Fic: Crossing the Bar
Title: Crossing the Bar
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The Tenth Doctor is visited by a version of Jack far older than even he can imagine. Jack has come back to say two things; 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry'.
Length: 1,778 words
Notes: I should include a warning with this fic, but it rather spoils the ending. So basically, combine the rating with the fact that this is angst, and then decide whether you want to read it. Oh, also, second person narrative (warning for that is a running joke which only, um, I get).
This was written for the wintercompanion challenge 'Crossing the Lines'
“For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
He looks different. You can’t help obsessing over that, how strange and surreal he looks. His hair is a lot longer than you’ve seen it before, and there’s a disconcerting streak of grey on one side of his head. His eyes are darker, and when he smiles, there are new creases that even Jack can’t hide.
He’s even got a new coat. Long and grey and stylish, certainly, but not Jack’s coat. It doesn’t smell of him, and the feel of it under your fingers doesn’t make you think of bombs and planes and gas-masks, of crisp winter nights, of hope and glory and desolation. It isn’t a soldier’s coat. It isn’t right.
But what he looks like doesn’t bother you so much as what he feels like. You’re used to firmness, to hard muscles and steely determination. Jack has kept in shape, but he’s losing his physique, getting wiry rather than solid. There’s a little stoop to his posture, a sag in his shoulders, and the sense that he’d quite like to sit down.
When you kiss him, he doesn’t grab you like he used to, doesn’t run his fingers through your hair, or press his body close to yours. He rests his hands on your hips, and lets you hitch up his shirt, and run your fingers over his stomach. His lips move against yours, but there’s a weariness to his kiss that echoes the his stance, and reminds you of the grey tint that’s crept into the blue of his eyes.
Your fingers fist, involuntarily, around the fabric of his shirt, tugging him closer to you, and he shifts slightly, slides an arm round your waist. Some of his poise has gone, and so has his arrogance, but what it’s been replaced with is a deeper, heavier, more cynical confidence. You can feel it in his arms, and his lips, in the way he waits for you to tell him what you want before soundlessly letting you take it.
For the first time in centuries, you feel young. You haven’t asked how old Jack is, and you don’t need to. You can sense the expanse of his lifetime, feel the millennia he has gathered like an aura around him.
It makes you want him like you never have before.
Jack says very little, and you’re grateful for that. Words complicate things. You can sense everything you want to know, the same as you can sense all the things you don’t. But when you lean back on the bed, looking to him to follow, he hesitates. A frown creases his forehead.
“Can I ask you something?”
You shrug, slightly alarmed by the deeper, gruffer edge to his voice. “If you like.”
He seems to ponder his question for a moment. It’s almost an amusing sight. His shirt is rumpled, a couple of buttons open, and before you sat down you opened his fly. Now he’s trying to look serious, and you can’t help but grin.
“Why’d you do it?” he says, eventually.
“Jack, you’ll have to be a little more specific.”
He sits down beside you, studying you carefully. “God, you look incredible. I’d almost forgotten that face.”
“I’m stunned and wounded.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Yep, that too. Weren’t you going to ask me something?”
“Was it ‘cause I was pretty?”
“Was what, Jack?”
“Was that why you saved my life?”
You have to think fast, and then it comes back to you. The bomb, the ship, the captain toasting his own life. You and Rose and the TARDIS, and the three of you dancing to Glen Miller. The first night you kissed him, right in front of Rose, and then all that came after.
“Do you really think that?”
“Why else would you? I was a little shit. An arrogant, empty-headed, criminal waste of space. I just figured you liked the look of me, but that’s not right, is it? That’s not you. I’ve known you with five different faces, and all of them would have needed a better reason than that.”
“I’m a Time Lord, Jack. Sometimes I don’t even know why I do things until long after the event. But I couldn’t let you die. You didn’t deserve that.”
He laughs, runs a hand through his smoky hair. “No, this is my punishment. A much better one, I might add. I mean, what the hell does death teach you, eh? And I’ve learned so much…”
You let him move over you, your head falling back against the pillow as he tongues his way from your navel to your throat. He kisses your lips, firm but gentle, as he removes your trousers with one hand. You can feel him against your thigh, hard and ready, but he has shed the impatience that always pissed you off. And then he’s stroking you, and kissing you, and his grip is no longer too tight, and his kisses are no longer too deep.
You slide a hand beneath his trousers, grab his arse, pull him against you as you push up into his hand. His enthusiasm, you can’t help noticing, has been replaced with skill. That’s one thing you dislike about humans. They never live long enough to discover certain tricks. All except for Jack, of course.
And you don’t know why you let him do it, or why you let yourself need it, or why it should happen here and now, but you fumble for the tube under the pillow like a nervous schoolboy, and push it into his hand, disowning yourself of responsibility. He’s grown up enough not to let you know how funny you look.
Jack takes his time with you, running slippery fingers slowly up and down your cock, over your balls and your thighs and your belly, blatantly teasing you before he slides one finger in. You flinch, buck your hips, at once wanting the invasion to stop and yet to push deeper, for Jack to take you, finally, like he’s secretly longed to do every time you’ve fucked him.
That finger pushes in, and out, slowly, infuriatingly, before he leans down again to kiss you, and at the same time turns one finger into two, and then suddenly three. You arch your back, still conflicted by the desire to be screwed and a strange loathing of such intimacy. There’s only one other man who’s done this to you, who you’ve ever allowed this close, and he was nothing like Jack. Why they should both share this privilege you have no idea, but you are aware that this is necessary, for you and for him. Perhaps one day you’ll know why, and perhaps not. But it doesn’t matter. Not now.
The fingers are gone, and you are both relieved and bereft, but you watch him pull his own shirt off, and his trousers, until you can pull him down against you and you lie, pressed together, hips and thighs, cocks and stomachs, arms, chests, cheek-to-cheek and skin against skin. He smells wonderful, achingly familiar and at the same time strangely exotic. He kisses your neck, nuzzling with a tenderness you’ve never associated with him before
And then the tube is back in his hand, and he’s making a little show of slicking himself up. You lie there in a daze of arousal and nerves, grinning at him. He grins back. Runs his palms up the insides of your thighs, then hitches you up, helping you wrap your legs tight around him as he thrusts into you, slowly, carefully, but so deep you want to howl and scratch and fight him off and draw him deeper.
Jack shuts his eyes as he fucks you, and you wonder what he’s looking at, if it’s your face - your faces - that he sees, and you know, instinctively, that he’s thinking of a you who won’t exist for centuries. A version of yourself that loves him as intensely as he loves you, perhaps, or maybe one that never looks at him at all.
It doesn’t matter, though. You need this. Someone else, someone older and wiser, someone stronger taking control. You can be that person every time, and you especially don’t want to right now. You’ve made mistakes, so many mistakes, and you’ve lost one friend too many. It’s your fault. You should never have had to take responsibility. So now it’s Jack’s turn to be the boss, and you’ll salute him if you have to.
He moves faster, and thrusts even deeper, reaching just the right spot inside to make your vision go grainy-white. He tries to touch your cock, but you knock his hand away, and he kisses you instead, every inch that he can reach, but you barely feel it. All that matters is Jack inside you, and you focus on him, see nothing but him as your orgasm hits like the ground rushing up to meet you.
You let yourself catch your breath before gently pushing Jack back on the bed. He’s panting and sweating, but still hard, and there’s no negotiation, no resistance as you settle between his thighs and take him into your mouth. You’ve never done this for him before, either, and it occurs to you that, when it comes to Jack, you may have been more than a little selfish.
Jack’s stamina is as impressive as always, and you’re breathless by the time he comes, groaning your name and clenching your hair in his fist. He rolls his head back, grinning at the ceiling, and you crawl up beside him. Rest your head against his chest, and let your eyelids half-close.
You listen to your heartbeats, and your breathing, the two of you more in synch than ever. There’s the subtle ticking of a clock, reminding you of time’s persistence in tugging you ever forward, and its refusal to acknowledge any Lord.
Jack says, in a voice tense with emotion, “thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for a shag, Jack. We don’t owe each other anything.”
“No,” he says, “I don’t mean that. I mean, thank you for saving my life. I never said it before. And…”
He pushes himself up, gazing intently into your eyes. He touches your face, and you grasp his hand. You’ve never seen him so troubled. His lip trembles, very slightly, and he leans in to kiss you. Puts his arms around you. Holds you tight.
“And I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “that I couldn’t do the same for you.”
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The Tenth Doctor is visited by a version of Jack far older than even he can imagine. Jack has come back to say two things; 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry'.
Length: 1,778 words
Notes: I should include a warning with this fic, but it rather spoils the ending. So basically, combine the rating with the fact that this is angst, and then decide whether you want to read it. Oh, also, second person narrative (warning for that is a running joke which only, um, I get).
This was written for the wintercompanion challenge 'Crossing the Lines'
“For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
He looks different. You can’t help obsessing over that, how strange and surreal he looks. His hair is a lot longer than you’ve seen it before, and there’s a disconcerting streak of grey on one side of his head. His eyes are darker, and when he smiles, there are new creases that even Jack can’t hide.
He’s even got a new coat. Long and grey and stylish, certainly, but not Jack’s coat. It doesn’t smell of him, and the feel of it under your fingers doesn’t make you think of bombs and planes and gas-masks, of crisp winter nights, of hope and glory and desolation. It isn’t a soldier’s coat. It isn’t right.
But what he looks like doesn’t bother you so much as what he feels like. You’re used to firmness, to hard muscles and steely determination. Jack has kept in shape, but he’s losing his physique, getting wiry rather than solid. There’s a little stoop to his posture, a sag in his shoulders, and the sense that he’d quite like to sit down.
When you kiss him, he doesn’t grab you like he used to, doesn’t run his fingers through your hair, or press his body close to yours. He rests his hands on your hips, and lets you hitch up his shirt, and run your fingers over his stomach. His lips move against yours, but there’s a weariness to his kiss that echoes the his stance, and reminds you of the grey tint that’s crept into the blue of his eyes.
Your fingers fist, involuntarily, around the fabric of his shirt, tugging him closer to you, and he shifts slightly, slides an arm round your waist. Some of his poise has gone, and so has his arrogance, but what it’s been replaced with is a deeper, heavier, more cynical confidence. You can feel it in his arms, and his lips, in the way he waits for you to tell him what you want before soundlessly letting you take it.
For the first time in centuries, you feel young. You haven’t asked how old Jack is, and you don’t need to. You can sense the expanse of his lifetime, feel the millennia he has gathered like an aura around him.
It makes you want him like you never have before.
Jack says very little, and you’re grateful for that. Words complicate things. You can sense everything you want to know, the same as you can sense all the things you don’t. But when you lean back on the bed, looking to him to follow, he hesitates. A frown creases his forehead.
“Can I ask you something?”
You shrug, slightly alarmed by the deeper, gruffer edge to his voice. “If you like.”
He seems to ponder his question for a moment. It’s almost an amusing sight. His shirt is rumpled, a couple of buttons open, and before you sat down you opened his fly. Now he’s trying to look serious, and you can’t help but grin.
“Why’d you do it?” he says, eventually.
“Jack, you’ll have to be a little more specific.”
He sits down beside you, studying you carefully. “God, you look incredible. I’d almost forgotten that face.”
“I’m stunned and wounded.”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“Yep, that too. Weren’t you going to ask me something?”
“Was it ‘cause I was pretty?”
“Was what, Jack?”
“Was that why you saved my life?”
You have to think fast, and then it comes back to you. The bomb, the ship, the captain toasting his own life. You and Rose and the TARDIS, and the three of you dancing to Glen Miller. The first night you kissed him, right in front of Rose, and then all that came after.
“Do you really think that?”
“Why else would you? I was a little shit. An arrogant, empty-headed, criminal waste of space. I just figured you liked the look of me, but that’s not right, is it? That’s not you. I’ve known you with five different faces, and all of them would have needed a better reason than that.”
“I’m a Time Lord, Jack. Sometimes I don’t even know why I do things until long after the event. But I couldn’t let you die. You didn’t deserve that.”
He laughs, runs a hand through his smoky hair. “No, this is my punishment. A much better one, I might add. I mean, what the hell does death teach you, eh? And I’ve learned so much…”
You let him move over you, your head falling back against the pillow as he tongues his way from your navel to your throat. He kisses your lips, firm but gentle, as he removes your trousers with one hand. You can feel him against your thigh, hard and ready, but he has shed the impatience that always pissed you off. And then he’s stroking you, and kissing you, and his grip is no longer too tight, and his kisses are no longer too deep.
You slide a hand beneath his trousers, grab his arse, pull him against you as you push up into his hand. His enthusiasm, you can’t help noticing, has been replaced with skill. That’s one thing you dislike about humans. They never live long enough to discover certain tricks. All except for Jack, of course.
And you don’t know why you let him do it, or why you let yourself need it, or why it should happen here and now, but you fumble for the tube under the pillow like a nervous schoolboy, and push it into his hand, disowning yourself of responsibility. He’s grown up enough not to let you know how funny you look.
Jack takes his time with you, running slippery fingers slowly up and down your cock, over your balls and your thighs and your belly, blatantly teasing you before he slides one finger in. You flinch, buck your hips, at once wanting the invasion to stop and yet to push deeper, for Jack to take you, finally, like he’s secretly longed to do every time you’ve fucked him.
That finger pushes in, and out, slowly, infuriatingly, before he leans down again to kiss you, and at the same time turns one finger into two, and then suddenly three. You arch your back, still conflicted by the desire to be screwed and a strange loathing of such intimacy. There’s only one other man who’s done this to you, who you’ve ever allowed this close, and he was nothing like Jack. Why they should both share this privilege you have no idea, but you are aware that this is necessary, for you and for him. Perhaps one day you’ll know why, and perhaps not. But it doesn’t matter. Not now.
The fingers are gone, and you are both relieved and bereft, but you watch him pull his own shirt off, and his trousers, until you can pull him down against you and you lie, pressed together, hips and thighs, cocks and stomachs, arms, chests, cheek-to-cheek and skin against skin. He smells wonderful, achingly familiar and at the same time strangely exotic. He kisses your neck, nuzzling with a tenderness you’ve never associated with him before
And then the tube is back in his hand, and he’s making a little show of slicking himself up. You lie there in a daze of arousal and nerves, grinning at him. He grins back. Runs his palms up the insides of your thighs, then hitches you up, helping you wrap your legs tight around him as he thrusts into you, slowly, carefully, but so deep you want to howl and scratch and fight him off and draw him deeper.
Jack shuts his eyes as he fucks you, and you wonder what he’s looking at, if it’s your face - your faces - that he sees, and you know, instinctively, that he’s thinking of a you who won’t exist for centuries. A version of yourself that loves him as intensely as he loves you, perhaps, or maybe one that never looks at him at all.
It doesn’t matter, though. You need this. Someone else, someone older and wiser, someone stronger taking control. You can be that person every time, and you especially don’t want to right now. You’ve made mistakes, so many mistakes, and you’ve lost one friend too many. It’s your fault. You should never have had to take responsibility. So now it’s Jack’s turn to be the boss, and you’ll salute him if you have to.
He moves faster, and thrusts even deeper, reaching just the right spot inside to make your vision go grainy-white. He tries to touch your cock, but you knock his hand away, and he kisses you instead, every inch that he can reach, but you barely feel it. All that matters is Jack inside you, and you focus on him, see nothing but him as your orgasm hits like the ground rushing up to meet you.
You let yourself catch your breath before gently pushing Jack back on the bed. He’s panting and sweating, but still hard, and there’s no negotiation, no resistance as you settle between his thighs and take him into your mouth. You’ve never done this for him before, either, and it occurs to you that, when it comes to Jack, you may have been more than a little selfish.
Jack’s stamina is as impressive as always, and you’re breathless by the time he comes, groaning your name and clenching your hair in his fist. He rolls his head back, grinning at the ceiling, and you crawl up beside him. Rest your head against his chest, and let your eyelids half-close.
You listen to your heartbeats, and your breathing, the two of you more in synch than ever. There’s the subtle ticking of a clock, reminding you of time’s persistence in tugging you ever forward, and its refusal to acknowledge any Lord.
Jack says, in a voice tense with emotion, “thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for a shag, Jack. We don’t owe each other anything.”
“No,” he says, “I don’t mean that. I mean, thank you for saving my life. I never said it before. And…”
He pushes himself up, gazing intently into your eyes. He touches your face, and you grasp his hand. You’ve never seen him so troubled. His lip trembles, very slightly, and he leans in to kiss you. Puts his arms around you. Holds you tight.
“And I’m sorry,” he murmurs, “that I couldn’t do the same for you.”