So this is just a small idea, another Verse these two might have existed in, a quiet life, a little care given and some time. All the time in the world for them to move to the music of life. It is only 7 chaps, just a little brain tickle I wrote donw and now don't feel the need to expand into an entire big thing. I am working on my other stories that are still pending completion and such so this is just so you have something in the meantime, even if it is a bit ... beige.

1

Doctor Owen Harper had been forceful in his talk, time taken to run a finger along a dusty mantle and show his long suffering friend that it was time to look around and see that it was not just his heart that was rotting away out here in the country house. The house itself needed some drastic attention.

Jack Harkness decided to find a caretaker through an ad he placed. As a reclusive writer, he didn't much care for what he got, but had some wishes. Since he'd never married again, the idea of having a female moving about the big empty house made him both worried and uncomfortable after the loss of Jessica… this had been her home and he couldn't bear the thought of another woman touching her things. He asked for a male, a Gentleman's Servant instead.

He had been happy to live quietly at the end of a long, dusty road, but found his cleaning habits left too much dust around. He wanted to write, not clean house. He didn't want his solitude interrupted, but would appreciate having the dust gathered out of the corners and the occasional hot meal he didn't have to prepare himself. And if it shut Owen up … well … all the better.

So he placed an ad through an agency. He paid them to find and pre-interview the applicants. They would send over one at a time, only sending the next in line when an earlier one disqualified themselves.

And the reasons for the disqualified applicants seemed inconsistent and even frivolous. But the company was only paid to send applicants, so the money would keep coming to them until Jack ran out of it, or they ran out of applicants. (Word can get around about certain ads…)

Owen was watching the latest man storm away from the house with stilted steps like he had a bug up his butt the size of a bloody cow. Jack wandered out onto the porch and leaned against the leaning post, softly scuffed after years of the same use so the paint had worn away and a soft curve to the wood was evident, watching the man glance back with distain before getting in his Hover to speed away.

"Another one bites the dust" Owen said sagely, "Not hard, it is everywhere ya know. A blanket of horror"

"I will choose one, but it has to be the right one" Jack scolded his friend with a soft glare, sick to death of this needling the man had started.

Owen hummed as he bit in to another slice of cake. The latest hopeful had been prepared, the cake, a good spiel and a confident air … soon popped like a balloon when he had stepped into the house and saw the work needed to make it habitable.

Jack and his weird habit of only living in a few rooms while letting the others fester under a blanket of dust seemed unappetising to the poor sods who all turned tail.

Owen was starting to wonder if Jack was deliberately shooting himself in the foot each time, enjoying the insulting gasps and exclamations before the inevitable fleeing of the house like they had seen a Grobitt?

"You are never gonna choose one. You are a big fat liar!" Owen said before taking another bite, "But at least you seem to be having some fun."

Jack huffed as he folded his arms, "You choose then. Tell you what, next one that comes .. .you interview him and see his nose twitch as he smells the shit needing to be shovelled around here!"

"So crass to my poor innocent little ears" Owen whined, "Horrible potty mouthed man!"

"Twat"

"Fucktard!"

The two men smiled at one another briefly before Jack's smile faded back to its usual frown and Jack pushed off the post with his shoulder to head back inside.

Owen got out his phone to ring the agency,

They had to have another one. Gods at least one more right?

Maybe ten had been their limit?