Relict (DW, Nine/Rose/Jack) 1/?
Title: Relict
Author: nina_ds@ninamusing
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Nine/Rose/Jack
Rating: Teen, possibly rising
Challenge: For OT3 Ficathon; written for dark_aegis who wanted Nine/Rose/Jack between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town; UNIT (a mention is fine); the sonic screwdriver failing/breaking at the worst possible time; Hurt/Comfort with the Doctor being the focus of the hurt with the others being the comfort.
Author's Note: My thanks to wendymr for the beta, and my deep apologies for the "under-the-wire" post. This may read like a standalone, but a keen eye will note that, other than the dramatis personae and the time period, not a single one of the prompts has yet been answered.
***
They really were so cute.
Except for those times when he wanted to smack their heads together, or better yet, tie them together face to face (wrists firmly behind the other’s back; good if they were standing up, even better if they were lying down, or sitting, legs arranged around each other’s hips - he had considered several scenarios in ever-increasing detail) so that they were forced to really look at each other and do something about all that electrochemical energy flying around. It was obviously short-circuiting their higher reasoning; it was certainly playing holy havoc with his.
Jack was used to his hormonal level being high and constant, with plenty of opportunity for burning off the excess at regular intervals. Living with these two was like a constant flow of some of the most effective stimulus he could remember (that he could remember), rising to the boil then rendering down to an essence even more clarified and intense as they were diverted by some mechanical emergency or opportunity to run.
It had been six days.
One hundred and forty-two standard Earth hours in linear time, according to his wristcomp. It felt as if time was bigger on the inside of the TARDIS, too. Since he had stepped inside, every moment seemed so much fuller than at any other time in his life, even though all they’d done was perform basic maintenance on the ship, enrage a small village on Combrit by holding hands in public, and do a bit of sightseeing.
When they stopped off at the bazaars of Aretaxela because the Doctor needed milk for his tea and optical connectors and Rose needed new trainers, a warmer coat for some of the more arctic climes they had encountered, and something she mumbled that sounded suspiciously like “sports bra” (although even his mind boggled a little at that juxtaposition - must be some twenty-first century jargon that wasn’t deemed necessary to his training), Jack had taken himself off to find a little of what he needed.
The bazaars of the city of Axhe on Aretaxela in the fifth century of the Magnum Pax offered practically everything the traveller in time and space needed. Sex was freely traded here, safely and openly and with great skill and style, and he had visited several establishments, oddly dissatisfied with even the most beautiful, exotic, and talented offered to him. He was eyeing up a long, lean pantherine creature on the dance floor of Zarua’s when the broad, triangular head turned to him, fixing him with a golden stare, and he realized why he wasn’t already there, running his hands over the lush black fur and purring with promise. The gaze was intelligent and powerful. And not blue.
But he smiled and made his way to the dance floor, and it was a matter of necessity, like the coat. At least he could chose a style that suited him, and enjoy it for the moment. His pride refused to make any substitutions, even mental ones, for that would be unfair to the one with whom he shared the moment, and he stayed firmly, blessedly, in the moment.
***
With a lighter step and a surge of physical energy, he made his way back to the area of the vast bazaar where textiles and jewellery were sold. His wristcomp found them easily - so close together their signals overlapped, he noted with an amused snort - and he caught sight of them at a table of trinkets, Rose’s hair falling against her flushed cheeks as she bent intently over the small, brightly-coloured objects of metal and glass and stone. The Doctor stood behind her, a large package wrapped in a blue-and-brown woven shawl under one arm, a pair of Rose-sized pink-and-silver trainers hanging by their laces from his long fingers. His free hand was shoved to the bottom of his jacket pocket, his weight on one foot (Jack cursed the hip-length jacket, because he knew what that paradoxically relaxed impatient stance did for the long legs and round runner’s rear). The expression on the Doctor’s face was an already familiar combination of adoration and exasperation that Jack had never seen so eloquently performed by any other being.
He could not hear them over the dull roar around him, but when Rose picked up a chandelier necklace of swirling, multi-coloured glass and turned to him for approval, the dubious tension across the cheekbones was not masked by the cheerful smile edged with just a touch of panic. Rose was a quick one, and Jack admired the way she returned the necklace swiftly to its hook and looked for something else. He knew she was not offended by the Doctor’s response; even after only a hundred and forty-odd hours, Jack knew that Rose was not so much making choices for the Doctor’s approval as trusting his sense of what was worth her attention.
As he drew nearer, she took up two slightly less ornate pieces, almost weighing them in her hands. “That’s nice.” He nodded toward the one in her left hand, with a stone swirled in green and blue.
“Oh, hi, Jack!” She beamed at him, then turned her attention toward the necklace he had favoured as the Doctor gave him a brief, assessing look.
“Get what you need?” he asked with an almost imperceptible lift of one eyebrow. Clearly, the Doctor’s species had more facial muscles than humans because, despite their similar outward appearance, Jack had never seen a human with that kind of subtlety and transparency of expression. Or perhaps it was just this one; he wouldn’t put it past him. A little shiver trickled down his spine, cool-hot like sweat, and his smile was a little overbright in return.
“Absolutely,” he declared as Rose picked up another necklace with a soft expression of wonder. A simple gold chain suspended a small teardrop-shaped stone that gleamed golden brown inside a delicate wire cage made of a continuous thread of metal. The spiral was not quite symmetrical, not even quite a spiral, like an Escher waterfall, and the stone shifted intensity in the light as she held it up.
“That would look beautiful with your eyes.” The practiced line seemed fresh in his mouth, and it pleased Jack as much as it surprised him.
“Really? You think so?” she asked, holding it up against her throat, but turning to the Doctor for his assessment.
The steel-blue eyes shifted toward the grey as the Doctor looked from the pendant, nestling against the curve of her breasts above the white tank top, to her eyes. “Yeah,” he said simply, and Rose’s smile radiated delight as she turned to hand over coins to the vendor.
The Doctor was watching Rose. Jack watched the Doctor. Even if Rose had, he hadn’t missed the profundity of the Doctor’s simple response, and the mercurial eyes darkened inscrutably as they traced the curve of her head and neck as she bent over the chain, picking at the clasp with the fingernails that she hadn’t quite stopped chewing.
“Can you-oops, got it!” She turned to face the Doctor as she fitted the clasp behind her neck and flipped her hair free. “Thank you!” She slid her arm through his free arm, leaning against him in a half-hug that lingered as she rested her head against the leather-clad shoulder. The angular features softened as the Doctor looked down at the top of her head, and Jack had another surge of desire to tie them together.
Or at least knock their heads together.
Rose reached out to grab Jack’s sleeve, tugging him after them as they pushed through the crowd, and the Doctor glanced back to check he was with them. Jack grinned and caught Rose’s hand with his, lengthening his stride to catch up.
Tying them together had one great advantage, he decided. He might get tangled up with them.
Author: nina_ds@ninamusing
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Nine/Rose/Jack
Rating: Teen, possibly rising
Challenge: For OT3 Ficathon; written for dark_aegis who wanted Nine/Rose/Jack between The Doctor Dances and Boom Town; UNIT (a mention is fine); the sonic screwdriver failing/breaking at the worst possible time; Hurt/Comfort with the Doctor being the focus of the hurt with the others being the comfort.
Author's Note: My thanks to wendymr for the beta, and my deep apologies for the "under-the-wire" post. This may read like a standalone, but a keen eye will note that, other than the dramatis personae and the time period, not a single one of the prompts has yet been answered.
***
They really were so cute.
Except for those times when he wanted to smack their heads together, or better yet, tie them together face to face (wrists firmly behind the other’s back; good if they were standing up, even better if they were lying down, or sitting, legs arranged around each other’s hips - he had considered several scenarios in ever-increasing detail) so that they were forced to really look at each other and do something about all that electrochemical energy flying around. It was obviously short-circuiting their higher reasoning; it was certainly playing holy havoc with his.
Jack was used to his hormonal level being high and constant, with plenty of opportunity for burning off the excess at regular intervals. Living with these two was like a constant flow of some of the most effective stimulus he could remember (that he could remember), rising to the boil then rendering down to an essence even more clarified and intense as they were diverted by some mechanical emergency or opportunity to run.
It had been six days.
One hundred and forty-two standard Earth hours in linear time, according to his wristcomp. It felt as if time was bigger on the inside of the TARDIS, too. Since he had stepped inside, every moment seemed so much fuller than at any other time in his life, even though all they’d done was perform basic maintenance on the ship, enrage a small village on Combrit by holding hands in public, and do a bit of sightseeing.
When they stopped off at the bazaars of Aretaxela because the Doctor needed milk for his tea and optical connectors and Rose needed new trainers, a warmer coat for some of the more arctic climes they had encountered, and something she mumbled that sounded suspiciously like “sports bra” (although even his mind boggled a little at that juxtaposition - must be some twenty-first century jargon that wasn’t deemed necessary to his training), Jack had taken himself off to find a little of what he needed.
The bazaars of the city of Axhe on Aretaxela in the fifth century of the Magnum Pax offered practically everything the traveller in time and space needed. Sex was freely traded here, safely and openly and with great skill and style, and he had visited several establishments, oddly dissatisfied with even the most beautiful, exotic, and talented offered to him. He was eyeing up a long, lean pantherine creature on the dance floor of Zarua’s when the broad, triangular head turned to him, fixing him with a golden stare, and he realized why he wasn’t already there, running his hands over the lush black fur and purring with promise. The gaze was intelligent and powerful. And not blue.
But he smiled and made his way to the dance floor, and it was a matter of necessity, like the coat. At least he could chose a style that suited him, and enjoy it for the moment. His pride refused to make any substitutions, even mental ones, for that would be unfair to the one with whom he shared the moment, and he stayed firmly, blessedly, in the moment.
***
With a lighter step and a surge of physical energy, he made his way back to the area of the vast bazaar where textiles and jewellery were sold. His wristcomp found them easily - so close together their signals overlapped, he noted with an amused snort - and he caught sight of them at a table of trinkets, Rose’s hair falling against her flushed cheeks as she bent intently over the small, brightly-coloured objects of metal and glass and stone. The Doctor stood behind her, a large package wrapped in a blue-and-brown woven shawl under one arm, a pair of Rose-sized pink-and-silver trainers hanging by their laces from his long fingers. His free hand was shoved to the bottom of his jacket pocket, his weight on one foot (Jack cursed the hip-length jacket, because he knew what that paradoxically relaxed impatient stance did for the long legs and round runner’s rear). The expression on the Doctor’s face was an already familiar combination of adoration and exasperation that Jack had never seen so eloquently performed by any other being.
He could not hear them over the dull roar around him, but when Rose picked up a chandelier necklace of swirling, multi-coloured glass and turned to him for approval, the dubious tension across the cheekbones was not masked by the cheerful smile edged with just a touch of panic. Rose was a quick one, and Jack admired the way she returned the necklace swiftly to its hook and looked for something else. He knew she was not offended by the Doctor’s response; even after only a hundred and forty-odd hours, Jack knew that Rose was not so much making choices for the Doctor’s approval as trusting his sense of what was worth her attention.
As he drew nearer, she took up two slightly less ornate pieces, almost weighing them in her hands. “That’s nice.” He nodded toward the one in her left hand, with a stone swirled in green and blue.
“Oh, hi, Jack!” She beamed at him, then turned her attention toward the necklace he had favoured as the Doctor gave him a brief, assessing look.
“Get what you need?” he asked with an almost imperceptible lift of one eyebrow. Clearly, the Doctor’s species had more facial muscles than humans because, despite their similar outward appearance, Jack had never seen a human with that kind of subtlety and transparency of expression. Or perhaps it was just this one; he wouldn’t put it past him. A little shiver trickled down his spine, cool-hot like sweat, and his smile was a little overbright in return.
“Absolutely,” he declared as Rose picked up another necklace with a soft expression of wonder. A simple gold chain suspended a small teardrop-shaped stone that gleamed golden brown inside a delicate wire cage made of a continuous thread of metal. The spiral was not quite symmetrical, not even quite a spiral, like an Escher waterfall, and the stone shifted intensity in the light as she held it up.
“That would look beautiful with your eyes.” The practiced line seemed fresh in his mouth, and it pleased Jack as much as it surprised him.
“Really? You think so?” she asked, holding it up against her throat, but turning to the Doctor for his assessment.
The steel-blue eyes shifted toward the grey as the Doctor looked from the pendant, nestling against the curve of her breasts above the white tank top, to her eyes. “Yeah,” he said simply, and Rose’s smile radiated delight as she turned to hand over coins to the vendor.
The Doctor was watching Rose. Jack watched the Doctor. Even if Rose had, he hadn’t missed the profundity of the Doctor’s simple response, and the mercurial eyes darkened inscrutably as they traced the curve of her head and neck as she bent over the chain, picking at the clasp with the fingernails that she hadn’t quite stopped chewing.
“Can you-oops, got it!” She turned to face the Doctor as she fitted the clasp behind her neck and flipped her hair free. “Thank you!” She slid her arm through his free arm, leaning against him in a half-hug that lingered as she rested her head against the leather-clad shoulder. The angular features softened as the Doctor looked down at the top of her head, and Jack had another surge of desire to tie them together.
Or at least knock their heads together.
Rose reached out to grab Jack’s sleeve, tugging him after them as they pushed through the crowd, and the Doctor glanced back to check he was with them. Jack grinned and caught Rose’s hand with his, lengthening his stride to catch up.
Tying them together had one great advantage, he decided. He might get tangled up with them.