For rude_not_ginger:Two Immortals One TARDIS Insert scene. Valent

[quitehomoerotic]

It had been 50 years since Jack had seen the Doctor. It had been 50 years since Jack had been Jack. 50 years, and he still felt the same. Some days he hated that, it frustrated him and annoyed him and made him want to scream. And some days, it just made him lonely. This was one of those days.

It was Valentines day. A stupid Earth holiday that really meant nothing, but people put so much stock into. Everywhere you went there were balloons shaped like hearts and people holding hands and declaring their love. It made Jack grumpy, and he could never and would never explain why.

So he shut himself away from it. He was in a small flat in a city that seemed to be nothing but small flats. Somewhere full of people where he could at the same time, be completely alone.

And he sat on his own, watching broadcasts on a television with a bottle of scotch to soothe his pains.

50 years, and it still felt like yesterday.

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"I can't lose you again," the Doctor said. His mind had jumped tracks, of course. Other ways, hopping about, never quite on the level with everyone else.

"I remember you there, on the Dead planet with the Marquis. I thought you were dead, Jack. And it almost destroyed me. I couldn't----I couldn't do that again."

Because the Doctor know what would happen if he went back for Jack. Jack didn't know.

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It hurt to hear, because Jack didn't understand. If the Doctor was so afraid of losing him then why did he leave him all those years ago?

"It's been fifty years," Jack said sadly. "And I'm here-- I'm still-- If you came back, I'd go with you." Too much to reveal and too much to tell him. Opening up to a drunk man that would only push him back, he was sure.

"I feel dead like this," he said, "more dead than back there." The Doctor called him Jack, and it was the first time in fifty years the name had been his.

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"But you're not, you're alive," the Doctor said. "You've got so much living to do, Jack, you don't even---it's not---you've just got so much there. So much to give and I---I can't take that away by coming back, I can't."

He wanted to reach out and hold Jack. He wanted to hold him and make him feel alive again. But to feel alive for a moment and then die forever, was that worth it? Could the Doctor willingly do that to him?

"Fifty years," he murmured. "Me, too."

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"I'm not," Jack stressed, "I'm not. This isn't living. That was living, there, with you, us.. and not even us like-- that too but it's not even that. And you wouldn't! You couldn't. Wouldn't you love it, Doctor? One more? Just one more adventure. Me and you running in those stars? Jack and the Doctor. I could shout at you in that voice. We could do so much."

He wasn't even trying to persuade him, not really, just telling him what he thought should be.

"When I die now," he said, "there's nobody there waiting when I wake up."

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"Yeah," he said, feeling his eyes burn with Jack's words. "Next stop everywhere. The Doctor and Jack, saving the day!" The last was said with a little flourish, though he felt even more like crying as he spoke. He should never have called. He should never have given Jack this sort of cruel remembrance to what they were.

"At least you wake up," he said. "Because if you didn't---Jack---the universe would be empty."

He was being over dramatic. He didn't care.

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"Good things," Jack said sadly, "good times. They were-- good times."

Better than good, really. Heartbreaking, at times, completely painful and agonising at others, but worth it, so worth it. Even now, looking from the distance from it, he could say that.

"Most the time I wish I didn't," he admitted sadly. He didn't want to feel that way, but he did. He was a man with a need for a purpose, and the purpose he'd utterly lost.

"The universe doesn't even know I'm here," he said. "I'm not important. I'm not you."

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"See," the Doctor said, pointing to the chair as though Jack were standing there in front of him. "That's where you're wrong. The universe needs you."

He closed his eyes and felt a hot tear hit his cheek. He hadn't realized he was about to start crying. He was crying, and it was part the conversation and part the timing and mostly the alcohol keeping him from holding it all in.

He kept it silent, though. Jack didn't have to know.

"And if you died, Jack, I'd never forgive myself."

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"I'm not going to die," Jack said, and even as he spoke the words he felt like he was lying. He felt dead already, and felt anything that was left was ebbing away.

"Pretend," he said in a whisper. "Just pretend for me. Tell me you'll be here in the morning. We'll have that breakfast and we'll go for an adventure. We will, won't we? Just tell me you will, I know you won't but say you will?"

Jack was good at pretending, and maybe if he heard the words, he could hold them and break the truth from them and hold it to his heart.

"It'll be good to see you again," he went on, as though it would happen. "Fifty years worth of hugs waiting, Doctor. First thing I'll do. Promise I won't even try and kiss you. Sound like a deal?"

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The Doctor shut his eyes tight, as though he could block out the world that kept him here, pissed at the end of the universe with the person he wanted to be with somewhere on the other. He moved the phone away from his ear, in case he made some sort of sob Jack might hear.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. He wanted to destroy the universe, he wanted to tear it apart the way the Master wanted to. He wanted to stop every happy person in the universe because he couldn't be happy here. Not like this.

He brought the phone back to his ear again.

"I'll be there first thing," he said, his voice calm. "Pick you up. We'll go to Santeim 6 after I burn breakfast. Fantastic coffee there."

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Jack's eyes burned even more as he heard the words. He thought it would help but it didn't, it was just painful. Try as he might he couldn't pretend it was true. He wished he could, but he knew the Doctor too well for that.

"We'll never make it to the coffee," he said, his own voice breaking as he tried to laugh through it. "Something's bound to go wrong before then. I'll have to save your ass from something. Really, Doctor, how've you survived this long without me?"

It hurt. It hurt more than Jack could describe and somehow, even with that, he felt more alive than he had in so long. The pain was real, and it reminded him of the world around him.

"Go there," he said, "tomorrow, Santeim 6. Go there." It wouldn't be with him, he knew that.

"Would it be that bad?" he asked quietly. "Five minutes. Just to say hello. You could be here and gone so soon..."

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Majenta was out there.

Of course, he was in a time machine. He could be back for two hours ago if he needed to be. He reached up and pressed a button to lock the present coordinates. He wouldn't miss it, wouldn't miss her. She'd understand.

Then, realizing he'd left the phone on the floor, he stumbled over and picked it up.

"Where are you?"

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Jack felt his heart in his mouth. He was, for a moment, rendered utterly speechless. But no, no, speak, he needed to. His words now were perhaps the most important they could be. Because if he said the right thing, maybe he'd see his best friend once more.

"Persettia," he said, spitting the word out as soon as he could. "4543. 14th February. Persettia city, Daltos avenue, 1324, apartment 4b. I'm here, I'm--" he stood himself up, ran to start moving things, tidy, as though he needed to.

"I'll wait."

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He held his hands over the console. He was really, really in no condition to drive. He knew this. He could only just barely stand upright, much less pilot the TARDIS. He took a breath, and pressed a few buttons, setting the coordinates.

Same year, oddly enough. A quick drive. A quick drive down the street, that's the equivalent of what it was. He shook his head fiercely and pressed two more buttons, then reached for the hand brake.

The TARDIS did not land in the apartment so much as crash there, in a strictly temporal sense, half of the front door embedded in one of the walls and the bottom half of her sticking out from the roof of the lower apartment.

The Doctor was, however, alive. Alive and standing at the door, hand above the handle. He just had to open the door (then climb up and to the left) and then he'd see Jack again.

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Jack paced. He paced in the room, back and forth, the whole length of the flat. No, he wouldn't come, would he? Would the Doctor actually turn up? Would the alcohol in his system allow him to do that? Did he really want to? Because 50 years ago something changed to make him not...

So many questions and so many emotions cycling round in circles and then all of which shattered by the sound. The engines. Those engines, and oh he knew them so so well.

He ran, ran like he needed to again, like it was the first time he had. He followed the sound until he found it. Until he found him. And there, there it was. Landed... albeit unconventionally, but what he could see was undoubtedly the TARDIS.

He stood there, and he waited. The phone still in his hand.

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If he didn't pull open the door now, he wouldn't ever. He took a breath. And another. And counted to three. And then again. And he pulled open the TARDIS door roughly, then looked up through the space. He'd done an even worse job of parking than he'd thought.

"Do you have any idea how irresponsible drinking and driving is?" he said.

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In his chest Jack could feel his heart racing. He was so close, so so so close. But what if he left? What if he went?

But he didn't. The door opened and there he was and oh he really was very drunk, wasn't he?

Momentarily, Jack wished he was wearing something other than the jeans and tshirt he had on. Hardly Jack Harkness, but then that really didn't matter, did it?

"Yeah so bill me for the damages," he said, unable to avoid the grin on his face for seeing him again. He discarded his phone to the side and moved down, reaching to help him up and out.

"Come here," he said, and he wondered how obvious the tear tracks on his face were.

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First thing was first. The Doctor handed up the bottle of liquor to Jack, then struggled to pull himself up. He failed pretty spectacularly on the first attempt, then managed to grip Jack's hand and get up on the second.

He stood there, grinning madly. Blimey, the flat was spinning. Everything was spinning, and there was Jack. Standing there. Just...being Jack.

"I can't stay," he said, sadly, his voice breaking just a little. "You know that."

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Jack took the bottle and swiftly discarded it to the side. Stupid man, why would he care about that? It was him, he cared about, entirely him.

And then there he was, his hand in his and heaved up and suddenly standing right in front of him. Same face, same smile, same hair, same old suit. Same Doctor.

The Doctor spoke, and if Jack was honest then he didn't know why, he had no idea at all why the Doctor couldn't stay. It made utterly no sense to him. But it wasn't what mattered here.

"Shush, shush, just shut up," he said, shaking his head. "You're here now."

And he was. He was there and Jack did exactly as he said he would. He wrapped his arms firmly around him and he held him tight, pulling him into a hug, and ducking his head forward, his nose pressed against his shoulder.

"God, it's good to see you."

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He hadn't been touched like this in a long time. No hugs, nothing like that from Majenta, or any companion before her. He distanced himself for a reason. A good reason. But not here, not during the amount of time he had left before he sobered up or morning came or both.

The Doctor leaned into the hug bodily, clinging to Jack as though if he let go of him, he'd lose him to the universe forever. And he would, actually. The moment he went back to the TARDIS, he'd remove Jack's information from her memorybanks and stay away from him forever.

But not yet.

"It's you," he said, grinning as he pulled back to look at him. "You haven't changed a bit."

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It flashed in Jack's mind as he held the Doctor that he would leave again. That already they had started a countdown of the time they would see each other. Their final time seeing each other. And the goodbye, Jack worried, would be worse than the last one.

"Oh haven't I?" Jack said with gentle amusement, looking down at his own clothes and back up to him.

He shook his head as he looked at him. He could barely believe it, the Doctor standing there in front of him. He half expected if he blinked he'd be gone.

"Oh look at you," he said, taking a deep breath out. He reached up his hand and held it gently to the Doctor's cheek. "Look at you," he repeated.

"God it's... oh...." he shook his head. Not knowing what to say or do. He wanted to hold him, just hold him. Hold him and look after him while he could.

"Come on," he said with a sudden urgency," sit down, we can sit we can... anything, anything you want."

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He was far too drunk for this. Far too drunk. It struck him as how very unfair this all was. Not just the universe, the Doctor had been going on about that for fifty years. But what he was doing here, now, to Jack. It wasn't fair. Jack deserved to move on. He deserved to live without the Doctor, to be happy on his own.

But the Doctor didn't want to care. He wanted to be with Jack, he wanted to hold him he wanted---

He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Jack's. He shut his eyes and tried to memorize the moment through the haze of alcohol. Just one more visit to Jack. A proper goodbye to make up for the last one.

"I missed you."

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Jack felt his heart shudder in his chest. The Doctor there, the Doctor touching him, his scent and the vague smell of banana alcohol.

He was there, and so long Jack had wanted him to be there, and he was saying things Jack had utterly longed to hear.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah I missed you too."

He held his hand at the side of the Doctor's head, not wanting to let go. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him even more than he'd thought he would. He wanted to kiss him like it was all he could do, but it wasn't right was it? The Doctor was drunk and Jack was already sure he'd regret being here when he was sober. But if he kissed him, if he touched him. He didn't want the Doctor to regret that.

But that said, Jack was far from perfect.

"You know that promise I made about not kissing you," he said tentatively, "I'm not sure I can keep it."

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"Okay, good."

The Doctor was very well aware this was all a very bad idea. He was also very well aware that he would regret everything about it the moment he sobered up. He was also even more aware that if he didn't kiss Jack, the universe would probably end. It felt that utterly important to him.

He pressed his mouth to Jack's firmly, without any finesse or skill. Raw emotion coursed through him. Desire and loneliness and love and everything he'd worked very hard to repress for a very, very long time.

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Jack shouldn't kiss him, he really shouldn't kiss him. He knew that, he knew that perhaps more than anything. It hurt too much as it was, it hurt to be without him, and it hurt to see him, and he was sober and the Doctor was drunk and that was never a good combination. He was fully aware of his actions, and he very much doubted the Doctor was fully in control of his.

And so he should be strong, he should stay strong, and he shouldn't kiss him.

But then the Doctor kissed him first.

The Doctor kissed him and it was like an electric current running down his spine. It wasn't sophisticated or well thought out (or perhaps thought out at all) and Jack, try as he might, he didn't have the strength not to respond.

So he gripped his hand tighter around the curve of the Doctor's neck and wrapped his other about his waist and pulled him further into the room.

He kissed him back. Kissed him for all those 50 years of kisses he'd missed out on.

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The Doctor was drunk, but the kiss would've probably made him light-headed even if he wasn't. It was the kiss he'd wanted for a long time. Oh, there'd been the occasional brazen companion who'd kissed him, and he did manage to add Marilyn Monroe to the list of blondes he'd snogged, but it wasn't the same. Not like this.

He cupped Jack's face with one hand and used the other to try to slip down his braces. Sex was very rarely at the forefront of the Doctor's mind, but right now, it seemed like a great idea. Sex with Jack, then thinking about consequences later. Consequences were really stupid anyway, weren't they?

He broke the kiss but didn't move away. He gave him a stupidly happy grin. "Jack," he said.