ADVENT: Christmas Kiss & Other Seasonal Rituals
Notes: ‘Wintereenmas’ comes from the wonderful web comic Ctrl+Alt+Del, and for the uninitiated is the gamers’ holiday. This one seems to have gotten away from me a bit. Longest advent so far!
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Late that night the TARDIS was humming with contentment, a psychic sensation that her human occupants couldn’t possibly pick up on although they might wake up feeling a little better than usual. Her pilot could pick up on it though, and frowned softly up at the ceiling of the junk pile he called a bedroom.
“What’s gotten into you?”
No answer, just a slightly deeper humming, nearly a purr. His TARDIS wasn’t a young girl anymore (truth be told she wasn’t even young when she’d let him steal her) and wasn’t given to purring over nothing at all; he remembered once he’d spent a week tuning and fixing her up and only got pleased approval for his efforts. So what the hell had gotten her in such a good mood? But she was ignoring him for now. Well, just one thing to do then! It took longer than he’d have liked to navigate the piles of tech (his), books (eight’s) and toys (seven’s) that he’d stepped on and crushed more than once. As always he made a note to ask his ship to clear all the crap out of there as he left, knowing that he’d forget about it as soon as something more interesting came along.
As it turned out that happened about two minutes later when he walked into the control room and in on what he hoped was making his ship purr like a kitten. The Captain seemed to be deeply involved in polishing one of the TARDIS’ many levers, and by the gleaming of the console to the man’s left he’d apparently been at it for quite some time. Although why he felt he had to do it shirtless was something even his advanced brain couldn’t quite figure out. Jack Harkness was all too often a distracting, handsome, enigma and the Doctor was loath to admit to himself that that was big reason why he hadn’t just dropped him off in the 51st Century the moment he’d first stepped aboard. Huffing to himself, he crossed his arms across his chest and levelled a Look on his companion. If Jack noticed, he didn’t give any sign of it, just moved onto the next lever with a little grin. The Doctor didn’t like it one bit that that grin corresponded with a particularly pleased trilling from his ship.
“What the hell are you doing, Captain?!”
“Giving the TARDIS a good polish so she’s feeling as good as she looks. Why, what does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re trying for a spread in some second rate porn rag.”
Jack’s laughter was not what he was aiming for, but all too often it was what he got. He couldn’t complain about it though, since his laugh was so infectious it often lifted even his stubborn mood.
“Don’t worry, Doc. I’m saving that in case the drink doesn’t work.” And there was the cheeky wink he’d gotten so used to.
Shaking his head, he dropped into the flight seat and watched the human work for a few moments, content to take in how diligently those strong hands worked at bringing out the shine his ship hadn’t had since Before. Layers of oil and grime were worked away under the small, insistent circles Jack worked with the soft cloth and some cleaner that smelt suspiciously like Jack’s gun collection. When it didn’t seem as though the captain was about to start up another round of flirting banter, the Doctor relaxed back against the seat and kicked his feet up on the shining edge of the console. The dirty look and offended tingle that earned were roundly dismissed by a short snort.
“Why’re you doing this anyway? There’s a thousand little jobs that need doing around here if you were going to start fiddling around. Why clean the console?”
“Just doing something nice for her. Gorgeous girl like her should always look her best, right?” Silence for a few moments as Jack worked and the Doctor tried to catch his gaze. When he finally managed it, it was only for a few seconds before bright blues skittered away again to the brass-like metal he was buffing.
“Captain.” The Doctor snapped warningly, earning him an exasperated sigh. Didn’t look like Jack was going to put up a big fight over this, though; he was so much easier to handle when there wasn’t an audience for the human to play up to. “Why?”
“You’re a paranoid bastard, you know that?”
“So are you. Now answer the question Captain.”
“I already did, Sir.” Jack smirked and gave him a lazy salute before turning back to the job at hand with a little shrug of those muscled shoulders. The Doctor felt sure that it was just the TARDIS’ current enjoyment somehow transferring to him over their shared link that made him watch the shifting of strong muscles under tan skin with more than just a passing interest. In fact it took him a moment to realise that Jack was still talking, a sharp defensive edge to his tone. “My internal clock’s telling me it would be around Wintereenmas on my time. So, I figured I’d do something nice for beautiful here, that’s all. Nothing else. No plan to seduce anyone. No plan to steal her, or blow things up. I’m just going to polish up her controls, and then go to my own bed. Alone. Ok? Now if you’re not going to help, kindly shove off back to the batcave.”
He was quiet for a long moment, just watching Jack work before his words finally made their way through the labyrinth of his mind. They registered, and the Timelord finally lifted his gaze from Jack’s arse. “Help?”
“Yeah. You know the thing where you grab a cloth and get started on the other side of the control panel?”
The Doctor considered the small box of cleaning products Jack had apparently found somewhere (he hadn’t seen that bottle of polish in at least a decade!), and missed the wry look Jack shot his way.
“What’s in it for me Captain?”
“The joy and satisfaction of spreading a little more of the Wintereenmas spirit about the Universe?”
“Don’t celebrate Wintereenmas. Or Christmas. Or Yule or any other number of human seasonal rituals.” The Doctor smirked up at Jack, his leather jacket protesting softly as he crossed his arms across his chest. “Going to have to do better than that!”
“What, not even say... a Christmas kiss?”
Jack was smirking right back at him in just the way that made him itch to wipe it off the Captain’s face. He thought that maybe the human knew that, and that was why he was doing it now; half bent over the console, half naked and smirking there was no way that Jack didn’t know how very good he looked. So, he thought he could play? The Doctor would show him how to play! He rolled out of the flight seat and onto his feet with ease, the grating chiming softly under his feet. Stalking closer, he watched Jack’s expression carefully but there wasn’t even a flicker of worry in the smirk, not even when he leant over him as imposingly as he could manage. If anything it seemed to get brighter. He’d just have to try harder.
“Only a kiss? That’s tame for you, Captain.”
“If you want more all you gotta do is ask, Doc.”
Twisting around with more grace than he would have attributed to the man, that damn smirk came within inches of him. Gazes locked for a moment, and abruptly it was too late to step back from this bout of teasing and flirting. It wasn’t certain which one of them moved first, but the harsh crush of lips came as a surprise to them both, and only Jack’s grip in his shoulders stopped him from pulling away. When he finally stopped fighting to get away from the kiss and instead started fighting to take control of it, he swore he could hear the TARDIS cheering them on.