Fic: For Science (and the Lulz)
Title: For Science (and the Lulz)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Oh my god, Jack thought, she was treating him like the Uncertainty Principle.
Notes: This is takes place after All In Good Time, the 11th episode of the Torchwood Virtual Season being "aired" at tw_itallchanges. If you're not following the Virtual Season, which takes place after canonical S2, essentially what you need to know is that in this ep, the new Torchwood medic, Dr. Megan Muli, has discovered Jack's immortality. Eat the crack. It's like pop rocks.
Beta Credit, Jesus: Neifile, Foxay, Thad, Misswinterhill, Bleu-bleu, Kel, Sam. Also I stole this header and the title from Sam.
The toast was stuck. Normally Jack didn't care about the toast that much, but he was starving, and the fridge that was usually stocked with all manner of awesome things, was empty, save for a loaf of bread and a half jar of jam. And he could have gone out for a fry-up, but he had wanted to get some paperwork done before Ianto came in so that he could at least make an effort to show Ianto that he was trying to be better at. Things. Yeah.
So, the toast had gone in well enough, like sticking a whole cheese toastie into a VCR slot (like you haven't thought about it), but then it was the coming out part that the bread seemed to take issue with, as if it had expanded instead of contracting as it had dried out, or stuck to the heating coils or…oh hell, this was one of those twentieth-century pieces of technology that he hadn't the faintest about beyond 'stick bread in get toast out'.
The lever had popped up and the coils had cooled somewhat, but the toast was still firmly in toasting position. Jack shook the toaster. Then he thought about turning it upside down over the counter, but something about the rainstorm of crumbs that he would unleash onto Ianto's immaculate kitchen space made him wonder if that wouldn't be the opposite of 'trying to be better'.
So he did the next best thing. He had a pair of metal tongs right here. It would be easy.
Or. You know. Not.
"Captain Harkness," Megan said when he opened his eyes and sat up, gasping. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to stick forks into the toaster?"
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. His hairs felt singed. "Didn't have a toaster," he mumbled.
Megan scribbled a few notes onto a clipboard, not bothering to look up at him. She was like this-always doing something and he had to admire her perspicacity. Sometimes he wanted to ask her if she'd like to graft on a few extra arms to improve her efficiency, but he wasn't sure she'd get that he was joking. And really, the appendage grafter had been an utter disaster with Owen.
"Next time at least unplug the toaster," Megan told him. "Ianto's upstairs complaining that everything smells like burnt dog."
Jack smiled. At least his clothes were intact. He wasn't in a hurry for her to see him naked (yet). Something about her eyes. They were too weighting.
"Well, I'm sure that was fun for you and your insatiable medical curiosity," he said to her.
Megan just tilted her head and gave him an evaluative look. He didn't like that look. It was too hard to read. "Hrm."
He should have known that nothing good started with that sound. It was a proven fact.
***
Janet wasn't the best eater ever, and she had really bad hygiene. All sentimental comments to the contrary, Jack wouldn't be sad to see her go, in an autopsy way. On the other hand, he thought as he watched her cower in the corner and scrabble at the weevil spray that coated her face while he mucked out her cell, better the devil you knew, and he knew Janet, and her pointy right hook.
That said, the spray would only keep her busy for so long, and this blended sweetcorn wasn't going to hose itself down (And if it did they had a more serious issue than Janet.). He maneuvered the hose nozzle with one hand and the floor squeegee with the other, wonder at what part during his orgasm the night before he'd agreed to this. It was all a blur sometimes.
"Janet, Janet, corn is good for your digestive system," he crooned absently. "Or so the good doctor says. Too much red meat." He sniffed. "And no more Curly Wurlys. They're binding."
Janet groaned, wiping at her face.
"I know. I myself enjoy the occasional Jaffa cake, but too much of a good thing is like multiplying negative numbers or something." He rinsed the last of the corn down the drain and released the valve. "So the corn goes in the gullet, not on the wall."
He turned to toss the long handled squeegee out the open cell door, but the metal slab swung shut with a groan and a click and the squeegee, already in mid-flight, just bounced off and into his face, sending him back a few feet towards Janet.
"Oh, shit," Jack mumbled, reaching for his wrist strap.
Janet's right hook was pretty pointy, even from behind.
When he woke in the medical bay, Ianto was standing over him, asking why in the hell he would have locked himself in like that. Jack rubbed at his raw throat and shook his head, but out of the corner of his eye he watched Megan whisk a rack of blood-filled test tubes off her lab table and into the cooler.
***
Jack observed Ianto typing for a few seconds before he strolled up and leant against the workstation. He'd been busy for the last three hours yelling at UNIT and then at some paperwork, and then at Kathy Swanson, who never seemed to know when to leave well enough alone, so he felt he deserved a short break.
"Whurrgurgrg?" he said.
Ianto didn't even look up. "Chew and swallow," he commanded, fingers still flying across the keys.
Jack rolled his eyes and did as he was told, then gestured with the Flake bar. "I said, 'Where were you hiding these?'"
Ianto glanced at the half-eaten Flake bar in Jack's hand and then reached for his coffee, sipping from it absently. "I didn't. I don't buy them because Costco only sells them by the metric ton. I do get Curly Wurlys from them, though." He shrugged. "If it was Gwen's, you might want to duck and cover. She's on a right tear about stolen chocolate right now."
Jack stared at the bar in his hand. "Someone left it on my desk. I thought-"
Ianto raised his eyebrows. "I assure you, it wasn't me." He glanced about for the others, and then leant in when they were obviously not within earshot. "If it had been me," he said, voice sultry, "I would have-"
Jack fell to the floor, stone dead.
Ianto and Megan were arguing when he woke up, and maybe that was why they hadn't noticed his small intake of breath and gasp (poison deaths were painful but less invasive. He noticed that his body jerked and jolted less when it revived from them.). He lay there, listening to the argument that had obviously been going on for a few minutes.
"Anyone could have eaten that," Ianto said. "Gwen could have eaten that."
"But she didn’t," Muli said flatly.
"But she could have."
"But she didn't. Safe as houses."
There was a long pause and Jack lay there, trying not to show that he was breathing, and that he was starting to become livid. The Flake bar, Janet's cage, both accidents. Hell, he wondered if she'd put superglue in the toaster and then emptied the fridge.
Probably not. There was cold-bloodedness and then there was Emily Holroyd.
"Why don't you just ask him? We have plenty of data in the files." Ianto lowered his voice. "Previous Torchwood Three employees have charted Jack's condition fairly thoroughly."
"It's erratic and unhelpful. I need data from live experiments."
Jack almost laughed. Live experiments. She was a yuk and a half. It bothered him sometimes how much she actually did remind him of Emily. Possibly Suzie's determination, but obviously with better moral scruples. Megan set something down and the contents clinked. It sounded like more test tubes.
"At least get his permission and do this in a controlled environment."
"Do you know what his knowing ahead of time does to his brain chemistry?" The cooler door opened, more clinking, and then it shut again. "I don't, so I can't tell him."
Oh my god, Jack thought, she was treating him like the Uncertainty Principle.
"Sometimes I think you and Owen would have got on well," Ianto said slowly.
"Based on some of the notes in the archives, I think that I would have beat the stuffing out of Dr Harper."
"Yes," Ianto sighed. "That was what I meant. Got on well."
***
Jack looked at the banana peel on the floor. It was just sitting there, inner peel down, like the wind up to the oldest ineffectual joke ever. Outside his office door. As if a) he wouldn't see it and b) oh come on.
He bent over, picked up the peel and dangled it between two fingers, winking at the Chiquita sticker on the outside. He missed that saucy lady from the logo. That and her hat.
"Okay, you jokers-"
He didn't see the filament attached to the peel, the one that triggered the axe, until it was too late; the wooden handle arced down from above his door and embedded in his chest.
Sonofabitch.
When he woke up, Megan was calibrating a piece of equipment that Jack was unfamiliar with, mostly because Owen had usually sworn heartily and handwaved when Jack had asked about it.
"That was the…" he groped for words. "Lamest thing ever."
Megan didn't look up from her machine. "I'm afraid Ianto helped me with that. Something about a cartoon he saw once."
Jack pulled the sheet up to cover his naked chest and sat up. "I'm docking everyone's pay forever." He paused. "I can do that."
Megan was unfazed. "You do that."
"You know," Jack said, swinging his legs over the edge of the table and sliding off, taking the sheet with him. He still didn't want her to see him naked. Now it was just creepy. "If you want to study my…thing, you could just ask," he added. "And not try and think of new and creative ways for me to accidentally kill mys---that one wasn't even an accident. Besides, now I'll see it coming, so this free-for-all is at an end."
"You've been alive for over two thousand years, and the best way you have to describe your condition is 'my thing'?"
Jack wagged a finger at her. "No more funny axes in the chest. Or anything. Stop it."
She looked up and raised her hand, her other on the DSMV IV on her right. "I solemnly swear I am done being up to no good."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Doctor Megan Muli, ladies and gentlemen, always shooting straight from the hip. She'll be here all the week."
He padded up the stairs in his bare feet (who knew why she'd needed to take his shoes off), but when he hit the top step he heard her mutter, "Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress."
He stopped and blinked, wondering if he'd heard it, but she gave no indication that she expected a response from him, her eye mashed into the microscope, for all intents and purposes ignoring him.
Huh.
END
ps. It should be noted for posterity that the working title was "Muli kills Jack repeatedly FOR GRATE LOLS AND SCIENCE"
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Oh my god, Jack thought, she was treating him like the Uncertainty Principle.
Notes: This is takes place after All In Good Time, the 11th episode of the Torchwood Virtual Season being "aired" at tw_itallchanges. If you're not following the Virtual Season, which takes place after canonical S2, essentially what you need to know is that in this ep, the new Torchwood medic, Dr. Megan Muli, has discovered Jack's immortality. Eat the crack. It's like pop rocks.
Beta Credit, Jesus: Neifile, Foxay, Thad, Misswinterhill, Bleu-bleu, Kel, Sam. Also I stole this header and the title from Sam.
The toast was stuck. Normally Jack didn't care about the toast that much, but he was starving, and the fridge that was usually stocked with all manner of awesome things, was empty, save for a loaf of bread and a half jar of jam. And he could have gone out for a fry-up, but he had wanted to get some paperwork done before Ianto came in so that he could at least make an effort to show Ianto that he was trying to be better at. Things. Yeah.
So, the toast had gone in well enough, like sticking a whole cheese toastie into a VCR slot (like you haven't thought about it), but then it was the coming out part that the bread seemed to take issue with, as if it had expanded instead of contracting as it had dried out, or stuck to the heating coils or…oh hell, this was one of those twentieth-century pieces of technology that he hadn't the faintest about beyond 'stick bread in get toast out'.
The lever had popped up and the coils had cooled somewhat, but the toast was still firmly in toasting position. Jack shook the toaster. Then he thought about turning it upside down over the counter, but something about the rainstorm of crumbs that he would unleash onto Ianto's immaculate kitchen space made him wonder if that wouldn't be the opposite of 'trying to be better'.
So he did the next best thing. He had a pair of metal tongs right here. It would be easy.
Or. You know. Not.
"Captain Harkness," Megan said when he opened his eyes and sat up, gasping. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to stick forks into the toaster?"
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. His hairs felt singed. "Didn't have a toaster," he mumbled.
Megan scribbled a few notes onto a clipboard, not bothering to look up at him. She was like this-always doing something and he had to admire her perspicacity. Sometimes he wanted to ask her if she'd like to graft on a few extra arms to improve her efficiency, but he wasn't sure she'd get that he was joking. And really, the appendage grafter had been an utter disaster with Owen.
"Next time at least unplug the toaster," Megan told him. "Ianto's upstairs complaining that everything smells like burnt dog."
Jack smiled. At least his clothes were intact. He wasn't in a hurry for her to see him naked (yet). Something about her eyes. They were too weighting.
"Well, I'm sure that was fun for you and your insatiable medical curiosity," he said to her.
Megan just tilted her head and gave him an evaluative look. He didn't like that look. It was too hard to read. "Hrm."
He should have known that nothing good started with that sound. It was a proven fact.
***
Janet wasn't the best eater ever, and she had really bad hygiene. All sentimental comments to the contrary, Jack wouldn't be sad to see her go, in an autopsy way. On the other hand, he thought as he watched her cower in the corner and scrabble at the weevil spray that coated her face while he mucked out her cell, better the devil you knew, and he knew Janet, and her pointy right hook.
That said, the spray would only keep her busy for so long, and this blended sweetcorn wasn't going to hose itself down (And if it did they had a more serious issue than Janet.). He maneuvered the hose nozzle with one hand and the floor squeegee with the other, wonder at what part during his orgasm the night before he'd agreed to this. It was all a blur sometimes.
"Janet, Janet, corn is good for your digestive system," he crooned absently. "Or so the good doctor says. Too much red meat." He sniffed. "And no more Curly Wurlys. They're binding."
Janet groaned, wiping at her face.
"I know. I myself enjoy the occasional Jaffa cake, but too much of a good thing is like multiplying negative numbers or something." He rinsed the last of the corn down the drain and released the valve. "So the corn goes in the gullet, not on the wall."
He turned to toss the long handled squeegee out the open cell door, but the metal slab swung shut with a groan and a click and the squeegee, already in mid-flight, just bounced off and into his face, sending him back a few feet towards Janet.
"Oh, shit," Jack mumbled, reaching for his wrist strap.
Janet's right hook was pretty pointy, even from behind.
When he woke in the medical bay, Ianto was standing over him, asking why in the hell he would have locked himself in like that. Jack rubbed at his raw throat and shook his head, but out of the corner of his eye he watched Megan whisk a rack of blood-filled test tubes off her lab table and into the cooler.
***
Jack observed Ianto typing for a few seconds before he strolled up and leant against the workstation. He'd been busy for the last three hours yelling at UNIT and then at some paperwork, and then at Kathy Swanson, who never seemed to know when to leave well enough alone, so he felt he deserved a short break.
"Whurrgurgrg?" he said.
Ianto didn't even look up. "Chew and swallow," he commanded, fingers still flying across the keys.
Jack rolled his eyes and did as he was told, then gestured with the Flake bar. "I said, 'Where were you hiding these?'"
Ianto glanced at the half-eaten Flake bar in Jack's hand and then reached for his coffee, sipping from it absently. "I didn't. I don't buy them because Costco only sells them by the metric ton. I do get Curly Wurlys from them, though." He shrugged. "If it was Gwen's, you might want to duck and cover. She's on a right tear about stolen chocolate right now."
Jack stared at the bar in his hand. "Someone left it on my desk. I thought-"
Ianto raised his eyebrows. "I assure you, it wasn't me." He glanced about for the others, and then leant in when they were obviously not within earshot. "If it had been me," he said, voice sultry, "I would have-"
Jack fell to the floor, stone dead.
Ianto and Megan were arguing when he woke up, and maybe that was why they hadn't noticed his small intake of breath and gasp (poison deaths were painful but less invasive. He noticed that his body jerked and jolted less when it revived from them.). He lay there, listening to the argument that had obviously been going on for a few minutes.
"Anyone could have eaten that," Ianto said. "Gwen could have eaten that."
"But she didn’t," Muli said flatly.
"But she could have."
"But she didn't. Safe as houses."
There was a long pause and Jack lay there, trying not to show that he was breathing, and that he was starting to become livid. The Flake bar, Janet's cage, both accidents. Hell, he wondered if she'd put superglue in the toaster and then emptied the fridge.
Probably not. There was cold-bloodedness and then there was Emily Holroyd.
"Why don't you just ask him? We have plenty of data in the files." Ianto lowered his voice. "Previous Torchwood Three employees have charted Jack's condition fairly thoroughly."
"It's erratic and unhelpful. I need data from live experiments."
Jack almost laughed. Live experiments. She was a yuk and a half. It bothered him sometimes how much she actually did remind him of Emily. Possibly Suzie's determination, but obviously with better moral scruples. Megan set something down and the contents clinked. It sounded like more test tubes.
"At least get his permission and do this in a controlled environment."
"Do you know what his knowing ahead of time does to his brain chemistry?" The cooler door opened, more clinking, and then it shut again. "I don't, so I can't tell him."
Oh my god, Jack thought, she was treating him like the Uncertainty Principle.
"Sometimes I think you and Owen would have got on well," Ianto said slowly.
"Based on some of the notes in the archives, I think that I would have beat the stuffing out of Dr Harper."
"Yes," Ianto sighed. "That was what I meant. Got on well."
***
Jack looked at the banana peel on the floor. It was just sitting there, inner peel down, like the wind up to the oldest ineffectual joke ever. Outside his office door. As if a) he wouldn't see it and b) oh come on.
He bent over, picked up the peel and dangled it between two fingers, winking at the Chiquita sticker on the outside. He missed that saucy lady from the logo. That and her hat.
"Okay, you jokers-"
He didn't see the filament attached to the peel, the one that triggered the axe, until it was too late; the wooden handle arced down from above his door and embedded in his chest.
Sonofabitch.
When he woke up, Megan was calibrating a piece of equipment that Jack was unfamiliar with, mostly because Owen had usually sworn heartily and handwaved when Jack had asked about it.
"That was the…" he groped for words. "Lamest thing ever."
Megan didn't look up from her machine. "I'm afraid Ianto helped me with that. Something about a cartoon he saw once."
Jack pulled the sheet up to cover his naked chest and sat up. "I'm docking everyone's pay forever." He paused. "I can do that."
Megan was unfazed. "You do that."
"You know," Jack said, swinging his legs over the edge of the table and sliding off, taking the sheet with him. He still didn't want her to see him naked. Now it was just creepy. "If you want to study my…thing, you could just ask," he added. "And not try and think of new and creative ways for me to accidentally kill mys---that one wasn't even an accident. Besides, now I'll see it coming, so this free-for-all is at an end."
"You've been alive for over two thousand years, and the best way you have to describe your condition is 'my thing'?"
Jack wagged a finger at her. "No more funny axes in the chest. Or anything. Stop it."
She looked up and raised her hand, her other on the DSMV IV on her right. "I solemnly swear I am done being up to no good."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Doctor Megan Muli, ladies and gentlemen, always shooting straight from the hip. She'll be here all the week."
He padded up the stairs in his bare feet (who knew why she'd needed to take his shoes off), but when he hit the top step he heard her mutter, "Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress."
He stopped and blinked, wondering if he'd heard it, but she gave no indication that she expected a response from him, her eye mashed into the microscope, for all intents and purposes ignoring him.
Huh.
END
ps. It should be noted for posterity that the working title was "Muli kills Jack repeatedly FOR GRATE LOLS AND SCIENCE"