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Story: Dancing Lessons
Author: Love! Slash! Angst!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
On with the show!
Ballet: A slightly antiquated and highly stylized form of nonverbal storytelling in which really slender and flexible people use music and movement to communicate character and plot. Often involves a lot of leaping, twirling, lifting, and staying on one’s literal toes. Detractors term it melodramatic and stodgy. Enthusiasts call it evocative and moving. Either way, you have to admit, an excellent ballet dancer of either gender is damned impressive.
(Nine brings Jack back to his senses. Rose stands up with him for a turn. Both catch him when he falls.)
CHAPTER 24: Ballet
“I’m the Doctor.”
“No, you’re not.” The poor lad flattens himself against the wall in terror that’s all out of proportion with the situation (and with what the Doctor knows of Jack’s personality. He’s always fancied the lad’s take-no-prisoners attitude, even if it often causes as many problems as it solves.). Hopefully what Jack’s displaying here can be chalked up simply as the result of the infrasonics of the new-and-improved Vela.
The ship was a merry catastrophe when he and Major Tom arrived. People yelling and screaming and seeing all kinds of insane things. One of the more chaotic rescues he’s ever mounted, but as bloodless as he’d intended. He hoped Jack would be spared the worst of Vela’s mind-altering effects, but...
No such luck. Dilated eyes. The lad’s heart beats so quickly he can almost hear it across the room. His own two ache in sympathy. If only he could... (It hurts not to be able to just touch the lad again.) And as he takes a tentative step closer, he scents traces of blood and gore and fear and the odd tang of someone who wasn’t completely in his right mind even before he started hallucinating.
Yup. He’s definitely going to kill S’ian’thro. But first things first. (Tom had the rest of the crew well in hand last the Doctor checked. Paranoid, nauseated, and delusional aliens are much easier to Disc and subdue.)
“You can’t be the Doctor,” says Jack, a little too calmly. “You have thirteen faces. And the wings of an avenging angel.”
Rose laces her fingers with the Doctor’s. When he glances at her, she looks much less queasy. (The sonic dampener must’ve done its work, filtered out the infrasonics, and allowed her poor stomach to settle.) “What’s wrong with him?”
“Hallucination,” he says. “I did something clever to incapacitate the crew. Your upset stomach and his seeing things are side effects. I’ll explain later.” The flip calm in his voice is a lie. (He’s like nothing quite so much as to pull the lad into a firm, protective embrace. To feel the solidity of him. To reassure both of them that this is almost over. But best not to rush things and traumatize the boy more than he’s already been today.) He takes another cautious step toward Jack.
The lad cringes. Whimpers. Cowers. All that usual bravado is gone. (Funny, the Doctor didn’t think he’d ever miss Jack’s cocksure charm.)
He hands Rose the sonic dampener, a little thing he’s proud of -- not much more weighty than one of the Discs Tom has, and at least twice as clever -- and glances back. “Does this girl scare you, lad?”
“She should.” Jack only very reluctantly shifts his eyes to Rose. “At this rate, she’ll outlive you.”
A shiver of prescience runs down his spine at the thought. (Damn annoying, that.) He’s lived long enough to know prophesy when he hears it, and there’s something about the tone of the lad’s voice that makes his intuition sit up and listen.
Hand on her arm, he stops Rose from stepping forward.
She glares. “You’re not seriously suggesting we leave him like this.”
“’Course not,” he reassures. “Just... wait a moment.” He doesn’t look Jack straight in the eyes -- no telling what the lad is seeing -- instead, he focuses on the lovely cleft in the boy’s chin. “How many faces did you say I had, lad?”
“Thirteen.” The boy’s eyes waver in and out of focus -- he’s definitely not all there. “Each younger and more beautiful than the last.” His brow furrows. “Except for the sixth one. Not sure what happened there.”
Thirteen faces. Thirteen regenerations. The coincidence strikes him oddly. “Do you recognize any of them?”
Jack pauses for a moment. His lips move silently as he counts. “Nine. Nine looks like the Doctor... but... wait...”
This is his ninth regeneration. He’s never mentioned regenerations to either Jack or Rose. Time was it wasn’t something one brought up in polite conversation. Now he mostly just dislikes the reminder of how very different he is from most other bipeds. With any luck, neither Jack nor Rose will have to deal with the often wrenching change. He flicks his eyes to Rose. “What about her?”
Jack’s eyes shift again to Rose. “She’s a goddess. She lives and breathes the Vortex herself. Vomits the stuff of creation.”
“Doctor.” Rose’s hand is hard on his arm. “It’s gibberish, Doctor. Like you said, he’s hallucinating. Just let me help him so we can go deal with that bastard made him like this.”
“Wait,” he says, a little more harshly than he means to. He looks at Jack. “And you, lad? What about you?”
“A face.” His face crumples. “Not just another pretty face.” The sob is harsh and painful to hear. “I’m going to live forever... as that face.”
With a sigh of frustration, Rose shakes off his restraining hand. “Bollocks to this.”
She approaches Jack carefully. “It’s all right, love.” She holds up the little dampener. “This will make you feel better.”
Jack reaches a shaking hand out to her. Touches her face as if afraid at any moment she might turn into something horrible. She presses the sonic dampener to his temple. He blinks as the thing activates. Looks down at her, awed.
The Doctor knows Jack’s as mad for Rose as he himself, but the way the lad looks at her is positively unhealthy. Like a starving man seeing food. Like a disbeliever witnessing a miracle.
Like a prophet seeing the face of God.
With a strangled cry of relief, Jack pulls Rose into his arms.
He shakes off his thoughts. Scientist and inveterate iconoclast that he is, that notion reeks a little too much of real faith. Blind faith. Hard core I-believe-praise-hallelujah faith. And it’s a bit much to think that the vibrations of a modified pulsar could turn a satyr of a starship captain into a clear-seeing prophet.
“Doctor!” Rose’s voice pulls him out of his woolgathering. She holds Jack tightly, but he’s begun to slump to the floor.
The Doctor’s right heart nearly stops beating while his left speeds in concern. (Bloody painful, that.) He hurries over to the lad. Helps Rose ease him to the ground. And it feels ridiculously good to touch the boy again. To hold him. To know he’s not dead. Not maimed (at least, not visibly). To finally believe he might survive. And if the Doctor can get him home to the TARDIS, maybe he can undo some of the damage.
He pulls his spare sonic screwdriver from his pocket. Gives the lad a once-over to reassure himself.
A gentle hand cups his cheek. Startled, he looks into the beautiful blue gaze.
Jack, though still not quite all there, is smiling. “I like this face the best.”
It warms him in ways he doesn’t have words for. He turns his head to kiss the palm of the boy’s hand. Gently lifts Jack into his arms. He’s shivering, most likely sinking into a deeper level of shock now that he’s safe. When the Doctor probes a little, Jack’s mind is a mad blur of old injuries, new tortures, and unwitting revelations. He holds the lad closer. Kisses his forehead. Gets to his feet, reassured but more angry than he’s been in a VERY long time.
Rose smiles darkly. “So where we off to now?”
He gives Jack’s mind a gentle caress with his own. The lad slips into grateful unconsciousness. Murmurs something half-coherent with “love” in it. (Oh, lad, I love you too.)
Rose kisses Jack’s cheek. “He all right?”
“He will be.” He turns to the door, Jack’s head a welcome heaviness on his shoulder. “Let’s go make things right, shall we?”
Rose grins. “What, no weapons blazing?”
He snorts. “Since when do I ever use weapons for anything?”
“You’re not going to talk them to death, are you?”
The muscles tighten around his eyes, a hard gaze. “No.” He straightens, feeling every inch the Oncoming Storm. “Not this time.”
Rose gives an odd little curtsey, “After you, oh Meteorological Event.”
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Crossposted to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
time_and_chips, better_with_3
Author: Love! Slash! Angst!
melindakittyCharacters: 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.
On with the show!
Ballet: A slightly antiquated and highly stylized form of nonverbal storytelling in which really slender and flexible people use music and movement to communicate character and plot. Often involves a lot of leaping, twirling, lifting, and staying on one’s literal toes. Detractors term it melodramatic and stodgy. Enthusiasts call it evocative and moving. Either way, you have to admit, an excellent ballet dancer of either gender is damned impressive.
(Nine brings Jack back to his senses. Rose stands up with him for a turn. Both catch him when he falls.)
CHAPTER 24: Ballet
“I’m the Doctor.”
“No, you’re not.” The poor lad flattens himself against the wall in terror that’s all out of proportion with the situation (and with what the Doctor knows of Jack’s personality. He’s always fancied the lad’s take-no-prisoners attitude, even if it often causes as many problems as it solves.). Hopefully what Jack’s displaying here can be chalked up simply as the result of the infrasonics of the new-and-improved Vela.
The ship was a merry catastrophe when he and Major Tom arrived. People yelling and screaming and seeing all kinds of insane things. One of the more chaotic rescues he’s ever mounted, but as bloodless as he’d intended. He hoped Jack would be spared the worst of Vela’s mind-altering effects, but...
No such luck. Dilated eyes. The lad’s heart beats so quickly he can almost hear it across the room. His own two ache in sympathy. If only he could... (It hurts not to be able to just touch the lad again.) And as he takes a tentative step closer, he scents traces of blood and gore and fear and the odd tang of someone who wasn’t completely in his right mind even before he started hallucinating.
Yup. He’s definitely going to kill S’ian’thro. But first things first. (Tom had the rest of the crew well in hand last the Doctor checked. Paranoid, nauseated, and delusional aliens are much easier to Disc and subdue.)
“You can’t be the Doctor,” says Jack, a little too calmly. “You have thirteen faces. And the wings of an avenging angel.”
Rose laces her fingers with the Doctor’s. When he glances at her, she looks much less queasy. (The sonic dampener must’ve done its work, filtered out the infrasonics, and allowed her poor stomach to settle.) “What’s wrong with him?”
“Hallucination,” he says. “I did something clever to incapacitate the crew. Your upset stomach and his seeing things are side effects. I’ll explain later.” The flip calm in his voice is a lie. (He’s like nothing quite so much as to pull the lad into a firm, protective embrace. To feel the solidity of him. To reassure both of them that this is almost over. But best not to rush things and traumatize the boy more than he’s already been today.) He takes another cautious step toward Jack.
The lad cringes. Whimpers. Cowers. All that usual bravado is gone. (Funny, the Doctor didn’t think he’d ever miss Jack’s cocksure charm.)
He hands Rose the sonic dampener, a little thing he’s proud of -- not much more weighty than one of the Discs Tom has, and at least twice as clever -- and glances back. “Does this girl scare you, lad?”
“She should.” Jack only very reluctantly shifts his eyes to Rose. “At this rate, she’ll outlive you.”
A shiver of prescience runs down his spine at the thought. (Damn annoying, that.) He’s lived long enough to know prophesy when he hears it, and there’s something about the tone of the lad’s voice that makes his intuition sit up and listen.
Hand on her arm, he stops Rose from stepping forward.
She glares. “You’re not seriously suggesting we leave him like this.”
“’Course not,” he reassures. “Just... wait a moment.” He doesn’t look Jack straight in the eyes -- no telling what the lad is seeing -- instead, he focuses on the lovely cleft in the boy’s chin. “How many faces did you say I had, lad?”
“Thirteen.” The boy’s eyes waver in and out of focus -- he’s definitely not all there. “Each younger and more beautiful than the last.” His brow furrows. “Except for the sixth one. Not sure what happened there.”
Thirteen faces. Thirteen regenerations. The coincidence strikes him oddly. “Do you recognize any of them?”
Jack pauses for a moment. His lips move silently as he counts. “Nine. Nine looks like the Doctor... but... wait...”
This is his ninth regeneration. He’s never mentioned regenerations to either Jack or Rose. Time was it wasn’t something one brought up in polite conversation. Now he mostly just dislikes the reminder of how very different he is from most other bipeds. With any luck, neither Jack nor Rose will have to deal with the often wrenching change. He flicks his eyes to Rose. “What about her?”
Jack’s eyes shift again to Rose. “She’s a goddess. She lives and breathes the Vortex herself. Vomits the stuff of creation.”
“Doctor.” Rose’s hand is hard on his arm. “It’s gibberish, Doctor. Like you said, he’s hallucinating. Just let me help him so we can go deal with that bastard made him like this.”
“Wait,” he says, a little more harshly than he means to. He looks at Jack. “And you, lad? What about you?”
“A face.” His face crumples. “Not just another pretty face.” The sob is harsh and painful to hear. “I’m going to live forever... as that face.”
With a sigh of frustration, Rose shakes off his restraining hand. “Bollocks to this.”
She approaches Jack carefully. “It’s all right, love.” She holds up the little dampener. “This will make you feel better.”
Jack reaches a shaking hand out to her. Touches her face as if afraid at any moment she might turn into something horrible. She presses the sonic dampener to his temple. He blinks as the thing activates. Looks down at her, awed.
The Doctor knows Jack’s as mad for Rose as he himself, but the way the lad looks at her is positively unhealthy. Like a starving man seeing food. Like a disbeliever witnessing a miracle.
Like a prophet seeing the face of God.
With a strangled cry of relief, Jack pulls Rose into his arms.
He shakes off his thoughts. Scientist and inveterate iconoclast that he is, that notion reeks a little too much of real faith. Blind faith. Hard core I-believe-praise-hallelujah faith. And it’s a bit much to think that the vibrations of a modified pulsar could turn a satyr of a starship captain into a clear-seeing prophet.
“Doctor!” Rose’s voice pulls him out of his woolgathering. She holds Jack tightly, but he’s begun to slump to the floor.
The Doctor’s right heart nearly stops beating while his left speeds in concern. (Bloody painful, that.) He hurries over to the lad. Helps Rose ease him to the ground. And it feels ridiculously good to touch the boy again. To hold him. To know he’s not dead. Not maimed (at least, not visibly). To finally believe he might survive. And if the Doctor can get him home to the TARDIS, maybe he can undo some of the damage.
He pulls his spare sonic screwdriver from his pocket. Gives the lad a once-over to reassure himself.
A gentle hand cups his cheek. Startled, he looks into the beautiful blue gaze.
Jack, though still not quite all there, is smiling. “I like this face the best.”
It warms him in ways he doesn’t have words for. He turns his head to kiss the palm of the boy’s hand. Gently lifts Jack into his arms. He’s shivering, most likely sinking into a deeper level of shock now that he’s safe. When the Doctor probes a little, Jack’s mind is a mad blur of old injuries, new tortures, and unwitting revelations. He holds the lad closer. Kisses his forehead. Gets to his feet, reassured but more angry than he’s been in a VERY long time.
Rose smiles darkly. “So where we off to now?”
He gives Jack’s mind a gentle caress with his own. The lad slips into grateful unconsciousness. Murmurs something half-coherent with “love” in it. (Oh, lad, I love you too.)
Rose kisses Jack’s cheek. “He all right?”
“He will be.” He turns to the door, Jack’s head a welcome heaviness on his shoulder. “Let’s go make things right, shall we?”
Rose grins. “What, no weapons blazing?”
He snorts. “Since when do I ever use weapons for anything?”
“You’re not going to talk them to death, are you?”
The muscles tighten around his eyes, a hard gaze. “No.” He straightens, feeling every inch the Oncoming Storm. “Not this time.”
Rose gives an odd little curtsey, “After you, oh Meteorological Event.”
Previous | Next
Crossposted to:
time_and_chips, better_with_3Tags: