dameruth: "Weightless" (Ten/Jack) [PG]
Author:
dameruth
Challenge: AU
Rating: PG
Warnings: "Doomsday," fluff, and cute baby TARDIS warnings.
Series: Tales From the Findersverse
Summary: With Rose away, the boys will play! (Ten/Jack/Rose AU OT3, with a Ten/Jack focus for this story).
A/N -- This story is set in one of my long-running AU 'verses, the "Findersverse," in which Ten, Rose and Jack are reunited and traveling as an OT3. I took the series AU long before the S3 finale, and used my own explanation for Jack's "immortality" -- namely that he and Rose were both linked to the TARDIS's life force as a result of the events of TPOTW . . . so Rose in this 'verse shares Jack's long life and ability to come back from apparent death. She found a way back to the Doctor, and then together they found Jack, who retired from Torchwood (after seeing Earth safely through the 21st century) to travel with them again.
A certain degree of domesticity comes from the presence of Junior, Jack's baby TARDIS (following the fanon idea that that's what the lump of coral on Jack's desk in the Hub actually is), and Rose's adopted ward, Rhanri. However, as this story opens Rose has taken Rhanri on a side trip, leaving our boys to their own devices . . . and entertainments.
This 'verse rather stalled out in terms of writing momentum a while back, and I thought this challenge would be a great place to try and get writing in it again. Note that all TARDIS biology here is entirely my own invention, and I make no claims for it matching up with canon . . .
Jack plied the sonic rasp with a will; the fine dust and “coral” shavings he was working off one of Junior’s peripheral branches were sucked instantly into the rasp’s attached vacuum filters - an absolute necessity, seeing that Jack was working in zero-gee and otherwise the parings would have been floating in a dense, irritating cloud. Fortunately, the trill of the rasp and buzz of the vacuum were subdued, allowing Jack to hum audibly as he worked. Junior, listening closely, sang along, his unique, silvery telepathic “voice” twining in alien harmonies around the main thread of melody Jack provided.
Right now, Jack was favoring twentieth century Earth showtunes and musing on whether there’d be any way to get a timeship a Broadway agent, his thoughts free to drift as he worked on the routine chore. Trimming the excess growth from Junior’s organic substance (if that wasn’t an oxymoron, seeing how the main component was silicon, rather than carbon) was a daily task now that Junior was maturing. Eventually he’d be able to look after his own shaping, but just for now he still needed his Dad’s help and Jack was happy to oblige. Junior’s company was always soothing.
Junior had finally grown to the point of full encapsulation, and was encased in his own impermeable, dimensionally transcendent skin. His internal environment was now completely separate and sovereign from any other portion of Reality, allowing him to provide Jack with helpful working conditions at a whim. Jack was glad; climbing through the latticework of branches in full-gee and trying to trim stray growth spurs while hanging on with one hand was a royal pain. Not to mention that maintaining internal conditions different from the exterior (in this case, the incubation bay within the Doctor’s TARDIS) was good practice for the youngster.
Junior still wasn’t bothering to form rooms within his internal space - which was just as well, since it made fitting the prosthetic mechanical pieces required for time travel into Junior’s biological matrix that much easier. By the time his growth was complete, Junior would be a fully-fledged cyborg, the natural state for his genetically-engineered kind.
“And then you’ll fly,” Jack told the ship, patting one branchlet as he shifted to trim another spur.
Junior purred before joining Jack in a heartfelt, if odd, rendition of “Music of the Night.”
They were about halfway through the song when Junior’s external door opened suddenly, admitting the Doctor.
“Jack, I - ack!” As the Doctor passed into Junior’s internal environment, his feet went out from under him in unexpected weightlessness. He flipped forward with his residual momentum, but being an old and experienced space traveler he recovered quickly. Rather than flailing in a useless attempt to regain his lost balance, he pulled in his arms and legs to conserve momentum and let himself “fall” horizontally in a graceful somersault until he reached a solid surface - which happened to be Junior’s almost-complete central control column.
Jack chuckled, watching as the Doctor caught the edge of the control panel and regained equilibrium. Jack was currently hanging in Junior’s matrix well “above” the control panel, though since he was in a reversed orientation, the panel was “up” in regards to his own personal perspective, and it was the Doctor who was upside down.
“Tsk,” Jack called out. “Don’t you know it’s bad manners to barge in like that without knocking? Or at least poking your head in to check internal conditions?”
The Doctor snorted, twisting his head to spot Jack in the maze of Junior’s branches. “If we're talking about manners, I was expecting the courtesy of a sign on the door if you had the environmental settings too far off normal.”
Jack shrugged, finishing his trim job and pocketing the rasp. Cutting and talking was a bad idea, in his experience. “With Rose and Rhan still on walkabout, I assumed the only two people on board were a couple of experienced mechanics who knew better.”
The Doctor gathered his legs beneath him and pushed off from the control panel in Jack’s direction, navigating like a pro, moving with enough force not to stall out, but not overshooting his marks by so much as a millimeter. When he reached Jack, he caught the branch immediately in front of Jack’s face with one hand and used it as a pivot point to gracefully reverse his orientation, coming to rest right-side-up by Jack’s standards - polite zero-gee etiquette. The Doctor’s hair, impressive enough under regular gravity conditions, stopped moving a few seconds after the rest of him, settling into a startling dandelion-puff around his head.
“Never assume, Captain,” he said, pointedly, though his general expression was cheerful, "you know what that makes you and me . . ." He ran an affectionate hand along one of Junior’s branches. “How’s our boy prodigy then?”
“Fine,” Jack told him with a smirk. “Junior’s doing well, too.” The Doctor rolled his eyes, but didn’t dignify Jack’s attempt at humor with any other response. Jack continued, unperturbed, “He’s kind of on an Andrew Lloyd Webber kick right now, but it could be worse.”
“Hm, I thought I heard something from Phantom when I opened the door,” the Doctor agreed. Then, because he could never leave a conversational hook alone, added, “Worse how? Not that I think Phantom of the Opera is bad, mind you, but inquiring minds and all . . .”
Jack grinned. “Well, with Rhan out of earshot, I could finally teach Junior those raunchy Boeshane sea shantys I’m always threatening.”
“You are not teaching anything of the sort to an underage timeship,” the Doctor informed him, going prim and huffy. “Not while I have a say.” He looked so adorably schoolmasterish (an effect heightened by the silver sideburns he’d developed over the years), Jack couldn’t resist tweaking him.
“Aw, Doc, it’s not like he’d ever be able to repeat the words to anyone - Rhanri’s tender ears are safe. And I know for a fact Rose has heard worse. Hell, I’ve heard her sing worse. Besides,” he flashed his baddest bad-boy smirk, “how’d you stop me?”
Something dark and amused sparked in the Doctor’s eyes and he leaned forward and planted a very thorough kiss on Jack’s lips. When they parted, the Doctor met Jack's surprise with a sharp, challenging grin.
“I find distraction to be an effective strategy, most of the time,” he said. Then he tightened his grip on Junior’s branch, flexing his arm muscles to provide the initial motivation for a flip “over” and behind Jack, gaining speed as he went. Just before he took off into the maze of Junior’s branches, he gave Jack's backside a very un-schoolmasterish pinch.
Jack twitched in momentary shock, caught himself, and swung around in pursuit. “You realize,” he said, as he caught the next branch in sequence and used it as a pushing-off point, “this,” another branch, and gaining speed, “means war?”
“Hah! Counting on it! Allons-y!” the Doctor called back.
The complex game of tag that followed was fairly evenly matched; the Doctor had centuries of extra experience, and an eel-like grace when slipping through the coral matrix, but Jack, being more closely bonded to Junior, had a greater intuitive grasp of the matrix’s layout and shortcuts. Several kisses, grabs and outright gropes were landed by both parties until the Doctor, at bay in a tight cul-de-sac of branches, managed to turn the tables on Jack and get one long arm solidly wrapped around Jack’s chest and arms. He followed up on his advantage by wrapping his legs around Jack’s and bracing his free arm at full length against the nearest branch, isolating Jack helplessly in midair.
“Surrender?” he murmured in Jack’s ear, the cool puff of his breath making sensitive skin prickle in response.
Jack pretended not to shiver, and replied, “Oh, yeah - in fact, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last five minutes, but you wouldn’t stand still.”
“Mm,” the Doctor said, nibbling very daintily at Jack’s earlobe. “Is that what you were trying to do?” His tone was teasing, but he loosened his grip on Jack, letting him work one arm free.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” Jack responded, trying for nonchalance and probably failing. He reached out and braced his free hand next to the Doctor’s on the branch. “What were we fighting about, again?”
The Doctor slid partially around Jack’s body, though he didn’t release him. His grin was bright and wicked. “If you don’t remember, I won’t remind you - that was the whole idea. Besides, does it matter? Far more constructive to move on to reparations and make-up . . .” he dropped a feather-light kiss on Jack’s throat, “treaties.”
Jack growled deep in his throat and tried to decide if it was karmic punishment or reward that he’d ended up traveling through time and space with the only bastard sexier than himself. “Yeah, let’s give peace a chance,” he said, before wriggling his other arm free and grabbing the back of the Doctor’s head to pull him in for a serious kiss.
After a few minutes, Jack surfaced enough to gasp, “Y’know, if we don’t relocate soon, we won’t just be teaching Junior dirty songs - he’ll be getting the slideshow.”
The Doctor laughed. “And here I thought you might like a chance to show what you can do in zero-gee.”
Jack rolled his eyes, and flexed his arm to pull them closer to the wall of branches. “What is it with people and zero-gravity sex?” he asked in a rhetorical tone. “It always sounds like more fun than it is. Outside of a few party tricks you really need the kind of leverage you get from gravity.”
“That’s your expert opinion?” the Doctor asked, still amused, letting Jack disengage enough to begin pulling them both towards the exit.
“Yeah, it is - though if you can talk the TARDIS into giving us about two-thirds standard gee when we get out there, that’s a whole ‘nother story . . .”
Junior saw them out with a cheerful, baroquely ornamented tune that might have been either “Love Changes Everything” or else Rose’s favorite bawdy Denebian drinking song. Either way, it was appropriate.
dameruth
Challenge: AU
Rating: PG
Warnings: "Doomsday," fluff, and cute baby TARDIS warnings.
Series: Tales From the Findersverse
Summary: With Rose away, the boys will play! (Ten/Jack/Rose AU OT3, with a Ten/Jack focus for this story).
A/N -- This story is set in one of my long-running AU 'verses, the "Findersverse," in which Ten, Rose and Jack are reunited and traveling as an OT3. I took the series AU long before the S3 finale, and used my own explanation for Jack's "immortality" -- namely that he and Rose were both linked to the TARDIS's life force as a result of the events of TPOTW . . . so Rose in this 'verse shares Jack's long life and ability to come back from apparent death. She found a way back to the Doctor, and then together they found Jack, who retired from Torchwood (after seeing Earth safely through the 21st century) to travel with them again.
A certain degree of domesticity comes from the presence of Junior, Jack's baby TARDIS (following the fanon idea that that's what the lump of coral on Jack's desk in the Hub actually is), and Rose's adopted ward, Rhanri. However, as this story opens Rose has taken Rhanri on a side trip, leaving our boys to their own devices . . . and entertainments.
This 'verse rather stalled out in terms of writing momentum a while back, and I thought this challenge would be a great place to try and get writing in it again. Note that all TARDIS biology here is entirely my own invention, and I make no claims for it matching up with canon . . .
Jack plied the sonic rasp with a will; the fine dust and “coral” shavings he was working off one of Junior’s peripheral branches were sucked instantly into the rasp’s attached vacuum filters - an absolute necessity, seeing that Jack was working in zero-gee and otherwise the parings would have been floating in a dense, irritating cloud. Fortunately, the trill of the rasp and buzz of the vacuum were subdued, allowing Jack to hum audibly as he worked. Junior, listening closely, sang along, his unique, silvery telepathic “voice” twining in alien harmonies around the main thread of melody Jack provided.
Right now, Jack was favoring twentieth century Earth showtunes and musing on whether there’d be any way to get a timeship a Broadway agent, his thoughts free to drift as he worked on the routine chore. Trimming the excess growth from Junior’s organic substance (if that wasn’t an oxymoron, seeing how the main component was silicon, rather than carbon) was a daily task now that Junior was maturing. Eventually he’d be able to look after his own shaping, but just for now he still needed his Dad’s help and Jack was happy to oblige. Junior’s company was always soothing.
Junior had finally grown to the point of full encapsulation, and was encased in his own impermeable, dimensionally transcendent skin. His internal environment was now completely separate and sovereign from any other portion of Reality, allowing him to provide Jack with helpful working conditions at a whim. Jack was glad; climbing through the latticework of branches in full-gee and trying to trim stray growth spurs while hanging on with one hand was a royal pain. Not to mention that maintaining internal conditions different from the exterior (in this case, the incubation bay within the Doctor’s TARDIS) was good practice for the youngster.
Junior still wasn’t bothering to form rooms within his internal space - which was just as well, since it made fitting the prosthetic mechanical pieces required for time travel into Junior’s biological matrix that much easier. By the time his growth was complete, Junior would be a fully-fledged cyborg, the natural state for his genetically-engineered kind.
“And then you’ll fly,” Jack told the ship, patting one branchlet as he shifted to trim another spur.
Junior purred before joining Jack in a heartfelt, if odd, rendition of “Music of the Night.”
They were about halfway through the song when Junior’s external door opened suddenly, admitting the Doctor.
“Jack, I - ack!” As the Doctor passed into Junior’s internal environment, his feet went out from under him in unexpected weightlessness. He flipped forward with his residual momentum, but being an old and experienced space traveler he recovered quickly. Rather than flailing in a useless attempt to regain his lost balance, he pulled in his arms and legs to conserve momentum and let himself “fall” horizontally in a graceful somersault until he reached a solid surface - which happened to be Junior’s almost-complete central control column.
Jack chuckled, watching as the Doctor caught the edge of the control panel and regained equilibrium. Jack was currently hanging in Junior’s matrix well “above” the control panel, though since he was in a reversed orientation, the panel was “up” in regards to his own personal perspective, and it was the Doctor who was upside down.
“Tsk,” Jack called out. “Don’t you know it’s bad manners to barge in like that without knocking? Or at least poking your head in to check internal conditions?”
The Doctor snorted, twisting his head to spot Jack in the maze of Junior’s branches. “If we're talking about manners, I was expecting the courtesy of a sign on the door if you had the environmental settings too far off normal.”
Jack shrugged, finishing his trim job and pocketing the rasp. Cutting and talking was a bad idea, in his experience. “With Rose and Rhan still on walkabout, I assumed the only two people on board were a couple of experienced mechanics who knew better.”
The Doctor gathered his legs beneath him and pushed off from the control panel in Jack’s direction, navigating like a pro, moving with enough force not to stall out, but not overshooting his marks by so much as a millimeter. When he reached Jack, he caught the branch immediately in front of Jack’s face with one hand and used it as a pivot point to gracefully reverse his orientation, coming to rest right-side-up by Jack’s standards - polite zero-gee etiquette. The Doctor’s hair, impressive enough under regular gravity conditions, stopped moving a few seconds after the rest of him, settling into a startling dandelion-puff around his head.
“Never assume, Captain,” he said, pointedly, though his general expression was cheerful, "you know what that makes you and me . . ." He ran an affectionate hand along one of Junior’s branches. “How’s our boy prodigy then?”
“Fine,” Jack told him with a smirk. “Junior’s doing well, too.” The Doctor rolled his eyes, but didn’t dignify Jack’s attempt at humor with any other response. Jack continued, unperturbed, “He’s kind of on an Andrew Lloyd Webber kick right now, but it could be worse.”
“Hm, I thought I heard something from Phantom when I opened the door,” the Doctor agreed. Then, because he could never leave a conversational hook alone, added, “Worse how? Not that I think Phantom of the Opera is bad, mind you, but inquiring minds and all . . .”
Jack grinned. “Well, with Rhan out of earshot, I could finally teach Junior those raunchy Boeshane sea shantys I’m always threatening.”
“You are not teaching anything of the sort to an underage timeship,” the Doctor informed him, going prim and huffy. “Not while I have a say.” He looked so adorably schoolmasterish (an effect heightened by the silver sideburns he’d developed over the years), Jack couldn’t resist tweaking him.
“Aw, Doc, it’s not like he’d ever be able to repeat the words to anyone - Rhanri’s tender ears are safe. And I know for a fact Rose has heard worse. Hell, I’ve heard her sing worse. Besides,” he flashed his baddest bad-boy smirk, “how’d you stop me?”
Something dark and amused sparked in the Doctor’s eyes and he leaned forward and planted a very thorough kiss on Jack’s lips. When they parted, the Doctor met Jack's surprise with a sharp, challenging grin.
“I find distraction to be an effective strategy, most of the time,” he said. Then he tightened his grip on Junior’s branch, flexing his arm muscles to provide the initial motivation for a flip “over” and behind Jack, gaining speed as he went. Just before he took off into the maze of Junior’s branches, he gave Jack's backside a very un-schoolmasterish pinch.
Jack twitched in momentary shock, caught himself, and swung around in pursuit. “You realize,” he said, as he caught the next branch in sequence and used it as a pushing-off point, “this,” another branch, and gaining speed, “means war?”
“Hah! Counting on it! Allons-y!” the Doctor called back.
The complex game of tag that followed was fairly evenly matched; the Doctor had centuries of extra experience, and an eel-like grace when slipping through the coral matrix, but Jack, being more closely bonded to Junior, had a greater intuitive grasp of the matrix’s layout and shortcuts. Several kisses, grabs and outright gropes were landed by both parties until the Doctor, at bay in a tight cul-de-sac of branches, managed to turn the tables on Jack and get one long arm solidly wrapped around Jack’s chest and arms. He followed up on his advantage by wrapping his legs around Jack’s and bracing his free arm at full length against the nearest branch, isolating Jack helplessly in midair.
“Surrender?” he murmured in Jack’s ear, the cool puff of his breath making sensitive skin prickle in response.
Jack pretended not to shiver, and replied, “Oh, yeah - in fact, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last five minutes, but you wouldn’t stand still.”
“Mm,” the Doctor said, nibbling very daintily at Jack’s earlobe. “Is that what you were trying to do?” His tone was teasing, but he loosened his grip on Jack, letting him work one arm free.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” Jack responded, trying for nonchalance and probably failing. He reached out and braced his free hand next to the Doctor’s on the branch. “What were we fighting about, again?”
The Doctor slid partially around Jack’s body, though he didn’t release him. His grin was bright and wicked. “If you don’t remember, I won’t remind you - that was the whole idea. Besides, does it matter? Far more constructive to move on to reparations and make-up . . .” he dropped a feather-light kiss on Jack’s throat, “treaties.”
Jack growled deep in his throat and tried to decide if it was karmic punishment or reward that he’d ended up traveling through time and space with the only bastard sexier than himself. “Yeah, let’s give peace a chance,” he said, before wriggling his other arm free and grabbing the back of the Doctor’s head to pull him in for a serious kiss.
After a few minutes, Jack surfaced enough to gasp, “Y’know, if we don’t relocate soon, we won’t just be teaching Junior dirty songs - he’ll be getting the slideshow.”
The Doctor laughed. “And here I thought you might like a chance to show what you can do in zero-gee.”
Jack rolled his eyes, and flexed his arm to pull them closer to the wall of branches. “What is it with people and zero-gravity sex?” he asked in a rhetorical tone. “It always sounds like more fun than it is. Outside of a few party tricks you really need the kind of leverage you get from gravity.”
“That’s your expert opinion?” the Doctor asked, still amused, letting Jack disengage enough to begin pulling them both towards the exit.
“Yeah, it is - though if you can talk the TARDIS into giving us about two-thirds standard gee when we get out there, that’s a whole ‘nother story . . .”
Junior saw them out with a cheerful, baroquely ornamented tune that might have been either “Love Changes Everything” or else Rose’s favorite bawdy Denebian drinking song. Either way, it was appropriate.