Stark; Raving Mad, Chapter 4 part 2
Title: Stark; Raving Mad
Rating: T
Warnings: non-death, occasionally gory imagery, un-beta’d
Genre: Romantic Comedy with a dash of Friendship Speeches
Summary: Jack Harkness is a one-hit-wonder Science Fiction/Horror novelist that has met his writer’s block. Ianto Jones is his new psychosomatic, OCD, editor-who just happens to be completely afraid of the dark. Pre-slash ensues (for the moment)
Summary for Chapter: Ianto and Jack ignore the books for the moment while they focus on Halloween and OH MY GOD IS THAT A BABY??? This part is the 2nd of a 3 parted chapter
Author's note: sorry for taking so long, life and other fictions got in the way, probably will happen again, but this is quite a bit furthur along(I have more written now) than you might expect, so expect some regular updates for a while...
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Ianto gasped for air as he reached the final steps, taking the few leaps and jumps to the bar that was underneath Jack’s loft. “Quick!” he beckoned Martha over. “Jack needs 3 straws and two maraschino cherries.” Martha frowned, but began shuffling around the bar for the requested items.
“Why?” she asked, slightly puzzled.
“Uh-I cannot exactly say, actually…I don’t know.” He said with a hurried shrug as he scurried back up the stairs to Jack’s loft. “Okay!” he called, “okay, I got ‘em.” Ianto said, addressing Jack, who was unwinding a power cord. “Three straws, and two maraschino cherries; just like you asked” Ianto said, placing them onto a small plate on Jack’s kitchen table. Jack ignored Ianto’s motions, instead focusing on where to lay the power cord.
“That was fast.” Jack remarked, bending over to tuck the cord underneath a leg of couch.
“Well- I’m a little nervous…So…why did you need them?”
“I didn’t need them.” Jack said. “You were just driving me crazy.” A cocked eyebrow and a smirk.
“Well I am a little nervous” Ianto said once again, ringing his hands, “I just want this to be perfect.” He lunged forward, leaning his face down close to Jack’s own, observing the other plug in the cord to an apparatus that had nearly 7 others. “You’re not going to blow a fuse with that thing?”
“Well actually, could you run down to the hard ware store and get me a four-slot toaster and a Belgium waffle maker?” Ianto repeated the phrase nervously as he ran to the loft’s doors and began to get his coat on before pausing. “You don’t really need that stuff…do you.” He said blankly, raising one eyebrow to Jack’s charismatic smirk.
“Nope.” Jack turned his attention to the small surveillance monitor, hoping to see someone in the elevator. “Take a looksee Jones-y, Owen is coming on up. You wanna give this baby a test run?” Ianto’s excited, nearly maniacal grin was all he needed. They rushed up to the second floor/balcony of the loft, turning off the lights as they did. “Now the greatest trick to scaring someone is their own imagination. The human mind is desperate to fill voids and- to set the mood.” Jack said with a grin as he turned on a track containing a low club beat and recorded conversation. “Now we wait.”
They both heard the loft doors open, and could barely see the silhouette of Owen in the door. “Hey! I guess we’re having a party after all!” His words were cut short as the noise abruptly stopped and a red, glaring light flashed into existence-focusing only on Owen. He let out a low groan of surprise.
“This is when he realizes” Jack whispered lowly into Ianto’s ear, “that there isn’t a party.” Owen turned at that moment to leave, but the loft door swung shut before him.
“Jack?” Owen called as he swung around to face the room. “Ianto?” raising a hand, Owen blindly tried to see past the glaring red light and into the dark loft.
“Jack isn’t here.” A dark, mutated voice sounded throughout the loft, echoing across steel walls malevolently.
“Well, I should warn ya…”Owen said in reply, barely phased at all by the voice, “that I stopped over at my buddy Andy’s place for a brownie so…” Jack and Ianto ignored the words.
“First silence.” Jack whispered, “then darkness.” He turned a knob and then the red light was gone. “Then a blinding light.” He flipped a switch and a spotlight, blindingly white, focused upon Owen.
“Disoriented,” Jack continued as Owen flailed his arms, searching for purchase, “his heart starts racing as he tries to make out forms and shapes.”
Jack turned on a smoke machine, mist covering and forcing Owen to combat the impediment to his senses. “Something brushes against his face,” Jack spoke as he released a latch, allowing a soft, black blanket to fall from the ceiling. “ and he hears a distant sound.”
Jack pressed a button, playing a track recording of the buzzing of a bee, slowly, quietly at first, but it soon gained a greater intensity. “and for the finale…” Jack released a giant inflatable bee, nearly three feet in diameter, upon Owen’s head.
Owen screamed before falling, rushing back against the loft door, and suddenly the lights were on again…and all he could see was Jack and Ianto’s smirking faces.
“So what do you think?” Jack said, turning to Ianto with a grin.
“I think its tremendous.” Ianto replied, reverence coating his words.
“Owen?” Ianto asked, and Owen was too dazed to respond for a moment.
“I think it should work on a girl.”
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They were all waiting, Ianto was playing with the voice manipulator and Jack was observing the surveillance monitor. Owen had opted out of helping, preferring instead to hang out in the bar below the loft.
“Luke…” Ianto said, loving the way his voice was changed into something deeper, darker, mysterious even, with newly found dulcet tones and an echoing quality. “I am your father.”
“Hey Darth!” Jack said sarcastically. “She’s here.” Ianto’s eyes widened as he grabbed the box of controls quickly, Jack ushering him into position and turning off the lights. Ianto quickly flipped the switch for the party track, not quite patiently waiting for her to open the loft doors.
“Hello?” Lisa called out gently into the darkened loft, and Ianto flipped switches, pulled tabs, unlatched blankets, finding glee in her struggles with Jack by his side; his one truly great adventure, and it was completely glorious as everything she had ever done to him was run full circle, everything had gone according to plan…right until she yelled out, her face more uncomfortable and scared than any Jack had ever seen. “I think I’m going into labour!”
“Holy Shit she’s pregnant!” Jack yelled over her low groans. Ianto’s face slackened, and it took all of the power within his being to turn the lights back on in the loft and usher his cousin over to Jack’s couch.
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END: Well, the last part of the chapter will be up soon. If you missed the first part of the chapter: http://disquisitemind.livejournal.com/2055.html#cutid1
if you want to start at the very beginning: http://disquisitemind.livejournal.com/681.html#cutid1
happy reading, review if you so wish.