mediasavant: Sorted (Jack/Ten) [NC-17] (SUMMER HOLIDAYS, PROMPT 3)
Title: Sorted
Author: mediasavant
Pairing: Jack/Ten
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/warnings: End of S2 Torchwood
Challenge: Summer Holidays
Prompt group: 3: dirt - pain - fear - anger
Summary: Ianto makes a call to get Jack the help he needs, but he doesn't know that Jack isn't the only one who's floundering.
**
He'd finally had to admit it was a problem when Ianto had used that old, tired line. 'Don't worry, Jack,' he had said. 'It happens to every man from time to time,' he'd said. It was the fact that the man had been so understanding that had really gotten to him. It might happen to every man, but he wasn't just every man. He was Jack Harkness.
Ianto had been understanding, but the next morning he was on the telephone to one Dr. Martha Jones. He knew Jack and he knew it most certainly wasn't normal. He told her what was wrong, which seemed insignificant on its own. A little trouble in bed, he had said to start. But then he gradually worked into the trouble sleeping. The trouble breathing. The strange and new distaste for darkness. There were other things, but what he'd said was enough to get her to say the words he had wanted to hear.
“I'll call him. He'll know what to do.”
***
Jack hadn't expected to see the Doctor again for a long time. It had been more than a century's wait, he could easily do that again. The sound of the TARDIS settling on the invisible lift was a shock to him. He wasn't suspicious, though. Not until he saw Ianto's face.
The Doctor sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and rocked onto the balls of his feet when he stopped. He looked around Torchwood Three and when he lifted his eyes higher, he smiled brightly.
“Is that a pterodactyl? Brilliant! Out of time, but it looks happy. Can't think of a better place than Cardiff if you're a pterodactyl.”
“You can't tell me you came all this way to see my dinosaur,” Jack replied as he stepped out of his office.
He sounded fine, which was the most troubling part to Ianto. He was quite used to Jack avoiding questions and dodging concerns, but outright faking happiness was just not him.
“Actually, I came to see you. I need you, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
“I have work to do,” Jack said. That was the last straw.
“I'm sure we can manage, Jack,” said Ianto from over the Doctor's shoulder. “If the Doctor came here, it must be important. Go and be a hero.”
Jack leveled a steady, suspicious gaze at Ianto. The man, as usual, was unreadable, and the Doctor's face gave away nothing. He grabbed his coat and left with the Doctor. Ianto tidied up the office and hoped that all the captain needed was a Doctor who could fix what was wrong.
***
They stepped out of the TARDIS into lush woods. The air was clean and fresh and there were songbirds all around. It was lovely and peaceful. Jack was suspicious.
“What's going on here?” he asked. “Doesn't seem like there's anything you need me for.”
“I lied,” the Doctor told him. “I thought we should talk. I've heard you're not doing well.”
Jack's posture became a little straighter and a chill fell between them.
“I'm fine,” he said.
“Rubbish. None of us are fine,” the Doctor shot back as he began to walk. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took long strides through the undergrowth. Chill or not, Jack followed along.
“It was a hard year on you. On the Valiant,” the Doctor started. “And with your Torchwood team. I am sorry to hear about that, Jack.”
Jack remained silent.
“And then there's that bloody Time Agent and the bombs in Cardiff and if I understand correctly...”
The Doctor trailed off as they came to the edge of the woods and looked out across a field. There was a mound of dirt and three men standing there. One moved to embrace another and the flash of a blade glinted in the sun. A moment later, the man in the long, dark coat fell into the ground.
“...it all comes back to your brother.”
Jack stared, gaping at the scene. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked as the man in the red coat took up a shovel and began to fill the hole. It looked so different from here.
“Well, you see, Jack, the way I reckon, even for someone who can't die, a couple thousand years underground and another stretch in the cooler can't be healthy. I think, Captain, you need a Doctor.”
He knew, Jack realized. He turned and for the first time he let the anguish and fear show through. Ianto. Ianto had to have made arrangements. He was the only one who had been close enough to see how near Jack was to breaking. He wasn't sure if he felt grateful or betrayed. Either way, the Time Lord stood erect, hands in his pockets, and watched what was happening across the field.
“I do,” Jack said finally. “I don't know...I can't make this better. I feel so...”
“I know,” the Doctor replied, finally turning to look at Jack. His eyes were dark and Jack noticed how strong the thin, wiry man truly was. He was positively terrifying-
And then he smiled.
***
“I don't understand why you didn't dig yourself out, Jack,” said the Doctor as he stood at the doorway to the room where the captain had been showering for the last half hour. “It's not as if you didn't have time.
“Penance,” said the man. “I figured I could at least stay where he put me. And I knew John would come for me eventually. It's why he tossed the ring in the hole”
The Doctor was quiet for a while. He knew what it felt like, that impulse to do something to prove his penitence.
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid you'd never be found?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No. I knew that if not John, then...you.”
“Me?”
Jack turned, his body perfect and clean with water beading on his skin and rivulets running down over muscle. He really was beautiful, the Doctor thought as his eyes scanned the bare flesh.
“You,” he replied. “That was one of a few ideas I clung to to keep from going crazy.”
The Doctor had come to help Jack, but with that statement he realized just how much he may need Jack's help as well. Slowly, he peeled his suit off and left it in a heap on the floor. He stepped into the shower and was against Jack, his mouth finding the captain's lips and drinking in a slow kiss. Jack, he wasn't shocked to find, reacted. His heart sped up at the kiss, then more when the delicate and strong hands explored the perfect, immortal body. The captain protested once, but the Doctor shushed him and pushed him back against the slick tile.
“I told you I needed you,” he said. “What did you think I meant?”
Whatever Jack had thought evaporated when the Doctor's hand slid lower and took him in hand. Ever since they had put Tosh away and cleaned up after her and Owen, Jack had been haunted. Nothing Ianto did made any difference. He had been afraid he'd have to explain to the Doctor that he wasn't up to this sort of thing, but he felt a familiar rush of blood and his eyes fell closed. His head fell back and hit the wall...and he groaned.
“Did it hurt?” the Doctor asked again, quiet and against his skin.
“Yes,” Jack answered in a low register.
“Were you afraid?” repeated the Time Lord.
“God, yes,” came the whimpered answer. Jack was grateful for the warm water still flowing over both of them, the trails covering the tracks of his tears.
“I've come for you, Jack,” the Doctor told him with absolute certainty. “This is your rescue.”
Jack wrapped his arms around the lithe body and traced the wiry muscles along the Doctor's back. He was clinging, he knew it, and he was shameless about it.
“You should have come sooner,” he insisted, his voice gilded with anger. “We could have gone anywhere. You could have come for me and not disturbed the timeline.”
“No, Jack. I couldn't. That would have been...” He paused to think, forming himself against Jack's body as he began to stroke, just to silence the man. “...like turning left instead of right. You've done your penance. I'm not going to absolve you, but I can help.”
They moved as a unit out of the shower, the stream still running down the drain. The Doctor kissed him hungrily, vaguely disturbed by the warm tingle that he knew came straight from Jack and not from any lust or desire. Into another room and onto a bed, his hands never stopped touching the man. He'd been honest about no absolution. He wasn't a priest- nor was he resolutely celibate. Now that Jack wasn't traveling with him, his own staunch rules didn't apply. He'd often wondered what it would be like to take Jack up on one of the suggestions. Now he knew. The man wasn't so wrong as he'd once thought.
Jack was willing and continued to cling, his hips rocking forward into the Doctor's grip. He gasped, arched, writhed. He was sure he was losing his mind. He craved speed; he wanted to feel alive. The Doctor picked up on it and shifted. He made quick work of preparing the man and it wasn't long before he was driving into him, gasping at the feeling of him. He wasn't a priest, but it had been so long. He hated the base, primitive idea of using sex to forge a connection, but right now, it seemed, it was what they both needed.
His hand moved away and Jack took up where the Doctor had left off. He stroked his cock furiously, desperate to feel, desperate to banish the fear and anger and pain from his mind with the same ease of washing away the dirt and filth. He pulled his legs higher and babbled almost incoherently, gasping and begging. The slide and drag as the Doctor pistoned his hips pushed him closer to the edge and he spilled in his hand, striped his stomach, and still he arched and clung for more. They may have compatible bodies, but the Doctor was nowhere near close. He opened his mind and crept into Jack's, finding the connection he so desperately needed. An eternity passed with every heartbeat, eons with every thrust. Time ceased to mean anything as they both moved in tandem, gasping and groaning and uttering purely primitive sounds.
By the time the Doctor came with the force and power of a supernova, they crumpled together and laid still. A unit. A duo that would be together for a long, long time. The Doctor knew it; Jack knew it, too. There was the whole of space and time before them and in this short span they both had what they needed to keep going.
***
Ianto hadn't even finished brewing a new pot when he heard the TARDIS. What had it been, five minutes? Surely Jack couldn't be better. When he and the Doctor came back through the entrance, Ianto could see just how wrong he was.
“Nice trip?” he asked, not wanting any concrete details.
“Great,” Jack replied, all smiles and confidence- just as he ought to be.
The Doctor looked at Ianto and offered up a shy, charming smile that came nowhere near Jack's dazzling grin.
“Sorted,” was all he said as the man looked at his captain.
“Would you like a coffee, then?” Ianto asked, never taking his eyes off Jack.
“Nah, things to do. Places to go. Civilizations to save...”
“Blondes to pick up,” Jack added.
“I was thinking that a brunette would be less trouble,” The Doctor answered quickly, watching Jack as he took off his greatcoat.
“What's this about brunettes?” Gwen asked, coming in late. “Sorry, Rhys couldn't find his mobile,” was her excuse for her tardiness.
The three men looked at her and they were all smiling. Even Ianto. She wondered what she'd missed.
“Right. I'll be off. Good to see you all. Keep out of trouble,” The Doctor said, then gave Jack a weak salute and turned to the door.
“Right! Okay, so...what's on the sensors this morning,” Jack asked after the Time Lord was gone. Ianto continued to smile. It was good to have things back to business as usual.
Author: mediasavant
Pairing: Jack/Ten
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/warnings: End of S2 Torchwood
Challenge: Summer Holidays
Prompt group: 3: dirt - pain - fear - anger
Summary: Ianto makes a call to get Jack the help he needs, but he doesn't know that Jack isn't the only one who's floundering.
**
He'd finally had to admit it was a problem when Ianto had used that old, tired line. 'Don't worry, Jack,' he had said. 'It happens to every man from time to time,' he'd said. It was the fact that the man had been so understanding that had really gotten to him. It might happen to every man, but he wasn't just every man. He was Jack Harkness.
Ianto had been understanding, but the next morning he was on the telephone to one Dr. Martha Jones. He knew Jack and he knew it most certainly wasn't normal. He told her what was wrong, which seemed insignificant on its own. A little trouble in bed, he had said to start. But then he gradually worked into the trouble sleeping. The trouble breathing. The strange and new distaste for darkness. There were other things, but what he'd said was enough to get her to say the words he had wanted to hear.
“I'll call him. He'll know what to do.”
***
Jack hadn't expected to see the Doctor again for a long time. It had been more than a century's wait, he could easily do that again. The sound of the TARDIS settling on the invisible lift was a shock to him. He wasn't suspicious, though. Not until he saw Ianto's face.
The Doctor sauntered in with his hands in his pockets and rocked onto the balls of his feet when he stopped. He looked around Torchwood Three and when he lifted his eyes higher, he smiled brightly.
“Is that a pterodactyl? Brilliant! Out of time, but it looks happy. Can't think of a better place than Cardiff if you're a pterodactyl.”
“You can't tell me you came all this way to see my dinosaur,” Jack replied as he stepped out of his office.
He sounded fine, which was the most troubling part to Ianto. He was quite used to Jack avoiding questions and dodging concerns, but outright faking happiness was just not him.
“Actually, I came to see you. I need you, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
“I have work to do,” Jack said. That was the last straw.
“I'm sure we can manage, Jack,” said Ianto from over the Doctor's shoulder. “If the Doctor came here, it must be important. Go and be a hero.”
Jack leveled a steady, suspicious gaze at Ianto. The man, as usual, was unreadable, and the Doctor's face gave away nothing. He grabbed his coat and left with the Doctor. Ianto tidied up the office and hoped that all the captain needed was a Doctor who could fix what was wrong.
***
They stepped out of the TARDIS into lush woods. The air was clean and fresh and there were songbirds all around. It was lovely and peaceful. Jack was suspicious.
“What's going on here?” he asked. “Doesn't seem like there's anything you need me for.”
“I lied,” the Doctor told him. “I thought we should talk. I've heard you're not doing well.”
Jack's posture became a little straighter and a chill fell between them.
“I'm fine,” he said.
“Rubbish. None of us are fine,” the Doctor shot back as he began to walk. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took long strides through the undergrowth. Chill or not, Jack followed along.
“It was a hard year on you. On the Valiant,” the Doctor started. “And with your Torchwood team. I am sorry to hear about that, Jack.”
Jack remained silent.
“And then there's that bloody Time Agent and the bombs in Cardiff and if I understand correctly...”
The Doctor trailed off as they came to the edge of the woods and looked out across a field. There was a mound of dirt and three men standing there. One moved to embrace another and the flash of a blade glinted in the sun. A moment later, the man in the long, dark coat fell into the ground.
“...it all comes back to your brother.”
Jack stared, gaping at the scene. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked as the man in the red coat took up a shovel and began to fill the hole. It looked so different from here.
“Well, you see, Jack, the way I reckon, even for someone who can't die, a couple thousand years underground and another stretch in the cooler can't be healthy. I think, Captain, you need a Doctor.”
He knew, Jack realized. He turned and for the first time he let the anguish and fear show through. Ianto. Ianto had to have made arrangements. He was the only one who had been close enough to see how near Jack was to breaking. He wasn't sure if he felt grateful or betrayed. Either way, the Time Lord stood erect, hands in his pockets, and watched what was happening across the field.
“I do,” Jack said finally. “I don't know...I can't make this better. I feel so...”
“I know,” the Doctor replied, finally turning to look at Jack. His eyes were dark and Jack noticed how strong the thin, wiry man truly was. He was positively terrifying-
And then he smiled.
***
“I don't understand why you didn't dig yourself out, Jack,” said the Doctor as he stood at the doorway to the room where the captain had been showering for the last half hour. “It's not as if you didn't have time.
“Penance,” said the man. “I figured I could at least stay where he put me. And I knew John would come for me eventually. It's why he tossed the ring in the hole”
The Doctor was quiet for a while. He knew what it felt like, that impulse to do something to prove his penitence.
“Did it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid you'd never be found?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No. I knew that if not John, then...you.”
“Me?”
Jack turned, his body perfect and clean with water beading on his skin and rivulets running down over muscle. He really was beautiful, the Doctor thought as his eyes scanned the bare flesh.
“You,” he replied. “That was one of a few ideas I clung to to keep from going crazy.”
The Doctor had come to help Jack, but with that statement he realized just how much he may need Jack's help as well. Slowly, he peeled his suit off and left it in a heap on the floor. He stepped into the shower and was against Jack, his mouth finding the captain's lips and drinking in a slow kiss. Jack, he wasn't shocked to find, reacted. His heart sped up at the kiss, then more when the delicate and strong hands explored the perfect, immortal body. The captain protested once, but the Doctor shushed him and pushed him back against the slick tile.
“I told you I needed you,” he said. “What did you think I meant?”
Whatever Jack had thought evaporated when the Doctor's hand slid lower and took him in hand. Ever since they had put Tosh away and cleaned up after her and Owen, Jack had been haunted. Nothing Ianto did made any difference. He had been afraid he'd have to explain to the Doctor that he wasn't up to this sort of thing, but he felt a familiar rush of blood and his eyes fell closed. His head fell back and hit the wall...and he groaned.
“Did it hurt?” the Doctor asked again, quiet and against his skin.
“Yes,” Jack answered in a low register.
“Were you afraid?” repeated the Time Lord.
“God, yes,” came the whimpered answer. Jack was grateful for the warm water still flowing over both of them, the trails covering the tracks of his tears.
“I've come for you, Jack,” the Doctor told him with absolute certainty. “This is your rescue.”
Jack wrapped his arms around the lithe body and traced the wiry muscles along the Doctor's back. He was clinging, he knew it, and he was shameless about it.
“You should have come sooner,” he insisted, his voice gilded with anger. “We could have gone anywhere. You could have come for me and not disturbed the timeline.”
“No, Jack. I couldn't. That would have been...” He paused to think, forming himself against Jack's body as he began to stroke, just to silence the man. “...like turning left instead of right. You've done your penance. I'm not going to absolve you, but I can help.”
They moved as a unit out of the shower, the stream still running down the drain. The Doctor kissed him hungrily, vaguely disturbed by the warm tingle that he knew came straight from Jack and not from any lust or desire. Into another room and onto a bed, his hands never stopped touching the man. He'd been honest about no absolution. He wasn't a priest- nor was he resolutely celibate. Now that Jack wasn't traveling with him, his own staunch rules didn't apply. He'd often wondered what it would be like to take Jack up on one of the suggestions. Now he knew. The man wasn't so wrong as he'd once thought.
Jack was willing and continued to cling, his hips rocking forward into the Doctor's grip. He gasped, arched, writhed. He was sure he was losing his mind. He craved speed; he wanted to feel alive. The Doctor picked up on it and shifted. He made quick work of preparing the man and it wasn't long before he was driving into him, gasping at the feeling of him. He wasn't a priest, but it had been so long. He hated the base, primitive idea of using sex to forge a connection, but right now, it seemed, it was what they both needed.
His hand moved away and Jack took up where the Doctor had left off. He stroked his cock furiously, desperate to feel, desperate to banish the fear and anger and pain from his mind with the same ease of washing away the dirt and filth. He pulled his legs higher and babbled almost incoherently, gasping and begging. The slide and drag as the Doctor pistoned his hips pushed him closer to the edge and he spilled in his hand, striped his stomach, and still he arched and clung for more. They may have compatible bodies, but the Doctor was nowhere near close. He opened his mind and crept into Jack's, finding the connection he so desperately needed. An eternity passed with every heartbeat, eons with every thrust. Time ceased to mean anything as they both moved in tandem, gasping and groaning and uttering purely primitive sounds.
By the time the Doctor came with the force and power of a supernova, they crumpled together and laid still. A unit. A duo that would be together for a long, long time. The Doctor knew it; Jack knew it, too. There was the whole of space and time before them and in this short span they both had what they needed to keep going.
***
Ianto hadn't even finished brewing a new pot when he heard the TARDIS. What had it been, five minutes? Surely Jack couldn't be better. When he and the Doctor came back through the entrance, Ianto could see just how wrong he was.
“Nice trip?” he asked, not wanting any concrete details.
“Great,” Jack replied, all smiles and confidence- just as he ought to be.
The Doctor looked at Ianto and offered up a shy, charming smile that came nowhere near Jack's dazzling grin.
“Sorted,” was all he said as the man looked at his captain.
“Would you like a coffee, then?” Ianto asked, never taking his eyes off Jack.
“Nah, things to do. Places to go. Civilizations to save...”
“Blondes to pick up,” Jack added.
“I was thinking that a brunette would be less trouble,” The Doctor answered quickly, watching Jack as he took off his greatcoat.
“What's this about brunettes?” Gwen asked, coming in late. “Sorry, Rhys couldn't find his mobile,” was her excuse for her tardiness.
The three men looked at her and they were all smiling. Even Ianto. She wondered what she'd missed.
“Right. I'll be off. Good to see you all. Keep out of trouble,” The Doctor said, then gave Jack a weak salute and turned to the door.
“Right! Okay, so...what's on the sensors this morning,” Jack asked after the Time Lord was gone. Ianto continued to smile. It was good to have things back to business as usual.