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There were some days when Owen thought his life at Torchwood played like some lameass B-list slasher flick, or maybe a cheap porn thriller. And then there were the days that were far too fucked up to ever make it onto the big screen—lost in the deleted scenes, or tossed into the bloopers reel, or something.
Quite honestly, Owen wasn't sure which category today fell under, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to know in the first place.
For starters, it was a bad sign when Jones showed up topside (after doing whatever it was he did down in the literal man-hole with Captain Underpants. Owen did his best not to think about it too—ha!—hard) wearing nothing more than his boxers, his tie still hooked suggestively around his neck. But it was an even worse sign when Jones dove straight for Owen's workstation and (shoving Owen away from the keyboard with no mind for Owen's game-in-progress, the sod) immediately called up the commands for a total Hub lockdown.
"Had to," Jones explained in response to Owen's yelp of indignation. "We're in a Category Five emergency."
The lights in the Hub flickered, then went out when the lockdown protocols took down the power generator with it. Gwen's surprised shout echoed through the darkness; and from the other side of the Hub, Tosh called, "What's going on?"
"The fuck if I know!" Owen turned back to Jones (or at least in Jones' general direction, Owen couldn't see for shit without the light). "You can't call a Category Five!" Owen hissed, fumbling under his desk for a torch. "Category Five's for quarantining infectious diseases, and unless your Captain Shag-a-lot promoted you while you were sucking him off, I believe that would be my department!"
Tosh beat Owen to providing emergency light: first hers, then Gwen's faces appeared in glowing haloes of white. Owen flicked on his torch and shined it on Jones, and if he didn't know any better Owen would have said the teaboy looked fucking terrified. But Jones' voice remained steady when he said, "Actually, I think I'm pretty uniquely qualified to make the call this time."
"Like hell you ar—"
A loud scraping noise reverberated through the Hub from the open hole in the floor where Jones had come out from—and where Jack presumably still was. Owen narrowed his eyes. "Jones. Where's Harkness?"
Jones fidgeted and kept his eyes glued to the floor. "Um," he said, then cleared his throat. "He's—we—well. Let's just say we—were experimenting."
"Experimenting? Experimenting with what?"
Jones cleared his throat again, reached up to scratch his neck. "Erotic asphyxiation," he admitted. "Jack's idea."
Owen rolled his eyes. Not surprising, that. "And?"
"And, um. He told me to—you know, keep going, no matter what happened, because he didn't mind, and—well, Jack died." Jones glanced at the hole in the floor, uncharacteristically nervous. "And then he woke up, but—something must've gone wrong this time, because..."
"Because what?" Owen demanded, but then Jack stuck his head out of the hole and answered the question for him.
Jones, Owen grudgingly had to admit, was right. Something was very wrong with Harkness. His hair was mussed to the point where it looked like he had stuck his fork in the toaster and electrocuted himself, and his eyes were unfocused when he slowly turned his head to take in his darkened surroundings. Owen played his torch over Jack's face, noting the blown-black pupils and slack jaw, and was mildly surprised when Jack didn't seem to notice the brightness. But nothing, not even the worst horror film in the world, could have prepared Owen for what happened next.
Jack opened his mouth and moaned in the most creeptastic way possible, "Coooooock."
Slowly, Jack pushed himself out of the hole, and Owen's light flashed bright against Jack's pale skin as their stark-naked team captain rose out of the ground like a zombie from the grave. Tosh and Gwen screamed, and Owen couldn't help but gag a little when he saw Jack's genitalia swollen to inhuman proportions—la petit mort, indeed. "Coooooock," Jack moaned again.
Owen turned to Jones, who had enough sense to look sheepish. "For fuck's sake—you made him into a fornicating zombie!" (God, Owen never thought he'd ever use 'fornicating' and 'zombie' in the same sentence, but that was Torchwood for you.) "The fuck did you have to do that for? He was bad enough when he was still fucking alive!"
"Look, it's not my fault! He asked for it! How was I supposed to knohshit." Jack had begun to stagger his way towards Owen's workstation, arms outstretched to match his similarly-positioned dick, and Jones scrambled across the table until he was on the same side as Owen. "Any ideas on killing him? Again, I mean," Jones added hurriedly when Owen gave him the stinkeye. "I bashed him on the head before I got up here, but it doesn't look like that helped."
"Coooooock," Jack said, then stumbled when Tosh fired a shot into his shoulder from behind.
"C'mere, then!" she taunted. As Jack shuffled round to face the new threat, Tosh waved for Owen to move. "You two get out," she shouted. "If he's discriminating between genders, Gwen and I can cover for you!"
As if on cue, Jack replied with another moan. "Puuuuuusssssy."
Tosh's eyes went wide. Gwen whimpered.
Owen resisted the urge to bang his head against his desk, instead grabbing his gun and emptying a whole clip into Jack's back. Jack turned and lumbered back in Owen's direction, but was otherwise unaffected by the fresh bloody wounds all over his naked body. Owen was ready to reload and aim for the spine, if that would even be enough to stop the horny undead, but suddenly Jones whipped a tiny handgun out of nowhere and fired exactly once.
Jack's genitals disappeared in an explosion of gore. Owen couldn't stop himself from wincing in sympathy.
Jack looked downwards, vaguely confused. "Cock?" he asked, a beat before he crumpled.
The ensuing silence was finally broken by Owen. "Nice shot, teaboy." Owen fake-coughed. "Not like it was hard to miss."
"Thanks." Jones swung himself around Owen's desk and nudged Jack's body with his foot. "I didn't know if that was even going to work, to be honest."
Gwen stared as Jones unceremoniously rolled Jack back to his manhole and pushed him over the edge; the body landed with a muffled crunch that made Owen suspect that Jack would be reviving with a very stiff neck (and stiffness in certain other parts, unless Owen was much mistaken). "Do you think he was contagious? I mean, like in the movies?"
"Did you really want to let him go and find out? Cardiff only just survived the end of the universe twice—I don't think we need to push our luck again." Owen could hear the click of Tosh's fingers already flying across her keyboard. "Overriding lockdown in four, by the way."
"And back to your regularly-scheduled Torchwood, ladies and gents." Owen gave the mostly-naked Jones another once-over, then steadied his hands on his table and leaned across. "I'm probably going to regret asking this," he said, low enough that the girls wouldn't hear, "but where the bloody hell do you keep that gun?"
To his credit, Jones hardly batted an eye. "Like I said—" He buffed the barrel with his palm, then flashed Owen a leering grin that was far too much like Jack's for Owen's liking. "We were experimenting."
Owen didn't bury his face in his hands and groan, but it was a very close thing.