Work Text:
After the dancing, after the music faded and they'd twirled apart, each to their separate bedrooms, the excitement and cheer fell away, leaving only tension around Jack's temples and a dull throbbing behind his eyes. Jack rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead as if he could push the feeling in, hide it deep under skin and bone.
The bed was wide and sumptuous and inviting, and empty. Jack turned on his heel and strode right back through the door he'd come in from. The corridor was empty, too.
Jack patted the TARDIS wall with a rueful smile. "Don't suppose there's any hypervodka on this ship, beautiful?"
There was no response, of course. Jack sighed, turned left and went for an aimless stroll through the unevenly lit interiors of the strange ship that had taken him aboard. Coral-like structures formed supports every now and then, and there were many doors and hatchways, all of them closed.
The corridors were a maze. Some of Jack's earlier excitement came back when he looked at the scans he was getting, shifting from moment to moment. For a while he simply walked around, aimless, sometimes backtracking on his own path, delighting in the shifting spatial configurations and the frankly astonishing energy readings. Time Agent or no, he'd never seen anything like it, anywhere or anywhen. He trailed a hand along a wall for a while, smiling.
So many doors. Which of them should he try? Should he try? It might be best not to push his luck, not with the Doctor. He didn't quite have the measure of him yet - the man was too mercurial, bright and almost bouncing one moment, deathly serious and intent the next. What there was beneath the surface, Jack couldn't begin to guess. Then again ...
Something clanged ahead of him - once, twice, and again - CLANG-CLANG-CLANG, furious and almost frantic. Jack's eyebrows went up, and he sped up his leisurely stroll. The clanging led him to an open doorway - the only one he'd encountered yet - leading to a small domed room, maybe half the diameter of the control room.
Jack stopped in the doorway, blinking. The Doctor was sitting on the floor, sans leather jacket, the sleeves of his jumper pushed up, hammering away at the casing of a large machine. The click-seal seemed to be stuck, but the style was familiar. Not to mention the inspection stamp.
"Is that a Chelidian five-space inversion projector?"
The Doctor flinched at the sound of Jack's voice, but stilled himself quickly. After a moment, with obvious deliberation, he turned away from the recalcitrant casing and scowled up at Jack. "Congratulations, you can recognise Chelidian engineering when you see it. What are you doing up?"
Jack shrugged, carefully nonchalant. "Wasn't ready to sleep. Same as you, seems like. Need a hand?"
"No." The Doctor turned back to the casing.
Jack didn't let the rebuff faze him. He leaned against the wall and simply watched for a bit.
Finally, the Doctor managed to pry apart the seal, and he proceeded to furiously dismantle - or perhaps demolish - the projector. Soon, molecular fusers and magnoplast strips and various component modules were strewed around him. It looked haphazard at first glance, but after a moment Jack realised the regular circles. Everything was laid out in a perfectly logical order.
Then the Doctor dropped a tirotronic module right onto a small pile of molecular fusers, breaking the orderly pattern he'd been building. He bent forward to pick it up with a curse. His fingers were clumsy, but he succeeded on the second try.
Jack tilted his head, considering. "Before I jump to conclusions," he said eventually, "how much sleep do your kind actually need?"
The Doctor turned his head. "What are you still doing here?" It could have been a harsh dismissal, but it sounded merely surprised. Jack nodded to himself; it fit. The Doctor grimaced. A jerky shake of the head; then he continued, "None of your business. Less than you, anyway, so off to bed with you."
The tension around his eye sockets increased at the suggestion. Jack offered a wry smile. "Wouldn't do any good, believe me." Perhaps he was imagining it, but the Doctor's blue eyes seemed to darken in recognition. Jack hesitated, then forged ahead. "Less. But not none."
The Doctor scowled up at him, then sighed. "No. Not none." He turned away again, pushed himself to his feet and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. Holding it to the projector, he moved around the open casing, running through several settings. After a while his shoulders slumped, and he put it down again. Jack thought he looked like he was going to set it aside and give up. But after a moment, the Doctor lifted his screwdriver and went on.
Jack had a good view of the Doctor's face, lit from below: high cheekbones, shadowed eyes, skin that seemed stretched thin, a face that barely held on to itself. Jack's own headache seemed to grow in sympathy. He watched for a while, eyelids at half-mast, a small, not particularly amused smile just hovering around the corners of his mouth. He knew what he was seeing; he didn't know whether he should say something. After all, he barely knew the man, and an evening of dancing aside, they hadn't exactly started on the best of terms.
But then, Jack had never let that stop him before.
"You know," he finally said, making up his mind, "doesn't look like the tirotronics want to cooperate just now. Know what I do when I need to exhaust myself?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes at him, dropping the screwdriver onto the open casing with a hollow clang. "Pretty sure I can guess. That doesn't really help, you know." An exasperated shake of the head. "Humans."
Jack pushed himself off the wall with his shoulder blades, a smooth, sinuous movement - he should know; he'd practised it until it displayed his chest and his hips to optimal effect. When the Doctor's eyes shifted down for a moment, he knew it was still working. He took a few steps closer so he could lower his voice a little. "What species are you, then?"
The Doctor jerked at that, then looked away. One hand came up to rub the back of his neck as he came to his feet in a movement that managed to somehow look fluid and heavy at the same time. "That's right, haven't told you that, have I?" A dark expression flickered over his face, something almost like contempt, there and gone in an instant. "Time Lord, me. Heard the name?" And his lips stretched into a too-wide, too-bright grin that couldn't cover the way he'd almost spat the name.
That was why Jack didn't respond for a long moment. Anyone else, under any other circumstances, calling themselves a Time Lord? Jack would have laughed in their face. Or maybe patted their cheek, assuring them they were very cute indeed. But the pain in the Doctor's voice was too real. Jack might be a con man, and ready to assume everyone lied, particularly to him - but that only meant he knew the things that couldn't be faked.
The Doctor was still looking at him, grief and challenge in his eyes, when Jack stepped forward and splayed a hand over the Doctor's chest. The thump-thumpity-thump of twin heartbeats rumbled against his palm. He snatched his hand back as if burnt.
He'd known the Doctor was something else. But this? A thing of legends? He was beginning to realise just how far out of his league he was.
"Well?" said the Doctor, in complete disregard of Jack's uncharacteristic crisis of ... what, really? Reality, he supposed. Time Lords weren't supposed to be real. "Going to stand there all night, are you?" Impatient, "We're talking, Captain. That means sound is supposed to be coming from your mouth."
"I can think of a few other things mouths are good for," Jack said before his brain really caught up, and then he finally recovered his wits. Out of his league, was he? Well, the things he knew he could handle, they were getting a bit stale by now, weren't they? But this, here, now ... Adrenaline coursed through his body, and a wide, genuine smile spread on his face, finally easing the tension around his temples.
He lifted his hand again, put it back where it had been. The Doctor's chest seemed cool through his jumper. Lower body temperature? Jack's imagination? He hoped he'd get a chance to find out.
The Doctor's eyes were suddenly wide. He looked as if he were holding himself still through an inhuman effort of will. His chest almost seemed to tremble beneath Jack's palm.
"You don't know what you're talking about," the Doctor snarled eventually. "You think you can't sleep? Try one of my nightmares, you'll never sleep again in your life. You think you can help, with things you'll never understand?"
Jack nearly flinched. That had hurt - not the accusation, but the painful sincerity in the Doctor's voice, the despair shining through. The man must be bone-deep exhausted, to expose himself like this, to find no better weapon to push Jack away with than his own pain.
Jack had always been good at reading body language, figuring out what it was that someone wanted - in fact, he'd won more than a few bets against his old Time Agency partner on that score. And the Doctor might be a species new to him, but what Jack was seeing in his eyes, hearing in his voice - that was familiar enough.
"Try me," Jack whispered harshly. "Could hardly make it worse, could I?"
The Doctor finally broke his paralysis. Suddenly he was all fury, straight in Jack's face. His hands came up, and he pushed at Jack's shoulders, forcing him a step back, then another. "D'you have any idea what you're messing with?" he snarled. "What am I saying, of course you don't. But you're pushing anyway. Have a care - might not like what happens when you push too hard."
Jack's skin felt alive, his entire body humming with barely contained energy. He bared his teeth - smile, smirk, snarl, he didn't even know himself. What the hell. Worst case, he'd be kicked out. If you played it safe, what was the point of it all? Time to jump right into the fray: time to play with fire.
"'course I don't know," he snapped back. "That's half the fun, isn't it? If we knew it all there wouldn't be a point. Even for you, Doctor. Why else would you wander around space and time sonic-ing it up with the likes of us?"
The Doctor's eyes widened, and that was the moment when Jack moved, leaned forward to brush lips against lips.
Welcome to Volcano Day.