fic: Two Can Play At That Game (19/?)
Title: Two Can Play At That Game
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Spoilers: in a general sense
Disclaimer: I'm too tired to care if they get me
Summary: When Martha uses the Chameleon Arch, Jack helps with the Doctor's new life...
Notes: Whacko!AU!Muse surprised me with a sudden burst of manic energy that hit a different chapter break than I was thinking, so here's a new installment of my mental breakdown for your reading pleasure. Did I mention she's f'ing INSANE...? (But at least it bought me another chapter before I have to come up with the, er, goods... {sigh})
[Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.]
**********
Jack woke in the perpetual gloom of his bedroom, sudden knife-edge of awareness that he wasn't alone and couldn't remember why propelling him to instant military wakefulness half a step ahead of a crashing headache. That sort of a party, apparently. Bracing himself, he nudged his partner awake. Dark eyes slid open and took a moment to focus. "...Oh, christ, not again," Owen groaned.
"I won't tell anybody if you won't," Jack assured him. Pretty obvious that it hadn't been innocent, either, from the available evidence. Jack almost wished he did remember how the end of the night had gone down, since it was probably a fascinating story. "Don't suppose you remember who we're gonna have to retcon, do you?"
"I lost the thread somewhere around the part where you and your spaceman started putting on the Scottish accents. Which were both crap, by the way. Shit, where are my trousers?"
From the look on Owen's face and the state of his own head, Jack thought the likelihood that anyone he might encounter in the next few minutes was currently sentient enough to be collecting blackmail material was probably close enough to nil to be worth getting up and out just as soon as he could possibly summon the coordination to dress. Clothes. Right. Legs at end of feet, wait, no, other way. What clothes? Who am I and where am I going today? Stinking Balafraxian three-legged g-strings, that must have been one hell of a party. Stag party, wasn't it? Wait a minute...
Mine?
All right, now Jack's head hurt. Oh, yes, that whole... thing. Nice clothes, then, and try not to come out looking like you're about to be laid out in the coffin you're never going to see the inside of...
Owen was long gone by the time Jack found anything in his wardrobe he'd even consent to sign up to a polite legal fiction in, and Jack rather hoped his surgeon had simply buggered off home, to change or for good. No such luck when Jack finally ventured out, though, Torchwood's medical officer had only gotten as far as the nearest convenient wastebasket to be sick into. Jack's, of course. Just outside the doorway to Jack's office Ianto lay sprawled on the sofa, as untidy a picture of rumpled half-dress as Jack had ever seen him. Definitely the strippers, if there's ever a next time...
The Doctor, infuriatingly, was fresh as a daisy and ready with coffee. "I think this means it's finally my turn to drive," he chirped, taking in the various states of the three other men.
"You do know how, right?"
"Of course I know how, although... Try not to let us get stopped, I think my licence expired in 1973." He went rummaging through his pockets and briefly flashed an ancient book-style vehicle authorization with some sort of official-credential photo ID tucked into it. Jack thought he recognized the face in the picture from old UNIT files. "I don't like waiting around in the lines nowadays," he explained defensively.
Yeah, that sounded about right for Mister Fidget. "Knock yourself out, then," Jack said, tossing him the keys.
The Doctor drove the SUV about the same way he flew the TARDIS, which was to say as if all his prior experience of the operation well predated power steering. Still, he did manage to get them to the registry office in one piece, almost to Jack's regret. "Would it be too late to ask you to drop me off somewhere in the Cretaceous instead?"
"Brave heart, Jack, it's only a little paperwork. And... I do appreciate this. I wouldn't have asked it of you, but it's a very clever thing of you to have come up with. That whole human element and everything."
"Like you say, I'm the one who's the expert in angry mums," Jack said, doing a mental double-take at the thought that the Time Lord had all but admitted that Jack had outdone him at something. "You coming in to watch the execution, or would you rather wait in the car?"
The Doctor reached into his pocket and produced his spectacles, which he made an elaborate show of settling onto his nose like a disguise. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Spoilers: in a general sense
Disclaimer: I'm too tired to care if they get me
Summary: When Martha uses the Chameleon Arch, Jack helps with the Doctor's new life...
Notes: Whacko!AU!Muse surprised me with a sudden burst of manic energy that hit a different chapter break than I was thinking, so here's a new installment of my mental breakdown for your reading pleasure. Did I mention she's f'ing INSANE...? (But at least it bought me another chapter before I have to come up with the, er, goods... {sigh})
[Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.]
**********
Jack woke in the perpetual gloom of his bedroom, sudden knife-edge of awareness that he wasn't alone and couldn't remember why propelling him to instant military wakefulness half a step ahead of a crashing headache. That sort of a party, apparently. Bracing himself, he nudged his partner awake. Dark eyes slid open and took a moment to focus. "...Oh, christ, not again," Owen groaned.
"I won't tell anybody if you won't," Jack assured him. Pretty obvious that it hadn't been innocent, either, from the available evidence. Jack almost wished he did remember how the end of the night had gone down, since it was probably a fascinating story. "Don't suppose you remember who we're gonna have to retcon, do you?"
"I lost the thread somewhere around the part where you and your spaceman started putting on the Scottish accents. Which were both crap, by the way. Shit, where are my trousers?"
From the look on Owen's face and the state of his own head, Jack thought the likelihood that anyone he might encounter in the next few minutes was currently sentient enough to be collecting blackmail material was probably close enough to nil to be worth getting up and out just as soon as he could possibly summon the coordination to dress. Clothes. Right. Legs at end of feet, wait, no, other way. What clothes? Who am I and where am I going today? Stinking Balafraxian three-legged g-strings, that must have been one hell of a party. Stag party, wasn't it? Wait a minute...
Mine?
All right, now Jack's head hurt. Oh, yes, that whole... thing. Nice clothes, then, and try not to come out looking like you're about to be laid out in the coffin you're never going to see the inside of...
Owen was long gone by the time Jack found anything in his wardrobe he'd even consent to sign up to a polite legal fiction in, and Jack rather hoped his surgeon had simply buggered off home, to change or for good. No such luck when Jack finally ventured out, though, Torchwood's medical officer had only gotten as far as the nearest convenient wastebasket to be sick into. Jack's, of course. Just outside the doorway to Jack's office Ianto lay sprawled on the sofa, as untidy a picture of rumpled half-dress as Jack had ever seen him. Definitely the strippers, if there's ever a next time...
The Doctor, infuriatingly, was fresh as a daisy and ready with coffee. "I think this means it's finally my turn to drive," he chirped, taking in the various states of the three other men.
"You do know how, right?"
"Of course I know how, although... Try not to let us get stopped, I think my licence expired in 1973." He went rummaging through his pockets and briefly flashed an ancient book-style vehicle authorization with some sort of official-credential photo ID tucked into it. Jack thought he recognized the face in the picture from old UNIT files. "I don't like waiting around in the lines nowadays," he explained defensively.
Yeah, that sounded about right for Mister Fidget. "Knock yourself out, then," Jack said, tossing him the keys.
The Doctor drove the SUV about the same way he flew the TARDIS, which was to say as if all his prior experience of the operation well predated power steering. Still, he did manage to get them to the registry office in one piece, almost to Jack's regret. "Would it be too late to ask you to drop me off somewhere in the Cretaceous instead?"
"Brave heart, Jack, it's only a little paperwork. And... I do appreciate this. I wouldn't have asked it of you, but it's a very clever thing of you to have come up with. That whole human element and everything."
"Like you say, I'm the one who's the expert in angry mums," Jack said, doing a mental double-take at the thought that the Time Lord had all but admitted that Jack had outdone him at something. "You coming in to watch the execution, or would you rather wait in the car?"
The Doctor reached into his pocket and produced his spectacles, which he made an elaborate show of settling onto his nose like a disguise. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."