Opera Gloves and Aliens
Mar. 6th, 2009 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerTitle: Opera Gloves and Aliens
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
osprey_archer
Beta:visualthinker11
Fandoms: Pushing Daisies and Torchwood
Pairings: a little bit of Ned/Chuck and Jack/Ianto
Rating: G, for goofy. This fic is so light it might levitate.
Summary: Ned held one of Chuck's protected hands in the crook of his arm, guiding her down the Seacrest Victorian Spa's grand staircase, past a woman with a paisley dress and her husband with a matching paisley tie, and thought, as he and Chuck rounded a potted plant and made for the French doors: this is paradise.
Inevitably, that was when the dead body fell over the stair rail onto Ned's head.
Sunlight streamed through the open French doors, lighting the white tile floors and white-and-gold striped wallpaper and Chuck's white opera gloves, which covered her arms up to the elbows where they met her mid-Victorian peacock-green leg-of-mutton sleeves.
Ned held one of Chuck's protected hands in the crook of his arm, guiding her down the Seacrest Victorian Spa's grand staircase, past a woman with a paisley dress and her husband with a matching paisley tie, and thought, as he and Chuck rounded a potted plant and made for the French doors: this is paradise.
Inevitably, that was when the dead body fell over the stair rail onto Ned's head.
Next thing Ned knew he was sprawled next to a potted palm, his nose dug into the tiles like a truffle hog. “Chuck?” he said, rolling over, oh God I didn’t knock into her I didn’t I didn’t—
Chuck said, her voice too cheerful even for her. “Ned, we have a problem—”
—by which point Ned had rolled over enough to come face to face with the business end of a pearl-handled pistol.
“Stay still,” the pistol-holder said, accented as an evil butler.
“I think he’ll be more entertaining if we let him move,” said the corpse, lurching into view next to Pistol Man. His head was turned at an impossible angle, neck broken, with a rosette mark on the cheek.
At least that meant he was one of the Seacrest Killer’s victims. “Do you remember who killed you?” Ned asked, because Emerson would kill him if he didn’t.
“They’re taking this awfully well,” said the corpse.
“Because they’re the aliens,” said Pistol Man.
“Aliens?” said Chuck, who was always quicker on the uptake and also wasn’t about to be shot by a vintage pistol.
The corpse smiled at her, his teeth whiter than her opera gloves. Ned liked him even less than Pistol Man. “What’s your name?”
“Chuck. Do you have any last requests? Also, could you ask Mr. Gun Person—”
“Ianto Jones,” Mr. Gun Person said, cocking the hammer.
“—Mr. Jones, could you please not point that at Ned’s head, because…”
“I just have to touch the corpse and then he’ll be dead again, and if I don’t one of us is going to die and it’s probably going to be you given that Chuck’s already dead,” Ned said.
“Fifty seconds,” said Chuck, swinging a gold chain watch from one of her flounces.
“Jack?” said Ianto Jones.
“He’s not an alien,” the ex-corpse called Jack said. “He’s just crazy. They’re both too pretty to shoot anyway.”
“Fifty-five!”
Mr. Jones scowled at the ex-corpse, but stopped pointing the gun at Ned’s head. Chuck’s white skirts swished against Ned’s outstretched hands as he jumped on Jack.
“Why can’t all afternoons begin with handsome men in tuxedos flinging themselves at me?” asked Jack.
“Fifty-eight!”
“A beautiful woman in high button boots would make everything perfect—”
Ned rammed his thumb right between Jack’s eyes.
“I’ve had bad experiences with women in froufrou petticoats, though,” said Jack, remaining resolutely un-dead.
Oh God, Ned must have missed the time limit. Chuck remained upright, smoothing her skirts, which meant—but no, Mr. Jones was leaning against the potted palm, polishing his pistol on a paisley handkerchief and frowning in a brooding hedgehog-ish sort of way.
“There must be a dead servant somewhere,” said Ned, grieving already for some poor girl in her black skirt and white lace-edged apron. He jabbed Jack on the forehead again, but no luck, except that Jack grabbed his wrist.
“Maybe it doesn’t work like that anymore?” suggested Chuck, leaning forward.
“Don’t!” cried Ned, sliding off Jack and scuttling crabwise away.
Jack attempted to grab his foot. “No need for you to leave,” he said.
“You ought to be dead,” said Ned, in a fetal huddle by the bottom step on the red-carpeted staircase
“Jack never dies,” said Mr. Jones.
“But I brought you back to life and then I touched you again. Everything dies after that. Unless they don’t, and then someone dies in their place.”
“I never stay dead,” said Jack, grabbing Mr. Jones to pull himself upright. “Although you could keep trying. Why don’t you try kissing me next? Like a reverse Sleeping Beauty?”
At least, Ned thought philosophically, Jack wasn’t harassing Chuck anymore.
“You bring people back to life?” said Mr. Jones. “Jack, are you sure he isn’t an alien?”
“Absolutely,” said Jack. “Perfectly normal human being.”
“I bring dead people back to life!” said Ned, hyperventilating. “That’s not normal!”
“Well, no, but after Suzie and Owen….” Jack trailed off.
“Who are Suzie and Owen?” asked Chuck, when it become clear Ned was too overcome to speak.
“They’re dead. Were dead. But then they came back to life with the help of gauntlets from outer space—”
“The risen mitten,” Mr. Jones volunteered, finally sliding the gun into his cummerbund.
“So they were undead for a while and then became dead again.”
“They sound like me,” said Chuck. “Except I’m not dead again. I’m Chuck, by the way. I’ve never met anyone else undead before.”
“Not undead,” said Ned. “It’s such an ugly term and it’s not accurate. Alive again.” He tried to stop babbling. Chuck was giving him a “I wish I could pat you on the head” look, which couldn’t be good. “Not undead. Not resurrected. Not…”
“I’ve only met Owen and Suzie,” said Jack. “And I’ve met a lot of people in my life.”
“You’ve traveled?” asked Chuck, a ringlet of hair drifting out of her bun as she bounced on her toes with delight.
“Not undead,” Ned insisted.
“All over,” said Jack, taking Chuck’s hands in his and staring into her eyes. “Timbuktu, Samarkand, Alpha Centauri…”
Mr. Jones cleared his throat menacingly.
Jack released Chuck’s hands. “You don’t seem as fragile as Owen did,” he said. “Do your wounds heal?”
“Yes. And I don’t age.”
“You don’t?” squeaked Ned.
“Digby doesn’t,” she pointed out. “How many years have you had him?”
“You don’t age either?” Jack said, grasping her hands again. “And you know another undead person?”
“Digby’s a dog,” said Ned.
Mr. Jones cleared his throat again, clicking his fingernails on the bars of an ornate birdcage. “How is she alive?” he asked. “If someone else dies when you bring something back to life.”
“It was a mistake,” said Chuck.
“It was not a mistake,” blurted Ned. Chuck frowned at him. Ned decided not to irritate her while she was hand in hand with a good-looking man who could actually touch her. “Well, it was kind of a mistake. Sort of. I didn’t mean—she’s my girlfriend.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Jones, suddenly quiet. Jack finally released Chuck’s hands, and reached over to graze his fingers over Mr. Jones’s wrist. Ned thought of Chuck’s sad quiet voice, and himself sitting halfway across the room, and looked down at the tiles.
“But wait,” said Jack. “Wait. You were jumping on me so I would die again so I wouldn’t stay alive and kill Ianto.”
“Yes.”
“Because if you touched me, I’d die? I mean, if I wasn’t me.”
“Yes.”
“So if you touch Chuck, she’ll die?” said Jack.
“Yes.”
“You can’t touch?” said Jack.
“Right.”
Jack’s transfigured horror smoothed into slyness. “You both must be really horny.”
Chuck and Ned looked at each other. Jack slid into the space between them, hands lightly on their shoulders. “I hear they have this great honeymoon suite here,” he said. “Three of them, in fact. And I have one on reserve—”
“Jack,” said Mr. Jones, firmly, one finger raised to his ear: intercom. “We should get going. Gwen’s got a lock on the perpetrator.”
Jack’s hands dropped abruptly. “Oh.”
“It’s the butler,” said Mr. Jones.
“The butler did it?” Jack groaned. “That’s a cliché in three galaxies!”
“Three galaxies?” Chuck said wistfully, watching Jack and Mr. Jones swoop up the stairs, bright polished boots clicking and tailcoats slapping, superhero style, against their calves.
Ned could not but notice Chuck noticing the muscles of those calves.
“I bet he can’t make pies,” said Ned.
Chuck sighed and smiled and caressed his hair with opera-gloved fingers.
Author:
osprey_archerBeta:
visualthinker11Fandoms: Pushing Daisies and Torchwood
Pairings: a little bit of Ned/Chuck and Jack/Ianto
Rating: G, for goofy. This fic is so light it might levitate.
Summary: Ned held one of Chuck's protected hands in the crook of his arm, guiding her down the Seacrest Victorian Spa's grand staircase, past a woman with a paisley dress and her husband with a matching paisley tie, and thought, as he and Chuck rounded a potted plant and made for the French doors: this is paradise.
Inevitably, that was when the dead body fell over the stair rail onto Ned's head.
Sunlight streamed through the open French doors, lighting the white tile floors and white-and-gold striped wallpaper and Chuck's white opera gloves, which covered her arms up to the elbows where they met her mid-Victorian peacock-green leg-of-mutton sleeves.
Ned held one of Chuck's protected hands in the crook of his arm, guiding her down the Seacrest Victorian Spa's grand staircase, past a woman with a paisley dress and her husband with a matching paisley tie, and thought, as he and Chuck rounded a potted plant and made for the French doors: this is paradise.
Inevitably, that was when the dead body fell over the stair rail onto Ned's head.
Next thing Ned knew he was sprawled next to a potted palm, his nose dug into the tiles like a truffle hog. “Chuck?” he said, rolling over, oh God I didn’t knock into her I didn’t I didn’t—
Chuck said, her voice too cheerful even for her. “Ned, we have a problem—”
—by which point Ned had rolled over enough to come face to face with the business end of a pearl-handled pistol.
“Stay still,” the pistol-holder said, accented as an evil butler.
“I think he’ll be more entertaining if we let him move,” said the corpse, lurching into view next to Pistol Man. His head was turned at an impossible angle, neck broken, with a rosette mark on the cheek.
At least that meant he was one of the Seacrest Killer’s victims. “Do you remember who killed you?” Ned asked, because Emerson would kill him if he didn’t.
“They’re taking this awfully well,” said the corpse.
“Because they’re the aliens,” said Pistol Man.
“Aliens?” said Chuck, who was always quicker on the uptake and also wasn’t about to be shot by a vintage pistol.
The corpse smiled at her, his teeth whiter than her opera gloves. Ned liked him even less than Pistol Man. “What’s your name?”
“Chuck. Do you have any last requests? Also, could you ask Mr. Gun Person—”
“Ianto Jones,” Mr. Gun Person said, cocking the hammer.
“—Mr. Jones, could you please not point that at Ned’s head, because…”
“I just have to touch the corpse and then he’ll be dead again, and if I don’t one of us is going to die and it’s probably going to be you given that Chuck’s already dead,” Ned said.
“Fifty seconds,” said Chuck, swinging a gold chain watch from one of her flounces.
“Jack?” said Ianto Jones.
“He’s not an alien,” the ex-corpse called Jack said. “He’s just crazy. They’re both too pretty to shoot anyway.”
“Fifty-five!”
Mr. Jones scowled at the ex-corpse, but stopped pointing the gun at Ned’s head. Chuck’s white skirts swished against Ned’s outstretched hands as he jumped on Jack.
“Why can’t all afternoons begin with handsome men in tuxedos flinging themselves at me?” asked Jack.
“Fifty-eight!”
“A beautiful woman in high button boots would make everything perfect—”
Ned rammed his thumb right between Jack’s eyes.
“I’ve had bad experiences with women in froufrou petticoats, though,” said Jack, remaining resolutely un-dead.
Oh God, Ned must have missed the time limit. Chuck remained upright, smoothing her skirts, which meant—but no, Mr. Jones was leaning against the potted palm, polishing his pistol on a paisley handkerchief and frowning in a brooding hedgehog-ish sort of way.
“There must be a dead servant somewhere,” said Ned, grieving already for some poor girl in her black skirt and white lace-edged apron. He jabbed Jack on the forehead again, but no luck, except that Jack grabbed his wrist.
“Maybe it doesn’t work like that anymore?” suggested Chuck, leaning forward.
“Don’t!” cried Ned, sliding off Jack and scuttling crabwise away.
Jack attempted to grab his foot. “No need for you to leave,” he said.
“You ought to be dead,” said Ned, in a fetal huddle by the bottom step on the red-carpeted staircase
“Jack never dies,” said Mr. Jones.
“But I brought you back to life and then I touched you again. Everything dies after that. Unless they don’t, and then someone dies in their place.”
“I never stay dead,” said Jack, grabbing Mr. Jones to pull himself upright. “Although you could keep trying. Why don’t you try kissing me next? Like a reverse Sleeping Beauty?”
At least, Ned thought philosophically, Jack wasn’t harassing Chuck anymore.
“You bring people back to life?” said Mr. Jones. “Jack, are you sure he isn’t an alien?”
“Absolutely,” said Jack. “Perfectly normal human being.”
“I bring dead people back to life!” said Ned, hyperventilating. “That’s not normal!”
“Well, no, but after Suzie and Owen….” Jack trailed off.
“Who are Suzie and Owen?” asked Chuck, when it become clear Ned was too overcome to speak.
“They’re dead. Were dead. But then they came back to life with the help of gauntlets from outer space—”
“The risen mitten,” Mr. Jones volunteered, finally sliding the gun into his cummerbund.
“So they were undead for a while and then became dead again.”
“They sound like me,” said Chuck. “Except I’m not dead again. I’m Chuck, by the way. I’ve never met anyone else undead before.”
“Not undead,” said Ned. “It’s such an ugly term and it’s not accurate. Alive again.” He tried to stop babbling. Chuck was giving him a “I wish I could pat you on the head” look, which couldn’t be good. “Not undead. Not resurrected. Not…”
“I’ve only met Owen and Suzie,” said Jack. “And I’ve met a lot of people in my life.”
“You’ve traveled?” asked Chuck, a ringlet of hair drifting out of her bun as she bounced on her toes with delight.
“Not undead,” Ned insisted.
“All over,” said Jack, taking Chuck’s hands in his and staring into her eyes. “Timbuktu, Samarkand, Alpha Centauri…”
Mr. Jones cleared his throat menacingly.
Jack released Chuck’s hands. “You don’t seem as fragile as Owen did,” he said. “Do your wounds heal?”
“Yes. And I don’t age.”
“You don’t?” squeaked Ned.
“Digby doesn’t,” she pointed out. “How many years have you had him?”
“You don’t age either?” Jack said, grasping her hands again. “And you know another undead person?”
“Digby’s a dog,” said Ned.
Mr. Jones cleared his throat again, clicking his fingernails on the bars of an ornate birdcage. “How is she alive?” he asked. “If someone else dies when you bring something back to life.”
“It was a mistake,” said Chuck.
“It was not a mistake,” blurted Ned. Chuck frowned at him. Ned decided not to irritate her while she was hand in hand with a good-looking man who could actually touch her. “Well, it was kind of a mistake. Sort of. I didn’t mean—she’s my girlfriend.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Jones, suddenly quiet. Jack finally released Chuck’s hands, and reached over to graze his fingers over Mr. Jones’s wrist. Ned thought of Chuck’s sad quiet voice, and himself sitting halfway across the room, and looked down at the tiles.
“But wait,” said Jack. “Wait. You were jumping on me so I would die again so I wouldn’t stay alive and kill Ianto.”
“Yes.”
“Because if you touched me, I’d die? I mean, if I wasn’t me.”
“Yes.”
“So if you touch Chuck, she’ll die?” said Jack.
“Yes.”
“You can’t touch?” said Jack.
“Right.”
Jack’s transfigured horror smoothed into slyness. “You both must be really horny.”
Chuck and Ned looked at each other. Jack slid into the space between them, hands lightly on their shoulders. “I hear they have this great honeymoon suite here,” he said. “Three of them, in fact. And I have one on reserve—”
“Jack,” said Mr. Jones, firmly, one finger raised to his ear: intercom. “We should get going. Gwen’s got a lock on the perpetrator.”
Jack’s hands dropped abruptly. “Oh.”
“It’s the butler,” said Mr. Jones.
“The butler did it?” Jack groaned. “That’s a cliché in three galaxies!”
“Three galaxies?” Chuck said wistfully, watching Jack and Mr. Jones swoop up the stairs, bright polished boots clicking and tailcoats slapping, superhero style, against their calves.
Ned could not but notice Chuck noticing the muscles of those calves.
“I bet he can’t make pies,” said Ned.
Chuck sighed and smiled and caressed his hair with opera-gloved fingers.
