FIC: Dancing Lessons, 8/33

[loveslashangst]

Story: Dancing Lessons
Author: Melinda Kitty melindakitty
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Captain Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler;
Rated: oh, so Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, violence, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did there would have been no parting of the ways, Rose would be happy and walking funny, and a love of tech isn't the only thing Nine and Jack would be sharing.
Spoilers: AU. If you haven't seen the first three series of Doctor Who, you may be spoilered. I like to mess with canon.
Summary: By popular request: OT3 Nine/Jack/Rose. One of Jack's exes is out for a bit of revenge. Can the Doctor and Rose figure a way to rescue him before he has to pay the piper? Watch for fancy footwork, a bit of intrigue, occasional plot, and a large excuse for love and smut.

And now for the other half of my fav slash scene I've ever written. Is it just me, or are Nine and Jack too hawt and sweet for words?

Bachata: A dance of the common people of the Dominican Republic. Like American Blues music, the tunes composed to accompany this dance have its origins in low places and often describe bittersweet tales of heartbreak and sadness.

Oddly enough, this intimate dance was popular among soldiers.

[Nine and Jack share a slow dance and choose their partners for the next set.]



Jack’s lips brush the Doctor’s. “Effervescent come and an orgasm that shorts out the lights. Doctor, you are full of surprises.”

Whatever witty retort the Doctor planned comes out as, “Zjaoisoipppppppssiifff.”

He grins. (Damn, he’s good.) Tucks the Doctor back into his clothing with gentle hands. Zips him. Buckles his belt. Eases him to the floor. Climbs into his lap, straddling his hips. The man is heavenly in every sense of the word and to Jack’s surprise, he’s feeling an odd bout of cuddling. (That bit of mouth music actually went far better than he’d hoped.)

The Doctor struggles to regain control of his breathing. (And probably his ability to think clearly. Jack takes this as a sincere compliment.) It’s strangely comforting to feel the Doctor’s hearts beat so quickly. Time Lord or no, at the end of the day, he’s just as mortal and just as in need of love and kindness as anyone else.

“So.” He grins against the Doctor’s lips. “Was it good for you too?”

“Cheeky,” the Doctor warns, breathless. “I’d bruise your jaw on the other side...” He chuckles at his own expense. “‘F I could move.”

Chuckling, he gives the Doctor a gentle kiss. Lets him taste himself, a warm, slightly quantum-charged flavour, in Jack’s mouth. It doesn’t take the Doctor long to respond. (Judging by the intensity of the snog, he finds it every bit as sexy as Jack does.) The Doctor even wraps trembling arms around him. (Which feel fabulous.) Jack submits to that rather thorough snog, enjoying this moment of intimacy while it lasts. (Please don’t let it be his last.)

“Thank you,” the Doctor says softly when they part.

“You have no idea how welcome you are.”

“And not to be ungrateful.” The Doctor kisses him gently. “But I think it’s high time you told me what the hell is going on around here.”

The muscles at the back of his neck tighten. “What do you mean?”

“You’re lovely, Jack.” (It’s really pathetic, but his heart beats faster in joy at those words in the Doctor’s better-than-sex voice.) “And I’d be lying if I tried to play off that what you just did wasn’t one of the better things that’s ever happened to me.” The Doctor shifts slightly beneath him. “But I have to ask why, lad. You’ve been travelling with Rose and me for months now. Why leap into my arms -- and me pants -- so suddenly and thoroughly?”

He’s torn between wanting to keep the Doctor and Rose out of danger and desperately hoping the Doctor can magic together some mad scheme that will get these fucking nanogenes out of his system. (And bounty hunters off his ass.)

The Doctor cups his face in his hands. “Who’s trouble, Jack?” Weird how the man can be both stern and achingly tender at the same time. “Tell us the truth, now.”

He manages a nervous chuckle. “You’d never believe me.”

“An old flame?” It’s less a question than a statement.

Relief makes him dizzy. “Yeah.”

“Time Agent?” He can almost hear the Doctor’s brain begin to tick away. Ally. He might have a formidable ally just when he needs one most.

“Yeah.”

“Bounty Hunter?”

“Yeah. Well, sort of. She called them.” The man must be psychic. “You’re really good.”

The Doctor moves in the dark. Jack guesses he taps his temple, but the gesture’s wasted in the blackness. “Much more observant than people think, me. And I’m good enough at maths to put two and two together. So let me guess. She Disced you. You tried to sweet talk -- or maybe sweet shag -- her. Things went wrong when you said the wrong name. Now she’s right well pissed at you -- not that I blame her. You were an insensitive prat.”

“Thanks, Doctor.” He wishes the lights were on so the Time Lord could see his glare. “That’s a real help.”

That silk-covered-sex voice is very soft. “Want me to fix it?”

Relief washes over him. “Would you?” Ally. Definitely ally. He’s never been happier to play the dumbass in distress.

The Doctor cups his face in his hands again. He can almost feel that intense look in the dark. “You stupid ape.” The Doctor kisses him, very sweetly. “Did it never occur to you that all you had to do was ask?”

The Doctor pulls away. “Or was this tryst your way of asking?”

He stiffens, honestly insulted. “I didn’t bring you in here just to screw a favour out of you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Good.” He can imagine that cute smile. “Then we’re agreed this was lovely?”

Smiling, Jack nods. “Absolutely.”

“And no regrets?”

He’s glad the dark hides his goofy grin. “None.”

“Fantastic.” The Doctor fishes his sonic screwdriver out of the inside breast pocket of his coat. It buzzes, a blue light in the dark. “Yup. Nanogenes. About thirteen billion of the little buggers, give or take.”

He frowns. “Thirteen? I thought fifteen billion was standard issue on a Disc.”

“And so it is. Something’s killed off a bunch of them.”

He shakes his head no. “That’s impossible.” Unless... No. That’s completely insane...

Another thing occurs to him. “Didn’t your energy short out your screwdriver too?”

The Doctor snorts derision. “What sorry excuse for a Time Lord would I be if I didn’t quantum dampen me own equipment? One good wank and the TARDIS would be crippled and how would you like to explain THAT to passengers?”

He chuckles. “‘Sorry, folks. Porn has doomed us all.’”

The Doctor makes a noise that might be a repressed giggle. (Fun to think of the Doctor actually giggling. Been a long time since Jack heard him really laugh.) “So if memory serves, the little bastards are designed to prevent tampering of any kind.” He does something that Jack guesses is re-dialing the screwdriver. (And he wonders again exactly how many settings that silly thing has. It’s like an inter-galactic Swiss Army knife.)

“Lucky for us,” the Doctor continues, “They may not be prepared for tampering of MY kind.” He finishes whatever he’s doing. “Hold still, lad.”

The thing buzzes. For a moment, Jack thinks the Doctor’s gotten away with it.

White. Hot. Blue. Hot. Pain. Hot. Searing. Pain. Biting. Pain. Tearing. Pain. Ripping him apart. He screams. Claws. Hard hands catch his wrists.

“Unlawful use of technology detected,” says a cold voice inside his head. “Commence punitive measures and countermeasures. Three minute cycle.”

No. No. No. NO! Searing pain makes it impossible to do anything but writhe.

“Jack!” The sonic screwdriver explodes in a flash of blue fire and fried circuitry. The Doctor flings it away with a curse.

The Doctor’s voice threads through the haze of agony. Urgent. Anguished. Calling his name. Can’t answer. Hurts. Hurts too much. Jack sobs. Pants in a bad way.

After the most torturous three minutes of his life the nanogenes relent. And damned if he can’t tell the difference between thirteen and fifteen billion, because either number can thoroughly kick his ass.

“Jack?” The Doctor lays him down. “Stay with me, Jack.” He presses an ear to Jack’s chest. Cups his face in his hands. “Jack?” He touches with knowing and calm hands. Examining. The Doctor’s examining him. “Jack!” Making sure he’s all right. “All right, Jack?”

A fit of painful coughing seizes him. “Why Doc,” he quips. “I never knew you cared.”

“Oh shut it, ya bastard.” The Doctor sounds relieved. “There, now. They’ve stopped, have they?”

“Yeah.” This must be what it’s like to be run over by an armoured vehicle after being stung to death by Therillian wasps. Fortunately, nothing focuses a man like the thought of more pain. “Wait a sec. It didn’t do that a minute ago when you exploded.”

“Temporal energy.” Is that an undercurrent of concern in the Doctor’s voice? “Quantum stuff. Can interact with mundane electrical currents, which is why we’re blundering about in the dark, but it makes its own rules.”

The Doctor cups his face in his hands. “Sure you’re all right, Jack?”

“I’m fine.” He’s lying, but it’s starting to be true.

The Doctor helps him sit up. Jack gives him a half-assed kiss in gratitude. (And because he can.)

“What do we know about Trouble?” says the Doctor.

He clings to the Doctor’s shoulder until the dizziness relents a little. “Name’s Marilyn,” he says. “For a while, I was partnered with her at the Time Agency. We fell in and out of bed, but she didn’t seem like a bad person.”

“Blackmail?” says the Doctor.

He nods. “Or coercion.”

The Doctor chuckles darkly. “You might just have set the new record for jeopardy-friendly. Won’t Rose be jealous?” He sets his hands on Jack’s shoulders. “Good news and bad news, lad. Good news is Marilyn will have to find you first, possibly the hard way if her equipment’s vulnerable to quantum disruptions and certainly with the confusion caused by a few thousand people being pitched into sudden darkness. Bad news is she’ll be quicker about coming to fetch you because she knows you’re up to aught. And when she finds you, those nangenes make you an easy target.”

His stomach sinks at the thought. “I don’t think I can talk her down.”

“Neither do I,” the Doctor agrees. “That’s why I’m going to do it for you.”

He has a very bad feeling about this. “But...”

A hand slips up to cup his cheek. “You go find Rose. Make sure she’s all right. Take her back to the TARDIS. ‘F I’m not back in twenty, arm yourself with one of those stolen bits of dangerousness you got stashed in your room where you think I don’t know about ‘em, and come after me.”

“You don’t even know what Marilyn looks like.” He feels in his coat pocket for the detector-- Shit. They probably shorted that out too. “How in the hell are you going to find her if you can’t scan for alien tech?”

“Simple.” Again, he can imagine that little smile. “I’ll follow me nose.”

“Yeah. That’s helpful.” (What IS it with the Doctor doing everything the hard way?)

“I’m serious,” says the Doctor, wounded. “She’d smell a bit off compared to everyone else because she hasn’t been immersed in toxic levels of nicotine, tar, leaded petroleum, and coal dust her whole life.”

Doctor. Time Lord. Scientist. Blood hound. “You’re kind of scary, do you know that?”

The Doctor kisses him. “Part of my charm.”

He kisses back, enjoying that talented mouth. “Don’t suppose you can do anything about the lights?”

“Wouldn’t worry about them.” The Doctor continues the snog. “Savoy’s got clout even in Harlem and even in this time. Management’s probably been screaming blue bloody murder ever since the lights went out, so any minute...”

Right on cue, the lights come back on.

The Doctor pulls back. “There you are.”

Jack blinks hard to adjust to the sudden dazzle of illumination.

The Doctor looks at him as if afraid he’ll change his mind.

He caresses the beautiful angles of that face. “You still don’t believe in me?”

The Time Lord shakes his head no. “Live as long as I have, lad,” he says, “and you’ll look askance at any happiness.”

Well that does it. He stands. Offers the Doctor a hand up. “Before I die I’m going to make a believer out of you.”

“I hope you will.” The Doctor grips him by the forearm. “And you’re not going to die.”

He pulls the Doctor to his feet and into his arms. Hugs him hard. The Doctor hugs him back. “You’re a good man, Jack.” He pulls away, grinning. “Even if you are a pain in the ass.”

He smiles.

The look smoulders between the two of them.

The Doctor pulls him into his arms for one more kiss. It’s a toe-curling, pulse-pounding, deep-seeking, hands-wandering kind of kiss full of all kinds of promises he intends to make sure the Doctor keeps when the clock isn’t ticking.

“I’ll fix it, Jack,” the Time Lord murmurs. “One way or another, I’ll make it right.”

(Please let it be in a way that involves more fantastic sex.) He kisses the Doctor’s forehead. “I love you.”

The Doctor smiles. Jack leaves.

After door closes and Jack’s safely out of hearing range, the Doctor whispers, “I love you too.”

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Crossposted to time_and_chips and better_with_3