2007-11-21: O Danny Boy

Starring:

Jack_icon.gif Peter_icon.gif

Guest Starring: Danny Walsh

Summary: This scene is not for the faint of heart of the weak of stomach. You have been warned. By reading on, you agree not to complain about it later.

Date It Happened: November 21st, 2007

O Danny Boy


The corner of 33rd and Stenton.

The tool shed at 33rd and Stenton is large and dusty, but well stocked. Benches and pegboards along the walls bear tools of every imaginable size and description, most antiquated to a certain degree, all stained by rust and residue despite signs of frequent use. The floor slants very slightly toward a drain in the middle that's surrounded by a similar set of streaks and smudges. There's a hook hanging from the ceiling above the drain; it appears to be the one bit of metal in the shed that's clean and pristine. Shelves in one corner are well stocked with things like Hefty garbage bags, disposable gloves, rubber aprons, and heavy-duty plastic goggles.

When Jack, Peter, and the carpet-rolled Danny pop in via teleportation, the haggard, detoxing Irishman sets down his end of their burden and starts surveying the inside of the area critically. After several seconds he nods, apparently satisfied. "Just how I left it. Let's unwrap our present and get to work."

They're lucky they arrived in the right area, honestly. And the right time. Peter looks around cautiously once they appear here, glad that he remembered the street corner well enough and didn't teleport into someone's home. Or the future. Or the past. But now he has something else to worry about. All these things around the room make his skin pale. A quiet look of guilt settles into his grim expression, as he moves the body over where he's told and lays it down. "It's not a present," he mutters under his breath, shaking his head. "We're lucky we didn't end up outside in front of everyone— I'm not exactly used to teleporting places I've never been," he mutters. He'd actually been aiming for an alley nearby that he remembered— maybe the tool shed was in the alley? He doesn't know.

"What are we doing?" While Jack might be satisfied, he's certainly not.

"We're taking care of this," Jack replies grimly. "You don't have to like it. You just have to do it." He kneels down beside Danny and pushes the body until it unrolls from it's bloody carpet wrapping. In a brisk, businesslike fashion, he jerks a diamond pinky ring from the corpse's finger, pulls an expensive watch free from a cold, clammy wrist, and then starts patting pockets, armpits, and other likely hiding places. A roll of bank notes, a wallet, and a small, pearl-handled pistol are quickly added to the pile, then Jack begins to strip the dead man's suit from his body.

There's a long pause and Peter says, "It'd be easier if you cut his clothes off." It's a suggestion, a grim one, but he'd been a nurse— he'd even did an emergency room shift during his training. He's also pretty sure the morgue cuts clothes off more than tries to strip them. Moving away, he goes to the disposable gloves and starts to put those on. Doesn't have to like it, just has to do it. He can see how this man became the one he knew in the future— "What is your father into that made you steal something from him?" he asks, trying to find something to take his mind off of… what they're doing.

"Good call, kid. Can't believe I never thought of that. Grab me some of those gloves, a rubber bib, and some glasses, would you?" Jack digs in his jacket pocket for a moment and comes out with a folding utility tool. He selects a small, sharp blade and goes about cutting the rest of Danny's clothing free from his purpling flesh. "As for Pop, he's… unique. He's got this thing with trying to make people better. Stronger. No matter if they want to be or not. This chemical he's working on, it's like his Mona Lisa. It's dangerous and it scares the shit out of me. People go insane from the addiction." Talking about his father elicits a shudder from Jack that handling a freshly killed man never could. He shakes his head briskly. "You need a watch? It's a gold Seiko. Probably worth a few grand."

"No, I have a watch," Peter says, glancing at the gold Seiko, jaw setting. This whole thing obviously disturbs him, and he's not likely to stop being disturbed by it. Just looking at the man seems difficult for him, but he's not being sick, or crying— tense would be the better term for everything about him. He hands over all the things he's told to, but he doesn't move to actually assist more than that at the moment. "Your dad does sound crazy. You steal the only version of it?" His voice is almost absent. Though he's continuing a conversation, he's having a difficult time focusing on it.

Jack wiggles his wiry hands into a pair of gloves and throws the apron on. "Yeah. He's a paranoid old bastard. Doesn't even trust his own people. He only kept one sample and one set of hard copies, and I have both. Tie me up, will you?" He turns around and presents his apron strings to Peter as he fits the plastic goggles over his eyes. "And when you're done, hand me some of those zip ties off the table." He chucks a thumb in the direction of a tub full of one-way plastic fasteners.

As instructed, Peter moves around behind the taller man and ties up his apron. This isn't that far away from his various trainings, but it doesn't change his expression at all. "So your father hired hit men to do anything necessary to find you and get the drug, and information that you stole?" he says, more filling in the area between the lines, rather than really needing to ask. "Have you already destroyed it?"

Jack doesn't immediately answer the question. Instead he kneels down and wraps one of the plastic ties around both of Danny's feet, then zips it up tightly to bind them together. "I haven't destroyed it yet," he finally replies as he gives the tie one last tug to secure it. "It's not that simple. The formula has been perverted. It could help people instead of driving them crazy and making them eat their kids. I thought I killed my dad the last time I saw him. If I'd have known better, I already would've burned everything. Can you lift him up for me?" The Irishman waves vaguely, indicating that Peter should do that voodoo that he do. "I need his feet draped over the hook in the ceiling."

Something about the hook on the ceiling— draping someone naked, has a bigger affect on Peter than the rest of this has had so far. He visibly winces, hand shaking as he raises it, the temptation to just do as he's told there… but he ends up taking in a couple heavy breaths, and rubbing his hands over his face instead. The future is different now— or is it? "Is there another way we can handle this? I can fly him over the ocean, or— I can't do this Jack. Not after…" he trails off. He can't even explain this to anyone. This is another of the many details he hasn't even told Elena yet. Whatever it is, from the look in his eyes, it's pretty bad.

"A dead body is little more than a leaky sack of meat," Jack explains clinically. "And sacks of meat always float to the surface on a long enough time line. If we try to properly dispose of him now… well, it'll be gross. We have to drain him." He kneels down beside Danny and begins to critically examine the man's pudgy neck. "Since his heart isn't working any longer, we'll need to let gravity give us a hand." As consumed as he's been with his own thoughts, the compassionate glance he sends in Peter's direction is his first since they arrived. "Don't worry, lad. I can take it from here," he murmurs reassuringly.

Grimly, he picks up a length of thin, stout rope and loops it between Danny's bound ankles, then tosses the loose end over a beam in the ceiling. Grunting quietly with effort, he uses the improvised pulley to haul the heavy body into an inverted hanging position.

The tension that'd already taken his face just gets heavier, until he finally just turns away and moves to stand against one of the walls. Peter can't protest how he might want to, not because he has no desire to, or can't think of multiple ways to take care of this without hanging him upside down from a hook— but because he can't speak just yet. Throat too tight. Jack'll be able to get him hung upside down before he manages to say anything, but he's not looking at him even as he says this. "Are you sure what— what your father came up with— can be used to help people?"

Jack looks up from tying the end of the rope to a heavy, bolted-down table leg. "A hundred percent? No. I'm no scientist, but at best I'd say there was a fifty-fifty shot it could be turned into something good. Like I said, I already would've gotten rid of it if I'd known the old bugger was still alive." He moves back over to Danny's body and prods his neck with two gloved fingers until he locates a vein. Then, unceremoniously, he slits it open with the small blade of his utility tool. Blood immediately begins to leak out and puddle around the drain and then flow down into the bowels of the city's sewer system. When his cutting is complete, Jack drops his knife on the floor and strips off his bloody latex gloves. "This'll take a bit," he explains as he produces a slightly bent cigarette and a stick match from the pocket of his sweats. "Look, I didn't plan for things to go this way. It just happened. I'm going to fix it as best as I can."

Though he's still not looking at the taller man, Peter nods slowing, seeming to accept the explanation, even if he can't look at what the man's doing— the smell might get to him in a while too, but he just continues to look away. "I'll help if I can, Jack, but there's things that…" He doesn't even need to finish. It's obvious he's already hesitated so much on this that he can't do what 'needs' to be done. The haunted look as he does finally glance over is enough to show that. It's a short glance, because he looks away again, reaching to take off his gloves, the gloves that never even got the chance to get bloody. "I just don't want anything to happen to Elena. He didn't just know her name, and that we were dating— this man even knew what her favorite fruit is. I didn't even know that, Jack…"

Suddenly, Jack's dangerous rage comes to the fore. He strikes Danny in his paunchy belly with three rapid-fire punches, sending him shimmying and shaking like a punching bag. He huffs and puffs for a few seconds to regain his breath, then sticks the cigarette between his lips and lights it with the match. "Don't worry about that," he reassures Peter through a cloud of smoke. "If anybody ever lays a finger on our girl, it'll be because I'm already dead." The stretchy, snappy sound of him donning a fresh set of gloves echoes through the enclosed space. A grinding, cracking noise closely follows as he uses a pair of pliers to extract Danny's teeth one at a time. "I plan to settle this, and well. Grrr. Stubborn… bitch!" He spills back onto his ass when a molar finally gives. "If you want to help, you can keep an eye on Elena and her family for me."

"You can't guarantee her safety, Jack," Peter says, unable to look, and visibly flinching at the sounds that are going on in the direction he's not looking. He could make this whole thing a lot faster with his various abilities, but with certain things fresh in his memory… "Even I can't do that. But I'll keep an eye on her and her family. I just don't… I don't know what'll happen if— if anything happens to her." The last time she'd been threatened, there were a lot of explosions and someone died. And more than one person wanted to do it. "I'm going to have to tell her what's going on, Jack. She's worried about you."

"Fair enough," Jack replies as he finishes his grisly dentistry. He tosses the pliers down beside his utility blade and sheds his second pair of gloves. His safety glasses and spattered apron quickly follow. All of the discarded items are nudged into a pile along with Danny's shredded suit.

Jack takes a final drag from his cigarette, butts it out on the stained carpet, and scoops up Danny's personal effects. The jewelry, pistol, and wallet are all pocketed, but the roll of bills is spread out and quickly counted. "Shit. You got any money stashed away? It costs a thousand bucks to have a guy fed through a wood chipper and spread in a compost heap. This cheap bastard is three hundred short."

"You're not going to tell me not tell her about this?" Peter says softly, now able to look at the man, though not for very long. The body and the pliers are enough to make his stomach unsettle. He's a nurse. There's a lot he's supposed to be able to handle— But there's memories this is drawing on that are definitely not pleasant or stomach settling. At the curse, and the question, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, counting out some money and handing it over. "Tell me you don't do this often."

"This isn't my first date, if that's what you're asking." Jack adds Peter's money to the roll and lays it out on one of the tables. The man's teeth and the spent cigarette butt are gathered up into a zip-top bag and stowed away in a pocket for later scattering. "Look, you're right about one thing. What I'm stuck in right now has put the people I know in danger. You saw Danny's note. He might be dead, but there are plenty more where he came from. Shit, you'd be dead if you were allergic to bullets like the rest of us. Anyway, it's not fair to keep everyone in the dark. You tell 'em what you have to. I plan to take this fight to the source and end it."

The gathering of the teeth, most certainly not for the tooth fairy, Peter winces again, putting his wallet away with the little cash he has left, and continues to keep his eyes elsewhere. "Then we're fortunate that he found me before he found anyone else," he adds in a soft voice, grateful for that, even if his shirt is bloodied and ruined because of it. Better him than anyone else. "Just do me a favor, Jack. Everyone keeps telling me I can't do everything by myself… and the same's true for you. This may be your mess, but you're in it alone."

Jack nods easily. "I hear you, kiddo," he replies casually. "Let's get out of here before you pop. I hate puke even more than blood. Can you drop me back at home? I imagine I have some explaining to do, and it's best to get it over with sooner rather than later."

"I'll be fine," Peter insists, voice tense as he look toward the door. While he might be tempted to walk, he moves over and touches the other man's arm. "Did promise your girlfriend that I'd make sure you came back… And you need to talk to her… You should have talked to her before this got dropped on her floor." It's something firm in his voice, looking into the other man's eyes. Dropped on her floor— or whatever they did to her to prove a point. There's a shifting sensation, and once again— they're back in the living room. Hopefully with no pillows flying at their heads. "I'll leave the two of you to talk… I'll probably come visit later." Instead of disappearing again, he starts toward the door.

It's not the first time Jack has been teleported, but it remains a disorienting experience. He shakes his head to clear his vision and lifts a hand to wave as Peter heads out. "Got it. And Pete… ? Thanks. For everything."

"You're welcome," Peter says softly, moving the rest of the way to the door and opening it. He turns the lock on the knob so it will lock behind him when he closes it, but before it closes all the way, he fades from visibility. Apparently he's opted to walk home invisible. Or at least part way.

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