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Late at night, Jack went back to the console room again.
The Doctor was there, of course. He didn't exactly have a habit of sleeping well, not any more than Jack himself. His head was bent over a metal-plated trunk that hadn't been there, earlier in the day, and he was rummaging around with one hand. The other was hitching up his jumper a little to scratch at his back.
Jack grinned and watched for a moment, then walked over and took a look inside the trunk, which held discarded pieces of techno-junk and about half the contents of a Rellidian janitor's toolkit, among other things. A tangle of coloured string reminded Jack of a puzzle-toy from his youth. Then he blinked, and reached around the Doctor's shoulder to lift out a pair of wide-rimmed plastic glasses, generously decorated with glitter.
"I don't think those are your style."
The Doctor looked at the glasses as if seeing them for the first time, then simultaneously huffed and shrugged. He continued to rummage. "Could have sworn I'd seen some anticonduits left in there, last year," he muttered.
That was all he did to acknowledge Jack's presence, as usual. It was a well-established pattern by now, needing no open agreement. Neither of them mentioned the reasons for their frequent late-at-night meetings; they simply passed the time, together. With what precisely depended mostly on the Doctor's changeable moods.
Jack started picking through the contents of the trunk as well, and began to sort a set of micropins back into the box they'd half spilled from. Then he snorted, and held out another find to the Doctor.
The Doctor took it from him and stared at it for a long moment, bemused. "What's that doing in there?"
That was a christmas cracker, the miniature kind that had been popular in the 23rd century - about as large as Jack's thumb.
Jack grinned. "It's not going to blow up, is it?" he asked, fake-shying away from it with a smirk. "When I was a Time Agent, someone once tried to blow up my team with a bomb hidden in one of them, and we had to ..."
"Take off all your clothes?" the Doctor asked, more caustically than was strictly necessary, in Jack's opinion. "Because somehow half your stories seem to end that way, Captain."
Jack didn't take this as any kind of hint; the Doctor's moods were always mercurial, but never more so than when it came to flirting, its boundaries, and anywhere it might lead.
"Only half?" Jack snorted. "I'm not as lucky as I could be, then. I'll have to work on that."
"Hmpf." The Doctor scowled down at the cracker, but there seemed to be a grin hovering beneath the lines around the corners of his mouth.
Jack took the cracker from the Doctor's hand. "Happy holidays, Doc," he said, only slightly sarcastically, and tossed it back into the trunk.
"Thought you couldn't resist a big bang," the Doctor said, and he was definitely grinning now. "What, not playing with fire?"
"Always." He reached out and took the Doctor's hand in his own, and rubbed its palm with a thumb.
The Doctor might have reared back. He might have stood frozen-still. He might have pushed Jack away, hands harsh against Jack's shoulders. He'd done all of those, one time or another. But not this time.
This time, the bones and sinews of his hand relaxed into Jack's caress, and he let himself lean against Jack's shoulder, just a little.
It was never a sure thing, the Doctor's response - eager one time, distant the next; now harsh and demanding, now yielding and open. That was half the fun.
When Jack's lips touched the Doctor's, the hard lines of the Doctor's mouth - hard even in laughter, somehow - might have rejected the kiss. Instead, the Doctor's mouth opened a little, not necessarily in invitation but definitely in welcome, and the brief touch extended itself, close and intimate, no longer merely a simple touch.
Finally, Jack brought himself to pull back. The Doctor's blue eyes were open, examining him with an unreadable expression. Jack waited, simply feeling the Doctor's closeness, the firm lines of his body, so solid a vessel for so changeable a soul.
"Well, then," the Doctor said brightly, letting his hands fall from Jack's shoulders, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of Jack's trousers, "let's try it your way."
The brightness was surface-only, of course - not quite false, yet not quite real either. But what there was beneath it, other than the usual dark grief, Jack couldn't quite tell.
Jack smirked. "Unless you absolutely wanted a plastifoil crown."
The Doctor started, then his eyes seemed to soften. "You can have it," he grumbled. "I don't do party hats."
"Jackie Tyler would beg to disagree."
He could feel the tremors of laughter under the Doctor's skin when he pushed his hands under the Doctor's jumper and up, bunching it, brushing over a firm chest. The Doctor obligingly lifted his arms. In only his vest, the Doctor looked almost vulnerable for a moment; then the shoulders straightened, and the slightly self-conscious look faded into a smirk.
Jack kicked off his shoes, and the Doctor reached for him, pulling them together.
Jack never asked, What do you want? The answer was clear to him at any rate: A great number of things, none of which Jack could give him. That went both ways, after all.
Jack's trousers went first, then his shirt, and soon they were both on the floor, hands on skin, breath on skin.
The floor grating should have been uncomfortable for naked skin, not even cushioned by a blanket or coat, but it was merely cool for now, a welcome soothing to his heated skin, when the Doctor leaned over him and his shoulders settled against the metal.
He'd still have patterns pressed into his skin, afterwards. Good.
"C'mon then," the Doctor said, almost conversationally, fingers flickering along Jack's thigh. "Show us what you've got."
Jack gasped. "Gladly." And he hooked his arms around the Doctor, pulling him down fully on top of him.
Something seemed to shift beneath the Doctor's skin, and some old tension left his body - or rather, was forcibly expelled, if Jack was any judge - as the Doctor let himself settle between Jack's thighs. The skin around his eyes crinkled into something half smirk, half genuine smile.
"Happy holidays, Captain," the Doctor said.