Title: When a Door Closes
By: misreall
Pairing: 9/Jack
Rating: AO
Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one. And I don't have the money to buy them if that were an option.
Note: AU after The Parting of Ways. Clearly.
Summary: The Doctor and Jack, and the Doctor and Jack, have an intimate moment. Or a few of them. And time considers itself.

***

If you think of time as a line you have already failed.
In fact many are unable to think of time as anything but a line.
Thus fall civilizations. Worlds, even.
Nor, even though it is tempting, should you imagine time as a wave. Or a spot in the landscape. Or a theory.
Some see time as a net. A fine filigree made of itself, holding the universe in place like the greying hair of a tired woman who makes chocolates and whose feet are killing her.
A net is close. A net is proof that you have some idea. A net is in the ballpark. Providing the ballpark, being American-style, has a third base about 1,497,842 miles from the batter's strike zone, has a seating capacity the same as the population of the Asian subcontinent, and has enough beer, nachos and toilet paper to hold out for a game lasting between the first time a thinking being made a funeral offering to her grandmother and the last time anyone was drunk and thought that a late night visit to a diner for fried food and a coffee sounded like a good idea.
Let me take a breath here. I find this so frustrating- so annoying- that I sometimes work myself into a state.
All right, better now.

If time has a metaphor that metaphor is rain.
Not a hard, early winter downpour, or a cloudburster. Or a flash flood that pushes cars and cattle into ditches and ruins that nice sisal rug you just put in your basement rec room.
Rather it is that oh so soft rain. The rain that doesn't fall from heaven so much as pull itself from the air around you. It soddens your hair and fogs your glasses and makes every bit of your home feel clammy and cold. No umbrella can stop it, because it comes in on every side, leaving no specific drop, just a fine film that cannot be wiped away. It reforms around you and no fire is hot enough or towel fluffy enough to do you any good at all.
Time is, in the end, a very British entity.
Which might explain why the Doctor likes to hang about England like an undecided spirit of Christmas yet to be.
Or maybe Past.
Or Present. Can't forget the Present.

Processing the taste, the texture, of a mouth. The tongue, aggressively stabbing into him, the lips covering his, the teeth, a bit too sharp, too painful. Jack was an experienced kisser, no doubt used to driving and taking, equally skilled in following where lead.
When the lead was strong enough.
The Doctor. The Doctor was born to lead.
He moved his mouth slowly, drawing Jack's tongue in deeply, running the flat of his own along the side of the other man's, taking anything he wanted. It was time to ignore what Jack wanted and just take that lead.
The Doctor's eyes opened wide, and he sat forward, knocking Jack off of his bed. "That's it!"
"What's the idea? I though you wanted to get some." Jack was looking mussed, but not offended, as he sprawled on the ground, rubbing his thigh where it had hit the floor of the Tardis.
"I do, no question. Some is an excellent idea. Some tea is always good. Some sleep, when tired. Some soup, for the times one is under the weather. And then, there is the 'some' you are talking about," The Doctor leaned forward off the bed, and trailed his fingers under Jack's chin, smiling with too many teeth showing. "But I want a different "˜some' this time." He leaned further, his lips brushing the thin flesh inside Jack's ear, sending a shudder through the younger man's body. "I've been inside you."
"Yes," Jack's eyes closed, and his legs stretched out, he pressed the side of his head against the Doctor's mouth, and the Doctor breathed in his fine, short hair. His ears had the slightest point and the Doctor could not resist running his tongue into that point, catching just a little on the cartilage
and the salty skin.
"I've fucked you. I've made you groan, and scream. I've moaned. I bit the back of your neck. The sweat ran down your back, onto my chest, my sweat soaked your hair. Our bodies made a sound, slapping together. Do you remember?"
"Of course I fucking remember. Who forgets something like that? It was amazing." Jack turned his face so they were an inch, or less, apart. "I've been waiting for another good, hard fuck. So what are YOU waiting for?"
The Doctor smiled and leaned back, pushing his glasses back up his nose with the forefinger of his left hand. "Well, let's just say that "˜It's not you, it's me.' I've changed. I've even"¦grown, maybe. I want something different."
Jack smiled.
"Something different? Doc, I was born to be something different."



Something was grinding into his kidney, and his left thigh muscle was screaming from supporting his weight and that of another, full-grown man, for as long as he had. The pain was almost unbearable, but Jack refused to do anything about it. He was afraid if he moved the Doctor might reconsider his decision to fuck him. So he remained, awkwardly sprawled on his back across the Tardis control panel, being savagely kissed.
Ravaged, actually.
The conversation that had lead to this beautiful, if potentially crippling,
moment had started out normally enough for an early morning on the Tardis.
They had left Rose on earth briefly to attend the baby shower of an old school friend. There had been a fairly protracted argument with Jackie about the appropriateness of a compact teleportation device as a baby gift.
"She had registered, Rose. There were plenty of very nice, pretty things you could have gotten her. But no, you had to be clever."
"This is perfect. Brenda is just the sort to use disposable diapers, instead of cloth. So this is set to send the diapers into a white dwarf, so they'll burn up instead of sitting in a landfill mucking up the environment and lasting until the sun burns out."
The two of them had gone off, still bickering, and the Doctor had decided to take the Tardis off world for a bit, to hover and run some diagnostics.
"I wonder if Rose is going to be like Jackie when she gets older?" Jack had asked, "Not that she's not very attractive for an older woman, but she a bit vocal. Not that I mind that, but it depends on when."
"I doubt it. I've seen Jackie when she was younger and she and Rose are pretty different. Still, when Rose has kids, well, that changes a woman. The responsibility, the stress."
"Rose will probably make a great mom. She would look very earthmothery with one of those big stomachs. And her breasts. Now that is something I can't wait to see."
The Doctor put down the copy of Godley's Ladies Book he was reading, "That's diz-gusting. Really, the way your mind works."
Jack leaned across the table and smirked a bit at the Doctor, "I've seen you looking at those bad boys, tell me it wouldn't be fun to see more of them."
The Doctor lifted the magazine again, "I try not to dwell on Rose's breasts."
"I bet she'd like it if you did." The Doctor remained silent, but the silence was somewhat fraught. "I bet if she thought if you "”"
"Drop it."
"I bet if she thought you would like it she'd be getting implants and walking around in a bikini. Say, maybe if I tell her you said that-"
"Shooot up." Jack found it sexy how much more Northern the Doctor got when he was angry.
"You can't tell me that you don't like it when I talk dirty about Rose."
"I said to shut up. I don't think about Rose that way." He got up, and started pacing. "Yes, I love Rose's breasts. I love her bottom. I love her. Which is a problem. She loves me. She loves me. And some day this is all going to end."
"Why-"
"Shut, as in close, up, as in your bloody mouth. Everything ends, you know it and so do I. No matter what I might say to Rose, or what I even want to be true, some day she is going to need more than I can give her, and I am going to have to send her away, or she is going to leave, and that will be a fuck of a lot easier if things between the two of us never go beyond what might be. Easier for her, and maybe even easier for me. And I don't get easy too often. So I don't think about her breasts, or her bottom, or any other part of her. And if you think that is easy with her swanning about in those little shirts and those ridiculous trousers then you are just not the lecherous slut that you think you are."
Jack barked. "I knew it!" He stood up, "I knew that you were both suffering from UST. But no, you both have to go on and on about how you are just great friends, and no no nothing to see here. You big phony. You're horny and you are afraid to do anything about it with the girl and you have me here"“ figure it out for godssake!"
That led to being pushed and lifted a bit, to his mouth being taken and a switch digging into his kidney and his leg supporting too much weight and his doing not a thing to stop it.
The kissing was good. The kissing was wonderful. No matter how many times the Doctor might have saved the universe he had obviously taken time out to learn a bit about how to work his mouth.
At first Jack felt as if he was being devoured. The Doctor's mouth was over his, taking in his lips, his teeth, his tongue, sucking and chewing, going past the point of simple pain until he felt as if he were being pulled into the other man and his needs and his wants. His cheeks were stretched until they started to almost burn, but he rode it out, knowing that it wouldn't last longer than he could. He had wondered how far he could be taken, and he had a feeling he would find out.
Just when he thought he couldn't breathe anymore, when he thought his skin might actually tear, the Doctor's mouth softened over him, and let him move. He took the other man's tongue in, nipping a little at the tip to make it more sensitive, so that it would feel the texture as it ran over the broad part of his own. He felt the inside of the Doctor's cheek, and it was like wet satin. There were moans, and there were growls.
A hand slid down the front of his shirt, pulling it out of his pants, thrusting down and grabbing him a little too hard.
"Ah, jeez, Doc, leave a little skin, ok?"
If he had been worried about how the Doctor would react to actual, full on, not just flirting, sex, he needn't have worried. The Doctor didn't seem to hear him, but he rolled the palm of his hand over the weeping head of Jack's cock, catching a little moisture and using it to smooth the way as he pumped and then teased.
Jack gave up kissing, gave up thinking about the other man at all, and let his head roll back and his body be held in place only by pressure from front and back. He felt like he was offering his throat to be bitten or nuzzled. Both happened, and he let himself move from the feeling of his neck being sucked and his ear teased to the more urgent feeling of himself being handled. He took it all, because that was really all that mattered.
The Doctor put his mouth against his ear and spoke in a language Jack didn't know, something desperate and dirty, like he was on the verge of coming himself.
"I don't un-" was all he could say, he had no wind to finish.
The Doctor kept on, and Jack felt the other man humping against the ridged muscle of his thigh. The words reached a pitch, and that, and the hand, and the hot breath along him, and that he had been waiting longer than he had ever thought he would and he couldn't bear it and it was happening and he felt goosebumps break over his flesh and he spent into the Doctor's hand and into his own favorite pair of pants.
They were frozen in place; if either of them moved quickly there would be falling and probably some serious injuries, so they stayed. The Doctor was still breathing in his ear. Jack smiled and concentrated for a moment on an old trick from his Academy days.
The Doctor drew back a little as he felt Jack grow hard again.
"C'mon, Doc, you knew I had it in me. Now how about I have you in me, too."
"You really are amazing Jack, I really mean it. Vulgar, but amazing."
From that point there wasn't much talking in any language, just plenty of noise and a little bit of outraged squeaking from bits of the Tardis that hadn't taken such rough use in a long time.
The hand rails that ran along the curved walkways were sturdy and, after Jack had slid off the Doctor's jacket and tossed it to the side, and then the Doctor pulled Jack's t-shirt off and used it to tangle Jack's hands, and then their shoes were kicked into a corner and their pants (or trousers, depending on the man) were shucked (the Doctor's in a conventional, if rapid, way, and Jack's involving a method he had learned that didn't take his hands but involved his thighs and toes), put to good use.
"Should I get something? Something to make this easier I mean?" The Doctor asked as he kissed the back of Jack's neck and shoulders, licking along his hairline.
"Doc, I am really not that kind of guy. Anything you've got, I can take. And I don't mean that to be insulting."
"You might be shocked to know that I am not worried about that in the least. After the first five hundred years you just stop thinking about it." And with that, and a hard thrust, Jack stopped thinking about anything.
Like before, at first, the Doctor was rough, maybe now even a little wild, and it hurt. But the pain was familiar, the pain was something to be craved because it was an entrance to more. To pleasure, one of Jack's dearest friends, along with vanity, novelty and the notches on his belt, but also to that moment of being nothing. Of being nothing, not Jack, not a man with a hole in his life, with a life surrounding that hole that meant nothing to anyone, not a man who would leave anyone or anything behind for the sake of nothing more than moving on.
He pulled away from the Doctor's arms and bent, almost double, over the handrail, using his fingertips for support and just let himself be taken.
And, while he was at it, he used the smooth surface of the rail to stroke against his perfectly upright dick.
The Doctor at first grabbed at his hips, using them for purchase and to push himself in and out with mathematical regularity. After a about a dozen more thrusts than Jack would have thought either of them would last the grip switched to the rail, and the angle changed, moving everything from a perfect, endless rhythm to a perfect, unbearable one.
"God, Doc, what the hell are you doing?"
"You aren't the only clever one in the room, Jack."
He felt over and over again as if he were going to come, but the peak would move out of his reach, as if it were intentionally evading him. Which wasn't nice, considering how close they had always been. He could hear the sweat dropping off of his body and falling onto the grilled floor of the Tardis, and then down into her works, with a soft, welcoming hiss. It should have been too much, but it wasn't and the moment that he was nothing stretched before him like the horizon, like a thing that could never be met.
Until the Doctor was ready, thrusting upwards once, pushing Jack's feet off of the floor, his toes working for purchase against the air, and then they came, at once, his cock jumping against the rail and the sound of the hissing growing louder.
They fell forward, and Jack felt like he was being cut in two. It took a few minutes before he could speak, and even then it was rough.
"Doc? Doc? You have to get off of me. This is really, really uncomfortable."
"What?" The other man took a second and then remembered where he was. "Hell."

***

Jack smiled at the memory, every tooth showing to the back of his head. He felt like a cavern that could chew.
"That was quite a day. And the clean up! 'I don't do domestic, Jack, so there's the mop, hop to it, and don't miss that bit on the ceiling.'"
"Stop imitating us or you'll get nowhere with me."
Jack wagged a long finger at the Doctor, "Fine, but, you know, I keep myself in beyond perfect shape and my back bothered me for a week afterwards. Not that I am complaining. People get hurt in war."
"War. War. War? So I guess you think love is a battlefield? Terrible song, that, but still...It's funny, because I tend to see it as a bit of fun. I suppose I'm just old fashioned. Like what is that business with aerosol clothing? I mean, they all itch. No matter what brand. And then, if can't all pull-"
"Doc-, Doc?"
"Yes, Jack?" The Doctor answered, with no break, as if he had been planning, from the beginning, on saying, '...if we can't all pull yes jack?" instead of anything that made sense.
"First, I don't love you, even though I love you, and second, I really, really need you to shut up and kiss me."
"Right, kissing. Love you too, Jack, by the way."
There was no war in this kiss, although maybe there was a touch of larceny, avarice and guile. Year for year Jack was as experienced a kisser as one could find outside of (cheap) fiction, but the Doctor simply had the centuries on his side. He drew the tip and then the widest part of his tongue across a nerve cluster that Jack didn't know he had was left dizzy after the exodus of his blood from his head to his - head.
"What the hell-"
"There is an academy on Gallifrey too, Jack. Was, was an academy. Maybe. I think you will find that this me is a bit less direct than the last me. But, fair's fair, his scungilli really left mine in the dust, so tender, not chewy at all. And he always put all of the books in our library back, and where he found them mind you, where as I-"
"Talk to much?"
"Jaaack, is that kind?"
Jack jumped him, not interested in kindness, or library books, or scungilli (although he worked undercover on a conch ranch once upon a time and loved a nice ceviche now and then), but simply in skin on skin, a bit of moaning, and making sure that the Doctor kept his glasses on the whole time.

One of the things that Jack prefered about being with a man was that there was none of this unnessissary, careful, romantic removal of clothing. There was popping and ripping and damage to be sure, but it wasn't like there weren't cans filled with the latest fashions to replace those.
(On the plus side for women there were 1. breasts, 2. better breath, 3. no razor burn, and 4. lots of grooming products to borrow afterwards.)
The Doctor was a bit more careful with his things than Jack remembered the old one being (there was some folding involved), but they were down to nothing in no time. He was so thin, but every bit of flesh was muscled, and he had a surprizing amount of hair on his chest. Jack pressed his face against the other man's fur and nuzzled, smelling salt, and then nibbled down to his concave stomach, biting a bit hard and then licking the wounded spot.
The Doctor wound his hand into Jack's hair and pushed downward, until Jack found his nose pressed, a bit hard, onto the Doctor's cock. He stopped, eye to eye as it were, and stared. The Doctor looked down, a half grin on his face.
"Something wrong?"
"No, it's just, I knew you were different, but I guess I didn't think about, you know, different."
"Hmm, yes, well, the body changes. You should have seen me a few regenerations ago, nothing to look at face-wise, but I was hung like a very well-endowed horse. Not that I was able to do much about it. My traveling companions at tha-"
He broke in,"Remind me to hi-jack the Tardis and find you sometime," and with that Jack covered the Doctor's cock with his mouth.
The secret to great head, Jack had found, was to forget that the other person was there and just get to it. If you were doing something too wrong they would find a way to let you know. Hair pulling and kicking were not uncommon methods. The Doctor did neither of those things as Jack let certain instincts take over, and he found his nose, once again, buried in salty hair. He could hear the Doctor gasping, and felt him stretch as he braced himself against the wall behind his bed.
Jack flattened his hand against the Doctor's stomach, and, when he felt the muscles begin to tense past the point of comfort, and the skin begin to chill as the body prepared itself, he pulled himself away, leaving the Doctor on the edge.
They glared at each other for a moment.
"Still think this isn't war, Doc? Everything is fucking war, that way or this way." He wondered if he sounded as stupidly jaded as he felt.
They fell on each other, the Doctor's body more yielding and accepting than it had been before. They were face to face and a few moments of kissing had Jack desperate and seeking. It had been a long time, by his own admittedly skewed, standards, since he had topped another man. There was extra frission in knowing that someone else was doing the work while he was getting the pleasure, but it was like falling off a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to get into the groove and to do the work.
The Doctor's eyes were closed, his glasses fogged and at the tip of his nose, and he moved in an easy, concentrated rhythm. Jack used his chin to push the glasses back into place and the Doctor's eyes opened. He smiled, every tooth showing to the back of his head.
"Thanks, Jack, I'll do as much for you, sometime."
That was it. Something about the calm in the midst of the crisis drove Jack over the brink and he found himself pounding mindlessly downwards, inwards, willing himself to believe he had not so much forgotten the other man, as he was simply not there. He was alone, Jack Harkness, taking what he could from the moment, from the universe, getting every last bit, selfish, thoughtless, out for nothing but the moment, and giving nothing back..
But when the Doctor came.
When his head fell back, leaving his neck bared.
When his mouth moved in that language that Jack still couldn't recognize.
When his long, elegant hands took Jack's face in and pulled him down to kiss.
When his eyes, so huge and dark, looked at nothing, focused on nothing, Jack could no longer hold himself back, from being there, from feeling something more than just the surge of coming, leaving him gasping, holding himself just above the other man's body, his arms locked.
He rolled off, too hot to bear the thought of touching someone else, "I thought that the Tardis-"he coughed a bit, trying to take in some air, "translated everything we heard."
"It does. Well, every language that the Time Lords knew, anyway. There are probably a few dead ones we missed."
"Then why don't I understand what you're saying when we fuck? It just sounds like gibberish."
"Well," the Doctor sat up, "she probably thinks that it isn't something that you should hear. She can be a funny girl sometimes. Protective." He rubbed a hand through his hair, leaving bits of it sticking up all around his head.
"Protective of you? Like it's too private for me to hear? After that?"
"Protective of both of us, Jack. Maybe it's something you're best off not knowing. "
"Fuck."

If time is not like fine, misty rain, then it could be that time is like the space between the stars. Too cold to be borne by most creatures, and untouchably, perfectly empty. A void. An absence as much as presence.
But an absence, and emptiness, that is able to hold entire galaxies in place. A void that can be traversed as easily as a ferry filled of lads heading for a stag night on the Isle of Man, as they drink cans of lager and lie to pensioners about being pop stars and hand out autographs all the while. If, of course, you have a ferry that can produce the correct form of atmosphere, move beyond light speed, and has properly working toilet with enough paper to last the trip.
A place that most people can only bear, if they are able to bear it at all, from the outside, from a safe point of observation. A nothingness.
A nothingness, filled with stars.
Perhaps time is just that, a nothingness, that is filled with lives.

***