Fic: Vizzini's Rule (38/105)
Title: Vizzini's Rule, Chapter 38
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of violence
Spoilers: Season One thru They Keep Killing Suzie (1x8)
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to Russell T. Davies and the Mighty Beeb. Just goofin' around! All ©’s to Paul Tomalin and Daniel Mcculloch for dialogue and situations borrowed from They Keep Killing Suzie.
Summary: In which the resurrection gauntlet comes out of its box...
Notes: This is for
thrace_adams even more than usual. Thanks for being the speediest beta in the west, hun!! :o)
Previous Chapters
Vizzini's Rule: Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jack opened the safe. As he opened the box containing the glove and the knife, he removed the ‘Not For Use’ tags and told them the history of the artifact. “It fell through the rift about forty years ago. Lay at the bottom of the bay until we dredged it up. I always figured this wasn’t just lost. Whoever made it wanted to get rid of it.”
“You know,” Owen mused, looking at the glove “we never gave it a cool name.”
“I thought we called it the resurrection gauntlet?” Tosh replied.
“Cool name,” Owen repeated, shaking his head at Tosh.
Ianto was trying to stop his skin from crawling as Jack held the glove. “What about the Risen Mitten?” he proposed, half joking. There was silence for a moment. He shrugged. “I think it’s catchy.”
Jack looked like he was trying not to smile as he asked Ianto to bring the first victim’s body to the medical bay. Once Ianto had the body arranged, the others joined him. Owen hooked up the monitors while Tosh ran a quick test on the recording system to make sure everything was set.
Jack took a deep breath and then reached in his pocket. His eyes met Ianto’s for a second as he tossed something to him. Now it was his turn to hide a smile as he looked at the stopwatch in his hand. Jack had been teasing him about his grandfather’s stopwatch one night and had dug up a very similar model from somewhere in the Hub. He kept threatening to time Ianto, to see how long he could hold out while Jack went down on him and other creative ideas.
Ianto held his breath as Jack slipped the glove over his hand. Jack tried to make the glove cooperate, but all it did was give him a slight burn. When he offered it to Owen, the doctor shook his head.
“No, I tried last time. We all had a go. It only responded to Suzie.”
Ianto wanted to point out that he’d never had a go, but the idea of sticking his hand in that thing did not appeal to him so he kept quiet. Luckily, Gwen stepped up and they found that the glove worked for her as easily as it had for Suzie, allowing them a brief moment with the corpse. I wonder if it was made by a woman, Ianto thought idly as Jack and Owen tried to convince Gwen that Alex Arwyn was truly gone.
After Gwen had backed down, Ianto tried to lighten the mood. “Amazing. She’s a natural, twenty-four seconds.”
Owen rolled his eyes. “Give Ianto a stopwatch and he’s happy.”
“It’s the button on the top,” Ianto said caressingly, glancing up at Jack who’s lips twitched for a second before turning back to Gwen.
“What do you think, Gwen? Do you want to stop?”
Gwen merely pushed her hand further into the glove and gave Jack a look of pure determination. Ianto remembered that look. He shivered slightly and went to fetch the next body.
They had much more luck with Mark Briscoe. He was amazingly calm and was able to tell them several details about his attacker. But it was his last word that sent a chill through them all.
Suzie.
After the rest of the team had left to check out Suzie’s belongings at the storage facility, Ianto retreated from the ghosts in the Hub to the Tourist Office. It was raining and the sun had already set. Days are getting shorter again, it’ll be winter soon, he thought as he stared morosely out the open door. Whatever he was searching for, he decided it wasn’t in the tiny office. He closed the door and locked up behind him as he returned to the lower levels of Torchwood.
He thought about making coffee but thought that he was wired enough without any additional caffeine. They all were - no one wanted to admit just how much this case was bothering them. One of their own, somehow involved with the murders of three people. Three more people, he corrected himself. Ianto sighed, wishing Jack would return.
He suddenly realized what he needed.
Hurrying across the Hub, he climbed down the ladder to Jack’s room and kicked off his shoes. He climbed into Jack’s bed, pulling the covers up and burying his face in Jack’s pillow. He lay there for some time, just breathing, surrounding himself with the scent of his lover. Ianto wondered if this was the same need which had driven Jack to find him that morning when he had returned from the scene of crime. A desire for something familiar, safe, something loved to counteract the violence and the despair. He hoped he was able to do that for Jack, as Jack did for him every day.
Ianto glanced at his watch. It was later than he realized. He tidied up Jack’s bed and headed back to the Hub. He was trying to decide if the team would want to eat dinner after they returned when the proximity alarm sounded and the cog door rolled back. One look at their faces forestalled any suggestions Ianto had been about to make regarding food.
“What is it?” he asked quietly as he took Jack’s damp coat.
Jack sighed. “We found a flyer for Pilgrim in Suzie’s stuff. We’re going to have to bring her back.”
Stifling his own discomfort, Ianto said in brisk tones, “I’ll go and get her then, sir.”
“No!” Jack said sharply. He softened his voice and put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder. “Sorry. I’ll do it, Ianto. Suzie was my responsibility. And you’ve handled enough corpses for one day.”
“Can you wait ‘til morning?” Ianto asked. “It’s been a long day already.”
Jack shook his head. “No, better get it over with. Still have that stopwatch?” he asked, a glimmer of his usual smile crossing his face.
“Of course, sir.”
Jack squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll meet you in the med bay.” He walked towards the morgue, his head down, his hands in his pockets.
Ianto hung up Jack’s coat, arranging it on the coat tree so it would dry as quickly as possible, and joined the others in the med bay to wait for Jack. Tosh was nervous. She kept walking around the room picking up items and then putting them down. At one point Owen yelled at her for messing with his stuff and she retreated to Ianto’s side, fairly humming with stress. He put a calming arm across her shoulders but it didn’t seem to help much.
When Jack arrived with the body (Ianto refused to think of it as Suzie), Tosh fled, apologetic but simply unable to stay. Everyone else took their places and Gwen began.
Nothing.
Ianto was secretly relieved, but Gwen kept trying. After several unsuccessful attempts, Jack was ready to throw in the towel. Ianto could read his relief as well, although he did a good job of hiding it. And then Owen thought of the knife.
“We’ve seen it before,” Tosh said over the intercom. “Metallic resonance. Like the glove works better if the knife’s part of the process, like closing a circuit.”
“Then let’s use it,” Gwen said, sounding desperate.
“Small detail,” Jack argued. “The knife was used to kill people. She’s already dead.” Ianto noticed that he didn’t say ‘Suzie’ either.
“All right!” Gwen interrupted. She continued in a cold voice, “So we kill her again.”
Ianto felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up. That’s not like Gwen, he thought, it’s that damned glove. I knew this was a bad idea.
His feelings of foreboding were not helped by watching Jack stab their former colleague in the chest with the newly christened Life Knife, nor by Suzie suddenly returning to her body and talking about killing Jack, and definitely not by her stubborn refusal to go back to being dead.
Ianto stared down at the stopwatch, tick tick ticking away the seconds. A very bad idea...
TBC in Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of violence
Spoilers: Season One thru They Keep Killing Suzie (1x8)
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to Russell T. Davies and the Mighty Beeb. Just goofin' around! All ©’s to Paul Tomalin and Daniel Mcculloch for dialogue and situations borrowed from They Keep Killing Suzie.
Summary: In which the resurrection gauntlet comes out of its box...
Notes: This is for
thrace_adams even more than usual. Thanks for being the speediest beta in the west, hun!! :o)
Previous Chapters
Vizzini's Rule: Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jack opened the safe. As he opened the box containing the glove and the knife, he removed the ‘Not For Use’ tags and told them the history of the artifact. “It fell through the rift about forty years ago. Lay at the bottom of the bay until we dredged it up. I always figured this wasn’t just lost. Whoever made it wanted to get rid of it.”
“You know,” Owen mused, looking at the glove “we never gave it a cool name.”
“I thought we called it the resurrection gauntlet?” Tosh replied.
“Cool name,” Owen repeated, shaking his head at Tosh.
Ianto was trying to stop his skin from crawling as Jack held the glove. “What about the Risen Mitten?” he proposed, half joking. There was silence for a moment. He shrugged. “I think it’s catchy.”
Jack looked like he was trying not to smile as he asked Ianto to bring the first victim’s body to the medical bay. Once Ianto had the body arranged, the others joined him. Owen hooked up the monitors while Tosh ran a quick test on the recording system to make sure everything was set.
Jack took a deep breath and then reached in his pocket. His eyes met Ianto’s for a second as he tossed something to him. Now it was his turn to hide a smile as he looked at the stopwatch in his hand. Jack had been teasing him about his grandfather’s stopwatch one night and had dug up a very similar model from somewhere in the Hub. He kept threatening to time Ianto, to see how long he could hold out while Jack went down on him and other creative ideas.
Ianto held his breath as Jack slipped the glove over his hand. Jack tried to make the glove cooperate, but all it did was give him a slight burn. When he offered it to Owen, the doctor shook his head.
“No, I tried last time. We all had a go. It only responded to Suzie.”
Ianto wanted to point out that he’d never had a go, but the idea of sticking his hand in that thing did not appeal to him so he kept quiet. Luckily, Gwen stepped up and they found that the glove worked for her as easily as it had for Suzie, allowing them a brief moment with the corpse. I wonder if it was made by a woman, Ianto thought idly as Jack and Owen tried to convince Gwen that Alex Arwyn was truly gone.
After Gwen had backed down, Ianto tried to lighten the mood. “Amazing. She’s a natural, twenty-four seconds.”
Owen rolled his eyes. “Give Ianto a stopwatch and he’s happy.”
“It’s the button on the top,” Ianto said caressingly, glancing up at Jack who’s lips twitched for a second before turning back to Gwen.
“What do you think, Gwen? Do you want to stop?”
Gwen merely pushed her hand further into the glove and gave Jack a look of pure determination. Ianto remembered that look. He shivered slightly and went to fetch the next body.
They had much more luck with Mark Briscoe. He was amazingly calm and was able to tell them several details about his attacker. But it was his last word that sent a chill through them all.
Suzie.
After the rest of the team had left to check out Suzie’s belongings at the storage facility, Ianto retreated from the ghosts in the Hub to the Tourist Office. It was raining and the sun had already set. Days are getting shorter again, it’ll be winter soon, he thought as he stared morosely out the open door. Whatever he was searching for, he decided it wasn’t in the tiny office. He closed the door and locked up behind him as he returned to the lower levels of Torchwood.
He thought about making coffee but thought that he was wired enough without any additional caffeine. They all were - no one wanted to admit just how much this case was bothering them. One of their own, somehow involved with the murders of three people. Three more people, he corrected himself. Ianto sighed, wishing Jack would return.
He suddenly realized what he needed.
Hurrying across the Hub, he climbed down the ladder to Jack’s room and kicked off his shoes. He climbed into Jack’s bed, pulling the covers up and burying his face in Jack’s pillow. He lay there for some time, just breathing, surrounding himself with the scent of his lover. Ianto wondered if this was the same need which had driven Jack to find him that morning when he had returned from the scene of crime. A desire for something familiar, safe, something loved to counteract the violence and the despair. He hoped he was able to do that for Jack, as Jack did for him every day.
Ianto glanced at his watch. It was later than he realized. He tidied up Jack’s bed and headed back to the Hub. He was trying to decide if the team would want to eat dinner after they returned when the proximity alarm sounded and the cog door rolled back. One look at their faces forestalled any suggestions Ianto had been about to make regarding food.
“What is it?” he asked quietly as he took Jack’s damp coat.
Jack sighed. “We found a flyer for Pilgrim in Suzie’s stuff. We’re going to have to bring her back.”
Stifling his own discomfort, Ianto said in brisk tones, “I’ll go and get her then, sir.”
“No!” Jack said sharply. He softened his voice and put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder. “Sorry. I’ll do it, Ianto. Suzie was my responsibility. And you’ve handled enough corpses for one day.”
“Can you wait ‘til morning?” Ianto asked. “It’s been a long day already.”
Jack shook his head. “No, better get it over with. Still have that stopwatch?” he asked, a glimmer of his usual smile crossing his face.
“Of course, sir.”
Jack squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll meet you in the med bay.” He walked towards the morgue, his head down, his hands in his pockets.
Ianto hung up Jack’s coat, arranging it on the coat tree so it would dry as quickly as possible, and joined the others in the med bay to wait for Jack. Tosh was nervous. She kept walking around the room picking up items and then putting them down. At one point Owen yelled at her for messing with his stuff and she retreated to Ianto’s side, fairly humming with stress. He put a calming arm across her shoulders but it didn’t seem to help much.
When Jack arrived with the body (Ianto refused to think of it as Suzie), Tosh fled, apologetic but simply unable to stay. Everyone else took their places and Gwen began.
Nothing.
Ianto was secretly relieved, but Gwen kept trying. After several unsuccessful attempts, Jack was ready to throw in the towel. Ianto could read his relief as well, although he did a good job of hiding it. And then Owen thought of the knife.
“We’ve seen it before,” Tosh said over the intercom. “Metallic resonance. Like the glove works better if the knife’s part of the process, like closing a circuit.”
“Then let’s use it,” Gwen said, sounding desperate.
“Small detail,” Jack argued. “The knife was used to kill people. She’s already dead.” Ianto noticed that he didn’t say ‘Suzie’ either.
“All right!” Gwen interrupted. She continued in a cold voice, “So we kill her again.”
Ianto felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up. That’s not like Gwen, he thought, it’s that damned glove. I knew this was a bad idea.
His feelings of foreboding were not helped by watching Jack stab their former colleague in the chest with the newly christened Life Knife, nor by Suzie suddenly returning to her body and talking about killing Jack, and definitely not by her stubborn refusal to go back to being dead.
Ianto stared down at the stopwatch, tick tick ticking away the seconds. A very bad idea...
TBC in Chapter Thirty-Nine