Invasion of the Sparkles
Mar. 8th, 2007 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laliginYet again blame Jantolution's challenge. ^_^
Fandom: Torchwood (of course)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 1700
Summary: The Hub is invaded by some unusual aliens...
Prompt: Jantolution Challenge #1, Prompt - Starlight. (More specifically, the line "Chasing the starlight" from the Muse song was what prompted this...)
Invasion of the Sparkles
Jack had been out making a few house calls, to the aliens they knew had settled peacefully in Cardiff. When he got back to the Hub, he wondered exactly what sort of hallucinogen they’d slipped into the (otherwise perfectly decent) cup of tea he’d had.
Every member of his team was jumping and running around by the workstations, clapping their hands in the air and occasionally twirling on the spot, craning their necks to look up. He stood back for a moment to watch their bizarre dance, then said loudly, “What the hell is going on?”
They all glanced round at him, and Ianto came over to explain, leaving the others to return to their clapping, or waving papers through the air in desperate shooing movements. He spotted a few sudden sparkles in the air, like stars, but just as tiny up close as the pinpricks of light seemed to be in the sky.
“They appeared about ten minutes ago,” Ianto said, turning to glance back as Tosh tried to catch one in an empty coffee mug. “They started flitting about everywhere and generally annoying everyone, but they’re almost impossible to catch.”
Jack was frowning, and twisted to watch one of the floating sparkles as it came to hover round by the two of them, circling his head for a moment then going to dance in front of Ianto. It started flashing different colours, and Jack looked up at the others, to see them pause in their mad dance and stare as the rest of the sparkles also began to go multicoloured. Two more headed towards him, flickering red-green-blue-yellow-purple, and he glanced back at Ianto, saying, “Have they done this before?”
Ianto turned his head very slightly, starting to answer, but then said nothing.
“Ianto?” Jack asked, then, “Ianto!”
He took a swipe at the sparkles as they danced in front of his eyes, and grabbed Ianto by the shoulders, turning him round. Ianto blinked, frowned, and went to look over his shoulder, but Jack stopped him with a hand on his cheek, saying, “I don’t think watching the lights is a good idea. Ianto, no,” as the sparkles swept through Ianto’s peripheral vision and his eyes followed them automatically.
Jack did the first thing he could think of to distract Ianto from the lights. He hadn’t quite expected Ianto to kiss him back with such enthusiasm, though, once the immediate startled struggle was over. Not that he was complaining.
In fact it was a few minutes before he was even able to complain if he’d wanted to. And then Ianto was too busy blushing and inspecting the floor to really listen.
So Jack grinned, and said, “Now that’s what I call a distraction.”
Ianto looked up, and Jack smoothly continued, “We should help the others. Those lights are trying to hypnotise you all. So don’t look at them, okay?”
“Sir,” Ianto nodded, following Jack up to the area by Toshiko’s workstation, where the other three were standing, entranced by the sparkling lights. Jack went over to Tosh, and covered her eyes with a hand. She started screaming, and he hastily took his hand away, leaving her to stare at the twinkling light again.
“No good,” he frowned, glancing back at Ianto, relieved to see that he hadn’t started watching the lights again. “They’re too far gone. We’ll have to get rid of the lights entirely.”
Ianto looked around the Hub, considering. They had tried every method of catching the lights they could think of before Jack had returned, but now the sparkles were staying still, it might be easier. Though judging by Jack’s yelp and curse when he tried to touch one, the sparkles had a sting to them. With that in mind, he went to the autopsy room to fetch the bell jar he knew was in there. When he came back, he found Jack trying to catch one of the things himself, using the empty mug Tosh had, and cursing occasionally as the light dodged his swipes.
Wondering whether the sparkle could see him, or understand entirely what was going on (for all they knew it could be a remotely operated electronic device, rather than anything living) Ianto kept the bell jar mostly out of sight as he edged over. When the sparkle dodged away from Jack again, buzzing slightly, Ianto promptly slapped the bell jar over it, sealed it, and put it down on Toshiko’s desk.
“Nice job,” Jack told him, while the sparkle’s buzzing got louder and it started zipping around inside the jar, rebounding off the glass and beginning to make the jar shake by hurling itself at one side then the other, moving fast enough that it was almost blurring.
“What exactly is it, sir?” asked Ianto, pushing the bell jar back a safe distance onto the desk when it started to shiver closer to the edge.
Jack shrugged, saying, “No idea. But I’m none too happy for them to be here trying to take over my team’s brains. We need Tosh’s intact, at least.”
Managing a smile, Ianto reached past the bell jar to use Toshiko’s computer, setting up a few scans of the sparkle in the jar and other unusual readings in the Hub.
“They seem to have a very small solid core,” he told Jack after a few moments, while the caged sparkle started getting more frantic, bouncing from the inner walls faster and faster, its buzzing becoming a louder, higher pitched hum. “They’re emitting light energy, and heat, but that’s about it. The inner core seems to have a high iron content, though.”
“And that helps us… how?” Jack asked, making it a genuine question where Owen would have made it antagonistic.
“Well, I do have one idea,” Ianto started to say, raising his voice over the increasingly loud hum from the bell jar.
That noise suddenly took on a more musical quality, and they both turned to look at it. Jack frowned at the sparkle for a second, then realised that the sound seemed familiar – high C - and grabbed Ianto, pulling him out of his chair and away from the desk just as the jar exploded.
Neither of them was hurt, but the sparkle shot out, and buzzed furiously around their heads for a few seconds, then darted off and buzzed around the others, leaving one flashing light in front of each member of the team, and rounding the extras up, herding them back towards Jack and Ianto.
“I’m guessing that’s a bad sign,” Jack muttered. “What was that plan of yours?”
“Stage one,” Ianto told him, aware that Jack had managed to get hold of his hand and looked like he had no intention of letting go, “involved running away.”
“Good plan,” Jack approved, as the sparkles, buzzing angrily, coalesced together, and the light they were emitting suddenly got a lot brighter.
The giant sparkle paused, hanging in the air, its buzz somehow very much like a growl now, and Jack and Ianto bolted.
Their escape was aided by the fact that the coalesced lights were now a great deal slower in the air, and when Ianto tugged Jack towards the basement and slammed the thick door behind them, it was slightly more than a split-second away from catching them. That fact was not lost on Jack, and he let out a sigh of relief before saying, “Okay, so now we’re trapped in here instead. What was stage two of your plan?”
“That’s the cunning part, sir,” Ianto told him.
~*~
When Jack was ready – he was impressed at the speed with which Ianto had managed to carry out stage two of his plan, though still not too happy about his own part in stage three – Ianto opened the door for him, and he ventured back into the Hub. The sparkles headed straight for him, and he held out the device Ianto had created, hoping stage three would be as successful as everything before it, and hit the on switch.
The sparkles, with a high-pitched squeaky buzz of surprise, were sucked onto the end of the electromagnet Ianto had made, and pinned there helplessly as Jack grinned and went forward. Collecting the others was easy enough, and then all he had to do was go on to stage four as Ianto had instructed him.
He managed to only get a slight shock when he hurled the whole lot into a running shower and watched the sparkles short-circuit.
Heading back to the main part of the Hub again, he found Ianto ordering taxis for the other three, who were all in various positions of agony – Owen stretched out on the sofa, Tosh rocking in a huddle on the floor, Gwen nearly falling off Owen’s computer chair – and holding their heads, complaining unanimously of migraines and vision problems. Owen buzzed occasionally.
Jack sauntered back up to his team, looking pleased with himself, and grinned at Ianto.
“They in one piece?”
“As requested, sir,” Ianto told him, smiling slightly. “A good night’s sleep and a day of rest should sort out any problems, as long as they don’t watch TV, use a computer, or read while they’re away.”
Tosh let out a wail of despair at that, but Jack nodded, and said, “Okay. Make that an order. Ianto, throw them in their taxis and then get back here. They can go home, you can’t.”
Nodding, as if he’d expected that, Ianto said, “Of course, sir. I’ll be back to clean up as soon as I’ve sorted these three out.”
Jack smiled slightly, and told him, “Actually, I was wondering if you’d like another distraction.”
“Another…” Ianto paused, then said, “I think I could cope with that, sir,” as he hauled a whining Owen to his feet.
“Good,” Jack grinned, and helped him get Tosh and Gwen moving as well, “And I’ll try and think of some way of rewarding you for saving everybody today.”
Ianto smiled a little more, hustling his three charges, all of whom were too busy moaning about their respective headaches to pay any attention to what anyone else was saying, ahead of him, and said, “In that case, sir, I’ll be right back.”
Fandom: Torchwood (of course)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 1700
Summary: The Hub is invaded by some unusual aliens...
Prompt: Jantolution Challenge #1, Prompt - Starlight. (More specifically, the line "Chasing the starlight" from the Muse song was what prompted this...)
Invasion of the Sparkles
Jack had been out making a few house calls, to the aliens they knew had settled peacefully in Cardiff. When he got back to the Hub, he wondered exactly what sort of hallucinogen they’d slipped into the (otherwise perfectly decent) cup of tea he’d had.
Every member of his team was jumping and running around by the workstations, clapping their hands in the air and occasionally twirling on the spot, craning their necks to look up. He stood back for a moment to watch their bizarre dance, then said loudly, “What the hell is going on?”
They all glanced round at him, and Ianto came over to explain, leaving the others to return to their clapping, or waving papers through the air in desperate shooing movements. He spotted a few sudden sparkles in the air, like stars, but just as tiny up close as the pinpricks of light seemed to be in the sky.
“They appeared about ten minutes ago,” Ianto said, turning to glance back as Tosh tried to catch one in an empty coffee mug. “They started flitting about everywhere and generally annoying everyone, but they’re almost impossible to catch.”
Jack was frowning, and twisted to watch one of the floating sparkles as it came to hover round by the two of them, circling his head for a moment then going to dance in front of Ianto. It started flashing different colours, and Jack looked up at the others, to see them pause in their mad dance and stare as the rest of the sparkles also began to go multicoloured. Two more headed towards him, flickering red-green-blue-yellow-purple, and he glanced back at Ianto, saying, “Have they done this before?”
Ianto turned his head very slightly, starting to answer, but then said nothing.
“Ianto?” Jack asked, then, “Ianto!”
He took a swipe at the sparkles as they danced in front of his eyes, and grabbed Ianto by the shoulders, turning him round. Ianto blinked, frowned, and went to look over his shoulder, but Jack stopped him with a hand on his cheek, saying, “I don’t think watching the lights is a good idea. Ianto, no,” as the sparkles swept through Ianto’s peripheral vision and his eyes followed them automatically.
Jack did the first thing he could think of to distract Ianto from the lights. He hadn’t quite expected Ianto to kiss him back with such enthusiasm, though, once the immediate startled struggle was over. Not that he was complaining.
In fact it was a few minutes before he was even able to complain if he’d wanted to. And then Ianto was too busy blushing and inspecting the floor to really listen.
So Jack grinned, and said, “Now that’s what I call a distraction.”
Ianto looked up, and Jack smoothly continued, “We should help the others. Those lights are trying to hypnotise you all. So don’t look at them, okay?”
“Sir,” Ianto nodded, following Jack up to the area by Toshiko’s workstation, where the other three were standing, entranced by the sparkling lights. Jack went over to Tosh, and covered her eyes with a hand. She started screaming, and he hastily took his hand away, leaving her to stare at the twinkling light again.
“No good,” he frowned, glancing back at Ianto, relieved to see that he hadn’t started watching the lights again. “They’re too far gone. We’ll have to get rid of the lights entirely.”
Ianto looked around the Hub, considering. They had tried every method of catching the lights they could think of before Jack had returned, but now the sparkles were staying still, it might be easier. Though judging by Jack’s yelp and curse when he tried to touch one, the sparkles had a sting to them. With that in mind, he went to the autopsy room to fetch the bell jar he knew was in there. When he came back, he found Jack trying to catch one of the things himself, using the empty mug Tosh had, and cursing occasionally as the light dodged his swipes.
Wondering whether the sparkle could see him, or understand entirely what was going on (for all they knew it could be a remotely operated electronic device, rather than anything living) Ianto kept the bell jar mostly out of sight as he edged over. When the sparkle dodged away from Jack again, buzzing slightly, Ianto promptly slapped the bell jar over it, sealed it, and put it down on Toshiko’s desk.
“Nice job,” Jack told him, while the sparkle’s buzzing got louder and it started zipping around inside the jar, rebounding off the glass and beginning to make the jar shake by hurling itself at one side then the other, moving fast enough that it was almost blurring.
“What exactly is it, sir?” asked Ianto, pushing the bell jar back a safe distance onto the desk when it started to shiver closer to the edge.
Jack shrugged, saying, “No idea. But I’m none too happy for them to be here trying to take over my team’s brains. We need Tosh’s intact, at least.”
Managing a smile, Ianto reached past the bell jar to use Toshiko’s computer, setting up a few scans of the sparkle in the jar and other unusual readings in the Hub.
“They seem to have a very small solid core,” he told Jack after a few moments, while the caged sparkle started getting more frantic, bouncing from the inner walls faster and faster, its buzzing becoming a louder, higher pitched hum. “They’re emitting light energy, and heat, but that’s about it. The inner core seems to have a high iron content, though.”
“And that helps us… how?” Jack asked, making it a genuine question where Owen would have made it antagonistic.
“Well, I do have one idea,” Ianto started to say, raising his voice over the increasingly loud hum from the bell jar.
That noise suddenly took on a more musical quality, and they both turned to look at it. Jack frowned at the sparkle for a second, then realised that the sound seemed familiar – high C - and grabbed Ianto, pulling him out of his chair and away from the desk just as the jar exploded.
Neither of them was hurt, but the sparkle shot out, and buzzed furiously around their heads for a few seconds, then darted off and buzzed around the others, leaving one flashing light in front of each member of the team, and rounding the extras up, herding them back towards Jack and Ianto.
“I’m guessing that’s a bad sign,” Jack muttered. “What was that plan of yours?”
“Stage one,” Ianto told him, aware that Jack had managed to get hold of his hand and looked like he had no intention of letting go, “involved running away.”
“Good plan,” Jack approved, as the sparkles, buzzing angrily, coalesced together, and the light they were emitting suddenly got a lot brighter.
The giant sparkle paused, hanging in the air, its buzz somehow very much like a growl now, and Jack and Ianto bolted.
Their escape was aided by the fact that the coalesced lights were now a great deal slower in the air, and when Ianto tugged Jack towards the basement and slammed the thick door behind them, it was slightly more than a split-second away from catching them. That fact was not lost on Jack, and he let out a sigh of relief before saying, “Okay, so now we’re trapped in here instead. What was stage two of your plan?”
“That’s the cunning part, sir,” Ianto told him.
When Jack was ready – he was impressed at the speed with which Ianto had managed to carry out stage two of his plan, though still not too happy about his own part in stage three – Ianto opened the door for him, and he ventured back into the Hub. The sparkles headed straight for him, and he held out the device Ianto had created, hoping stage three would be as successful as everything before it, and hit the on switch.
The sparkles, with a high-pitched squeaky buzz of surprise, were sucked onto the end of the electromagnet Ianto had made, and pinned there helplessly as Jack grinned and went forward. Collecting the others was easy enough, and then all he had to do was go on to stage four as Ianto had instructed him.
He managed to only get a slight shock when he hurled the whole lot into a running shower and watched the sparkles short-circuit.
Heading back to the main part of the Hub again, he found Ianto ordering taxis for the other three, who were all in various positions of agony – Owen stretched out on the sofa, Tosh rocking in a huddle on the floor, Gwen nearly falling off Owen’s computer chair – and holding their heads, complaining unanimously of migraines and vision problems. Owen buzzed occasionally.
Jack sauntered back up to his team, looking pleased with himself, and grinned at Ianto.
“They in one piece?”
“As requested, sir,” Ianto told him, smiling slightly. “A good night’s sleep and a day of rest should sort out any problems, as long as they don’t watch TV, use a computer, or read while they’re away.”
Tosh let out a wail of despair at that, but Jack nodded, and said, “Okay. Make that an order. Ianto, throw them in their taxis and then get back here. They can go home, you can’t.”
Nodding, as if he’d expected that, Ianto said, “Of course, sir. I’ll be back to clean up as soon as I’ve sorted these three out.”
Jack smiled slightly, and told him, “Actually, I was wondering if you’d like another distraction.”
“Another…” Ianto paused, then said, “I think I could cope with that, sir,” as he hauled a whining Owen to his feet.
“Good,” Jack grinned, and helped him get Tosh and Gwen moving as well, “And I’ll try and think of some way of rewarding you for saving everybody today.”
Ianto smiled a little more, hustling his three charges, all of whom were too busy moaning about their respective headaches to pay any attention to what anyone else was saying, ahead of him, and said, “In that case, sir, I’ll be right back.”
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Date: 2007-03-10 12:32 pm (UTC)