ext_4029 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
wojelah.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wintercompanion2011-07-27 01:15 pm
wojelah.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2011-07-27 01:15 pm
Entry tags:
arnica: Nights at the Royal Dragon (Ten/Jack) [R]
Title: Nights at the Royal Dragon
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
arnica
Challenge: Summer Holidays 3
Pairing: 10/Jack
Rating: R
Spoilers/warnings: None.
Summary: The best hiding place is where no one would ever think to look for you. The worst hiding place is somewhere someone else already is.
Prompt: purple 12 shame incense
Room twelve has been set aside for him as long as he can remember. It's on the ninth floor with the best of the Royal Dragons performers. The only thing above him is the owners suite and two more floors of artists suites separate him from the work spaces. It's one of the few places left where no one flinches when he says his name and begins looking for a way out. It where he goes to lick his wounds.
"Hello Sir, welcome to the Royal Dragon Bordello and Salon. My name is Mikkon. Do you have any weapons, drugs, or neural disruptive devices to declare today?" The boy behind the counter smiles up at him sweetly, bright gold eyes shining through a fall of white feathers sweeping down across his forehead. He's so cheerful and eager that it just makes the Doctor feel more tired.
"Is Xie'Xanth still the owner?" She should be. The Kixume lived five hundred years for every tail according to them and Xie still had six of her nine tails the last time they met. The boy never even hesitates or falters with his smile.
"She is sir. Would you happen to be the Doctor?" Mikkon is already pulling out the small lock box that only opens to his first Tardis key, setting it on the counter with one hand, the other flying across the keyboard of his service terminal. "Pleased to meet your Sir. Everyone says you make an amazing drink. I see we haven't met this you before, would you be so kind as to produce your key?" His hand trembles as he sets the key on the counter. The boy seems not to notice as a light sweeps over the key before turning green. "Thank you. Xie is unavailable now, but I've left a message in the office and there are standing orders to have a masseuse and a pot of Earl grey waiting for you in the suite and to not allow you to refuse them." The corner of his mouth lifts in a tired half smile. It's the first thing he's really found funny since he left Earth days ago. He opens the box, takes his room key, and heads through the service door to the left of the counter and over to the private staff elevators. The elevator car is small and silent and the hallway of the ninth floor is carpeted in something thick, soft, and white as opposed to the lush red of last time. He fumbles his key in the lock twice before the door clicks open and he stumbles through. The walls are deeply purple still with swirls and twists of only slightly lighter shades tracing through it. The floor gives slightly under him as he kicks off his hi-tops and just leans against the closest wall with his eyes shut. There's a soft noise from the en-suite, like bare feet on polished stone.
"Is that you?" The voice from the en-suite is low, lovely, and sends a bolt of blind panic through him that has him scrabbling about on the floor for his shoes as the footsteps come closer. He has to leave and leave now. "I'm Cardiff, I'm going to...." His fingers close on his left shoe as bare feet round the corner blocking the living space from the doorway and freeze, the cheerful voice stopping cold. He can't not look upwards, following the flowing navy pants up to a bare chest, arms crossed over it to the blank face and livid eyes of Jack.
"Jack. I'm..." It feels like a kick to the stomach when Jack gives him a wide impersonal grin.
"If you'll excuse me, someone will be with you shortly. Tea is waiting in the sitting room." This is as unfair as everything in his life seems to be lately. This is the one place he had where his sins and shames couldn't follow him. He sits back against the wall, holding his shoe and watches Jack walk silently past him and out the door. He's embarrassed by how glad he is that Jack has done the running this time because the Doctor doesn't have another step in him.
He's still sitting on the floor when a new man lets himself in and silently gathers the Doctor up, undressing him with gentle hands and urging him into the deep tub, tea in hand. It's not the first time he's come to the Dragon feeling like every thing's sliding away from him, but it's the first time being here has made it worse. He closes his eyes as long fingers begin working shampoo through his hair and decides to leave in the morning after they close.
***
He's tying his shoes, a note of apology to Xie on the bedside table when there's a knock at the door.
"Doctor, open the door." Jack's voice over the intercom is tired. It matches the rest of him as the Doctor slides the door open. Jack is still wearing only a pair or loose pants, but there's a sweet smoky scent of incense clinging to his clothes and hair. "Can I come in?" He steps back and follows Jack through the suite to the low overstuffed chairs over looking the lush forested world outside. He runs his hands through his hair as Jack pours a cup of tea from a fresh pot sipping it slowly before he speaks. "I like it here. I've been happy here, happier than I've been in decades and I don't want to leave. I came by to ask you to just, leave me alone while you're here. Please? No one knows I know you. I'd like to keep it that way, and if you sneak out in the middle of the day after I left your rooms someone will figure it out." Jack settles his cup carefully on the pale grained wood. "I've swapped all my bookings to appointment only, you won't see me around the salon."
"Okay." What else can he say? It's the least he owes Jack. "Jack?" The man looks up and he's grown his hair out. It's falling loose from a ponytail and into his eyes
"I left Jack on Earth. He just wrecks things. Everyone calls me Cardiff now."
"I did try. I really did. What happened on Earth was the best outcome possible." Jack clenches his fists at his side.
"That doesn't help nearly as much as you think it might Doc."
***
Xie'Xanth knocks on his door in the middle of the day as he lies in the middle of the giant bed, staring up at the ceiling and not sleeping before letting herself in. Her tails flick against his leg as she climbs into the bed, resting her head on his chest.
"You know I'm going to tell you the same thing I always do old friend." Her hair is as soft, pale, and lush as the fur on her tails when he buries his long fingers in it, rubbing around the base of her ears.
"This too shall pass?" She tilts her face up towards him, a smirk on the corner of full black lips.
"You're in a whore house, get laid." He smiles despite himself.
"I knew it was one of those two." She tangles small fingers tipped with black claws with his, resting their entwined hands under her chin and he misses his companions very much.
"Don't suppose you'd like to tell me why Cardiff swapped all his open shifts to appointment only for the foreseeable future? And don't insult me by pretending you don't know what I'm talking about. I hand picked him myself for you; human, well educated, traveled in space and time in case you decide to take them adventuring..."
"I can't. I promised." They've known each other long enough that she doesn't push, simply settles her head back over his right heart and rubs her thumb in circles over the back of his hand until his eyes grow heavy.
Xie is in the kitchenette sipping at something hot and sweet smelling when he wakes up.
"You know the rules, you only get the first night to sulk. I'll see you in the Salon at no later than eleven for at least two hours or the party comes to you, understood?" She's left and let herself back in at some point, because she's wearing something loose, flowing, and pale pink against the long expanses of light caramel skin. Bells twisted into her hair jingle as she crosses the floor, pressing a cup of tea into his hands. "You can think of it as an order from your elders, since I think I'm still older than you."
"Nine hundred and three." She smirks.
"Twelve hundred and thirty six, not that I'll admit it outside this room. Still older." She smells like sandalwood and dragons blood as she presses her lips to his cheek. "No later than eleven."
***
For two days he mingles the nights away in the Salon downstairs with customers and artists. He listens to news from several systems and times. Shares space with Sontarans and Cats, religious figures and time agents. Takes a few turns behind the bar and a spin or two on the huge harpsichord in the corner and in the mornings when the doors close eats in the huge communal kitchen with the artists before retiring off to his rooms. Not once does he see Jack and if it weren't for the live current feeling in the back of his brain and the lump of guilt in his guts, he'd never know the immortal man was anywhere near the Dragon at all.
He's behind the bar on the third night, mixing up a long island ice tea for the queen of a small moon who wants something strange and fantastic from his travels when one of the lights under the bar begins flashing mauve. From the corner of his eye he can see Mikkon walking, quick but calmly determined, towards him.
"Here you go." He slides the tall glass towards the womans' tiny red hands. "Pardon me." A girl wearing nothing more than her own lush violet fur takes over deftly from him as he intercepts the receptionist at the furthest end of the bar.
"Doctor, I can't raise any other senior staff and the panic switch has been tripped in one of the work rooms." The boy bites his lip. "Someone has overridden the locking protocols and..." There's a hint of panic in the low murmur.
"I've got it. Get a security team and a medic, just in case. I'll head up right now." No one panics to see him running. They've all grown used to his eccentricities, and moving like the world is on fire is one of them. The mauve light was blinking from the third floor, west wing; devices and discipline and he can see the in use light above the door has gone from green to a soft pulsing mauve. He's cycling his sonic through several signal jamming settings as he raps firmly on the door, leaning in towards the unobtrusive intercom slit in the wall next to the door jamb. "This is a senior staff member of the Royal Dragon. The panic switch has been automatically thrown by the work space. We are entering the space to ensure the health and safety of yourself and our staff." The two way crackles to life and a familiar scream makes his hearts stutter and his blood run cold.
"Piss off."
"Right then." Two of the security team, a Canisian and a Chelonian are striding swiftly towards him, Xie behind them as she stops at every door and murmurs into it softly before locking it from the outside. They're less than five hundred feet from him when the sonic whirrs and the light above the door turns green with an audible click that disengages the soundproofing. Jacks' screams are shockingly sudden, breaking the warm silence of the hall. The security team breaks into a dash as he shoulders the door open, ducking the blur that is the weighted end of a bullwhip cracking through the air towards where his neck was. The figure on the other side of Jack's limp bloody body is covered from head to toe in black, only bright blue eyes gleam madly out towards the Doctor and the two armed personnel behind him. A leather gloved hand drops the ten feet of wrapped leather as he plasters himself closer to the man dangling limply from chains in the ceiling. Jack's bare bloody back is towards them, skin ruined and the hand holding a wicked blade to Jack's hidden throat never wavers. Behind the Doctor weapons are armed.
"Drop your weapon or we will be forced to act with extreme prejudice." Xie's voice is smooth and calm as the Doctor keeps his hand loosely at his side, sonic angled upwards as he tries to trip the mechanism keeping the chains wrenched upwards.
"Drop the weapons or I kill him."
"Kill him and we'll repaint this room with your brains." It's the soft voice of the Canisian and the Doctor can see the edge of her weapon from the corner of his eye as it never wavers.
"You know, I don't think you wi..." The wind from the shot ruffles the Doctors' hair as it passes just centimeters from his head. There's a thick wet sound as the body collapses downwards, knife sliding across the too still man still chained as it falls. He's moving towards Jack even as the low mechanical voice of the Chelonian informs them that both men are dead.
"Someone help me get him down before he wakes up!" He ignores the still twitching body at his feet, brain reduced to soup by the concussive blast, scrambling onto the bed and fumbling at the locks on the thick manacles. "Don't let him hit the ground."
"Doctor." The floor vibrates lightly with the weight of the cyborg tortoise as the Chelonian walks slowly towards him. He remembers it's name as O'Hare suddenly. O'Hare the vegetarian who knits in the mornings while everyone eats. "My implants read no life signs from Cardiff or the attacker." It still reaches out and gently cradles Jack's limp body in long scaled arms. From the front, his body is just as ruined and torn as the back. The chains slacken with his weight gone and it's suddenly much easier to fumble him free with shaking hands. "He's gone Doctor."
"You'd think that, wouldn't you. Lay him on the bed and get the body out of here."
"Doctor." Xie'Xanth is picking her way around the puddled blood on the floor, resting her hand on his arm as she speaks softly, tears in her golden eyes. "Doctor, Cardiff is gone." He shakes off her hand, taking the weight of the immortal in his own arms and wrapping him securely in a sheet to hide his bloodied body. All ready he can feel the beginnings of the buzzing in his brain that says Jack is beginning to remake himself.
"Xie, do you trust me? Have you ever trusted me?" She nods slowly, even as she brushes a lock of that long brown hair away from Jack's face tenderly. There have been incidents at the Dragon before, they happen in the safest of places, but this is the first to ever end in death to the best of his knowledge. "Then trust me, he's going to be okay." The buzz is building to a teeth shaking drone in his head that has him wrapping arms tighter around Jack to keep him from flailing his way onto the floor. "Right about..." The woman falls backwards onto the floor with a shriek as Jack opens his eyes and chokes on that first long indrawn breath. "Now. Hello Jack." There's a tremble to the other mans' smirk as the Doctor eases him down onto shaking legs.
"Doc. We've got to stop meeting like this."
***
The door to room twelve is open, so Jack lets himself in. The Time Lord is sitting cross legged on the bed, filling out a numbers puzzle with one hand and a word fill with the other, both astonishingly fast.
"The good news is I'm not fired for lying on my application." The laugh from the bed is low.
"I've seen Xie's application. No where on it is there a question that asks about immortality."
"Apparently it should have fallen under special skills. Also, the only honest thing on there is my last port of call. Do you mind if I sit down?"
"Go ahead. Tea on the table if you'd like some." The bed dips as the human settles on the end, tucking his legs under him.
"Xie and I had a nice long talk and then she informed me that you and I should do the same." There's a hesitation to his voice. "Made it a condition of staying in fact." The Time Lord feels his stomach clench.
"Oh."
"I was going to anyway. Xie says this is your hiding place. That you come here when you can't go anywhere else, but she says she didn't see you after that year. What happened to you? What was worse than that?"
Jack is still against him as he speaks, never looking up from the puzzles under his pens while words spill out of him. Deserts, and the Ood sphere, and Mars, and the Master, and one wonderful old man who was so much like his grand daughter he would rather run back into venting reactor control room than watch him die.
"I was sick. So sick for days and Wilf was dead. Wilf was dead, Donna was gone, and when I went looking for you to make sure the Master hadn't made a mess of your base running around in your team's bodies, there was a crater in the ground and nothing I could do." His voice trembles and at some point Jack has crawled up the bed, the long lines of their bodies pressed together. When he looks down at the paper all the answers are filled in with unrecognizable signs and glyphs. "I did try though Jack. Even after Mars, I still tried for you, and then I just tried to find you, just to tell you how sorry I am." The pencil in those slim fingers snaps under the white knuckled grip and Jack takes his hand, twisting their fingers together. "I am sorry Jack. So sorry."
"Yeah. I got that Doc." Jack breathes out slowly, resting his head on the trembling shoulders next to him. "Me too." Their silence is surprisingly comfortable as they curl against each other on the massive bed and watch sunlight chase shadows across the floor. For the moment, there's nothing left to say.
Author:
arnicaChallenge: Summer Holidays 3
Pairing: 10/Jack
Rating: R
Spoilers/warnings: None.
Summary: The best hiding place is where no one would ever think to look for you. The worst hiding place is somewhere someone else already is.
Prompt: purple 12 shame incense
Room twelve has been set aside for him as long as he can remember. It's on the ninth floor with the best of the Royal Dragons performers. The only thing above him is the owners suite and two more floors of artists suites separate him from the work spaces. It's one of the few places left where no one flinches when he says his name and begins looking for a way out. It where he goes to lick his wounds.
"Hello Sir, welcome to the Royal Dragon Bordello and Salon. My name is Mikkon. Do you have any weapons, drugs, or neural disruptive devices to declare today?" The boy behind the counter smiles up at him sweetly, bright gold eyes shining through a fall of white feathers sweeping down across his forehead. He's so cheerful and eager that it just makes the Doctor feel more tired.
"Is Xie'Xanth still the owner?" She should be. The Kixume lived five hundred years for every tail according to them and Xie still had six of her nine tails the last time they met. The boy never even hesitates or falters with his smile.
"She is sir. Would you happen to be the Doctor?" Mikkon is already pulling out the small lock box that only opens to his first Tardis key, setting it on the counter with one hand, the other flying across the keyboard of his service terminal. "Pleased to meet your Sir. Everyone says you make an amazing drink. I see we haven't met this you before, would you be so kind as to produce your key?" His hand trembles as he sets the key on the counter. The boy seems not to notice as a light sweeps over the key before turning green. "Thank you. Xie is unavailable now, but I've left a message in the office and there are standing orders to have a masseuse and a pot of Earl grey waiting for you in the suite and to not allow you to refuse them." The corner of his mouth lifts in a tired half smile. It's the first thing he's really found funny since he left Earth days ago. He opens the box, takes his room key, and heads through the service door to the left of the counter and over to the private staff elevators. The elevator car is small and silent and the hallway of the ninth floor is carpeted in something thick, soft, and white as opposed to the lush red of last time. He fumbles his key in the lock twice before the door clicks open and he stumbles through. The walls are deeply purple still with swirls and twists of only slightly lighter shades tracing through it. The floor gives slightly under him as he kicks off his hi-tops and just leans against the closest wall with his eyes shut. There's a soft noise from the en-suite, like bare feet on polished stone.
"Is that you?" The voice from the en-suite is low, lovely, and sends a bolt of blind panic through him that has him scrabbling about on the floor for his shoes as the footsteps come closer. He has to leave and leave now. "I'm Cardiff, I'm going to...." His fingers close on his left shoe as bare feet round the corner blocking the living space from the doorway and freeze, the cheerful voice stopping cold. He can't not look upwards, following the flowing navy pants up to a bare chest, arms crossed over it to the blank face and livid eyes of Jack.
"Jack. I'm..." It feels like a kick to the stomach when Jack gives him a wide impersonal grin.
"If you'll excuse me, someone will be with you shortly. Tea is waiting in the sitting room." This is as unfair as everything in his life seems to be lately. This is the one place he had where his sins and shames couldn't follow him. He sits back against the wall, holding his shoe and watches Jack walk silently past him and out the door. He's embarrassed by how glad he is that Jack has done the running this time because the Doctor doesn't have another step in him.
He's still sitting on the floor when a new man lets himself in and silently gathers the Doctor up, undressing him with gentle hands and urging him into the deep tub, tea in hand. It's not the first time he's come to the Dragon feeling like every thing's sliding away from him, but it's the first time being here has made it worse. He closes his eyes as long fingers begin working shampoo through his hair and decides to leave in the morning after they close.
***
He's tying his shoes, a note of apology to Xie on the bedside table when there's a knock at the door.
"Doctor, open the door." Jack's voice over the intercom is tired. It matches the rest of him as the Doctor slides the door open. Jack is still wearing only a pair or loose pants, but there's a sweet smoky scent of incense clinging to his clothes and hair. "Can I come in?" He steps back and follows Jack through the suite to the low overstuffed chairs over looking the lush forested world outside. He runs his hands through his hair as Jack pours a cup of tea from a fresh pot sipping it slowly before he speaks. "I like it here. I've been happy here, happier than I've been in decades and I don't want to leave. I came by to ask you to just, leave me alone while you're here. Please? No one knows I know you. I'd like to keep it that way, and if you sneak out in the middle of the day after I left your rooms someone will figure it out." Jack settles his cup carefully on the pale grained wood. "I've swapped all my bookings to appointment only, you won't see me around the salon."
"Okay." What else can he say? It's the least he owes Jack. "Jack?" The man looks up and he's grown his hair out. It's falling loose from a ponytail and into his eyes
"I left Jack on Earth. He just wrecks things. Everyone calls me Cardiff now."
"I did try. I really did. What happened on Earth was the best outcome possible." Jack clenches his fists at his side.
"That doesn't help nearly as much as you think it might Doc."
***
Xie'Xanth knocks on his door in the middle of the day as he lies in the middle of the giant bed, staring up at the ceiling and not sleeping before letting herself in. Her tails flick against his leg as she climbs into the bed, resting her head on his chest.
"You know I'm going to tell you the same thing I always do old friend." Her hair is as soft, pale, and lush as the fur on her tails when he buries his long fingers in it, rubbing around the base of her ears.
"This too shall pass?" She tilts her face up towards him, a smirk on the corner of full black lips.
"You're in a whore house, get laid." He smiles despite himself.
"I knew it was one of those two." She tangles small fingers tipped with black claws with his, resting their entwined hands under her chin and he misses his companions very much.
"Don't suppose you'd like to tell me why Cardiff swapped all his open shifts to appointment only for the foreseeable future? And don't insult me by pretending you don't know what I'm talking about. I hand picked him myself for you; human, well educated, traveled in space and time in case you decide to take them adventuring..."
"I can't. I promised." They've known each other long enough that she doesn't push, simply settles her head back over his right heart and rubs her thumb in circles over the back of his hand until his eyes grow heavy.
Xie is in the kitchenette sipping at something hot and sweet smelling when he wakes up.
"You know the rules, you only get the first night to sulk. I'll see you in the Salon at no later than eleven for at least two hours or the party comes to you, understood?" She's left and let herself back in at some point, because she's wearing something loose, flowing, and pale pink against the long expanses of light caramel skin. Bells twisted into her hair jingle as she crosses the floor, pressing a cup of tea into his hands. "You can think of it as an order from your elders, since I think I'm still older than you."
"Nine hundred and three." She smirks.
"Twelve hundred and thirty six, not that I'll admit it outside this room. Still older." She smells like sandalwood and dragons blood as she presses her lips to his cheek. "No later than eleven."
***
For two days he mingles the nights away in the Salon downstairs with customers and artists. He listens to news from several systems and times. Shares space with Sontarans and Cats, religious figures and time agents. Takes a few turns behind the bar and a spin or two on the huge harpsichord in the corner and in the mornings when the doors close eats in the huge communal kitchen with the artists before retiring off to his rooms. Not once does he see Jack and if it weren't for the live current feeling in the back of his brain and the lump of guilt in his guts, he'd never know the immortal man was anywhere near the Dragon at all.
He's behind the bar on the third night, mixing up a long island ice tea for the queen of a small moon who wants something strange and fantastic from his travels when one of the lights under the bar begins flashing mauve. From the corner of his eye he can see Mikkon walking, quick but calmly determined, towards him.
"Here you go." He slides the tall glass towards the womans' tiny red hands. "Pardon me." A girl wearing nothing more than her own lush violet fur takes over deftly from him as he intercepts the receptionist at the furthest end of the bar.
"Doctor, I can't raise any other senior staff and the panic switch has been tripped in one of the work rooms." The boy bites his lip. "Someone has overridden the locking protocols and..." There's a hint of panic in the low murmur.
"I've got it. Get a security team and a medic, just in case. I'll head up right now." No one panics to see him running. They've all grown used to his eccentricities, and moving like the world is on fire is one of them. The mauve light was blinking from the third floor, west wing; devices and discipline and he can see the in use light above the door has gone from green to a soft pulsing mauve. He's cycling his sonic through several signal jamming settings as he raps firmly on the door, leaning in towards the unobtrusive intercom slit in the wall next to the door jamb. "This is a senior staff member of the Royal Dragon. The panic switch has been automatically thrown by the work space. We are entering the space to ensure the health and safety of yourself and our staff." The two way crackles to life and a familiar scream makes his hearts stutter and his blood run cold.
"Piss off."
"Right then." Two of the security team, a Canisian and a Chelonian are striding swiftly towards him, Xie behind them as she stops at every door and murmurs into it softly before locking it from the outside. They're less than five hundred feet from him when the sonic whirrs and the light above the door turns green with an audible click that disengages the soundproofing. Jacks' screams are shockingly sudden, breaking the warm silence of the hall. The security team breaks into a dash as he shoulders the door open, ducking the blur that is the weighted end of a bullwhip cracking through the air towards where his neck was. The figure on the other side of Jack's limp bloody body is covered from head to toe in black, only bright blue eyes gleam madly out towards the Doctor and the two armed personnel behind him. A leather gloved hand drops the ten feet of wrapped leather as he plasters himself closer to the man dangling limply from chains in the ceiling. Jack's bare bloody back is towards them, skin ruined and the hand holding a wicked blade to Jack's hidden throat never wavers. Behind the Doctor weapons are armed.
"Drop your weapon or we will be forced to act with extreme prejudice." Xie's voice is smooth and calm as the Doctor keeps his hand loosely at his side, sonic angled upwards as he tries to trip the mechanism keeping the chains wrenched upwards.
"Drop the weapons or I kill him."
"Kill him and we'll repaint this room with your brains." It's the soft voice of the Canisian and the Doctor can see the edge of her weapon from the corner of his eye as it never wavers.
"You know, I don't think you wi..." The wind from the shot ruffles the Doctors' hair as it passes just centimeters from his head. There's a thick wet sound as the body collapses downwards, knife sliding across the too still man still chained as it falls. He's moving towards Jack even as the low mechanical voice of the Chelonian informs them that both men are dead.
"Someone help me get him down before he wakes up!" He ignores the still twitching body at his feet, brain reduced to soup by the concussive blast, scrambling onto the bed and fumbling at the locks on the thick manacles. "Don't let him hit the ground."
"Doctor." The floor vibrates lightly with the weight of the cyborg tortoise as the Chelonian walks slowly towards him. He remembers it's name as O'Hare suddenly. O'Hare the vegetarian who knits in the mornings while everyone eats. "My implants read no life signs from Cardiff or the attacker." It still reaches out and gently cradles Jack's limp body in long scaled arms. From the front, his body is just as ruined and torn as the back. The chains slacken with his weight gone and it's suddenly much easier to fumble him free with shaking hands. "He's gone Doctor."
"You'd think that, wouldn't you. Lay him on the bed and get the body out of here."
"Doctor." Xie'Xanth is picking her way around the puddled blood on the floor, resting her hand on his arm as she speaks softly, tears in her golden eyes. "Doctor, Cardiff is gone." He shakes off her hand, taking the weight of the immortal in his own arms and wrapping him securely in a sheet to hide his bloodied body. All ready he can feel the beginnings of the buzzing in his brain that says Jack is beginning to remake himself.
"Xie, do you trust me? Have you ever trusted me?" She nods slowly, even as she brushes a lock of that long brown hair away from Jack's face tenderly. There have been incidents at the Dragon before, they happen in the safest of places, but this is the first to ever end in death to the best of his knowledge. "Then trust me, he's going to be okay." The buzz is building to a teeth shaking drone in his head that has him wrapping arms tighter around Jack to keep him from flailing his way onto the floor. "Right about..." The woman falls backwards onto the floor with a shriek as Jack opens his eyes and chokes on that first long indrawn breath. "Now. Hello Jack." There's a tremble to the other mans' smirk as the Doctor eases him down onto shaking legs.
"Doc. We've got to stop meeting like this."
***
The door to room twelve is open, so Jack lets himself in. The Time Lord is sitting cross legged on the bed, filling out a numbers puzzle with one hand and a word fill with the other, both astonishingly fast.
"The good news is I'm not fired for lying on my application." The laugh from the bed is low.
"I've seen Xie's application. No where on it is there a question that asks about immortality."
"Apparently it should have fallen under special skills. Also, the only honest thing on there is my last port of call. Do you mind if I sit down?"
"Go ahead. Tea on the table if you'd like some." The bed dips as the human settles on the end, tucking his legs under him.
"Xie and I had a nice long talk and then she informed me that you and I should do the same." There's a hesitation to his voice. "Made it a condition of staying in fact." The Time Lord feels his stomach clench.
"Oh."
"I was going to anyway. Xie says this is your hiding place. That you come here when you can't go anywhere else, but she says she didn't see you after that year. What happened to you? What was worse than that?"
Jack is still against him as he speaks, never looking up from the puzzles under his pens while words spill out of him. Deserts, and the Ood sphere, and Mars, and the Master, and one wonderful old man who was so much like his grand daughter he would rather run back into venting reactor control room than watch him die.
"I was sick. So sick for days and Wilf was dead. Wilf was dead, Donna was gone, and when I went looking for you to make sure the Master hadn't made a mess of your base running around in your team's bodies, there was a crater in the ground and nothing I could do." His voice trembles and at some point Jack has crawled up the bed, the long lines of their bodies pressed together. When he looks down at the paper all the answers are filled in with unrecognizable signs and glyphs. "I did try though Jack. Even after Mars, I still tried for you, and then I just tried to find you, just to tell you how sorry I am." The pencil in those slim fingers snaps under the white knuckled grip and Jack takes his hand, twisting their fingers together. "I am sorry Jack. So sorry."
"Yeah. I got that Doc." Jack breathes out slowly, resting his head on the trembling shoulders next to him. "Me too." Their silence is surprisingly comfortable as they curl against each other on the massive bed and watch sunlight chase shadows across the floor. For the moment, there's nothing left to say.