favor.
"How is the work of your comb, brother?" Jack asked.
"The swamps of the subtropic are rich in useful plants, Jack. My sisters and brothers have identified many useful compounds for the hive."
"Wonderful! You bring nectars to the Hive," Jack praised, formally.
Grelfth panted in his canid way, pleased.
Jack gave Grelfth his full attention as the xenobotanist began to outline the exciting finds he and his comb had made in the subtropical swamp. Some plants provided sustenance and fibers, others provided compounds for healing. Some had psychotropic effects on some species of the Hive, which would need more investigation to determine safety protocols. Grelfth was especially excited that two of his chemists had identified a versatile new polymer in their explorations.
Jack carefully thanked Grelfth for each accomplishment his comb had brought forward from their field work in the swamp over the past two years. In the sixty years since the Sixth Hive had swarmed to this world, exploratory combs had developed deep knowledge of a variety of ecosystems from around the planet, which in turn yielded up a vast treasury of resources. After sixty years of intense study, the Hive in their gratitude felt they had just begun to tap the riches of this new planet through diligent study and careful, intentional settlement.
"Did many of your comb find home in this swamp, Grelfth?"
Grelfth nodded. "I myself didn't find home there, Jack. It was too hot and wet there for one of my fur. But several sisters and brothers are eager for our Hive to hear of the gifts the swamp offers to avians and reptilians. I have to admit, the arthropods living in the waters there are tasty."
Jack smiled. "I remember a delicious stew that came from such a swamp on Earth, called Shrimp Gumbo." Jack felt a pang at the memory. It had been centuries since he'd tasted gumbo, and it would likely be centuries more. Jack described how the shrimp enhanced the rich broth with their seafood flavor, and in turn were enhanced by the savory spices of the gumbo.
Grelfth was an old friend, familiar with Jack's moments of nostalgia. He pressed his warm, furred side against Jack. "My brother Marn is a culinary wizard. I'll ask him about gumbo."
Jack pressed back gratefully. "Gumbo would be a sweet nectar to the Hive," he smiled. Jack knew that Marn's idea of gumbo might be very different from what he remembered, but he had no doubt that the culinarist would develop something equally tasty to offer to the Sixth Hive from the resources of their adopted homeworld.
"Our sister Coriza wove this for you, Jack," Drelfth said. From his satchel he pulled a long, gossamer-thin cloth dyed in hues of turquoise and emerald.
Jack eagerly accepted the gift from the beloved sister he hadn't seen in more than two long years. The soft, lightweight material was a delight for the fingers. "I didn't realize she'd come so far with the weaving and dying of the fiber," Jack said. "It's beautiful. And the cloth feels so delicate - yet strong. It's the new polymer?"
"Yes, she knew you'd like it - and it's an excellent sample for you to share with the combs."
"We'll need exceptional diligence to develop this fiber," Jack discerned. "Our agronomists say it can be responsibly harvested?"
"Yes, they think so. It's derived from the sap of a fast-growing, weedy plant. We should be able to produce the polymer without heavy impact on the swamp."
"An excellent nectar gathered to your comb," Jack praised, in the formal way of the Hive.
"Long may it ripen," Grelfth responded. Jack and Grelfth linked hands for a moment, acknowledging the exchange of praise.
"Coriza smiles, thinking of this cloth against your skin," Grelfth murmured, his eyes closed as he communed with his psionic partner. "She psis to remind you that time with you is a nectar we savor."
Jack smiled. Coriza was a beautiful Human, born to the Hive and blessed with the psi Mutation. She and Grelfth had been cellmates for years and had shared their mats with Jack on many sweet occasions.
"That nectar is always a delight to me," Jack said, nuzzling Grelfth.
The canid growled with pleasure at the thought. "She's eager to see you," he told Jack.
Jack hummed for a moment, turning his attention to his psilink with Coriza. The song of the Hive soothed him as he sifted through his links. There - Coriza, humming with satisfaction, finishing her work in Swamp Comb and eager to be back at Center Comb along with her cellmate - and, just as Grelfth had said, eager to sing with Jack again. She was singing along to another familiar song - Trumelly, a young avian Jack had first-linked with, how long ago, had it been three, or four years? Trumelly was not Hive-born, but the Mutation had quickly taken hold in her, and Jack had had the nectar of singing with her as she made her first psi-links with sisters and brothers at Center Comb. Jack brought the nectar of his singing to their psilink, and they sang out in celebration as they felt his presence. Jack had tasted the nectar of many such cross-linkages; the song of the Hive permeated deeply through his mind. Before he'd come to the Hive (had it really been four hundred years since the Third Hive... four centuries?) Jack had never imagined he would be tangled so integrally in so many lives - nor had he guessed he'd ever find a place that felt so right, so much like home.
"Coriza and Trumelly are linking strongly," Jack told Grelfth with a smile.
"Yes, Coriza feels it will be a very secure link."
"Coriza's links run deep, a sweet nectar to the hive," Jack praised.
Grelfth nodded. The talents of his dear cellmate brought greater joy to him, almost, than did his own. "You, Jack, are a sweet nectar to all of us in this Hive. Is there any psion, Hive-born or hithered, who has not linked with your singing in the center cells?"
"It is a sweet nectar to me," Jack affirmed, "to sing with so many, to add my humming to the great work of the Hive."
"I live by the song," Grelfth admitted, "but I could not sing with so many."
"Every singer sings as best he can," Jack quoted.
"If not for the center cells like you, Jack, there would be no Hive."
Jack shook his head. "There will always be a Hive. Even without the Mutation, the philosophy of the Hive would survive."
"The Hive flows with nectars for all," Grelfth agreed.
Jack rested his forehead against Grelfth's for a moment. He was about to ask if Grelfth could remain with him to share the evening repast, when a loud grinding noise filled the air around Jack's cell.
Jack's heart went mad in his chest as the grinding stopped with a resounding thump, and a tall blue box stood in Jack's clearing where nothing had been a moment ago.
Jack instinctively thrummed the threads of several of his closest linkages - and since his link with Coriza and Trumelly was currently open, his jangled response included them. He muted his reaction as best he could, but, regardless, the pitch and tempo and shape of the Hivesong felt his trepidation. The Hive reacted to this abrupt arrival as it would to an oncoming storm -- the singers hunkered down, their music pulsed low and heavy, dark and sweet. Jack felt the Hive throb around him as he waited for the Tardis door to open.
Jack was many times older now than the Time Lord had been when last they met. With his vortex manipulator disabled, Jack had lived and lived. He had joined the Hive hundreds of years ago, an unruly drone in a peripheral cell, buzzing and loud and ready to sting. The steady work had calmed him. Through the Third Hive, its swarming, the establishment of the Fourth Hive and its flourishing, Jack had moved inward, his place becoming more secure, his meaning and purpose becoming clearer as he gave himself over to the Hivesong. In the Fifth Hive, the central cells were his sisters and brothers, his children, his lovers. In the time of ripeness, in the fullness of swarming, the Sixth Hive with one mind had given Jack a central cell. That had been but sixty years ago, sixty years of plenitude, caretaking, loving, singing.
Jack had given up everything for the Hive: his life, his pain, his regret, his mission.
In return he'd received fulfillment, love, security, meaning, hope.
Grelfth pressed closer to Jack, growling a little in his throat, and Coriza was abuzz in Jack's mind. Was the arrival of this storm a threat, or would it offer sustenance and new life, new nectars?
Jack remembered a time that tall blue box had appeared and he'd clung to it with a grip stronger than death, following the man inside to the very end of Time itself. He remembered all he'd suffered for that man, how he'd never doubted, had believed he never would.
Now he sat cross-legged on a mat, his friend / brother / lover pressed protectively to his side, and Jack wondered at himself. Why wasn't he springing to his feet? Why wasn't he running to wedge himself through any crack in that door before the Tardis faded away?
He knew why.
He remembered when he'd first come across the Hive, so many years ago. Jack had first encountered the Hive on a well-settled planet; the Third Hive flourished alongside non-Hive drones who regarded them with some suspicion, but tolerated the Hive because of the peace and order and plenty their society brought with them wherever they swarmed.
They had stripped him of his clothes, his belongings, sealing them away as they did with every Hivemate. The nakedness and panic he felt at the loss of the vortex manipulator -- disabled though it was-- shamed him. He was given a cell, clothing, food, work, and time for sleep and play. Most importantly, the Hive offered Jack brothers and sisters who'd given up everything as well. They embraced him, figuratively and literally. Jack had no belongings, no secrets, and his uniqueness was treasured by the Hive.
With his latent psi talent, so similar to the Mutation, Jack immediately felt their calm intensity of purpose. His vast experiences, the thousands of years of his life, didn't make him a freak to them. The Hive reached out to him, accepting his uncanny differences as gifts, and he was embraced by a loving tribe that made him feel truly welcome. It was humbling, almost heartbreaking, to become one with so many, after so many lifetimes of alienation. The Hive was a place where Jack was finally truly able to subsume his own sorrows and regrets into some bigger purpose, to dedicate his unnaturally eternal life to some idea of a greater good.
He had found home.
Here, on this mat, four hundred years later, Jack was the same man he'd always been, but one thing had changed. He knew now, down to his core, how deeply he was treasured. Here, right beside him, was a brilliant xenobotanist, eager to share a mat with Jack for however long he had to offer, and Jack knew without a doubt in his heart how many other Hivemates felt the same.
Why had the Doctor appeared, here, now?
What did he want from Jack?
What was Jack prepared to give?
Jack felt Grelfth take his hand, and through his open link with Coriza he felt Grelfth's concern at Jack's evident turmoil, and their promise of support.
Coriza psied, "We love you, Jack," and Grelfth sent a surge of pure love echoing along with her message, which Jack returned with gratitude.
Jack assembled a thought package and sent it to Coriza: "It is my old friend / unrequited love, the Doctor (good, strong, dangerous, quixotic); across all my lifetimes I've loved him / he's hurt me. I love him / must talk with him / find out what he wants of me."
"Your Hive embraces you, Jack," Coriza psied back, still reverberating with Grelfth's non-verbal echoes of her sentiments.
"The Hive is all," Jack psied, a precept he'd lived by for centuries. Would it now continue to serve him well?
Jack and Grelfth stood as the Tardis door swung open and a head popped out.
"Hallo," the Doctor called, voice and smile cheerful, eyes as old as the founding of the First Hive.
"Hello, Doctor," Jack answered, and somehow he let go of Grelfth's hand, walked forward, took the ten or so steps to the threshold of the Tardis, wary as though it would somehow pull him in and away. Bravely, he opened his arms, offering the Doctor the embrace of a Hivemate.
"Captain Jack Harkness!" the Time Lord said through his new face. Not quite so tall as the Doctor Jack had last known, youthful face, floppy hair, and terribly overdressed by Hive standards.
Jack held his arms open and didn't correct the Doctor about a name he hadn't used for many lifetimes.
Awkwardly, the Doctor stepped fully out of the Tardis door and kissed the air on either side of Jack's face. "Mwah! Mwah!" the Doctor said, somehow avoiding all personal contact without completely rejecting Jack's offered embrace.
"Mwah!" Jack answered, laughing a little to himself as he kissed the air. The more the man changed, the more he stayed the same.
"And who is this?" the Doctor asked, not so rudely as Jack could have feared. Grelfth had stealthily padded forward to take his place just behind Jack's left shoulder.
'"My brother Grelfth, Xenobotanist of the Sixth Hive, currently in Center Comb from Swamp Comb." Jack gestured Grelfth forward, but his brother did not offer the Doctor the full Hive embrace, merely showing his spread hands, a Hivemate's greeting to drones and outsiders.
"The Sixth Hive!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Xenobotanist! Very good to meet you, Grelfth was it, and how did you enjoy the Swamp? Very... swampy?" he blathered. It was so very like him that Jack had to smile.
Gelfth's bushy tail wagged slightly, and he showed his teeth. "Very swampy, Doctor, a nectar to our Hive. May you bring nectar to Jack at this meeting!"
"Quite," the Doctor agreed with puzzlement, trying to adjust to the formalized speech patterns of Jack's Hivemate.
Grelfth fixed the Doctor with an unblinking stare from his wide yellow eyes. The Doctor swallowed nervously as Grelfth ostentatiously licked his teeth before continuing.
"Our Jack is a central cell of this Hive, Doctor. He no longer wears the assumed rank of 'captain' or the borrowed name of 'Harkness.' As a drone might say, he is like the brightest, most magnificent diamond in a resplendent crown - the Sixth Hive's greatest glory."
Grelfth took one step forward, and the Doctor's eyes widened further.
"This precious jewel, our Jack, is not a gift for me to give," Grelfth said, his voice deepening to a growl, "but our brother wishes, as drones might say, 'the pleasure of your company.' So..." Grelfth bared his teeth again in what Humans might think was a smile. "May his many nectars sweeten your time with us as we share with you the honey of the Sixth Hive."
With a slight dip of his head, Grelfth turned from the Doctor, embraced Jack and nuzzled his cheek thoroughly before stalking away.
Coriza laughed inside Jack's head, sending a thought package: "Grelfth was quite the pack tough as a pup before he joined the Hive. May this Doctor bring you nectar / don't let him hurt you / I miss you and I love you." Grelfth's echo was a bit more aggressive, but amused, and very warm toward Jack.
Jack smiled at the Doctor.
"May I offer you refreshment, Doctor? We have what passes for tea?" Jack laughed a little to himself, since he currently had two teas in his cell, and Grelfth had identified and developed both for Center Comb.
"Of course," the Doctor said, still a little off balance.
"Please sit," Jack invited, gesturing the Doctor onto the mat Grelfth and he had just vacated, while he prepared tea and biscuits for the Doctor.
The Doctor was looking around, more patient than Jack had ever known him, when Jack returned with the tea things.
Daintily the Doctor took a tiny nibble of the biscuit. "Very like a hobnob," he said, as a compliment.
"Thanks," Jack said, drinking from his own mug.
The Doctor took a slightly more comprehensive sip of his tea. "Mmm," he said noncommittally.
"The Hive sources local," Jack said, an understatement. "So this tea is grown right over there." Jack gestured vaguely through the trees. The Sixth Hive had swarmed to a planet so beautiful, lush, and productive, an eden of plants and birds and pollinators, that the cell of every member was a little haven in a greater paradise. Abundance through simplicity was a central Hive philosophy, and the essence of simplicity was to ensure that every comb was largely self-sufficient.
"You seem very much at home here, Jack," the Doctor said.
"The Hive has been my home - my family - for over four hundred years," Jack said.
"Wow," the Doctor answered. "That's wonderful, Jack!"
'"And what have you been doing all this time?" Jack asked, struggling to keep his voice on an even keel. "How long has it been for you?"
"Oh, yes, about four hundred years," the Doctor answered, not taking into account the millennia Jack had wandered. "Well, but you know, domestics: got killed, got married, forgotten by history, everyday sorts of things..."
Jack was flabbergasted. "What?" he managed, taking control of his dropped jaw.
"All very complicated, not important. What's important," the Doctor rattled, "is you, Jack. You."
"Me?" Jack said, hating the way his voice still slipped into vulnerability and longing after all this time.
"You, Jack," the Doctor said. "I..." The Time Lord paused, scratched his nose, peered at Jack. Jack felt the lightest flutterings as the Time Lord's mentality politely brushed at the surfaces of his mind. "I missed you. I'm lonely. I was hoping - you'd come with me. For a while."
"I can't," Jack said, before he even thought.
"What?" the Doctor asked, taken aback by Jack's immediate answer.
"Gosh, that didn't come out right," Jack said, blushing fiercely.
"Oh! Okay! Then let's make your goodbyes and we'll be off!" the Doctor said, beaming, leaping to his feet and dusting himself off.
"No - I mean - I'm sorry, Doctor," Jack elaborated, standing. "I'd love to go with you, really I would - I feel like I've been waiting forever for you to come back and find me - but not right now. I have obligations here. I'm part of this, the Hive. They're my family. They need me - and I need them."
"Oh," the Doctor said, crumbling.
"I love them," Jack whispered.
The Doctor's face fell even further, seeming every minute of his thousand-plus years.
"But I love you, too," Jack reminded him.
"I thought ... you might," the Doctor said, wistfully. "I ... needed you to."
"You needed me?" Jack prompted. "For what? A foil? Someone handy with an enormous gun? I haven't fired a weapon in centuries."
"No, Jack, nothing like that. I just needed... to be with... a friend. Who knows me," the Doctor whispered.
"What happened, Doctor?" Jack asked gently.
"Amy - Rory," he said. Jack assumed that these were companions the Doctor had traveled with. "River, too, maybe - I'm not sure. Locked into the past. My friends - locked away from me, Jack - no getting round it. I really had myself convinced this time, that it would last - just a little bit - longer..."
And with that, the Doctor dissolved into heartbroken sobs.
Instantly Jack had the Time Lord cradled against his body, rocking him back and forth in their standing position. Tears streamed from the Doctor's face as he sobbed. "I lost them, Jack. I lost them. Again."
Jack knew intimately what that was like. "I know, love. I know."
"It never gets better," the Doctor said, through his tears. "Losing them. I meet someone new, and it feels so wonderful, but every time, I hold myself back just a little more, even though that doesn't help. It hurts."
"I know," Jack said. "Believe me."
"But, but," the Doctor choked. "You're happy now. Happy here. How?"
"I'm part of it all," Jack explained. "There's no way to avoid losing people. But when I lose a Hivemate, I'm not the only one in mourning. We all mourn. It makes a difference, mourning and remembering, together. And then the time comes when the memory is sweeter than the bitterness of loss. A sweet..."
"...nectar of the Hive?" the Doctor said, getting ahold of himself. He sniffled a little and looked up at Jack, searchingly.
"It's not just an empty mantra to us," Jack said. "It's real. The Hive is all."
"I can see that, Jack," the Doctor said. "I can hear it. The song of the Hive is beautiful - and you - you're right at the heart of it."
"It's taken me hundreds of years to get here, Doctor - I can't just go. I never thought," Jack said, stroking the Doctor's back gently, "I never dreamed, if you came for me, that I would say no."
Jack felt the Doctor stiffen at his rejection.
"No," Jack said, "it's not that I don't want to - it's that I can't. Not right now. Maybe in several years, after the Mutation deepens the links of this Hive, I'll be freer to travel with you for a while. You can always go now, and come right back to find me some time later."
The Doctor was silent. Jack had never seen him this needy, even in the earliest days. Rose had told Jack that he'd asked her twice to come with him. Jack supposed the Doctor had done that all of never before.
"But Doctor - you can always stay here, with me," Jack said. "Stay for a while, share my cell. It's lovely here. You should try it."
"Really, Jack," the Doctor said, but there was a little doubt, a little openness in his response.
"What, is there some law of the Time Lords that I don't know about: 'the renegade known as the Doctor shall never park his Tardis and go on holiday'?"
"Ha," the Doctor scoffed. "They would have made such a law, if they'd ever learnt the concept of a holiday."
"Well, Hive law decrees that when someone needs a holiday, they get one," Jack said.
"Hive law?" the Doctor said.
"No," Jack admitted, "we don't have laws. It's all consensus. But no one would ever dream of allowing a Hivemate to go too long without a holiday."
"Very civilized of you," the Doctor agreed.
"The Hive is by far the most civilized society I've ever known," Jack said proudly.
"Sounds dull," the Doctor sniffed.
"Dreadfully dull. Haven't had a rising despot since the Second Hive, and that was only for two weeks or so, before he was ejected."
"You eject people?" the Doctor asked.
"Rarely," Jack said. "It happens." Jack had seen ejected drones, their anger and pride and desperation as they straggled away with their restored belongings, the wealth the Hive had accrued for them awaiting them back in drone society.
"Hm," the Doctor said.
"Finish your tea," Jack advised, sitting back down and patting the mat beside him.
The Doctor did.
After the tea was gone, the Doctor slapped his hands lightly on his thighs, at a loss.
"What would you like to do next?" Jack asked.
"What is there to do? I mean, with no despots..."
"Take a walk, do chores, meet with friends, brainstorm problems..." Jack counted off on his fingers. "Weaving, gathering, cooking, brewing, pickling, sewing, pottery, carpentry, mechanics, engineering, numbers, philosophy, poetry..."
The Doctor looked overwhelmed by the idea of so many everyday tasks. Except for tinkering with his Tardis, the Doctor didn't do 'everyday.'
"Take a walk it is," Jack said. He put his tea things away, and for the rest of the afternoon, Jack led the Doctor around the comb, showing him everything. Center Comb was a large city that appeared to be a string of small villages, interspersed with farms and parks. Jack's cell, surrounded by trees, was near the very heart of it. Jack showed the Doctor gardens and kitchens and factories and schools and museums and concert halls - most of which seemed to be all of these at once. The dwellings were the most unique: honeycombs of tiny rooms, almost bare of belongings, usually with mats, a few pieces of clothing, a tech tablet or two, sometimes a musical instrument.
Everywhere they went, Jack was greeted by his Hivemates, sometimes with a handclasp, often with an embrace, always with a smile which he happily returned.
Finally returning to Jack's cell, the Doctor flopped down on the mat and welcomed another cup of tea.
"You're kind of a big deal here, Jack," the Doctor said.
Jack nodded. "The Hive's need is the sweetest nectar," he quoted.
"Tell me more about this Mutation," the Doctor said, his curiosity glinting in his eyes.
"Well, it's psionic, viral, non-species specific; about one-tenth of Hivemates experience the Mutation to a greater or lesser degree at some point in their lives."
"Psi talent helps hold your consensus-based Utopia together," the Doctor observed.
"Yes," Jack agreed. "It helps us communicate our beliefs non-verbally and with absolute conviction."
"Hmm," the Doctor mused. "You must have fit right in."
"Right!" Jack scoffed. "Have you even met me? By the time I found the Hive I was a mess of so much subterfuge and justification and lies, I was a walking corpse of open wounds and scar tissue. Furious, helpless, lost, suspicious, angry - you name it. I took the cake."
"So how...?"
"Well, there's always sex. The Hive was like a swinger's paradise - or so I thought at the time. Lock my clothes in a box, get a few inoculations, and go on a permanent vacation with hot chicks and chaps of every species.... "
"But that didn't happen?" the Doctor asked, blushing.
"Oh, yeah, man. It totally did. Did it ever! But it wasn't like I thought. It wasn't even, what they used to call when I was a kid, 'enlightened shared pleasure.' They wanted me. They wanted to know me. I can still remember how that absolutely sent me into a spinning panic when I figured it out. They didn't just want my face, my body, my lines, my smile- they wanted me, who I was inside. And I wasn't even sure who that was anymore."
The Doctor just waited, looking at Jack, silent.
"Bit by bit they opened me up. One lover at a time - or, you know, however many it took. Those first Hivemates of mine, they must have been saints, is all I can figure. Jana, Buchara, Simone, Rivera - Kali, Capma, Drosh, Joey - Kithera -" Jack glazed over for a moment, thinking of his earliest Hivemates, the care they'd taken in cracking him open, bringing him in, seeing through his protective masks to the starving man within. He still wasn't quite sure how they'd done it, when he'd been so lost he'd given up hope of ever being found.
"Hmm," the Doctor nodded, cheeks burning, determinedly tolerant.
"I thought, maybe that's what my work would be in the Hive," Jack said. "I thought maybe that's why they wanted me, because I had fewer hangups, and I was pretty good at it."
"Hmm," the Doctor agreed, wide-eyed.
"But that wasn't it. That's not really how the Hive operates, despite how it looks sometimes from the outside. Kithera was in fact a registered Therapist, fully qualified to administer deep orgasmic release - but she was the best therapist I've ever known, with or without sex. She took me apart and put me back together."
"Good?" the Doctor ventured.
"Yes," Jack smiled. "I thought, at the time, that family was over forever for me. I was so old by then. I couldn't get involved. Everyone seemed so fleeting, like dust before we even said hello. But I couldn't think that way at the Hive. Everything slowed down. People were living intentionally, taking their time, making things matter. It struck a chord in me, and they wanted me, really wanted me, to be a part of it. So I never looked back. My old kit is still in a box somewhere in Center Comb- it always shows up in the usage inventory on my tablet."
"Hm?" the Doctor asked. Jack knew he was an inveterate pack rat; with infinite storage space he'd never needed not to be.
"Usage inventory." Jack snagged his tablet from atop the chest just inside his cell, thumbed it on, and showed it to the Doctor.
"Registered Psion Jack. Center Comb, East Central Region, Eastern Continent, planet Kepler 62F, Sixth Hive. Central cell Psion, five thousand four hundred twenty-three active links," he read. "Whoosh!"
"Yeah, it can get pretty loud in here, but I manage," Jack said.
The Doctor read on: "Level One Hive planner. Class one transportation access. All access cultural clearance. Human standard nutritional allotment. Six large summer garments; rain cloak; outdoor mat; indoor mat, padding, blanket, and pillow; tablet; storage chest (personalized). Summer footwear. Tea set by special allotment. Four large pillows by special allotment. Four embroidered cushion covers (gift). Assorted jewelry (gifts). Assorted textiles (gifts). Pottery bowl (gift). Initial storage location 6CCNW01X060268. No additional storage."
The Doctor stared at Jack. "That's your entire ... that's everything you..." He leaned his head back and peered inside Jack's cell. It was a small room, dominated by a mat along one wall, some cushions heaped along it, a beautifully painted storage chest just by the door. The opening from inside to outside didn't close, not even with a curtain, but as he peered inside, he felt a faint staticky feeling - a mild force field.
"Keeps out the inclement weather," Jack said, reading the Doctor's expressions with ease.
"And everyone lives like this?" the Doctor asked. "I carry more in my pockets than that lot!"
"Sure," Jack said. "We live communally - our work is done in common rooms, our play is done outdoors or in culture temples. Artisans might have tools or workrooms allotted - but Hivemates don't generally carry those sorts of things to their cells."
"Hmm!" the Doctor said.
"The Hive provides," Jack quoted, trying to convey to the Doctor just how true the precept really was. The Doctor nodded, frowning a little.
"And right now, the Hive is providing the evening repast - if you care to join me?" Jack said, standing.
The Doctor and Jack made their way along a tree-lined path to a large open building. Hivemates were streaming in from every direction, many different species all united by a common philosophy. Inside, there were various cafeteria lines by species type. Jack angled toward the Human line and received a tasty looking meal on a tray - a curry? on rice?- along with a drink Jack identified as supplemental nutrition keyed to his specific needs. The Doctor declined.
"Is it always the same?" the Doctor asked as Jack ate.
"No - it's seasonal," Jack replied. "And there are smaller, specialized cafes here and there that cater to certain species. My friend Grelfth goes to a canid place on the east side, whenever he's in Center Comb."
The Doctor grimaced, clearly recalling Grelfth's sharp fangs.
Jack smirked and carried on eating. Coriza, and thereby Grelfth, were keeping low-level awareness open to Jack's mood while the Doctor visited.
After Jack finished, he offered to take the Doctor to a Human cantina not far away. It was a pleasant walk through the mild summer evening.
"Tell me about Amy and Rory and River," Jack said, breaking the cardinal rule.
"Amy - started out as a little girl - but I skipped forward by mistake - and she was a beautiful, feisty young woman, and Rory is her husband, and River is their daughter."
"So," Jack said, frowning, "you got married? To ... Amy and Rory?" Triads weren't out of ordinary to Jack, but the Doctor had seemed too hemmed in for the notion.
"No - to River. She skips around so much in time, she's older now than her parents. Paradox galore! I rather thought you might have met her."
"Maybe I still will," Jack said.
The Doctor seemed to relax a little, smiling and laughing as he told stories about his Ponds as he called them. Jack listened with interest as the Doctor rattled on, knowing how important it was to share good memories in times of mourning.
They sat until late in the Human cafe spooning frozen custard out of bowls, the Doctor reminiscing, and Jack just taking in the miracle of the mad nomad, still for once, sharing his innermost thoughts. The cafe owners drummed them out at last, giving the Doctor a chillbox full of custard for the road.
They walked back under the stars, the Doctor swinging the chillbox by its handles.
"What are you waiting for?" Coriza sang in Jack's head.
"Quiet you!" Jack psied with fond humor - and mentally battened down the hatches till the links in his head receded to a low murmur, the peaceful roar of the ocean just beyond the dunes.
Jack reached out and caught the Doctor's free hand. The Doctor stopped, surprised. Was he really so reserved in this incarnation? But then, hesitant, he smiled at Jack, and the cool Gallifreyan hand warmed a little to Jack's human heat.
"What are your constellations called?" the Doctor asked as they strolled.
"Well, we know the stars, of course, so our poets and mythographers have been trying to fit the patterns we see here to stories about the stars that make sense."
"No mean feat!" the Doctor said, smiling.
"See there - that's our view of the Orion molecular cloud complex. We call it 'Tears in Rain.' And just there, that's Tannhauser Gate."
"Oh," the Doctor said. "Yes. Rory made me watch that film."
"It's amazing how some things endure," Jack said softly.
"You," the Doctor said. "You endure."
"I have no choice," Jack answered, gazing up at the stars. Tears in Rain was a brilliant cluster in the sky - not so dim as the handful of pearls it had resembled from far away, long ago Earth.
"There's always a choice, Jack," the Doctor smiled, squeezing Jack's hand in his slightly. "You haven't just locked yourself away somewhere. You're - living. Really living."
Jack pondered for a moment. "I think it was the moment I stripped off that vortex manipulator," Jack said. "It scared me to have it sealed away, but I was so much freer without it than with it. I had to make that commitment to be where I was, making real connections with the people around me. I couldn't just hop away. I see now why you kept disabling it."
The Doctor's smile was wry. "I knew there must have been a reason."
Jack squeezed the Doctor's hand a little harder. "I hope you won't hop away."
The Doctor glanced back at him. "But I'm just a visitor here. I can't just 'join the Hive.'"
"First of all," Jack retorted, "you could join the Hive. You just don't want to settle down. Second of all, there's no Hive law prohibiting visitors!"
"You told me before, there's no Hive law, period."
"You got it," Jack said, grinning. "Besides, our consensus is that welcoming visitors helps deter rumors about the Hive. It's good public relations."
"No good using me in an ad campaign," the Doctor said. "Erased from history, you know."
Jack just shook his head.
They arrived back at Jack's cell. The Tardis stood like a sentry in the starlight.
"Will you stay?" Jack said, not willing to let the Doctor go, unless he had to.
The Doctor took Jack's hand in both of his.
"I wanted you to travel with me. But maybe, if I stay right here, you can show me how to go on living."
"Come on in then. Leave your shoes there," Jack said, slipping off his summer clogs. "You're wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing. It's not like it's cold in the Tardis!"
"It is cold!" the Doctor said defensively. "In places."
"If you stay, I'll want to touch you," Jack warned, silkily. "And I want all those clothes out of the way."
The Doctor blushed, but Jack could see that he liked the idea. He defended himself with a mocking tone: "Am I supposed to wear one of your 'summer garments'?"
"You could go naked. No one would mind."
Jack helped the Doctor out of his coat, his waistcoast, his bowtie and braces, kissing and stroking him till he was down to his vest and small pants.
"Is this okay? Really?" Jack said, lying back with the Doctor on his sleeping mat. It was so much more comfortable than it looked, Jack knew, and he did have plenty of pillows. The Doctor nodded, but wiggled awkwardly, trying to get comfortable.
"What about - your wife?" Jack said, just trying to wrap his mind around what the Doctor's wedding must have been like: a last ditch attempt to restore order to a broken universe, but somehow, something more.
"We see each other when we can," the Doctor said, vaguely, punching his pillow.
"And you don't know from time to time whether you'll ever see her again?" Jack asked gently.
"No," the Doctor said. "I just wait - for a message - any kind of sign. I really don't know."
"Talk about your long-distance relationship," Jack said, thinking about the mutual dreaming sessions he'd shared with Grelfth and Coriza the two years they'd been at Swamp Comb. He kept one hand on the Doctor, petting him absently, gently. He seemed skittish, a little shy but clearly eager for Jack's touch.
"Yes. Well. She's a terrific girl," the Doctor said. "Wild. Terribly smart. Impulsive. Brave. And such a flirt! You'd love her."
"I hope I do meet her some time," Jack said.
"I can't bear the thought you might never meet her," the Doctor whispered, intently.
"I will then, Doctor. I'll make sure," Jack promised, palming the Doctor's neck.
"That's ... all right then," the Doctor said, trying to calm himself again.
"Are you comfortable yet?" Jack asked softly.
"I'm getting there," the Doctor said, hesitant.
Jack smiled. "There's no rush - unless you need there to be."
"I do," the Doctor quickly said. "I need rushing. Please."
Jack lay his hand flat on the Doctor's chest, feeling the double pounding within. "Okay," he said. "Whatever you want - I'll make it happen."
"I don't know what I want," the Doctor said. "I never have."
"I'll make it happen anyway," Jack promised, and kissed him.
Jack felt the Doctor's body thrumming with tension against his own. He'd known two incarnations and both of them had been so different, yet still, somehow, they were the same man. The blue-eyed Doctor would never have let Jack lay him down and play the dominant. The brown-eyed one was much the same, though he seemed a little more willing to play. Both of them had shied away from physicality - whether with Jack or with Rose, who had clearly adored him. Jack's spirit had been brightened when the Doctor's meta-crisis duplicate had chosen to live out his life with the feisty Tyler woman - Jack had always liked Rose, and especially, who she helped the wounded, angry Doctor try to be.
This Doctor, though- he was a mess of new complexes. He was playful, diffident, eager - even, Jack sensed, tending to submissive. In public there was no doubt he'd still make the life or death decisions with arrogant sureness as he'd always done- but in private, he longed to give himself over to a knowing hand. Jack wanted to meet this River even more with every second that passed, the Doctor lying open and receptive to Jack's tender ministrations.
The Doctor's body seemed so young. Jack had stopped aging as a physically mature man in his thirties - this body seemed much younger than that. His skin was milky white and tender, his body slender (but deceptively strong), and when Jack touched him he shivered all over, almost flinching from the intensity. Jack feathered his touches softer and softer until they barely connected. The Doctor seemed to feel Jack's hands even when there was no actual contact. It was enthralling, shaping the air around the Doctor's body and watching the Time Lord arch toward him in pleasure.
After a little while, the Doctor's hand floated toward Jack's temple.
"Jack," the Doctor whispered, "if you don't mind - it would help me if our minds were to touch -"
"Wonderful," Jack smiled. "There's nothing more erotic, in my experience."
The Doctor's fingers connected with Jack's temples and suddenly the Time Lord was there, his sublime mental presence towering over Jack, hovering just outside Jack's consciousness, waiting for permission.
"Please, dear heart - come in!" Jack invited.
The vast presence swept inside Jack's mind like a storm, edging out any other psilink near the surface of Jack's conscious mind. The Doctor didn't present to Jack as a voice or a self-image or any string of symbols. He presented as a giant, flashing cloud, full of ideas and impulses. Essentially he was like an animated image of the active brain. Jack basked in the heat and the thunder and lightning that sped through as the Doctor's thoughts flashed by. Jack didn't try to keep up, because he knew it was futile, but he tried to listen and pay attention to as much of it as he could.
Jack lay his hand on the Doctor's waist and tried to calm him, pressing him close and breathing along with him.
"Relax," Jack said.
"I can't let go," the Doctor said. "That's why I need you."
"Okay," Jack said, "do you need me to step it up?"
"Mm-hmm," the Doctor affirmed.
"Lie still then. Lift your arms up above your head. Grasp your left wrist with your right hand and don't let go."
The Doctor shivered and instantly his body relaxed a little more into Jack's sleeping mat.
"I want you to say, 'if it pleases you, Jack,'" Jack tried.
The Doctor flushed, bright patches appearing high on his cheek bones and down his throat to his chest. Sweetly, softly, he whispered, "If it pleases you, Jack."
"Oh, yes, dear one, it pleases me very much," Jack said. "May I take off the rest of your clothes?"
"Yes, if it pleases you, Jack," the Doctor said, very nicely. Jack tried to imagine the blue-eyed or the brown-eyed Doctor surrendering to him so easily. He knew that this part of the Doctor had always been there, but deeply defended. This incarnation was much more vulnerable and open - much more easily hurt- than the two who been so badly wounded and trying so hard to get better.
"You're beautiful like this, my dear," Jack said, stroking the expanse of milky skin from chest to thigh. "Would you enjoy it if I kissed you - here?" Jack kissed softly the nipple closest to him.
The Doctor moaned and arched toward him. "Oh yes, Jack, if it pleases you."
"So obedient!" Jack praised. "So good! And so delicious!" The Doctor's skin smelt vaguely of honey, citrus, some delicate topical spice Jack couldn't put a name too. His nipple was delicious, seeming to emit some concentrated essence of the Doctor's honey flavor, the more Jack licked and suckled.
Jack nuzzled the Doctor, praising him and teasing him, till both nipples were taut and bright red, and the Doctor was shivering constantly.
"May I taste you, here, as well?" Jack whispered. He slipped a coaxing hand down to the Doctor's genital opening. Like Jack's canid lover Grelfth, and others Jack had known, it seemed that the Doctor's genitalia were carried inside his body.
"If-if it pleases you, Jack," the Doctor stuttered.
"It pleases me very much," Jack said. "Keep your hands over your head, please," he ordered.
"Thank you, Jack- I mean - if it pleases you," the Doctor moaned.
Jack slipped his body between the Doctor's thighs. "Open your thighs, dear one," Jack commanded.
"Oh Jack, oh yes, if it pleases- pleases you," the Doctor stammered.
"Hush, my love - it's okay if your words won't come. Just say, if you need me to stop, say 'Slitheen.'"
The Doctor laughed, and Jack smiled as his body relaxed just that much more.
"Now, what have we here. A pleasant little portal. Naked, and soft. I'd love to kiss it." Jack wondered what counted as naughty talk for Time Lords. Probably anything up to and including "hold my hand."
"Oh, please," the Doctor said, opening his thighs a little wider.
Jack lowered his mouth to the Doctor's groin, licking along the slit, savoring the delicious honeyed essence beginning to seep out of him. "Do you know how fantastic you taste? I've been smelling this off you for ages - to finally get to taste it - you naughty, naughty boy- "
The Doctor moaned as Jack caressed him with his tongue, lapping and sucking, till at last, the Doctor's organ began to emerge.
"Jack, oh Jack!" the Doctor begged, as Jack kissed and suckled on the stiff, emerging organ, red and wet and eager.
"Can you tell me what you need, my love?" Jack asked. "Just think it."
He lifted the Doctor's fingers to his temples. The cascade of the Doctor's thoughts was glorious, delirious with pleasure and need, and a gorgeous image came to the forefront.
"Yes, of course, my dear one," Jack panted, as heat poured through him.
He kissed his way back up the Doctor's body, to his mouth, and began to kiss him deeply, suckling his mouth the same way he'd done elsewhere, and the Doctor moaned at the sympathetic feeling. Jack slotted his own cock against the Doctor's - feeling the delightful sensation as the Doctor's pleasure centers connected with his own.
"Oh, that feels so good, my dear - thank you," Jack moaned. He held back as much as he could - longing to thrust against the sweet, slick cock that tingled against his own with a building, mysterious ecstasy - but he wanted to let the Doctor set the pace.
"Do it, Doctor - thrust up against me," Jack said, holding himself still. For a moment, he thought the Doctor wouldn't, but then, a gorgeous ecstatic feeling sang into him as the Doctor thrust up, sliding against him, held together between their bellies. Fire, ecstasy - Jack gritted his teeth and held on.
"Yes, yes, my love -" Jack struggled to say. "Do it - fuck me, Doctor!"
"Jack!" the Doctor shouted, his hips spasmodically thrusting up into Jack's as ecstasy poured out of him and into both of them. Touching his forehead to the Doctor, Jack could feel the Time Lord's release as his mentality blossomed into blissful abandon.
Jack kissed the Doctor's mouth and face as he came back to himself. All that time, and his hands were still clasped obediently over his head.
"Beautiful," Jack praised. "Thank you, my love. So good."
Jack kept a good supply of soft cloths near to hand, for the purposes of tending to a lover who was sweaty and sticky. He stroked the Doctor reverently, cleaning him and soothing him, murmuring and reassuring him how perfect it had been.
"Is there such a thing as a glass of water?" the Doctor finally asked.
Jack laughed, helped the Doctor up off the mat, and showed him the hidden door at the rear of the cell that led into the shared common space - baths, toilets, and a small kitchen, where the Doctor helped himself to a glass of water.
"This Hive of yours, Jack," the Doctor said. "It's fairly nice, isn't it."
"I think so," Jack said, smirking to himself. The Doctor had a lovely post-coital glow, his hair was sticking up at every angle - and he was wearing a summer garment that fit Jack but hung a little loose on him.
"You wouldn't mind," the Doctor asked, "if I stayed a while?"
"I'd love it," Jack said. "Stay as long as you can."
"I think I will," the Doctor said, smiling tentatively at Jack.
And Jack, because he could, took the Doctor in his arms and kissed him tenderly, possessively, then took him back to bed and held onto him till morning.
Author: fannishliss
rating: Adult / NC17
Pairing: Jack/Eleven
Words: 8300
Spoilers: up through The Angels Take Manhattan
Author’s Note: Thanks to my beta, aililinnea. Any remaining errors are my own!
Prompt 13: 60th Anniversary, Diamond, Xenobotanist of the Sixth Hive, the Mutation
Summary: Jack has always loved the Doctor, but when the Doctor shows up to pick him up after hundreds of years have passed for both of them, Jack says no.
====
Jack sat crosslegged on his mat in the small clearing outside his cell, meditating, waiting, humming along with his sisters and brothers around the comb. The hum of the Hive was busy and pleasant on a calm afternoon. The sun was shining, the sky bright and clear. After a few days of rain, the clouds had cleared away, so that the trees around Jack's comb glistened with verdure. The Hive felt peaceful to Jack, its meaningful work proceeding, so many workers dedicated and happy, and Jack's cell was at the center of it all. Gentle tendrils of his awareness threaded along with his humming throughout the comb. He smiled. All was well.
"Jack, my brother."
Jack opened his eyes to the soft greeting. "Grelfth!" Jack rose to give his Hivemate a warm embrace. Grasping the tall, lanky canid by the arms, Jack gave a soft nuzzle to the cheek, and Grelfth returned the favor.
"How is the work of your comb, brother?" Jack asked.
"The swamps of the subtropic are rich in useful plants, Jack. My sisters and brothers have identified many useful compounds for the hive."
"Wonderful! You bring nectars to the Hive," Jack praised, formally.
Grelfth panted in his canid way, pleased.
Jack gave Grelfth his full attention as the xenobotanist began to outline the exciting finds he and his comb had made in the subtropical swamp. Some plants provided sustenance and fibers, others provided compounds for healing. Some had psychotropic effects on some species of the Hive, which would need more investigation to determine safety protocols. Grelfth was especially excited that two of his chemists had identified a versatile new polymer in their explorations.
Jack carefully thanked Grelfth for each accomplishment his comb had brought forward from their field work in the swamp over the past two years. In the sixty years since the Sixth Hive had swarmed to this world, exploratory combs had developed deep knowledge of a variety of ecosystems from around the planet, which in turn yielded up a vast treasury of resources. After sixty years of intense study, the Hive in their gratitude felt they had just begun to tap the riches of this new planet through diligent study and careful, intentional settlement.
"Did many of your comb find home in this swamp, Grelfth?"
Grelfth nodded. "I myself didn't find home there, Jack. It was too hot and wet there for one of my fur. But several sisters and brothers are eager for our Hive to hear of the gifts the swamp offers to avians and reptilians. I have to admit, the arthropods living in the waters there are tasty."
Jack smiled. "I remember a delicious stew that came from such a swamp on Earth, called Shrimp Gumbo." Jack felt a pang at the memory. It had been centuries since he'd tasted gumbo, and it would likely be centuries more. Jack described how the shrimp enhanced the rich broth with their seafood flavor, and in turn were enhanced by the savory spices of the gumbo.
Grelfth was an old friend, familiar with Jack's moments of nostalgia. He pressed his warm, furred side against Jack. "My brother Marn is a culinary wizard. I'll ask him about gumbo."
Jack pressed back gratefully. "Gumbo would be a sweet nectar to the Hive," he smiled. Jack knew that Marn's idea of gumbo might be very different from what he remembered, but he had no doubt that the culinarist would develop something equally tasty to offer to the Sixth Hive from the resources of their adopted homeworld.
"Our sister Coriza wove this for you, Jack," Drelfth said. From his satchel he pulled a long, gossamer-thin cloth dyed in hues of turquoise and emerald.
Jack eagerly accepted the gift from the beloved sister he hadn't seen in more than two long years. The soft, lightweight material was a delight for the fingers. "I didn't realize she'd come so far with the weaving and dying of the fiber," Jack said. "It's beautiful. And the cloth feels so delicate - yet strong. It's the new polymer?"
"Yes, she knew you'd like it - and it's an excellent sample for you to share with the combs."
"We'll need exceptional diligence to develop this fiber," Jack discerned. "Our agronomists say it can be responsibly harvested?"
"Yes, they think so. It's derived from the sap of a fast-growing, weedy plant. We should be able to produce the polymer without heavy impact on the swamp."
"An excellent nectar gathered to your comb," Jack praised, in the formal way of the Hive.
"Long may it ripen," Grelfth responded. Jack and Grelfth linked hands for a moment, acknowledging the exchange of praise.
"Coriza smiles, thinking of this cloth against your skin," Grelfth murmured, his eyes closed as he communed with his psionic partner. "She psis to remind you that time with you is a nectar we savor."
Jack smiled. Coriza was a beautiful Human, born to the Hive and blessed with the psi Mutation. She and Grelfth had been cellmates for years and had shared their mats with Jack on many sweet occasions.
"That nectar is always a delight to me," Jack said, nuzzling Grelfth.
The canid growled with pleasure at the thought. "She's eager to see you," he told Jack.
Jack hummed for a moment, turning his attention to his psilink with Coriza. The song of the Hive soothed him as he sifted through his links. There - Coriza, humming with satisfaction, finishing her work in Swamp Comb and eager to be back at Center Comb along with her cellmate - and, just as Grelfth had said, eager to sing with Jack again. She was singing along to another familiar song - Trumelly, a young avian Jack had first-linked with, how long ago, had it been three, or four years? Trumelly was not Hive-born, but the Mutation had quickly taken hold in her, and Jack had had the nectar of singing with her as she made her first psi-links with sisters and brothers at Center Comb. Jack brought the nectar of his singing to their psilink, and they sang out in celebration as they felt his presence. Jack had tasted the nectar of many such cross-linkages; the song of the Hive permeated deeply through his mind. Before he'd come to the Hive (had it really been four hundred years since the Third Hive... four centuries?) Jack had never imagined he would be tangled so integrally in so many lives - nor had he guessed he'd ever find a place that felt so right, so much like home.
"Coriza and Trumelly are linking strongly," Jack told Grelfth with a smile.
"Yes, Coriza feels it will be a very secure link."
"Coriza's links run deep, a sweet nectar to the hive," Jack praised.
Grelfth nodded. The talents of his dear cellmate brought greater joy to him, almost, than did his own. "You, Jack, are a sweet nectar to all of us in this Hive. Is there any psion, Hive-born or hithered, who has not linked with your singing in the center cells?"
"It is a sweet nectar to me," Jack affirmed, "to sing with so many, to add my humming to the great work of the Hive."
"I live by the song," Grelfth admitted, "but I could not sing with so many."
"Every singer sings as best he can," Jack quoted.
"If not for the center cells like you, Jack, there would be no Hive."
Jack shook his head. "There will always be a Hive. Even without the Mutation, the philosophy of the Hive would survive."
"The Hive flows with nectars for all," Grelfth agreed.
Jack rested his forehead against Grelfth's for a moment. He was about to ask if Grelfth could remain with him to share the evening repast, when a loud grinding noise filled the air around Jack's cell.
Jack's heart went mad in his chest as the grinding stopped with a resounding thump, and a tall blue box stood in Jack's clearing where nothing had been a moment ago.
Jack instinctively thrummed the threads of several of his closest linkages - and since his link with Coriza and Trumelly was currently open, his jangled response included them. He muted his reaction as best he could, but, regardless, the pitch and tempo and shape of the Hivesong felt his trepidation. The Hive reacted to this abrupt arrival as it would to an oncoming storm -- the singers hunkered down, their music pulsed low and heavy, dark and sweet. Jack felt the Hive throb around him as he waited for the Tardis door to open.
Jack was many times older now than the Time Lord had been when last they met. With his vortex manipulator disabled, Jack had lived and lived. He had joined the Hive hundreds of years ago, an unruly drone in a peripheral cell, buzzing and loud and ready to sting. The steady work had calmed him. Through the Third Hive, its swarming, the establishment of the Fourth Hive and its flourishing, Jack had moved inward, his place becoming more secure, his meaning and purpose becoming clearer as he gave himself over to the Hivesong. In the Fifth Hive, the central cells were his sisters and brothers, his children, his lovers. In the time of ripeness, in the fullness of swarming, the Sixth Hive with one mind had given Jack a central cell. That had been but sixty years ago, sixty years of plenitude, caretaking, loving, singing.
Jack had given up everything for the Hive: his life, his pain, his regret, his mission.
In return he'd received fulfillment, love, security, meaning, hope.
Grelfth pressed closer to Jack, growling a little in his throat, and Coriza was abuzz in Jack's mind. Was the arrival of this storm a threat, or would it offer sustenance and new life, new nectars?
Jack remembered a time that tall blue box had appeared and he'd clung to it with a grip stronger than death, following the man inside to the very end of Time itself. He remembered all he'd suffered for that man, how he'd never doubted, had believed he never would.
Now he sat cross-legged on a mat, his friend / brother / lover pressed protectively to his side, and Jack wondered at himself. Why wasn't he springing to his feet? Why wasn't he running to wedge himself through any crack in that door before the Tardis faded away?
He knew why.
He remembered when he'd first come across the Hive, so many years ago. Jack had first encountered the Hive on a well-settled planet; the Third Hive flourished alongside non-Hive drones who regarded them with some suspicion, but tolerated the Hive because of the peace and order and plenty their society brought with them wherever they swarmed.
They had stripped him of his clothes, his belongings, sealing them away as they did with every Hivemate. The nakedness and panic he felt at the loss of the vortex manipulator -- disabled though it was-- shamed him. He was given a cell, clothing, food, work, and time for sleep and play. Most importantly, the Hive offered Jack brothers and sisters who'd given up everything as well. They embraced him, figuratively and literally. Jack had no belongings, no secrets, and his uniqueness was treasured by the Hive.
With his latent psi talent, so similar to the Mutation, Jack immediately felt their calm intensity of purpose. His vast experiences, the thousands of years of his life, didn't make him a freak to them. The Hive reached out to him, accepting his uncanny differences as gifts, and he was embraced by a loving tribe that made him feel truly welcome. It was humbling, almost heartbreaking, to become one with so many, after so many lifetimes of alienation. The Hive was a place where Jack was finally truly able to subsume his own sorrows and regrets into some bigger purpose, to dedicate his unnaturally eternal life to some idea of a greater good.
He had found home.
Here, on this mat, four hundred years later, Jack was the same man he'd always been, but one thing had changed. He knew now, down to his core, how deeply he was treasured. Here, right beside him, was a brilliant xenobotanist, eager to share a mat with Jack for however long he had to offer, and Jack knew without a doubt in his heart how many other Hivemates felt the same.
Why had the Doctor appeared, here, now?
What did he want from Jack?
What was Jack prepared to give?
Jack felt Grelfth take his hand, and through his open link with Coriza he felt Grelfth's concern at Jack's evident turmoil, and their promise of support.
Coriza psied, "We love you, Jack," and Grelfth sent a surge of pure love echoing along with her message, which Jack returned with gratitude.
Jack assembled a thought package and sent it to Coriza: "It is my old friend / unrequited love, the Doctor (good, strong, dangerous, quixotic); across all my lifetimes I've loved him / he's hurt me. I love him / must talk with him / find out what he wants of me."
"Your Hive embraces you, Jack," Coriza psied back, still reverberating with Grelfth's non-verbal echoes of her sentiments.
"The Hive is all," Jack psied, a precept he'd lived by for centuries. Would it now continue to serve him well?
Jack and Grelfth stood as the Tardis door swung open and a head popped out.
"Hallo," the Doctor called, voice and smile cheerful, eyes as old as the founding of the First Hive.
"Hello, Doctor," Jack answered, and somehow he let go of Grelfth's hand, walked forward, took the ten or so steps to the threshold of the Tardis, wary as though it would somehow pull him in and away. Bravely, he opened his arms, offering the Doctor the embrace of a Hivemate.
"Captain Jack Harkness!" the Time Lord said through his new face. Not quite so tall as the Doctor Jack had last known, youthful face, floppy hair, and terribly overdressed by Hive standards.
Jack held his arms open and didn't correct the Doctor about a name he hadn't used for many lifetimes.
Awkwardly, the Doctor stepped fully out of the Tardis door and kissed the air on either side of Jack's face. "Mwah! Mwah!" the Doctor said, somehow avoiding all personal contact without completely rejecting Jack's offered embrace.
"Mwah!" Jack answered, laughing a little to himself as he kissed the air. The more the man changed, the more he stayed the same.
"And who is this?" the Doctor asked, not so rudely as Jack could have feared. Grelfth had stealthily padded forward to take his place just behind Jack's left shoulder.
'"My brother Grelfth, Xenobotanist of the Sixth Hive, currently in Center Comb from Swamp Comb." Jack gestured Grelfth forward, but his brother did not offer the Doctor the full Hive embrace, merely showing his spread hands, a Hivemate's greeting to drones and outsiders.
"The Sixth Hive!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Xenobotanist! Very good to meet you, Grelfth was it, and how did you enjoy the Swamp? Very... swampy?" he blathered. It was so very like him that Jack had to smile.
Gelfth's bushy tail wagged slightly, and he showed his teeth. "Very swampy, Doctor, a nectar to our Hive. May you bring nectar to Jack at this meeting!"
"Quite," the Doctor agreed with puzzlement, trying to adjust to the formalized speech patterns of Jack's Hivemate.
Grelfth fixed the Doctor with an unblinking stare from his wide yellow eyes. The Doctor swallowed nervously as Grelfth ostentatiously licked his teeth before continuing.
"Our Jack is a central cell of this Hive, Doctor. He no longer wears the assumed rank of 'captain' or the borrowed name of 'Harkness.' As a drone might say, he is like the brightest, most magnificent diamond in a resplendent crown - the Sixth Hive's greatest glory."
Grelfth took one step forward, and the Doctor's eyes widened further.
"This precious jewel, our Jack, is not a gift for me to give," Grelfth said, his voice deepening to a growl, "but our brother wishes, as drones might say, 'the pleasure of your company.' So..." Grelfth bared his teeth again in what Humans might think was a smile. "May his many nectars sweeten your time with us as we share with you the honey of the Sixth Hive."
With a slight dip of his head, Grelfth turned from the Doctor, embraced Jack and nuzzled his cheek thoroughly before stalking away.
Coriza laughed inside Jack's head, sending a thought package: "Grelfth was quite the pack tough as a pup before he joined the Hive. May this Doctor bring you nectar / don't let him hurt you / I miss you and I love you." Grelfth's echo was a bit more aggressive, but amused, and very warm toward Jack.
Jack smiled at the Doctor.
"May I offer you refreshment, Doctor? We have what passes for tea?" Jack laughed a little to himself, since he currently had two teas in his cell, and Grelfth had identified and developed both for Center Comb.
"Of course," the Doctor said, still a little off balance.
"Please sit," Jack invited, gesturing the Doctor onto the mat Grelfth and he had just vacated, while he prepared tea and biscuits for the Doctor.
The Doctor was looking around, more patient than Jack had ever known him, when Jack returned with the tea things.
Daintily the Doctor took a tiny nibble of the biscuit. "Very like a hobnob," he said, as a compliment.
"Thanks," Jack said, drinking from his own mug.
The Doctor took a slightly more comprehensive sip of his tea. "Mmm," he said noncommittally.
"The Hive sources local," Jack said, an understatement. "So this tea is grown right over there." Jack gestured vaguely through the trees. The Sixth Hive had swarmed to a planet so beautiful, lush, and productive, an eden of plants and birds and pollinators, that the cell of every member was a little haven in a greater paradise. Abundance through simplicity was a central Hive philosophy, and the essence of simplicity was to ensure that every comb was largely self-sufficient.
"You seem very much at home here, Jack," the Doctor said.
"The Hive has been my home - my family - for over four hundred years," Jack said.
"Wow," the Doctor answered. "That's wonderful, Jack!"
'"And what have you been doing all this time?" Jack asked, struggling to keep his voice on an even keel. "How long has it been for you?"
"Oh, yes, about four hundred years," the Doctor answered, not taking into account the millennia Jack had wandered. "Well, but you know, domestics: got killed, got married, forgotten by history, everyday sorts of things..."
Jack was flabbergasted. "What?" he managed, taking control of his dropped jaw.
"All very complicated, not important. What's important," the Doctor rattled, "is you, Jack. You."
"Me?" Jack said, hating the way his voice still slipped into vulnerability and longing after all this time.
"You, Jack," the Doctor said. "I..." The Time Lord paused, scratched his nose, peered at Jack. Jack felt the lightest flutterings as the Time Lord's mentality politely brushed at the surfaces of his mind. "I missed you. I'm lonely. I was hoping - you'd come with me. For a while."
"I can't," Jack said, before he even thought.
"What?" the Doctor asked, taken aback by Jack's immediate answer.
"Gosh, that didn't come out right," Jack said, blushing fiercely.
"Oh! Okay! Then let's make your goodbyes and we'll be off!" the Doctor said, beaming, leaping to his feet and dusting himself off.
"No - I mean - I'm sorry, Doctor," Jack elaborated, standing. "I'd love to go with you, really I would - I feel like I've been waiting forever for you to come back and find me - but not right now. I have obligations here. I'm part of this, the Hive. They're my family. They need me - and I need them."
"Oh," the Doctor said, crumbling.
"I love them," Jack whispered.
The Doctor's face fell even further, seeming every minute of his thousand-plus years.
"But I love you, too," Jack reminded him.
"I thought ... you might," the Doctor said, wistfully. "I ... needed you to."
"You needed me?" Jack prompted. "For what? A foil? Someone handy with an enormous gun? I haven't fired a weapon in centuries."
"No, Jack, nothing like that. I just needed... to be with... a friend. Who knows me," the Doctor whispered.
"What happened, Doctor?" Jack asked gently.
"Amy - Rory," he said. Jack assumed that these were companions the Doctor had traveled with. "River, too, maybe - I'm not sure. Locked into the past. My friends - locked away from me, Jack - no getting round it. I really had myself convinced this time, that it would last - just a little bit - longer..."
And with that, the Doctor dissolved into heartbroken sobs.
Instantly Jack had the Time Lord cradled against his body, rocking him back and forth in their standing position. Tears streamed from the Doctor's face as he sobbed. "I lost them, Jack. I lost them. Again."
Jack knew intimately what that was like. "I know, love. I know."
"It never gets better," the Doctor said, through his tears. "Losing them. I meet someone new, and it feels so wonderful, but every time, I hold myself back just a little more, even though that doesn't help. It hurts."
"I know," Jack said. "Believe me."
"But, but," the Doctor choked. "You're happy now. Happy here. How?"
"I'm part of it all," Jack explained. "There's no way to avoid losing people. But when I lose a Hivemate, I'm not the only one in mourning. We all mourn. It makes a difference, mourning and remembering, together. And then the time comes when the memory is sweeter than the bitterness of loss. A sweet..."
"...nectar of the Hive?" the Doctor said, getting ahold of himself. He sniffled a little and looked up at Jack, searchingly.
"It's not just an empty mantra to us," Jack said. "It's real. The Hive is all."
"I can see that, Jack," the Doctor said. "I can hear it. The song of the Hive is beautiful - and you - you're right at the heart of it."
"It's taken me hundreds of years to get here, Doctor - I can't just go. I never thought," Jack said, stroking the Doctor's back gently, "I never dreamed, if you came for me, that I would say no."
Jack felt the Doctor stiffen at his rejection.
"No," Jack said, "it's not that I don't want to - it's that I can't. Not right now. Maybe in several years, after the Mutation deepens the links of this Hive, I'll be freer to travel with you for a while. You can always go now, and come right back to find me some time later."
The Doctor was silent. Jack had never seen him this needy, even in the earliest days. Rose had told Jack that he'd asked her twice to come with him. Jack supposed the Doctor had done that all of never before.
"But Doctor - you can always stay here, with me," Jack said. "Stay for a while, share my cell. It's lovely here. You should try it."
"Really, Jack," the Doctor said, but there was a little doubt, a little openness in his response.
"What, is there some law of the Time Lords that I don't know about: 'the renegade known as the Doctor shall never park his Tardis and go on holiday'?"
"Ha," the Doctor scoffed. "They would have made such a law, if they'd ever learnt the concept of a holiday."
"Well, Hive law decrees that when someone needs a holiday, they get one," Jack said.
"Hive law?" the Doctor said.
"No," Jack admitted, "we don't have laws. It's all consensus. But no one would ever dream of allowing a Hivemate to go too long without a holiday."
"Very civilized of you," the Doctor agreed.
"The Hive is by far the most civilized society I've ever known," Jack said proudly.
"Sounds dull," the Doctor sniffed.
"Dreadfully dull. Haven't had a rising despot since the Second Hive, and that was only for two weeks or so, before he was ejected."
"You eject people?" the Doctor asked.
"Rarely," Jack said. "It happens." Jack had seen ejected drones, their anger and pride and desperation as they straggled away with their restored belongings, the wealth the Hive had accrued for them awaiting them back in drone society.
"Hm," the Doctor said.
"Finish your tea," Jack advised, sitting back down and patting the mat beside him.
The Doctor did.
After the tea was gone, the Doctor slapped his hands lightly on his thighs, at a loss.
"What would you like to do next?" Jack asked.
"What is there to do? I mean, with no despots..."
"Take a walk, do chores, meet with friends, brainstorm problems..." Jack counted off on his fingers. "Weaving, gathering, cooking, brewing, pickling, sewing, pottery, carpentry, mechanics, engineering, numbers, philosophy, poetry..."
The Doctor looked overwhelmed by the idea of so many everyday tasks. Except for tinkering with his Tardis, the Doctor didn't do 'everyday.'
"Take a walk it is," Jack said. He put his tea things away, and for the rest of the afternoon, Jack led the Doctor around the comb, showing him everything. Center Comb was a large city that appeared to be a string of small villages, interspersed with farms and parks. Jack's cell, surrounded by trees, was near the very heart of it. Jack showed the Doctor gardens and kitchens and factories and schools and museums and concert halls - most of which seemed to be all of these at once. The dwellings were the most unique: honeycombs of tiny rooms, almost bare of belongings, usually with mats, a few pieces of clothing, a tech tablet or two, sometimes a musical instrument.
Everywhere they went, Jack was greeted by his Hivemates, sometimes with a handclasp, often with an embrace, always with a smile which he happily returned.
Finally returning to Jack's cell, the Doctor flopped down on the mat and welcomed another cup of tea.
"You're kind of a big deal here, Jack," the Doctor said.
Jack nodded. "The Hive's need is the sweetest nectar," he quoted.
"Tell me more about this Mutation," the Doctor said, his curiosity glinting in his eyes.
"Well, it's psionic, viral, non-species specific; about one-tenth of Hivemates experience the Mutation to a greater or lesser degree at some point in their lives."
"Psi talent helps hold your consensus-based Utopia together," the Doctor observed.
"Yes," Jack agreed. "It helps us communicate our beliefs non-verbally and with absolute conviction."
"Hmm," the Doctor mused. "You must have fit right in."
"Right!" Jack scoffed. "Have you even met me? By the time I found the Hive I was a mess of so much subterfuge and justification and lies, I was a walking corpse of open wounds and scar tissue. Furious, helpless, lost, suspicious, angry - you name it. I took the cake."
"So how...?"
"Well, there's always sex. The Hive was like a swinger's paradise - or so I thought at the time. Lock my clothes in a box, get a few inoculations, and go on a permanent vacation with hot chicks and chaps of every species.... "
"But that didn't happen?" the Doctor asked, blushing.
"Oh, yeah, man. It totally did. Did it ever! But it wasn't like I thought. It wasn't even, what they used to call when I was a kid, 'enlightened shared pleasure.' They wanted me. They wanted to know me. I can still remember how that absolutely sent me into a spinning panic when I figured it out. They didn't just want my face, my body, my lines, my smile- they wanted me, who I was inside. And I wasn't even sure who that was anymore."
The Doctor just waited, looking at Jack, silent.
"Bit by bit they opened me up. One lover at a time - or, you know, however many it took. Those first Hivemates of mine, they must have been saints, is all I can figure. Jana, Buchara, Simone, Rivera - Kali, Capma, Drosh, Joey - Kithera -" Jack glazed over for a moment, thinking of his earliest Hivemates, the care they'd taken in cracking him open, bringing him in, seeing through his protective masks to the starving man within. He still wasn't quite sure how they'd done it, when he'd been so lost he'd given up hope of ever being found.
"Hmm," the Doctor nodded, cheeks burning, determinedly tolerant.
"I thought, maybe that's what my work would be in the Hive," Jack said. "I thought maybe that's why they wanted me, because I had fewer hangups, and I was pretty good at it."
"Hmm," the Doctor agreed, wide-eyed.
"But that wasn't it. That's not really how the Hive operates, despite how it looks sometimes from the outside. Kithera was in fact a registered Therapist, fully qualified to administer deep orgasmic release - but she was the best therapist I've ever known, with or without sex. She took me apart and put me back together."
"Good?" the Doctor ventured.
"Yes," Jack smiled. "I thought, at the time, that family was over forever for me. I was so old by then. I couldn't get involved. Everyone seemed so fleeting, like dust before we even said hello. But I couldn't think that way at the Hive. Everything slowed down. People were living intentionally, taking their time, making things matter. It struck a chord in me, and they wanted me, really wanted me, to be a part of it. So I never looked back. My old kit is still in a box somewhere in Center Comb- it always shows up in the usage inventory on my tablet."
"Hm?" the Doctor asked. Jack knew he was an inveterate pack rat; with infinite storage space he'd never needed not to be.
"Usage inventory." Jack snagged his tablet from atop the chest just inside his cell, thumbed it on, and showed it to the Doctor.
"Registered Psion Jack. Center Comb, East Central Region, Eastern Continent, planet Kepler 62F, Sixth Hive. Central cell Psion, five thousand four hundred twenty-three active links," he read. "Whoosh!"
"Yeah, it can get pretty loud in here, but I manage," Jack said.
The Doctor read on: "Level One Hive planner. Class one transportation access. All access cultural clearance. Human standard nutritional allotment. Six large summer garments; rain cloak; outdoor mat; indoor mat, padding, blanket, and pillow; tablet; storage chest (personalized). Summer footwear. Tea set by special allotment. Four large pillows by special allotment. Four embroidered cushion covers (gift). Assorted jewelry (gifts). Assorted textiles (gifts). Pottery bowl (gift). Initial storage location 6CCNW01X060268. No additional storage."
The Doctor stared at Jack. "That's your entire ... that's everything you..." He leaned his head back and peered inside Jack's cell. It was a small room, dominated by a mat along one wall, some cushions heaped along it, a beautifully painted storage chest just by the door. The opening from inside to outside didn't close, not even with a curtain, but as he peered inside, he felt a faint staticky feeling - a mild force field.
"Keeps out the inclement weather," Jack said, reading the Doctor's expressions with ease.
"And everyone lives like this?" the Doctor asked. "I carry more in my pockets than that lot!"
"Sure," Jack said. "We live communally - our work is done in common rooms, our play is done outdoors or in culture temples. Artisans might have tools or workrooms allotted - but Hivemates don't generally carry those sorts of things to their cells."
"Hmm!" the Doctor said.
"The Hive provides," Jack quoted, trying to convey to the Doctor just how true the precept really was. The Doctor nodded, frowning a little.
"And right now, the Hive is providing the evening repast - if you care to join me?" Jack said, standing.
The Doctor and Jack made their way along a tree-lined path to a large open building. Hivemates were streaming in from every direction, many different species all united by a common philosophy. Inside, there were various cafeteria lines by species type. Jack angled toward the Human line and received a tasty looking meal on a tray - a curry? on rice?- along with a drink Jack identified as supplemental nutrition keyed to his specific needs. The Doctor declined.
"Is it always the same?" the Doctor asked as Jack ate.
"No - it's seasonal," Jack replied. "And there are smaller, specialized cafes here and there that cater to certain species. My friend Grelfth goes to a canid place on the east side, whenever he's in Center Comb."
The Doctor grimaced, clearly recalling Grelfth's sharp fangs.
Jack smirked and carried on eating. Coriza, and thereby Grelfth, were keeping low-level awareness open to Jack's mood while the Doctor visited.
After Jack finished, he offered to take the Doctor to a Human cantina not far away. It was a pleasant walk through the mild summer evening.
"Tell me about Amy and Rory and River," Jack said, breaking the cardinal rule.
"Amy - started out as a little girl - but I skipped forward by mistake - and she was a beautiful, feisty young woman, and Rory is her husband, and River is their daughter."
"So," Jack said, frowning, "you got married? To ... Amy and Rory?" Triads weren't out of ordinary to Jack, but the Doctor had seemed too hemmed in for the notion.
"No - to River. She skips around so much in time, she's older now than her parents. Paradox galore! I rather thought you might have met her."
"Maybe I still will," Jack said.
The Doctor seemed to relax a little, smiling and laughing as he told stories about his Ponds as he called them. Jack listened with interest as the Doctor rattled on, knowing how important it was to share good memories in times of mourning.
They sat until late in the Human cafe spooning frozen custard out of bowls, the Doctor reminiscing, and Jack just taking in the miracle of the mad nomad, still for once, sharing his innermost thoughts. The cafe owners drummed them out at last, giving the Doctor a chillbox full of custard for the road.
They walked back under the stars, the Doctor swinging the chillbox by its handles.
"What are you waiting for?" Coriza sang in Jack's head.
"Quiet you!" Jack psied with fond humor - and mentally battened down the hatches till the links in his head receded to a low murmur, the peaceful roar of the ocean just beyond the dunes.
Jack reached out and caught the Doctor's free hand. The Doctor stopped, surprised. Was he really so reserved in this incarnation? But then, hesitant, he smiled at Jack, and the cool Gallifreyan hand warmed a little to Jack's human heat.
"What are your constellations called?" the Doctor asked as they strolled.
"Well, we know the stars, of course, so our poets and mythographers have been trying to fit the patterns we see here to stories about the stars that make sense."
"No mean feat!" the Doctor said, smiling.
"See there - that's our view of the Orion molecular cloud complex. We call it 'Tears in Rain.' And just there, that's Tannhauser Gate."
"Oh," the Doctor said. "Yes. Rory made me watch that film."
"It's amazing how some things endure," Jack said softly.
"You," the Doctor said. "You endure."
"I have no choice," Jack answered, gazing up at the stars. Tears in Rain was a brilliant cluster in the sky - not so dim as the handful of pearls it had resembled from far away, long ago Earth.
"There's always a choice, Jack," the Doctor smiled, squeezing Jack's hand in his slightly. "You haven't just locked yourself away somewhere. You're - living. Really living."
Jack pondered for a moment. "I think it was the moment I stripped off that vortex manipulator," Jack said. "It scared me to have it sealed away, but I was so much freer without it than with it. I had to make that commitment to be where I was, making real connections with the people around me. I couldn't just hop away. I see now why you kept disabling it."
The Doctor's smile was wry. "I knew there must have been a reason."
Jack squeezed the Doctor's hand a little harder. "I hope you won't hop away."
The Doctor glanced back at him. "But I'm just a visitor here. I can't just 'join the Hive.'"
"First of all," Jack retorted, "you could join the Hive. You just don't want to settle down. Second of all, there's no Hive law prohibiting visitors!"
"You told me before, there's no Hive law, period."
"You got it," Jack said, grinning. "Besides, our consensus is that welcoming visitors helps deter rumors about the Hive. It's good public relations."
"No good using me in an ad campaign," the Doctor said. "Erased from history, you know."
Jack just shook his head.
They arrived back at Jack's cell. The Tardis stood like a sentry in the starlight.
"Will you stay?" Jack said, not willing to let the Doctor go, unless he had to.
The Doctor took Jack's hand in both of his.
"I wanted you to travel with me. But maybe, if I stay right here, you can show me how to go on living."
"Come on in then. Leave your shoes there," Jack said, slipping off his summer clogs. "You're wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing. It's not like it's cold in the Tardis!"
"It is cold!" the Doctor said defensively. "In places."
"If you stay, I'll want to touch you," Jack warned, silkily. "And I want all those clothes out of the way."
The Doctor blushed, but Jack could see that he liked the idea. He defended himself with a mocking tone: "Am I supposed to wear one of your 'summer garments'?"
"You could go naked. No one would mind."
Jack helped the Doctor out of his coat, his waistcoast, his bowtie and braces, kissing and stroking him till he was down to his vest and small pants.
"Is this okay? Really?" Jack said, lying back with the Doctor on his sleeping mat. It was so much more comfortable than it looked, Jack knew, and he did have plenty of pillows. The Doctor nodded, but wiggled awkwardly, trying to get comfortable.
"What about - your wife?" Jack said, just trying to wrap his mind around what the Doctor's wedding must have been like: a last ditch attempt to restore order to a broken universe, but somehow, something more.
"We see each other when we can," the Doctor said, vaguely, punching his pillow.
"And you don't know from time to time whether you'll ever see her again?" Jack asked gently.
"No," the Doctor said. "I just wait - for a message - any kind of sign. I really don't know."
"Talk about your long-distance relationship," Jack said, thinking about the mutual dreaming sessions he'd shared with Grelfth and Coriza the two years they'd been at Swamp Comb. He kept one hand on the Doctor, petting him absently, gently. He seemed skittish, a little shy but clearly eager for Jack's touch.
"Yes. Well. She's a terrific girl," the Doctor said. "Wild. Terribly smart. Impulsive. Brave. And such a flirt! You'd love her."
"I hope I do meet her some time," Jack said.
"I can't bear the thought you might never meet her," the Doctor whispered, intently.
"I will then, Doctor. I'll make sure," Jack promised, palming the Doctor's neck.
"That's ... all right then," the Doctor said, trying to calm himself again.
"Are you comfortable yet?" Jack asked softly.
"I'm getting there," the Doctor said, hesitant.
Jack smiled. "There's no rush - unless you need there to be."
"I do," the Doctor quickly said. "I need rushing. Please."
Jack lay his hand flat on the Doctor's chest, feeling the double pounding within. "Okay," he said. "Whatever you want - I'll make it happen."
"I don't know what I want," the Doctor said. "I never have."
"I'll make it happen anyway," Jack promised, and kissed him.
Jack felt the Doctor's body thrumming with tension against his own. He'd known two incarnations and both of them had been so different, yet still, somehow, they were the same man. The blue-eyed Doctor would never have let Jack lay him down and play the dominant. The brown-eyed one was much the same, though he seemed a little more willing to play. Both of them had shied away from physicality - whether with Jack or with Rose, who had clearly adored him. Jack's spirit had been brightened when the Doctor's meta-crisis duplicate had chosen to live out his life with the feisty Tyler woman - Jack had always liked Rose, and especially, who she helped the wounded, angry Doctor try to be.
This Doctor, though- he was a mess of new complexes. He was playful, diffident, eager - even, Jack sensed, tending to submissive. In public there was no doubt he'd still make the life or death decisions with arrogant sureness as he'd always done- but in private, he longed to give himself over to a knowing hand. Jack wanted to meet this River even more with every second that passed, the Doctor lying open and receptive to Jack's tender ministrations.
The Doctor's body seemed so young. Jack had stopped aging as a physically mature man in his thirties - this body seemed much younger than that. His skin was milky white and tender, his body slender (but deceptively strong), and when Jack touched him he shivered all over, almost flinching from the intensity. Jack feathered his touches softer and softer until they barely connected. The Doctor seemed to feel Jack's hands even when there was no actual contact. It was enthralling, shaping the air around the Doctor's body and watching the Time Lord arch toward him in pleasure.
After a little while, the Doctor's hand floated toward Jack's temple.
"Jack," the Doctor whispered, "if you don't mind - it would help me if our minds were to touch -"
"Wonderful," Jack smiled. "There's nothing more erotic, in my experience."
The Doctor's fingers connected with Jack's temples and suddenly the Time Lord was there, his sublime mental presence towering over Jack, hovering just outside Jack's consciousness, waiting for permission.
"Please, dear heart - come in!" Jack invited.
The vast presence swept inside Jack's mind like a storm, edging out any other psilink near the surface of Jack's conscious mind. The Doctor didn't present to Jack as a voice or a self-image or any string of symbols. He presented as a giant, flashing cloud, full of ideas and impulses. Essentially he was like an animated image of the active brain. Jack basked in the heat and the thunder and lightning that sped through as the Doctor's thoughts flashed by. Jack didn't try to keep up, because he knew it was futile, but he tried to listen and pay attention to as much of it as he could.
Jack lay his hand on the Doctor's waist and tried to calm him, pressing him close and breathing along with him.
"Relax," Jack said.
"I can't let go," the Doctor said. "That's why I need you."
"Okay," Jack said, "do you need me to step it up?"
"Mm-hmm," the Doctor affirmed.
"Lie still then. Lift your arms up above your head. Grasp your left wrist with your right hand and don't let go."
The Doctor shivered and instantly his body relaxed a little more into Jack's sleeping mat.
"I want you to say, 'if it pleases you, Jack,'" Jack tried.
The Doctor flushed, bright patches appearing high on his cheek bones and down his throat to his chest. Sweetly, softly, he whispered, "If it pleases you, Jack."
"Oh, yes, dear one, it pleases me very much," Jack said. "May I take off the rest of your clothes?"
"Yes, if it pleases you, Jack," the Doctor said, very nicely. Jack tried to imagine the blue-eyed or the brown-eyed Doctor surrendering to him so easily. He knew that this part of the Doctor had always been there, but deeply defended. This incarnation was much more vulnerable and open - much more easily hurt- than the two who been so badly wounded and trying so hard to get better.
"You're beautiful like this, my dear," Jack said, stroking the expanse of milky skin from chest to thigh. "Would you enjoy it if I kissed you - here?" Jack kissed softly the nipple closest to him.
The Doctor moaned and arched toward him. "Oh yes, Jack, if it pleases you."
"So obedient!" Jack praised. "So good! And so delicious!" The Doctor's skin smelt vaguely of honey, citrus, some delicate topical spice Jack couldn't put a name too. His nipple was delicious, seeming to emit some concentrated essence of the Doctor's honey flavor, the more Jack licked and suckled.
Jack nuzzled the Doctor, praising him and teasing him, till both nipples were taut and bright red, and the Doctor was shivering constantly.
"May I taste you, here, as well?" Jack whispered. He slipped a coaxing hand down to the Doctor's genital opening. Like Jack's canid lover Grelfth, and others Jack had known, it seemed that the Doctor's genitalia were carried inside his body.
"If-if it pleases you, Jack," the Doctor stuttered.
"It pleases me very much," Jack said. "Keep your hands over your head, please," he ordered.
"Thank you, Jack- I mean - if it pleases you," the Doctor moaned.
Jack slipped his body between the Doctor's thighs. "Open your thighs, dear one," Jack commanded.
"Oh Jack, oh yes, if it pleases- pleases you," the Doctor stammered.
"Hush, my love - it's okay if your words won't come. Just say, if you need me to stop, say 'Slitheen.'"
The Doctor laughed, and Jack smiled as his body relaxed just that much more.
"Now, what have we here. A pleasant little portal. Naked, and soft. I'd love to kiss it." Jack wondered what counted as naughty talk for Time Lords. Probably anything up to and including "hold my hand."
"Oh, please," the Doctor said, opening his thighs a little wider.
Jack lowered his mouth to the Doctor's groin, licking along the slit, savoring the delicious honeyed essence beginning to seep out of him. "Do you know how fantastic you taste? I've been smelling this off you for ages - to finally get to taste it - you naughty, naughty boy- "
The Doctor moaned as Jack caressed him with his tongue, lapping and sucking, till at last, the Doctor's organ began to emerge.
"Jack, oh Jack!" the Doctor begged, as Jack kissed and suckled on the stiff, emerging organ, red and wet and eager.
"Can you tell me what you need, my love?" Jack asked. "Just think it."
He lifted the Doctor's fingers to his temples. The cascade of the Doctor's thoughts was glorious, delirious with pleasure and need, and a gorgeous image came to the forefront.
"Yes, of course, my dear one," Jack panted, as heat poured through him.
He kissed his way back up the Doctor's body, to his mouth, and began to kiss him deeply, suckling his mouth the same way he'd done elsewhere, and the Doctor moaned at the sympathetic feeling. Jack slotted his own cock against the Doctor's - feeling the delightful sensation as the Doctor's pleasure centers connected with his own.
"Oh, that feels so good, my dear - thank you," Jack moaned. He held back as much as he could - longing to thrust against the sweet, slick cock that tingled against his own with a building, mysterious ecstasy - but he wanted to let the Doctor set the pace.
"Do it, Doctor - thrust up against me," Jack said, holding himself still. For a moment, he thought the Doctor wouldn't, but then, a gorgeous ecstatic feeling sang into him as the Doctor thrust up, sliding against him, held together between their bellies. Fire, ecstasy - Jack gritted his teeth and held on.
"Yes, yes, my love -" Jack struggled to say. "Do it - fuck me, Doctor!"
"Jack!" the Doctor shouted, his hips spasmodically thrusting up into Jack's as ecstasy poured out of him and into both of them. Touching his forehead to the Doctor, Jack could feel the Time Lord's release as his mentality blossomed into blissful abandon.
Jack kissed the Doctor's mouth and face as he came back to himself. All that time, and his hands were still clasped obediently over his head.
"Beautiful," Jack praised. "Thank you, my love. So good."
Jack kept a good supply of soft cloths near to hand, for the purposes of tending to a lover who was sweaty and sticky. He stroked the Doctor reverently, cleaning him and soothing him, murmuring and reassuring him how perfect it had been.
"Is there such a thing as a glass of water?" the Doctor finally asked.
Jack laughed, helped the Doctor up off the mat, and showed him the hidden door at the rear of the cell that led into the shared common space - baths, toilets, and a small kitchen, where the Doctor helped himself to a glass of water.
"This Hive of yours, Jack," the Doctor said. "It's fairly nice, isn't it."
"I think so," Jack said, smirking to himself. The Doctor had a lovely post-coital glow, his hair was sticking up at every angle - and he was wearing a summer garment that fit Jack but hung a little loose on him.
"You wouldn't mind," the Doctor asked, "if I stayed a while?"
"I'd love it," Jack said. "Stay as long as you can."
"I think I will," the Doctor said, smiling tentatively at Jack.
And Jack, because he could, took the Doctor in his arms and kissed him tenderly, possessively, then took him back to bed and held onto him till morning.