For Better Or Worse (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

You're What's Wrong With You

TW; self hatred, homophobia, child abuse, rape

Two sets of feet clang against the metal grate floor as the Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness race to the couplings room.

Jack stopped, bent over trying to get his breath back, and signaled for The Doctor to do the same.

Between heavy breaths, Jack gets out one word. Tentatively, "Doctor?" and glances at the man by his side. He's filled with a mixture of curiousity, fear, and something more, but he'd go to the ends of the earth (again) to deny it. He totally was not kind of sort of accidentally in love with the Doctor. Nope.

It's not like he was straight, he leaned both ways, but it was different with him. He wasn't just a person, he was everything. But, as fate would have it, the Doctor was straight. Not that that had ever stopped Jack before, but he was also grieving. He could see it in his eyes. He wasn't over her. Rose.

She hadn't meant to of course, but she had inadvertently walked into the Doctor's life and stolen his heart. They obviously loved each other. The Doctor apparently had luck as bad as Jack did, because now they were separated by parallel worlds. It would be low, even for him, to try and tap that now.

The pair of white converse on the otherworldly man in a blue suit stopped. He turned to face Jack, a smile showing in his crinkled eyes, ready for a bad pickup line or a joke. All amusement dropped from his face as he saw his friend's expression.

"Listen Jack, if this is about me leaving you, I'm sorry, I truly am." he tucked his hands in his pocket, growing more nervous by the second. The Master, the rocket and now Jack. Jack had the expression of an extremely determined man, but it was tainted with one of the saddest looks he'd ever seen. Scratching the back of his head and squinting to the floor he felt the guilt pile up. "It's nothing personal. It's just that, Jack Harkness,"

Jack felt his heartbeat speed up when he said his name. I'm getting too hopeful. He's probably gonna say something like "you suck" instead of "please suck me". As if.

"Jack Harkness, you are you. I can't be around you, I can't look at you Jack. You're all wrong. You're you. That's just it. I'm sorry."

Jack's heart slowed and he could feel it sink slowly. He couldn't breathe. His lungs started rapidly filling and deflating, and he took a step back. His mind racing stuck between two thoughts. He hates me and I hate me. And then both. Just one word over and over hate hate hate hate.

The Doctor saw Jack's face freeze, could see something indescribable and heart-wrenching, almost feel Jack's heart slowly pounding, each beat an ache. He could see him break.

Something started to bubble up under Jack's skin, evil and hot and icy and thick and itchy and bad. He felt like he had to scream and cry and kick and claw and rip his own skin to ribbons but at the same time, he couldn't move. Hate.

Unsure of how to even breathe, he tried to form a sentence. "I-I'm wrong? Doctor I didn't expect this kind of homophobia from a man like you!" Jack weakly laughed and it turned almost hysterical as tears started to well up in his eyes. His attempt to shield himself with humour was blatant, and blatantly failing.

"Jack? Are you alright?" The Doctor peered forwards, trying to solve the puzzle that was Captain Jack Harkness.

Instead of trying to recover and save himself from the awkward situation Jack just wiped his tears with the back of his hand, and squeezed a smile on. "Well, aha, there's a rocket to save, right Doc? Why are we focusing on me? I'm me after all!" Without waiting for a reply or acknowledgement he bounced up, and ran the rest of the way mentally calling himself every horrible name under every sun.

The Doctor desperately tried to take back his words, "Wait, Jack! It's not like that! Well, it sort of is. Well, it is. But it isn't your fault! Jack what the hell's that supposed to mean?!" Now more confused than ever, he doubled his pace after his broken friend and to the engines.

The attempt at an apology just felt like a further attack to the Captain, each word, each syllable falling like a bombshell to his already decimated heart.

More fires to put out, he thought to himself as he felt the heat radiating in burning waves from the engine room. More fires to burn me down. To finally kill me.

The Doctor felt himself panicking, thoughts and half formed apologies flying around his brain, ways to repair the situation fleeing him like bats from hell. Hell isn't that bad. Well it's not great. Well it's hell. But still. I'll think of something. I always do. I'm clever. He reassured himself that he'd fix all the problems in the rocket and with Jack.

As the two sprinted towards the engine, both felt themselves sinking further into an internal war. Both with themselves, both willing to go as far as it took to fix it. But you can't fix who you are. And if you can't fix something, you throw it away. That's what Jack's father had always said.

Jack's father had always said a lot of things. "You're fucking worthless you little asshole." "Even this drunk you're still ugly." "You're too you Jack. You're you and that's what I hate so much about you."

They were usually spit at him after a few drinks. Sometimes after more than a few. Sometimes when his father was sober. As relatively sober as an alcoholic could be. It had hurt when the words started being thrown, along with a few punches, when he was just 7.

When he was 10 he had his first crush, on a boy of course, and he didn't know it was "wrong" or "sick". He didn't know what Hell was or why, according to his schoolmates, he was going there. His father seemed to be on the same page however. He held him down on his bed, against a wall, in his lap on his armchair. "This is how you filthy fags do it. Up the ass like pigs." His father was more than willing to demonstrate with Jack. Again and again and again.

"You're good at this. Damn likely the only thing you're good at. No teeth dammit! You know what happens if you spit. Ahh yeah, that's a good boy. All work no play, huh? Oh fuuck" his dad reared and filled Jack's throat. He felt the sticky seed fill his mouth and swallowed, while fighting tears. No tears. "Tears are for girls, Jackie boy."

Flipping him over, face first in his sheets, against a wall, over his knees. Impatiently yanking his trousers down. If Jack was a good boy he got some spit before. This was the part where he couldn't fight the tears back anymore, and they ran as he silently cried to nobody and prayed for mercy to deaf ears.

"You swallowed good today Jacky." Jack winced as he felt a glob of spit land on the curve of his ass. He couldn't see anything but the faint blue of his bedsheets, or the peeling white paint on the wall if he turned his head, but he could feel everything. The burning. The pain. The wrongness. The shame. The hate he had been taught to feel deserving of. As his father pushed in and out and in and out, Jack began building up walls.

If he flirted with everybody, nobody would waste much time on him. If he passed exams, but not by much, he could go unnoticed. If he just held his breath and waited he could survive his father.

Jack's walls became mile high titanium as the years passed and the treatment continued. When he was called by the Time Agency he took the suitcase he'd had packed for years, and ran without a glance back to the Boeshane Peninsula where he'd endured years of abuse. Abuse that he'd never quite be able to shake off.

He thought he was invincible. He was invincible. Until the Doctor said those words.

"You're you."

And his walls collapsed.
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A/N Sorry this was so dark. I've never written much more than oneshots so if you could let me know how this was that'd be fantastic. Thanks for reading!