FIC: The Honey Trap (Highlander)
Jan. 24th, 2007 07:02 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
basingstoke.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
vintagemilitaryStory Title: The Honey Trap
Author Name/LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
basingstoke
Crossover Fandom: Highlander
Rating: XXX
Notes: And this wasn't even the story I started writing for this challenge! Jack bowled me over with his power of sexy.
"Captain Jack Harkness," Owen said, looking over Jack's shoulder. "All the power of British intelligence at your hands and you use it to look at pretty men."
Without looking, Jack reached behind him and grabbed Owen's ass. "Why would I need to do that?"
"I don't care how you beg, you can't have my cherry. I'm saving it for David Beckham." Owen shook him off with a shimmy of his hips. "Who are we looking at, then?"
"As it happens, an ex." Jack tracked him with flicks of the mouse as he moved through the street.
"What are the odds?" Gwen commented as she leaned over Jack's other shoulder. "Fucking hell, Jack, he's gorgeous. Well done." She punched his shoulder.
"We had a torrid affair in France. He was an ambulance driver, I was a dashing pilot." The man turned a corner and Jack switched cameras, zooming in on his face. "Romance was in the air."
"Is there a point to this or are we just meant to be jealous?" Owen asked.
"It was 1918," Jack said.
"Oh." Owen glanced from the monitor to Jack and back. "He's looking well."
"Are you sure it's him?" Gwen asked.
"It was right after the armistice. We celebrated. I'm sure."
"So you'll have some questions to ask him, then," Gwen said.
"Do you think he gave you some sort of immortality STD?" Owen asked.
"No," Jack said.
"Do you think you gave it to him, then?"
"First time for everything," Jack said. "Follow for a few days, then a live capture. Plan like he's a weevil. Hell, plan like he's me." Jack grinned at them both, nearly feeling it.
Duncan MacLeod. How about that.
*
"I could hire supplemental troops," Ianto murmured in Jack's ear. "I have contacts."
"No. We can do this. Just shoot him; he'll get better, same as me." Jack looked around at his team. They all nodded, even Ianto, who still didn't quite look comfortable with a gun. "Go," Jack said.
They scattered. Jack stepped out into the street and turned the corner, rifling through his address book. His real one, as it happened. He crossed his exes out when they died, but it was always comforting to see those names and remember lovely, lovely times.
When he bumped into Duncan, it was a ruse, of course, but when he looked up, the smile was real. Duncan always brought that out of him, like the sun through the clouds. Part of it was the memory of Armistice, sure, the giddy rush of victory and peace, but on top of that, the man was just stunning. "Duncan," he breathed.
"Do I--" Duncan stopped, recognition breaking across his face. "Good God. Jack?"
"Duncan," Jack said with more feeling.
"I didn't realize," Duncan said. "I didn't feel you." He reached out, brushed a fingertip across Jack's cheek. "I never thought I would see you again."
"Do you believe in fate?" Jack said. He slid his hand over Duncan's and traced a slow circuit over the ball of his thumb.
"Yes."
"And here we are," Jack said, catching sight of Owen in the corner of his eye. Like clockwork. He was proud of his team.
He saw Duncan look over his shoulder, and then he saw nothing.
*
Nothing for a long time. It felt like freefall, blindfolded, without a parachute, but at the bottom was his body.
*
Jack cracked an eyelid.
"Stay put, sir," Ianto said, resting a hot hand on his forehead. The pulse in his thumb beat as loud as a drum.
"Nngh," Jack agreed. "Gn nghhnhh." His tongue refused to work. There was blood in his mouth. He hated, hated, hated dying.
Owen leaned over him. "You got your bloody stupid head cut off. Why didn't you tell us you fancied fucking medieval reenactors?"
"Mm?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
"Well, he tried to do me in as well! If Gwen hadn't shot him, we'd all be sushi!"
"I'll have you right in no time at all, sir," Ianto said.
Owen scowled at him. "Excuse me, I did the hard part! Skin is nothing. And I'm filing a grievance," he said, glaring down at Jack. "Not telling us about big damn samurai swords is actionable."
"Mm," Jack said noncommittally.
"He shouldn't have a scar. You shouldn't have a scar, sir. Just don't move," Ianto said. He was threading a needle as he leaned over Jack. This was new.
"Mmngh," Jack said, meaning that he couldn't move yet anyway.
"My God!" Tosh exclaimed. Jack rolled his eyes upward and found her hanging over the railing. "Will nothing kill you?"
"Hmng," Jack said.
"What's extraordinary is that your tissue samples are completely human-baseline normal. I can't make sense of it," Tosh said.
"Nnnwho told you yyyyou could sample my tissue?" Jack demanded, his voice thin and ghostlike. He flexed his tongue behind his teeth.
"Sir! Hold still!" Ianto placed a hand on his forehead again, blocking Tosh out.
"Come on. Of course I took tissue samples," Tosh said.
"We have MacLeod in a cell on Eight," Gwen said from outside Jack's narrow field of vision. "Well away from the weevils. I tried asking questions, but he only swore at me."
"He's normal too. Scraped a bit when he was out," Owen said.
"Hhyouu let him cut my hhhead off?"
"Your own fault for standing so close," Owen said. "Do you always go in for the dangerous type?"
"I d-don't-t have a type," Jack said.
"*Please,* sir. If I don't align the skin correctly, you'll have a mark," Ianto said. He was tugging at Jack's throat. Sewing his head back on. That was new. Jack relaxed, closed his eyes, and let him do it.
"Thhhhank you," Jack replied. He wasn't hearing properly, he realized. He had tunnel vision. His body felt far away, like he was communicating through two mirrors and an echo. Dying was awful.
"There's no possible way you should be alive," Tosh said.
"Ssay that-t again and I might believe you," Jack said. He felt her small hands on his throat, cooler than Ianto's touch.
"I wish I had some way of measuring the energy inside you," she said.
"Swee-eet talker," Jack said.
*
He was able to walk around within half an hour. His head felt precarious, loose on his spine, but he borrowed a tie from Ianto, knotted a firm Windsor, and ignored it.
He went to see Duncan. Duncan was pacing his cell, but he startled and fell against the Plexiglas when he saw Jack.
"Evening," Jack said.
"I killed you," Duncan said. He sat down heavily against the door, staring at Jack through the thick pane.
"It doesn't take. You should know that better than anyone," Jack said.
Duncan shook his head. "I still can't feel you," he said.
Jack touched the door, easing himself down in a slow slide. On his knees, eye to eye with Duncan, the edge of his thumb just brushed a ventilation hole at the bottom of the door.
But Duncan didn't move. "I took your *head,*" he said.
"Nothing is forever."
"What are you?" Duncan asked.
"What are *you?*" Jack rebutted.
Duncan shook his head slowly.
"I don't know what I am," Jack said. "That's why I need to ask you a few questions, and I really can't take no for an answer."
Defiance flickered across Duncan's face in a tightening of mouth and eye. "I'm afraid I can't help you," he said.
"Duncan," Jack said. "Please," he said, and God help him, he meant it. He felt naked as Duncan's eyes flicked over him.
"We're called immortals," Duncan said. "Why don't you know what you are?"
"I wasn't born this way, I was made. You can't die?"
"We live until we're killed. A month for most, thousands of years for others," Duncan said. He drew his knees up and pushed away from the door slightly. "What is this place?"
"Torchwood," Jack said.
"Never heard of it."
"You weren't supposed to. How old are you?"
"Four hundred and twenty years. How old are you?"
Jack shrugged. "I don't know."
"That's simple math. What year were you born?"
CY 404, Jack thought but didn't say. Three thousand years in the future. "It's complicated. I'm older than I look, that's all I can say."
Duncan drew back again, looking at the knot of Jack's tie. "How did you survive a severed head?
"Yes, about that, did I mention how rude that was?" Jack caught Duncan's eye and tsked softly.
"This isn't the first time I've been taken prisoner by a gang of armed men, nor even the first time that an ex-lover was behind it. There's never been a party at the end," Duncan said. He lifted his chin and Jack saw steel in his eyes. God, he loved that kind of strength, as long as it was on his side.
Jack rested his cheek against the door. "I could change that." He batted his eyelashes--God, he hadn't done that in years, but Duncan's face brought the past roaring back. A naked weekend, Jack's favorite kind, filled with booze and sweat and pure, howling abandon. He caught his tongue between his teeth and it was as if he could see Duncan remembering.
"You're not nearly so charming when you have me locked in a cage," said Duncan. "What do you want from me?"
"Just answers," Jack said. "Where did you come from?"
"Scotland."
"What makes you immortal?"
"My Quickening."
"Which is?"
"This," Duncan said, and he reached through the ventilation hole and touched Jack's thumb with his own.
There was light. Lightning. A rush like an orgasm, like a choir in his ears, like whiskey on an empty stomach, and Jack came back to himself flat on his back on the floor.
His pants weren't sticky. He was surprised. "Oh," he said, feeling his throat to make sure his head was still attached.
"Jack!" Tosh came through the steel corridor door with a shout. "Your communicator went dead."
"I'm fine," he said.
"Don't you dare do that again," she told Duncan firmly.
"Have you heard of the Geneva conventions?" Duncan inquired.
"Yes, and I don't care. Raise a hand--or whatever--to him again and I'll put you on the terrorism watch list in seven countries," Tosh said. She gave Jack a hand up, asking with her eyes if she should stay. Jack smiled and shook his head once, so she retreated with one last dagger glare at Duncan.
"Loyal," Duncan said.
"I have good people," Jack said. He smoothed his shirt sleeves down slowly. His skin buzzed underneath his clothing, making him want nothing more than to strip it all off. "Quickening, huh?"
"That wasn't intended to be so dramatic." Duncan looked sober, worried again.
"Maybe we have something in common after all." Jack touched his neck again, making sure his head was staying put. He couldn't take dying again so quickly. "Say, you didn't just get me pregnant, did you?"
"What?" Duncan's head snapped up and he looked at Jack like he was crazy.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "You keep saying that word. Makes me nervous. Though come to think of it, our baby would be *smoking* hot." And that coaxed a smile out of Duncan.
"Come on," Jack said. He stood and opened the cell. "I think I have donuts and I know I have champagne." He held out his hand to Duncan, hoping, and Duncan took it.
"A party?" Duncan asked.
Jack raised Duncan's hand to his lips. "We're not enemies."
"Aren't we?"
"We don't have to be." He smiled and led Duncan to the lift.
*
Two levels up, Jack couldn't stand it any more and hit the stop button. There wasn't any alarm; this was Torchwood, after all. He stepped toward Duncan, the single step between them, and slid his hands up Duncan's chest, and Duncan grabbed him close and kissed him hard.
Duncan was slightly taller, just enough that Jack had to lift his chin. His body was hard and heavy with muscle, cushioned only by the clothing between them. Jack tugged Duncan's shirt from his trousers and loosed it button by button.
Duncan stroked his cheek, then his hair, as Jack moved down to Duncan's throat. He mouthed the soft skin and felt his pulse throb against his tongue; the man was so alive, so, so alive, and beautiful, after a hundred years. It was impossible.
Duncan pushed the braces down off Jack's shoulders, trapping his arms for a moment until Jack stepped back and shrugged them off. He popped open his own trousers, noting with some amusement that this angle meant he was going to give the lift camera a hell of a show. He hoped the team enjoyed it.
Jack loosened his tie. Ianto's tie. Better keep it safe; he wouldn't want the lad's wardrobe to suffer. He smiled wider and slid his finger into the knot, feeling the patterned silk slide across his skin like the scales of a snake. Duncan slid a finger in beside his and pulled him close again, and Jack let Duncan strip him. He didn't flinch when Duncan brushed his thumb across the neat row of stitches on his neck.
They kissed hungrily until Jack couldn't stand it any more and turned around, catching Duncan's hand in his, pressing the Vaseline into his palm. Duncan laughed into his ear when he saw what it was. Same thing they used back then. Call him sentimental.
Duncan's shirt hung loose around both of them when Duncan pressed him to the wall of the lift. The metal grate cut cold into Jack's cheek but Duncan's body was hot and strong behind him. Wool trousers rough against his ass. Duncan embraced him, mouthing his shoulder and taking his time, but then he stroked Jack from nipple to stomach to hip and Jack was beyond ready. He grabbed Duncan's hand and lowered it.
Duncan split him open sweet as a knife into butter. He twined his fingers through Jack's and Jack squeezed hard, feeling him inside and out, strength on strength on strength. Duncan's palm covered his cock, hard as bronze but hot as life.
Jack twisted in Duncan's arms and kissed him. Duncan thrust, tongue and cock and curling fingertips, skin on skin all over his body--this was what he wanted, always, from everyone, nakedness, knowing and being known by every sense--and there was that electricity between them as well. Literally. Their mouths crackled against each other like a long static charge.
Of course it didn't last long enough. Jack came, and Duncan came, and they shook and panted together against the metal grating.
Duncan lowered his forehead onto Jack's shoulder. He stood up straight, holding Jack close against him. "Your clothes are out of date," he said softly. "It gives you away."
"Yeah, but I look damn good," Jack said.
"Have you been a soldier all this time?"
"Yes."
"How can you stand to watch them die?" Duncan's face was hidden, but his voice... Jack knew, God, he knew that tone.
"I can't," Jack said. "But if I don't do this, they all die. All of them. The world."
Duncan shifted and brought his face up cheek to cheek with Jack. He embraced Jack with both arms. "We're not born," he said. "Immortals. There are a few thousand of us. Hard to know exactly, since we don't know until we die the first time. We come back frozen in time and then we live until we die. We fight each other--that's why I have that sword--it's called the Game. And we can feel each other's presence."
"And you can't feel me," Jack said.
"No."
"Always knew I was special," Jack said. He covered Duncan's hands with his own. He was getting chilly. They couldn't stay like this much longer.
*
When Jack and Duncan exited the lift, fully dressed if fairly mussed, not one of the team could look Jack in the face. Gwen and Tosh were bent over their computer terminals, Ianto was busily changing the filter in the pterodactyl's water dish, and Owen was simply absent. Jack beamed at them all. "Something wrong with the lights? You look a little flushed."
"Shameless," Gwen muttered.
"Absolutely. Ianto, do we have any donuts?"
Ianto jerked and dropped the replacement filter. "Sir?"
"Anything to eat."
"Oh. No, sir. I can order--I can go out?"
"I could buy you a steak," Duncan said. He draped an arm around Jack's waist and looked charming. "If you intend to let me go."
"Keep doing that and I definitely won't." Jack took his hand and led him up to his office. Duncan took a seat on Jack's single extra chair. He glanced up at the coat rack, where his overcoat and sword were hanging, but didn't make a move for them.
"I promised you champagne earlier," Jack said.
"Were they watching us on the security cameras?" Duncan asked.
"Yes, and that's half an hour off their wages. I don't pay them to have that much fun." Jack produced champagne and two flutes and Duncan looked suitably impressed. "And!" Jack dug through his desk drawers and found a Mars bar, which he cut in half with his letter opener. "Never say I don't know how to treat a man right," Jack said. He tossed Duncan his half of the candy and poured the champagne.
"I would never have said that." Duncan brushed a finger over Jack's as he took the champagne flute. "What do you do here, exactly?"
"Deter alien threats, determine how to use alien tech to Earth's advantage."
Duncan raised his eyebrows. "Is there a lot of that?"
"Remember the Cybermen? The Daleks over London? Earth is in far more danger than it knows."
"Are you an alien?" Duncan asked.
"No," Jack said. It was true, or as close to true as you could get in Torchwood.
"Am I an alien?" Duncan asked.
Jack frowned.
"None of us know where we come from," Duncan continued. "Even the oldest of us--he doesn't know. We don't reproduce. We're all foundlings, seeming to come from nowhere."
Jack flipped open his wrist computer. "Earth origin," he said after a brief scan. "Human DNA."
Duncan shook his head. "I knew it wasn't so easy." He smiled at Jack and ate his candy bar in one bite.
"It never is." Jack leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. He stretched and felt the remnants of Duncan's touch on his skin, in his body. It wouldn't last. He wished it would. "Why do your people fight each other?"
"When one of us kills another, we absorb their Quickening. Their soul. It's... power. To some, it's addictive."
The tickle of a spark leapt from Duncan's knee to Jack's calf. Jack remembered that electric, orgasmic rush and understood completely. Soul-eater, he thought, watching the dark looks chase each other across Duncan's beautiful face, and he remembered the orgasm-eater that was Gwen's first case and wondered if there wasn't something alien about this after all. "But it's only among your people?" he asked.
"Right." Duncan's mouth turned down at the corners. "All that happens when I kill an ordinary man is that I go home and vomit."
Jack leaned over, took his hand, and kissed it.
"I should go before my friends miss me," Duncan said.
"No hard feelings for the head," Jack said.
"None for the armed abduction." Duncan smiled, but it quickly faded. "I don't feel--Jack--"
Duncan slumped in his chair. Jack looked down at the tiny needle concealed in his palm, feeling like a cad.
*
"Do you give all your lovers amnesia drugs?" Ianto asked. Snappish, for him, but he'd seen the state of the tie Jack borrowed.
"First time," Jack said, watching the progress of the taxi across the city. Duncan slept inside. He'd given the man a hell of a dose of sedative; he hoped it was enough. He hoped the pub receipt crumpled in his pocket would be enough of a cover story. He couldn't have a security breach, not at this stage, no matter how much he wanted to. "I like being remembered," Jack said.
He meant it to be light, but Ianto said "Oh" as if it were tragedy.
"Can't all be Mata Hari," Jack said.
"I thought, perhaps, a phone call from a drunken man, thanking him for the good time?" They didn't have a fully formed cover plan for an immortal ex-boyfriend, so they were winging it.
"Duncan would track him down," Jack said. "I didn't even give him my last name and he still managed to return my silver lighter, and that was before caller ID."
"Ah. Less is more."
Jack nodded. The stitches in his neck itched and he rubbed at them absently.
"I should remove those," Ianto said. "I suppose you didn't need them at all."
"No, that was good thinking. Last thing I want is a seam." Jack unbuttoned his shirt and bared his throat to Ianto. "But look at that, flawless."
"I'll just--" Ianto had long, thin scissors in his hands. He moved to one side of Jack, then the other, but when Jack caught his eye, he settled into Jack's lap, straddling his thighs. Jack smiled and rested his hands on Ianto's waist.
There was no pain as Ianto clipped the tiny stitches and tugged them free. Ianto blew the threads away with every other snip, coffee-scented and warm.
The end.
Author Name/LJ:
basingstokeCrossover Fandom: Highlander
Rating: XXX
Notes: And this wasn't even the story I started writing for this challenge! Jack bowled me over with his power of sexy.
"Captain Jack Harkness," Owen said, looking over Jack's shoulder. "All the power of British intelligence at your hands and you use it to look at pretty men."
Without looking, Jack reached behind him and grabbed Owen's ass. "Why would I need to do that?"
"I don't care how you beg, you can't have my cherry. I'm saving it for David Beckham." Owen shook him off with a shimmy of his hips. "Who are we looking at, then?"
"As it happens, an ex." Jack tracked him with flicks of the mouse as he moved through the street.
"What are the odds?" Gwen commented as she leaned over Jack's other shoulder. "Fucking hell, Jack, he's gorgeous. Well done." She punched his shoulder.
"We had a torrid affair in France. He was an ambulance driver, I was a dashing pilot." The man turned a corner and Jack switched cameras, zooming in on his face. "Romance was in the air."
"Is there a point to this or are we just meant to be jealous?" Owen asked.
"It was 1918," Jack said.
"Oh." Owen glanced from the monitor to Jack and back. "He's looking well."
"Are you sure it's him?" Gwen asked.
"It was right after the armistice. We celebrated. I'm sure."
"So you'll have some questions to ask him, then," Gwen said.
"Do you think he gave you some sort of immortality STD?" Owen asked.
"No," Jack said.
"Do you think you gave it to him, then?"
"First time for everything," Jack said. "Follow for a few days, then a live capture. Plan like he's a weevil. Hell, plan like he's me." Jack grinned at them both, nearly feeling it.
Duncan MacLeod. How about that.
*
"I could hire supplemental troops," Ianto murmured in Jack's ear. "I have contacts."
"No. We can do this. Just shoot him; he'll get better, same as me." Jack looked around at his team. They all nodded, even Ianto, who still didn't quite look comfortable with a gun. "Go," Jack said.
They scattered. Jack stepped out into the street and turned the corner, rifling through his address book. His real one, as it happened. He crossed his exes out when they died, but it was always comforting to see those names and remember lovely, lovely times.
When he bumped into Duncan, it was a ruse, of course, but when he looked up, the smile was real. Duncan always brought that out of him, like the sun through the clouds. Part of it was the memory of Armistice, sure, the giddy rush of victory and peace, but on top of that, the man was just stunning. "Duncan," he breathed.
"Do I--" Duncan stopped, recognition breaking across his face. "Good God. Jack?"
"Duncan," Jack said with more feeling.
"I didn't realize," Duncan said. "I didn't feel you." He reached out, brushed a fingertip across Jack's cheek. "I never thought I would see you again."
"Do you believe in fate?" Jack said. He slid his hand over Duncan's and traced a slow circuit over the ball of his thumb.
"Yes."
"And here we are," Jack said, catching sight of Owen in the corner of his eye. Like clockwork. He was proud of his team.
He saw Duncan look over his shoulder, and then he saw nothing.
*
Nothing for a long time. It felt like freefall, blindfolded, without a parachute, but at the bottom was his body.
*
Jack cracked an eyelid.
"Stay put, sir," Ianto said, resting a hot hand on his forehead. The pulse in his thumb beat as loud as a drum.
"Nngh," Jack agreed. "Gn nghhnhh." His tongue refused to work. There was blood in his mouth. He hated, hated, hated dying.
Owen leaned over him. "You got your bloody stupid head cut off. Why didn't you tell us you fancied fucking medieval reenactors?"
"Mm?" Jack raised his eyebrows.
"Well, he tried to do me in as well! If Gwen hadn't shot him, we'd all be sushi!"
"I'll have you right in no time at all, sir," Ianto said.
Owen scowled at him. "Excuse me, I did the hard part! Skin is nothing. And I'm filing a grievance," he said, glaring down at Jack. "Not telling us about big damn samurai swords is actionable."
"Mm," Jack said noncommittally.
"He shouldn't have a scar. You shouldn't have a scar, sir. Just don't move," Ianto said. He was threading a needle as he leaned over Jack. This was new.
"Mmngh," Jack said, meaning that he couldn't move yet anyway.
"My God!" Tosh exclaimed. Jack rolled his eyes upward and found her hanging over the railing. "Will nothing kill you?"
"Hmng," Jack said.
"What's extraordinary is that your tissue samples are completely human-baseline normal. I can't make sense of it," Tosh said.
"Nnnwho told you yyyyou could sample my tissue?" Jack demanded, his voice thin and ghostlike. He flexed his tongue behind his teeth.
"Sir! Hold still!" Ianto placed a hand on his forehead again, blocking Tosh out.
"Come on. Of course I took tissue samples," Tosh said.
"We have MacLeod in a cell on Eight," Gwen said from outside Jack's narrow field of vision. "Well away from the weevils. I tried asking questions, but he only swore at me."
"He's normal too. Scraped a bit when he was out," Owen said.
"Hhyouu let him cut my hhhead off?"
"Your own fault for standing so close," Owen said. "Do you always go in for the dangerous type?"
"I d-don't-t have a type," Jack said.
"*Please,* sir. If I don't align the skin correctly, you'll have a mark," Ianto said. He was tugging at Jack's throat. Sewing his head back on. That was new. Jack relaxed, closed his eyes, and let him do it.
"Thhhhank you," Jack replied. He wasn't hearing properly, he realized. He had tunnel vision. His body felt far away, like he was communicating through two mirrors and an echo. Dying was awful.
"There's no possible way you should be alive," Tosh said.
"Ssay that-t again and I might believe you," Jack said. He felt her small hands on his throat, cooler than Ianto's touch.
"I wish I had some way of measuring the energy inside you," she said.
"Swee-eet talker," Jack said.
*
He was able to walk around within half an hour. His head felt precarious, loose on his spine, but he borrowed a tie from Ianto, knotted a firm Windsor, and ignored it.
He went to see Duncan. Duncan was pacing his cell, but he startled and fell against the Plexiglas when he saw Jack.
"Evening," Jack said.
"I killed you," Duncan said. He sat down heavily against the door, staring at Jack through the thick pane.
"It doesn't take. You should know that better than anyone," Jack said.
Duncan shook his head. "I still can't feel you," he said.
Jack touched the door, easing himself down in a slow slide. On his knees, eye to eye with Duncan, the edge of his thumb just brushed a ventilation hole at the bottom of the door.
But Duncan didn't move. "I took your *head,*" he said.
"Nothing is forever."
"What are you?" Duncan asked.
"What are *you?*" Jack rebutted.
Duncan shook his head slowly.
"I don't know what I am," Jack said. "That's why I need to ask you a few questions, and I really can't take no for an answer."
Defiance flickered across Duncan's face in a tightening of mouth and eye. "I'm afraid I can't help you," he said.
"Duncan," Jack said. "Please," he said, and God help him, he meant it. He felt naked as Duncan's eyes flicked over him.
"We're called immortals," Duncan said. "Why don't you know what you are?"
"I wasn't born this way, I was made. You can't die?"
"We live until we're killed. A month for most, thousands of years for others," Duncan said. He drew his knees up and pushed away from the door slightly. "What is this place?"
"Torchwood," Jack said.
"Never heard of it."
"You weren't supposed to. How old are you?"
"Four hundred and twenty years. How old are you?"
Jack shrugged. "I don't know."
"That's simple math. What year were you born?"
CY 404, Jack thought but didn't say. Three thousand years in the future. "It's complicated. I'm older than I look, that's all I can say."
Duncan drew back again, looking at the knot of Jack's tie. "How did you survive a severed head?
"Yes, about that, did I mention how rude that was?" Jack caught Duncan's eye and tsked softly.
"This isn't the first time I've been taken prisoner by a gang of armed men, nor even the first time that an ex-lover was behind it. There's never been a party at the end," Duncan said. He lifted his chin and Jack saw steel in his eyes. God, he loved that kind of strength, as long as it was on his side.
Jack rested his cheek against the door. "I could change that." He batted his eyelashes--God, he hadn't done that in years, but Duncan's face brought the past roaring back. A naked weekend, Jack's favorite kind, filled with booze and sweat and pure, howling abandon. He caught his tongue between his teeth and it was as if he could see Duncan remembering.
"You're not nearly so charming when you have me locked in a cage," said Duncan. "What do you want from me?"
"Just answers," Jack said. "Where did you come from?"
"Scotland."
"What makes you immortal?"
"My Quickening."
"Which is?"
"This," Duncan said, and he reached through the ventilation hole and touched Jack's thumb with his own.
There was light. Lightning. A rush like an orgasm, like a choir in his ears, like whiskey on an empty stomach, and Jack came back to himself flat on his back on the floor.
His pants weren't sticky. He was surprised. "Oh," he said, feeling his throat to make sure his head was still attached.
"Jack!" Tosh came through the steel corridor door with a shout. "Your communicator went dead."
"I'm fine," he said.
"Don't you dare do that again," she told Duncan firmly.
"Have you heard of the Geneva conventions?" Duncan inquired.
"Yes, and I don't care. Raise a hand--or whatever--to him again and I'll put you on the terrorism watch list in seven countries," Tosh said. She gave Jack a hand up, asking with her eyes if she should stay. Jack smiled and shook his head once, so she retreated with one last dagger glare at Duncan.
"Loyal," Duncan said.
"I have good people," Jack said. He smoothed his shirt sleeves down slowly. His skin buzzed underneath his clothing, making him want nothing more than to strip it all off. "Quickening, huh?"
"That wasn't intended to be so dramatic." Duncan looked sober, worried again.
"Maybe we have something in common after all." Jack touched his neck again, making sure his head was staying put. He couldn't take dying again so quickly. "Say, you didn't just get me pregnant, did you?"
"What?" Duncan's head snapped up and he looked at Jack like he was crazy.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "You keep saying that word. Makes me nervous. Though come to think of it, our baby would be *smoking* hot." And that coaxed a smile out of Duncan.
"Come on," Jack said. He stood and opened the cell. "I think I have donuts and I know I have champagne." He held out his hand to Duncan, hoping, and Duncan took it.
"A party?" Duncan asked.
Jack raised Duncan's hand to his lips. "We're not enemies."
"Aren't we?"
"We don't have to be." He smiled and led Duncan to the lift.
*
Two levels up, Jack couldn't stand it any more and hit the stop button. There wasn't any alarm; this was Torchwood, after all. He stepped toward Duncan, the single step between them, and slid his hands up Duncan's chest, and Duncan grabbed him close and kissed him hard.
Duncan was slightly taller, just enough that Jack had to lift his chin. His body was hard and heavy with muscle, cushioned only by the clothing between them. Jack tugged Duncan's shirt from his trousers and loosed it button by button.
Duncan stroked his cheek, then his hair, as Jack moved down to Duncan's throat. He mouthed the soft skin and felt his pulse throb against his tongue; the man was so alive, so, so alive, and beautiful, after a hundred years. It was impossible.
Duncan pushed the braces down off Jack's shoulders, trapping his arms for a moment until Jack stepped back and shrugged them off. He popped open his own trousers, noting with some amusement that this angle meant he was going to give the lift camera a hell of a show. He hoped the team enjoyed it.
Jack loosened his tie. Ianto's tie. Better keep it safe; he wouldn't want the lad's wardrobe to suffer. He smiled wider and slid his finger into the knot, feeling the patterned silk slide across his skin like the scales of a snake. Duncan slid a finger in beside his and pulled him close again, and Jack let Duncan strip him. He didn't flinch when Duncan brushed his thumb across the neat row of stitches on his neck.
They kissed hungrily until Jack couldn't stand it any more and turned around, catching Duncan's hand in his, pressing the Vaseline into his palm. Duncan laughed into his ear when he saw what it was. Same thing they used back then. Call him sentimental.
Duncan's shirt hung loose around both of them when Duncan pressed him to the wall of the lift. The metal grate cut cold into Jack's cheek but Duncan's body was hot and strong behind him. Wool trousers rough against his ass. Duncan embraced him, mouthing his shoulder and taking his time, but then he stroked Jack from nipple to stomach to hip and Jack was beyond ready. He grabbed Duncan's hand and lowered it.
Duncan split him open sweet as a knife into butter. He twined his fingers through Jack's and Jack squeezed hard, feeling him inside and out, strength on strength on strength. Duncan's palm covered his cock, hard as bronze but hot as life.
Jack twisted in Duncan's arms and kissed him. Duncan thrust, tongue and cock and curling fingertips, skin on skin all over his body--this was what he wanted, always, from everyone, nakedness, knowing and being known by every sense--and there was that electricity between them as well. Literally. Their mouths crackled against each other like a long static charge.
Of course it didn't last long enough. Jack came, and Duncan came, and they shook and panted together against the metal grating.
Duncan lowered his forehead onto Jack's shoulder. He stood up straight, holding Jack close against him. "Your clothes are out of date," he said softly. "It gives you away."
"Yeah, but I look damn good," Jack said.
"Have you been a soldier all this time?"
"Yes."
"How can you stand to watch them die?" Duncan's face was hidden, but his voice... Jack knew, God, he knew that tone.
"I can't," Jack said. "But if I don't do this, they all die. All of them. The world."
Duncan shifted and brought his face up cheek to cheek with Jack. He embraced Jack with both arms. "We're not born," he said. "Immortals. There are a few thousand of us. Hard to know exactly, since we don't know until we die the first time. We come back frozen in time and then we live until we die. We fight each other--that's why I have that sword--it's called the Game. And we can feel each other's presence."
"And you can't feel me," Jack said.
"No."
"Always knew I was special," Jack said. He covered Duncan's hands with his own. He was getting chilly. They couldn't stay like this much longer.
*
When Jack and Duncan exited the lift, fully dressed if fairly mussed, not one of the team could look Jack in the face. Gwen and Tosh were bent over their computer terminals, Ianto was busily changing the filter in the pterodactyl's water dish, and Owen was simply absent. Jack beamed at them all. "Something wrong with the lights? You look a little flushed."
"Shameless," Gwen muttered.
"Absolutely. Ianto, do we have any donuts?"
Ianto jerked and dropped the replacement filter. "Sir?"
"Anything to eat."
"Oh. No, sir. I can order--I can go out?"
"I could buy you a steak," Duncan said. He draped an arm around Jack's waist and looked charming. "If you intend to let me go."
"Keep doing that and I definitely won't." Jack took his hand and led him up to his office. Duncan took a seat on Jack's single extra chair. He glanced up at the coat rack, where his overcoat and sword were hanging, but didn't make a move for them.
"I promised you champagne earlier," Jack said.
"Were they watching us on the security cameras?" Duncan asked.
"Yes, and that's half an hour off their wages. I don't pay them to have that much fun." Jack produced champagne and two flutes and Duncan looked suitably impressed. "And!" Jack dug through his desk drawers and found a Mars bar, which he cut in half with his letter opener. "Never say I don't know how to treat a man right," Jack said. He tossed Duncan his half of the candy and poured the champagne.
"I would never have said that." Duncan brushed a finger over Jack's as he took the champagne flute. "What do you do here, exactly?"
"Deter alien threats, determine how to use alien tech to Earth's advantage."
Duncan raised his eyebrows. "Is there a lot of that?"
"Remember the Cybermen? The Daleks over London? Earth is in far more danger than it knows."
"Are you an alien?" Duncan asked.
"No," Jack said. It was true, or as close to true as you could get in Torchwood.
"Am I an alien?" Duncan asked.
Jack frowned.
"None of us know where we come from," Duncan continued. "Even the oldest of us--he doesn't know. We don't reproduce. We're all foundlings, seeming to come from nowhere."
Jack flipped open his wrist computer. "Earth origin," he said after a brief scan. "Human DNA."
Duncan shook his head. "I knew it wasn't so easy." He smiled at Jack and ate his candy bar in one bite.
"It never is." Jack leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. He stretched and felt the remnants of Duncan's touch on his skin, in his body. It wouldn't last. He wished it would. "Why do your people fight each other?"
"When one of us kills another, we absorb their Quickening. Their soul. It's... power. To some, it's addictive."
The tickle of a spark leapt from Duncan's knee to Jack's calf. Jack remembered that electric, orgasmic rush and understood completely. Soul-eater, he thought, watching the dark looks chase each other across Duncan's beautiful face, and he remembered the orgasm-eater that was Gwen's first case and wondered if there wasn't something alien about this after all. "But it's only among your people?" he asked.
"Right." Duncan's mouth turned down at the corners. "All that happens when I kill an ordinary man is that I go home and vomit."
Jack leaned over, took his hand, and kissed it.
"I should go before my friends miss me," Duncan said.
"No hard feelings for the head," Jack said.
"None for the armed abduction." Duncan smiled, but it quickly faded. "I don't feel--Jack--"
Duncan slumped in his chair. Jack looked down at the tiny needle concealed in his palm, feeling like a cad.
*
"Do you give all your lovers amnesia drugs?" Ianto asked. Snappish, for him, but he'd seen the state of the tie Jack borrowed.
"First time," Jack said, watching the progress of the taxi across the city. Duncan slept inside. He'd given the man a hell of a dose of sedative; he hoped it was enough. He hoped the pub receipt crumpled in his pocket would be enough of a cover story. He couldn't have a security breach, not at this stage, no matter how much he wanted to. "I like being remembered," Jack said.
He meant it to be light, but Ianto said "Oh" as if it were tragedy.
"Can't all be Mata Hari," Jack said.
"I thought, perhaps, a phone call from a drunken man, thanking him for the good time?" They didn't have a fully formed cover plan for an immortal ex-boyfriend, so they were winging it.
"Duncan would track him down," Jack said. "I didn't even give him my last name and he still managed to return my silver lighter, and that was before caller ID."
"Ah. Less is more."
Jack nodded. The stitches in his neck itched and he rubbed at them absently.
"I should remove those," Ianto said. "I suppose you didn't need them at all."
"No, that was good thinking. Last thing I want is a seam." Jack unbuttoned his shirt and bared his throat to Ianto. "But look at that, flawless."
"I'll just--" Ianto had long, thin scissors in his hands. He moved to one side of Jack, then the other, but when Jack caught his eye, he settled into Jack's lap, straddling his thighs. Jack smiled and rested his hands on Ianto's waist.
There was no pain as Ianto clipped the tiny stitches and tugged them free. Ianto blew the threads away with every other snip, coffee-scented and warm.
The end.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 02:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 02:54 pm (UTC)Yeah, Owen, you should sue him. Try it.
"Raise a hand--or whatever--to him again and I'll put you on the terrorism watch list in seven countries," Tosh said.
Tosh fights dirty. I love that about her.
Better keep it safe; he wouldn't want the lad's wardrobe to suffer.
No, that would be a tragedy. I love the idea of poor, nearly-headless Jack knotting Ianto's tie protectively around his healing neck.
Ianto was busily changing the filter in the pterodactyl's water dish
I love that detail. It cannot be easy keeping Myfanwy appropriately fed and housed.
Jack looked down at the tiny needle concealed in his palm, feeling like a cad.
*nod* Which has to hurt, since he really isn't, usually.
He meant it to be light, but Ianto said "Oh" as if it were tragedy.
Ow. That line went in like a small, sharp knife.
There was no pain as Ianto clipped the tiny stitches and tugged them free. Ianto blew the threads away with every other snip, coffee-scented and warm.
AW.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 04:09 pm (UTC)You officially rock.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 05:45 pm (UTC)Now the question: what's going to happen when Duncan finds out that Methos and Amanda and Richie and Joe also had flings with Jack?
(Jack/Byron. Oh yeah. The goat was probably Jack's idea in teh first place.)
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 06:21 pm (UTC)Yay you! Take a pretty banner :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:48 am (UTC)Wow, I'm now picturing Joe in Torchwood. He would be... kinda great.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 01:59 am (UTC)He'd look around at the Hub, snort, and say, "Sheesh, yeah, big secret organization. The pterodactyl is good, I'll give you that. But unless you've got a T3, live entertainment five nights a week, and microbrews on tap, I'm not impressed."
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 05:19 pm (UTC)Oh, Jack, you bastard! That's perfect.
And I love the image at the end.
And exhibitionist!Jack is great too!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 01:27 pm (UTC)I love the ret-con at the end. So perfect, especially Jack's line about liking to be remembered. I bet he does and all the ret-conning he does is torture!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:30 pm (UTC)Jack strikes me as wanting to be a rock star, but he's been drawn into this secret world not only in Torchwood but earlier, when he was a con man. It's a quiet tragedy.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 10:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 07:35 pm (UTC)That was lots of fun. mm.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-21 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-26 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-19 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 03:18 am (UTC)