That Elusive Flavour (1/1)
Doctor Who fic. Smut. Seriously, smut. Don't read it if you're embarassed by the thought of little old me writing such filthy things.
...But if you do read it, feedback please? Because I don't know if I like this or not. Damn, I'm insecure.
Title: That Elusive Flavour
Rating: Adult
Summary: In a hotel room on an unknown planet, the Doctor tells Jack he is leaving him. Not-quite angst.
Disclaimer: Evidently not mine, because my writing is waaay better than that shoddy Dalek two-parter... I mean, uh, because the Beeb are great and I am a lowley pensmith.
Warnings: Smut. Can you tell I'm mildly embarassed for writing this? Also swearing. I never say the eff-word in real life, probably because I used up my life's quota writing this.
It’s nowhere special, just a stop-over on some planet in the Andromeda galaxy for a bite to eat that evolved into a night on the town and rooms in a posh hotel because none of them could remember where they had parked. Nothing memorable, just the three of them together, enjoying themselves. Martha showing off a new dress, Jack barely able to keep his hands off her despite his repeated drunken professions of undying love for the Doctor, and all of them laughing as they staggered through the midnight streets, comparing three utterly different hypothesis on the location of the TARDIS.
The Doctor smiles. Another happy memory. He’s got a few, tucked away. Good times that he relives over and over, faces he can’t let himself forget, dreams of a burnt orange sky… He’s added this close to the top of the list. This… thing between himself and Jack, this nameless emotion that wells up in his chest when he makes eye contact with the captain. He doesn’t think it’s love; then again, he can’t really remember what that feels like. It’s almost the same as the way he feels when staring danger in the face, that urge to jump in feet first and let things happen as they will. He likes Jack, a lot, and he respects him, and it goes without saying that the blasted man can get a physical reaction from him with nothing more than a wink, but it isn’t love. Not the good sort, anyway.
Jack is dozing, eyes half-closed, on the bed. Naked, dishevelled, the evidence of a recent ravishing clear across his flushed body. The Doctor hadn’t had a chance to test this particular body out in the romantic sense until Jack returned to him, so even now, months into a relationship - if that’s what it is - he is still discovering interesting new things about himself. That he likes Jack to overpower him, and fuck him to the brink, but he doesn’t like to finish that way. He needs to taste every inch of the man’s body, every single time, his oral fixation bordering on compulsive obsession when he’s with Jack. When it’s been a bad day, he tends towards the brutal side of sex, only stopping short of hurting Jack when the pleading gets too much… but when it’s been a good day, he’ll insist on foreplay and cuddling, and has to find a creative way to prove he isn’t a girl. He likes to talk, a lot, but that isn’t surprising, and he really likes it when Jack does that trick where he takes all his clothes off, but somehow keeps his greatcoat on.
Jack, for his part, is very accommodating. He doesn’t demand much, seems content to let his partner make all the major decisions, and is happy to take on any role offered to him. He’s also got an instinct for knowing what the Doctor wants - tonight he fell into begging mode before the Doctor even realised he was in that sort of mood himself. Jack begging for it is one of the most glorious sounds in the universe, and the Doctor should know. Beautiful, dangerous, wonderful Jack, on his knees on the plush hotel carpet, pleading for the Doctor’s attention. This remarkable man, this most human of humans, his eyes and his lust focused solely on the Doctor, and the knowledge that, if he chose to, he could keep Jack like that for aeons. Some of it is power-play, the Doctor knows that. Neither of them are men who easily tolerate egos as large as their own, and both have lived long enough to have learned the arts of subtlety. While, on the surface, it may seem Jack adopts the submissive role, laying himself bare to the mercy of the alpha male, the Doctor is aware that he is being tested and judged. Jack’s just as irresistible as he thinks he is, and if the Doctor gives in too soon, despite all his begging Jack has won.
He knows how to play it. How to resist those lewd lips, exactly when Jack is on the verge of breaking down out of real despair, exactly the right way reassure him that his efforts will be rewarded. He knows this game inside out. They’ve played it before, after all.
And it’s easy to see his future self, as he finally lets Jack climb into his lap. This future self, back to the window, eyes fixed on the half-slumbering form on the bed. It’s easy to see the whole act as inevitably pointless. Is the pleasure worth the effort, the exhaustion, the need to assure Jack that his performance was up to standard, the worry that his own might not be?
Jack stretches and sighs. There’s moonlight falling across the bed, casting Jack’s features into sharp contrast. Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the man’s infectious personality, and forget how simple and beautiful his physical form is. The Doctor finds himself drawn back to the bed like a moth lulled into the candle flame.
“You done brooding, then?”
The Doctor doesn’t deign to answer that. Instead he applies his lips directly to Jack’s throat, without any warning. He savours the little breathy noise he is rewarded with.
“Funny,” he murmurs against Jack’s skin. “You taste like something. Can’t think what.” His tongue sweeps the length of a collar bone. “Something I tasted years and years ago, something… old. Tastes like home. I don’t mean you taste like a house, but you remind me of… mmm, whatever it is, it’s good.”
Jack’s laugh is low and rumbley. “Just try and resist the urge to eat me up, okay?”
But the Doctor is in full investigation mode now. He pins Jack’s arm up above his head, and licks round his shoulder, down the inside of his arm, and spends a few blissful moments almost-but-not-quite gnawing the vulnerable skin where wrist becomes palm.
“Don’t you hate that?” he says, as he tastes Jack’s flesh. “When you know something, and you know you know it, but you can’t put your finger on it, and every time you get close, it slips away. What do you remind me of, Jack Harkness? What do you taste of?”
Jack shakes his head. “Who knows? I’ve drunk so much shit tonight, could be anything.”
The Doctor sinks his teeth into Jack’s ear lobe, and is rewarded with a sharp cry that can probably be heard in the next room. He nibbles thoughtfully.
“Could be drink,” he says. “Maybe wine. That could be it, Gallifreyan wine, if that were possible. A fruity variety, sweet, hints of… grapes. Grapes and water and ethanol. Exactly what wine should taste of, and damn this vanilla-and-oak business to Hull.”
He bucks his hips against Jack, smirks at the over-eager response. Jack is painfully hard against his thigh already, and for a human that’s an impressive recovery time. He keeps talking as he moves, enjoying the thousand different noises Jack makes when the Doctor touches him there, or kisses him here, or exerts just the right pressure in the right place at the right time. He plays Jack like a musical instrument, and the melody is breathtaking in its simplicity and its passion.
The Doctor licks his way down Jack’s spine, counting vertebrae as he goes. He’s gliding his tongue over the lumbar curve when Jack says, in one desperate gasping breath, the words ‘I love you.’
The Doctor pretends not to notice. He slows, and pushes his tongue between Jack’s buttocks, allowing one brief flicker against the sensitive ring of muscle. Jack isn’t satisfied with that, but the Doctor isn’t ready yet. He’s still going down, over buttocks, nipping the soft backs of Jack’s thighs. He imagines he can hear Jack saying it again. I love you. Like the sounds mean something. How often are they going to play this game? How long until this mysterious taste on Jack’s skin grows bland, or even repellent?
How many times will Jack say those words before he realises they aren’t true?
There’s something funny about feet, the Doctor realises, as he sinks his teeth into Jack’s ankle. Sometimes they’re smelly and horrible, and you think ‘urgh, feet’, but then you get feet like Jack’s, that have walked in the dust of a thousand different worlds, yet are smooth and un-calloused. If you follow the curve with your tongue, he has learned, licking gently from inside the big toe, round the ball of the foot, and gently along the soft skin of the instep, you can get an incredible response -
“Oh fuuuck…”
- but only if you’re as skilled as he is.
“Doctor…”
“I’m not finished yet.”
He rolls Jack over again, perches on his stomach, thighs either side of him, clamping Jack in place. Then he continues his exploration; nipples, chest, belly, back up to his chin, his face. The Doctor’s tongue passes over Jack’s lips, but he knows better than to try and catch him in a kiss. For the Doctor, this is as sexual as shaking hands, or having a chat, but this whole thing drives Jack up the wall. The Doctor can already feel the tension in the body beneath him, and he knows it’s a small miracle that Jack has the willpower not to throw him off and fuck him. For Jack, this never gets old. That’s near the top of the Doctor’s short list of reasons why he won’t leave Jack alone here tonight, why he won’t wait until the man’s asleep, find Martha, and flee to the TARDIS before sunrise.
He finishes his mental mapping of Jack’s body, and pushes himself up. They look at each other, nose-to-nose, and the Doctor realises he’s been too distracted. He’s forgotten Jack’s phenomenal ability to read expressions and body language, but his own intuition can’t mistake that guarded look in Jack’s eyes.
“You don’t want this.”
The Doctor’s eyes narrow. For once, he says nothing, but his hand reaches down and his long, pianist’s fingers wrap around Jack’s erection. In one smooth movement, his wrist flicks and his fingers tighten. Jack yelps, and his back arches, his left hip pushing up against the Doctor so that he barely contains his own hiss of pleasure. He shoves Jack down against the freshly laundered sheets, and his grip loosens a little.
“I don’t love you,” says the Doctor. “I can’t. If I could, I strongly suspect I would, but as it is, there’s me, then there’s you. There’s no us. Not the sort of us you want us to be.”
Jack’s eyes close, and he tilts his head back. The Doctor strokes him again, gentler this time. Jack’s lips are parted, hungry for the reassuring kiss of the mouth mere inches away, but all the Doctor’s concentration seems to be on his right hand, around Jack’s cock. With some reluctance, Jack pushes it away.
“Fuck me,” he pleads. “Like you did just now. But deeper. Make me last longer. Please.”
The Doctor stares at him. “I said I don’t love you. That doesn’t bother you?”
“No.” Jack hooks his legs across the Doctor’s back, forcing them closer together. “Because I don’t believe you.”
“Jack…” The Doctor’s breath hitches as Jack begins to thrust upwards, and firm hands grab his arse. He shuts his eyes, and rests his forehead under Jack’s chin.
“Jack, one day I’m going to leave you. I won’t give you any warning. It might be tomorrow, or a thousand years from now, but I will leave you.”
He doesn’t get a response. Jack has the almost-empty tube of lubricant in his hand, and is coercing the last of it out. His hand on the Doctor’s sensitive skin is hot, but his guidance is gentle.
“Fuck me. Or you can piss off right now.”
The surprise doesn’t fully register until the Doctor is pushing into him, and by then the most alarming thing is that he didn’t question Jack’s demand. He simply obeyed. Did as he was told. Followed the captain’s orders. But that doesn’t matter now, either, because he’s experiencing that faint amazement that creeps up on him every time, with the discovery that for all his worldly experience Jack is tight as a virgin.
He does what he’s told to the letter, and it’s long, and it’s slow, and it’s deep. Jack makes all the right sounds, including that wonderful purring noise when the Doctor discovers he’s flexible enough to take the tip of Jack’s cock in his mouth from this position. Jack fists the Doctor’s hair like he’s trying to pleasure his scalp. It’s a sensation the Doctor knows will keep him warm next time the TARDIS breaks down in Siberia.
They come together, more or less, Jack a little bit ahead, the sight of him losing control more than enough to send the Doctor over the edge. Even when he’s got nothing to say, he’s far from silent, grunting and moaning his pleasure against Jack’s skin, his teeth and lips and tongue still fixated with that elusive flavour. He shudders with the sensation overload, taking some small comfort in Jack’s strong arms across his back, pulling them into a tight embrace. The Doctor doesn’t move, not even to remove himself from Jack. Jack doesn’t ask him to. For a long while, neither dares to breath too loudly in case the moment is shattered.
Eventually, Jack finds his voice. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“I’m leaving you,” says the Doctor, tucking his arm across Jack’s chest and his head beneath his chin.
Jack hooks a leg over the doctor’s thigh, keeping them locked together. “Right.”
“This isn’t how my life works. Domestic stuff, I mean blimey… we’ll be saying we’re boyfriends next, and buying each other valentine cards. So human. So not me.”
“Right,” says Jack.
“It’s not personal. You know I… Well you know. We’re good together, and the sex… well, you were there just now, right? It’s not about you, it’s about the lifestyle. I can’t do flowers and chocolates and joint bank accounts, and I certainly won’t remember your birthday.”
Jack strokes the Doctor’s hair. His eyes are falling shut, his breath shallow. The Doctor’s voice is slurring with exhaustion.
“So I’m… I’m leaving. At some point. When I can’t take it any more, and… mm, that’s nice, keep doing that. Just there.” He tilts his head to meet Jack’s gentle fingers, smiling sleepily.
“When you figure out what I taste of,” suggests Jack.
“Yeah,” says the Doctor, who thinks it might be a long, cool, spiced drink served on a little planet he can’t remember the name of, but right now he isn’t all that bothered about remembering.
“I’ll miss you,” says Jack, quietly.
The Doctor doesn’t say anything. Jack can’t tell if he’s asleep yet, or pretending to be so he won’t have to explain himself again, or if he has genuinely run out of things to say. Jack doesn’t care. He’s just glad for the rare silence.
He doesn’t know if the Doctor is bluffing or not, but his suspicions lean towards the not. It’s a relief, in a way, knowing that it won’t have to be him trying to remove himself unnoticed from their bed, sneaking out of the TARDIS in the dead of night. He wasn’t lying with his profession of love for the Doctor, but he’s no fool either. He knows as well as the Doctor that nothing lasts forever, even when you cannot die.
Jack turns the lights out with a wave of his hand. He lies in the dark, his arms tight around his dozing Doctor, and does not sleep.
...But if you do read it, feedback please? Because I don't know if I like this or not. Damn, I'm insecure.
Title: That Elusive Flavour
Rating: Adult
Summary: In a hotel room on an unknown planet, the Doctor tells Jack he is leaving him. Not-quite angst.
Disclaimer: Evidently not mine, because my writing is waaay better than that shoddy Dalek two-parter... I mean, uh, because the Beeb are great and I am a lowley pensmith.
Warnings: Smut. Can you tell I'm mildly embarassed for writing this? Also swearing. I never say the eff-word in real life, probably because I used up my life's quota writing this.
It’s nowhere special, just a stop-over on some planet in the Andromeda galaxy for a bite to eat that evolved into a night on the town and rooms in a posh hotel because none of them could remember where they had parked. Nothing memorable, just the three of them together, enjoying themselves. Martha showing off a new dress, Jack barely able to keep his hands off her despite his repeated drunken professions of undying love for the Doctor, and all of them laughing as they staggered through the midnight streets, comparing three utterly different hypothesis on the location of the TARDIS.
The Doctor smiles. Another happy memory. He’s got a few, tucked away. Good times that he relives over and over, faces he can’t let himself forget, dreams of a burnt orange sky… He’s added this close to the top of the list. This… thing between himself and Jack, this nameless emotion that wells up in his chest when he makes eye contact with the captain. He doesn’t think it’s love; then again, he can’t really remember what that feels like. It’s almost the same as the way he feels when staring danger in the face, that urge to jump in feet first and let things happen as they will. He likes Jack, a lot, and he respects him, and it goes without saying that the blasted man can get a physical reaction from him with nothing more than a wink, but it isn’t love. Not the good sort, anyway.
Jack is dozing, eyes half-closed, on the bed. Naked, dishevelled, the evidence of a recent ravishing clear across his flushed body. The Doctor hadn’t had a chance to test this particular body out in the romantic sense until Jack returned to him, so even now, months into a relationship - if that’s what it is - he is still discovering interesting new things about himself. That he likes Jack to overpower him, and fuck him to the brink, but he doesn’t like to finish that way. He needs to taste every inch of the man’s body, every single time, his oral fixation bordering on compulsive obsession when he’s with Jack. When it’s been a bad day, he tends towards the brutal side of sex, only stopping short of hurting Jack when the pleading gets too much… but when it’s been a good day, he’ll insist on foreplay and cuddling, and has to find a creative way to prove he isn’t a girl. He likes to talk, a lot, but that isn’t surprising, and he really likes it when Jack does that trick where he takes all his clothes off, but somehow keeps his greatcoat on.
Jack, for his part, is very accommodating. He doesn’t demand much, seems content to let his partner make all the major decisions, and is happy to take on any role offered to him. He’s also got an instinct for knowing what the Doctor wants - tonight he fell into begging mode before the Doctor even realised he was in that sort of mood himself. Jack begging for it is one of the most glorious sounds in the universe, and the Doctor should know. Beautiful, dangerous, wonderful Jack, on his knees on the plush hotel carpet, pleading for the Doctor’s attention. This remarkable man, this most human of humans, his eyes and his lust focused solely on the Doctor, and the knowledge that, if he chose to, he could keep Jack like that for aeons. Some of it is power-play, the Doctor knows that. Neither of them are men who easily tolerate egos as large as their own, and both have lived long enough to have learned the arts of subtlety. While, on the surface, it may seem Jack adopts the submissive role, laying himself bare to the mercy of the alpha male, the Doctor is aware that he is being tested and judged. Jack’s just as irresistible as he thinks he is, and if the Doctor gives in too soon, despite all his begging Jack has won.
He knows how to play it. How to resist those lewd lips, exactly when Jack is on the verge of breaking down out of real despair, exactly the right way reassure him that his efforts will be rewarded. He knows this game inside out. They’ve played it before, after all.
And it’s easy to see his future self, as he finally lets Jack climb into his lap. This future self, back to the window, eyes fixed on the half-slumbering form on the bed. It’s easy to see the whole act as inevitably pointless. Is the pleasure worth the effort, the exhaustion, the need to assure Jack that his performance was up to standard, the worry that his own might not be?
Jack stretches and sighs. There’s moonlight falling across the bed, casting Jack’s features into sharp contrast. Sometimes, it’s easy to get caught up in the man’s infectious personality, and forget how simple and beautiful his physical form is. The Doctor finds himself drawn back to the bed like a moth lulled into the candle flame.
“You done brooding, then?”
The Doctor doesn’t deign to answer that. Instead he applies his lips directly to Jack’s throat, without any warning. He savours the little breathy noise he is rewarded with.
“Funny,” he murmurs against Jack’s skin. “You taste like something. Can’t think what.” His tongue sweeps the length of a collar bone. “Something I tasted years and years ago, something… old. Tastes like home. I don’t mean you taste like a house, but you remind me of… mmm, whatever it is, it’s good.”
Jack’s laugh is low and rumbley. “Just try and resist the urge to eat me up, okay?”
But the Doctor is in full investigation mode now. He pins Jack’s arm up above his head, and licks round his shoulder, down the inside of his arm, and spends a few blissful moments almost-but-not-quite gnawing the vulnerable skin where wrist becomes palm.
“Don’t you hate that?” he says, as he tastes Jack’s flesh. “When you know something, and you know you know it, but you can’t put your finger on it, and every time you get close, it slips away. What do you remind me of, Jack Harkness? What do you taste of?”
Jack shakes his head. “Who knows? I’ve drunk so much shit tonight, could be anything.”
The Doctor sinks his teeth into Jack’s ear lobe, and is rewarded with a sharp cry that can probably be heard in the next room. He nibbles thoughtfully.
“Could be drink,” he says. “Maybe wine. That could be it, Gallifreyan wine, if that were possible. A fruity variety, sweet, hints of… grapes. Grapes and water and ethanol. Exactly what wine should taste of, and damn this vanilla-and-oak business to Hull.”
He bucks his hips against Jack, smirks at the over-eager response. Jack is painfully hard against his thigh already, and for a human that’s an impressive recovery time. He keeps talking as he moves, enjoying the thousand different noises Jack makes when the Doctor touches him there, or kisses him here, or exerts just the right pressure in the right place at the right time. He plays Jack like a musical instrument, and the melody is breathtaking in its simplicity and its passion.
The Doctor licks his way down Jack’s spine, counting vertebrae as he goes. He’s gliding his tongue over the lumbar curve when Jack says, in one desperate gasping breath, the words ‘I love you.’
The Doctor pretends not to notice. He slows, and pushes his tongue between Jack’s buttocks, allowing one brief flicker against the sensitive ring of muscle. Jack isn’t satisfied with that, but the Doctor isn’t ready yet. He’s still going down, over buttocks, nipping the soft backs of Jack’s thighs. He imagines he can hear Jack saying it again. I love you. Like the sounds mean something. How often are they going to play this game? How long until this mysterious taste on Jack’s skin grows bland, or even repellent?
How many times will Jack say those words before he realises they aren’t true?
There’s something funny about feet, the Doctor realises, as he sinks his teeth into Jack’s ankle. Sometimes they’re smelly and horrible, and you think ‘urgh, feet’, but then you get feet like Jack’s, that have walked in the dust of a thousand different worlds, yet are smooth and un-calloused. If you follow the curve with your tongue, he has learned, licking gently from inside the big toe, round the ball of the foot, and gently along the soft skin of the instep, you can get an incredible response -
“Oh fuuuck…”
- but only if you’re as skilled as he is.
“Doctor…”
“I’m not finished yet.”
He rolls Jack over again, perches on his stomach, thighs either side of him, clamping Jack in place. Then he continues his exploration; nipples, chest, belly, back up to his chin, his face. The Doctor’s tongue passes over Jack’s lips, but he knows better than to try and catch him in a kiss. For the Doctor, this is as sexual as shaking hands, or having a chat, but this whole thing drives Jack up the wall. The Doctor can already feel the tension in the body beneath him, and he knows it’s a small miracle that Jack has the willpower not to throw him off and fuck him. For Jack, this never gets old. That’s near the top of the Doctor’s short list of reasons why he won’t leave Jack alone here tonight, why he won’t wait until the man’s asleep, find Martha, and flee to the TARDIS before sunrise.
He finishes his mental mapping of Jack’s body, and pushes himself up. They look at each other, nose-to-nose, and the Doctor realises he’s been too distracted. He’s forgotten Jack’s phenomenal ability to read expressions and body language, but his own intuition can’t mistake that guarded look in Jack’s eyes.
“You don’t want this.”
The Doctor’s eyes narrow. For once, he says nothing, but his hand reaches down and his long, pianist’s fingers wrap around Jack’s erection. In one smooth movement, his wrist flicks and his fingers tighten. Jack yelps, and his back arches, his left hip pushing up against the Doctor so that he barely contains his own hiss of pleasure. He shoves Jack down against the freshly laundered sheets, and his grip loosens a little.
“I don’t love you,” says the Doctor. “I can’t. If I could, I strongly suspect I would, but as it is, there’s me, then there’s you. There’s no us. Not the sort of us you want us to be.”
Jack’s eyes close, and he tilts his head back. The Doctor strokes him again, gentler this time. Jack’s lips are parted, hungry for the reassuring kiss of the mouth mere inches away, but all the Doctor’s concentration seems to be on his right hand, around Jack’s cock. With some reluctance, Jack pushes it away.
“Fuck me,” he pleads. “Like you did just now. But deeper. Make me last longer. Please.”
The Doctor stares at him. “I said I don’t love you. That doesn’t bother you?”
“No.” Jack hooks his legs across the Doctor’s back, forcing them closer together. “Because I don’t believe you.”
“Jack…” The Doctor’s breath hitches as Jack begins to thrust upwards, and firm hands grab his arse. He shuts his eyes, and rests his forehead under Jack’s chin.
“Jack, one day I’m going to leave you. I won’t give you any warning. It might be tomorrow, or a thousand years from now, but I will leave you.”
He doesn’t get a response. Jack has the almost-empty tube of lubricant in his hand, and is coercing the last of it out. His hand on the Doctor’s sensitive skin is hot, but his guidance is gentle.
“Fuck me. Or you can piss off right now.”
The surprise doesn’t fully register until the Doctor is pushing into him, and by then the most alarming thing is that he didn’t question Jack’s demand. He simply obeyed. Did as he was told. Followed the captain’s orders. But that doesn’t matter now, either, because he’s experiencing that faint amazement that creeps up on him every time, with the discovery that for all his worldly experience Jack is tight as a virgin.
He does what he’s told to the letter, and it’s long, and it’s slow, and it’s deep. Jack makes all the right sounds, including that wonderful purring noise when the Doctor discovers he’s flexible enough to take the tip of Jack’s cock in his mouth from this position. Jack fists the Doctor’s hair like he’s trying to pleasure his scalp. It’s a sensation the Doctor knows will keep him warm next time the TARDIS breaks down in Siberia.
They come together, more or less, Jack a little bit ahead, the sight of him losing control more than enough to send the Doctor over the edge. Even when he’s got nothing to say, he’s far from silent, grunting and moaning his pleasure against Jack’s skin, his teeth and lips and tongue still fixated with that elusive flavour. He shudders with the sensation overload, taking some small comfort in Jack’s strong arms across his back, pulling them into a tight embrace. The Doctor doesn’t move, not even to remove himself from Jack. Jack doesn’t ask him to. For a long while, neither dares to breath too loudly in case the moment is shattered.
Eventually, Jack finds his voice. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“I’m leaving you,” says the Doctor, tucking his arm across Jack’s chest and his head beneath his chin.
Jack hooks a leg over the doctor’s thigh, keeping them locked together. “Right.”
“This isn’t how my life works. Domestic stuff, I mean blimey… we’ll be saying we’re boyfriends next, and buying each other valentine cards. So human. So not me.”
“Right,” says Jack.
“It’s not personal. You know I… Well you know. We’re good together, and the sex… well, you were there just now, right? It’s not about you, it’s about the lifestyle. I can’t do flowers and chocolates and joint bank accounts, and I certainly won’t remember your birthday.”
Jack strokes the Doctor’s hair. His eyes are falling shut, his breath shallow. The Doctor’s voice is slurring with exhaustion.
“So I’m… I’m leaving. At some point. When I can’t take it any more, and… mm, that’s nice, keep doing that. Just there.” He tilts his head to meet Jack’s gentle fingers, smiling sleepily.
“When you figure out what I taste of,” suggests Jack.
“Yeah,” says the Doctor, who thinks it might be a long, cool, spiced drink served on a little planet he can’t remember the name of, but right now he isn’t all that bothered about remembering.
“I’ll miss you,” says Jack, quietly.
The Doctor doesn’t say anything. Jack can’t tell if he’s asleep yet, or pretending to be so he won’t have to explain himself again, or if he has genuinely run out of things to say. Jack doesn’t care. He’s just glad for the rare silence.
He doesn’t know if the Doctor is bluffing or not, but his suspicions lean towards the not. It’s a relief, in a way, knowing that it won’t have to be him trying to remove himself unnoticed from their bed, sneaking out of the TARDIS in the dead of night. He wasn’t lying with his profession of love for the Doctor, but he’s no fool either. He knows as well as the Doctor that nothing lasts forever, even when you cannot die.
Jack turns the lights out with a wave of his hand. He lies in the dark, his arms tight around his dozing Doctor, and does not sleep.