Cavarian Combat
May. 31st, 2007 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laliginFandom: Torchwood (surprisingly)
Rating: PG-13 (some swearing, innuendo...)
Word Count: 5283
Summary: When snooker balls start turning up mysteriously in Cardiff, Torchwood investigate...
Prompt: Jantolution Challenge #4, Prompts: Snooker, Wicked Game
Cavarian Combat
Jack was pacing the area by Tosh and Owen’s workstations, throwing and catching a red snooker ball as he went. It was perhaps one of his odder moments, Ianto reflected as he brought them their lunch, particularly since none of them had any idea where he’d got the ball from – and the incessant pacing was clearly driving Tosh and Owen up the wall. They’d never seemed so glad it was lunchtime before. Not even when they’d had a time-loop way back when – before Gwen’s time – and gone through the whole morning a few dozen times over before Jack had sorted things out.
As Owen took his chance (and his lunch) and got up to make a run for it, Jack suddenly stopped, turned to look at them all, and said firmly, “Boardroom. Now. Bring your lunch with you,” and then stalked into his office. The others exchanged glances, then Ianto shrugged and took the tray upstairs, and Owen, Gwen and Tosh followed him.
Jack joined them a few minutes later, with a file of photographs. Frowning.
Owen sighed, putting his sandwich down and saying, “We’re not gonna like this, are we?”
“I doubt it,” Jack confirmed, putting the red snooker ball on the table and passing Ianto the folder.
Ianto had a quick look through the photos, seeing nothing of interest until he spotted one recurring feature. Cautiously, he asked, “The snooker balls?” and Jack nodded. Ianto passed the folder on, and let Tosh have a look at the photos.
They were all of ordinary people – though clearly CCTV pictures – going about their business in Cardiff. But here and there someone was pausing to pick up a snooker ball, or investigating one already found. There were fourteen different people pictured.
“Somebody dropped a set?” Gwen suggested lightly when she and Owen got the photographs, only for Jack to glare at her.
“Fifteen people have found a red snooker ball in Cardiff in the last two days,” he said. “There’s fourteen there. I’m number fifteen. Last in the triangle – bottom right.”
The others exchanged glances.
“Don’t ask me how I know,” Jack sighed. “I just do. I’m willing to bet the others know their positions too.”
They all stared at him for a moment. Tosh started to ask, “What are you talking about?” but stopped when Owen reached out to take the red ball and Jack slammed his hand down over it with a barely stifled hiss.
“Not good,” Ianto muttered, standing and putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder, saying, “It’s alright, Jack. Sit down and relax. No-one’s going to take the ball.”
Jack winced a little, then shook his head and sat down, muttering, “I should never have picked the damn thing up.”
“So there’s something going on with snooker balls,” Tosh said eventually, “and you think aliens are involved?”
“Gotta be something,” Jack pointed out, looking glumly at the red ball. “And I have a hell of a bad feeling about it.”
They discussed the situation over lunch, but couldn’t come up with much. Tosh spent the afternoon running tests on the snooker ball, with Jack hovering anxiously around the workstation as if unable to let the ball out of his sight. He wouldn’t let anybody else touch it, either, slowing down Tosh’s tests, since he had to be the one to connect the ball to anything. His nervousness was even more irritating than the pacing had been.
“I’ve got nothing,” Tosh sighed eventually, and gestured for Jack to unhook the ball from all the equipment. He pounced on it eagerly, ripping the wires away and checking the ball for any damage, cradling it with possessive tenderness. Owen gave him a disgusted look and grabbed his coat, saying, “I’m out of here,” and heading for the door. Gwen and Tosh were quick to follow him, sparing a few worried glances for Jack as they went, but relieved to get away nonetheless.
Ianto saw them out, then returned to Jack and slid an arm around his waist, resting his chin on Jack’s shoulder. Jack stroked the red ball absent-mindedly, leaning against Ianto slightly and murmuring, “What do you think about all this?”
“I think it’s more dangerous than we’re giving it credit for,” Ianto told him honestly. “With Torchwood, these things usually are. But I also think there’s nothing we can do without knowing more about it. For the moment, we put it aside, think about something else, and go to bed.”
Jack smiled, saying, “Ah, I see your cunning plan.”
“Then play along,” Ianto suggested softly, kissing Jack’s neck. Jack just sighed appreciatively, and did as he was told.
~*~
The next day, Tosh ran another set of tests on the snooker ball, and managed to set up a scan to find the others. The results showed the other fourteen red balls, and three more. Jack ordered everyone out to fetch them, Tosh directing them all separately from the Hub as more began to pop up in the city. He warned them to be careful before they dropped out of contact and concentrated on the hunt.
Jack was first back, with nothing to show for his troubles, and in a very bad mood. Gradually the others trailed in, Gwen first, looking guilty, with Owen following, and finally Ianto.
“Do we have anything?” Jack asked them impatiently, and Gwen and Owen exchanged glances, then held out the yellow and blue balls respectively.
Jack stared at them for a moment, then folded his arms and said, “I’m sure I remember telling you to be careful. Did it at any point cross your minds that picking the things up might not be the best idea?”
“We had to,” Owen told him. “It was the only way to stop anybody else from taking them. We lost the rest of the bastards because we were too cautious.”
Jack looked between Gwen and Ianto, who nodded agreement.
“At least tell me you saw what colours went where?” Jack sighed.
“A man took the pink before I could stop him,” Gwen volunteered, and Owen just shrugged.
“A couple by the castle took the brown and green,” Ianto told them.
There was a pause, then Jack asked, “That’s it? We’re still missing the black and white. Tosh?”
Tosh checked her scans again, shaking her head and saying, “There’s only twenty signals, and three of them are the ones we’ve got here. The other two aren’t showing up if they’re out there.”
“Okay,” said Jack. “Fine. The second those two turn up, I want everybody out to fetch them. And don’t pick them up!”
He turned and swept back into his office, leaving his team feeling somewhat sheepish. Ianto decided to take the opportunity to vanish out of the Hub on the pretext of fetching lunch.
~*~
Jack was still irritated half an hour later, when Ianto knocked quietly on his door and slunk in, carrying a Subway sandwich like a peace offering. He barely glanced up from his computer, looking through the archives for any report on something similar, plagued by the nagging feeling that he should know what was going on.
“What is it?” he asked distractedly, when Ianto put the sandwich on his desk and then hesitated, staying.
“Nothing good,” Ianto told him, looking down at his feet when Jack glanced up.
Jack abandoned his research and sat back, folding his arms and waiting patiently. There was a long pause, and then Ianto reached into his pocket, and quickly put a black snooker ball down on Jack’s desk.
Jack didn’t say a word, just sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“It was by the tourist information door,” Ianto told him. “I couldn’t exactly leave it lying around, could I? I did try to be careful, but it slipped out of the leaflets I was using to carry it, and I had to catch it to stop it from going in the Bay, and –”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Jack interrupted, giving him a weary look. He fetched the red ball from one of the desk drawers, and reached over to put it next to the black, saying, “Whatever this is, you’re part of it now. Gwen and Owen figured out that once you’ve got a ball of your own, you’re allowed to touch the others.”
Ianto picked them both up, and Jack ran a hand through his hair, still trying to remember where he knew this sort of thing from.
“We haven’t had anything like this turn up before, have we?” he asked Ianto, knowing how good his memory could be.
“Not that I know of,” Ianto told him, sitting on the edge of the desk and idly clicking the snooker balls together. “If any of the Torchwoods have had a sudden invasion of snooker balls I haven’t come across the report. But I’m still trying to sort out the archives from everything before nineteen thirty-five.”
Sighing again, Jack stretched and then slumped in his chair slightly, saying, “I’ve seen this before. I know I have. A very long time ago… I just can’t remember it properly.”
There was a knock at the door, and Owen looked in, glancing between the two of them and then smirking a little.
“We’ve got something you two should probably see,” he told them, then, looking at Ianto, added, “When you’ve finished playing with Jack’s balls, that is.”
“Predictable, Owen,” Jack said lazily, getting up and retrieving the red ball while Ianto pocketed the black again, ignoring Owen’s jibe.
They went out to the workstation area, and found Tosh examining a white snooker ball. She looked up as they approached, and said quickly, “It was on my desk. I don’t know where it came from, but it was just lying here and I couldn’t help it!”
“Fine,” Jack said, folding his arms. “Fine. Everybody ignore my warning. Now we’re all stuck in this.”
“We should compare notes,” Ianto suggested calmly. “We all have the snooker balls, so what else do we have in common? It might give us an idea of their purpose.”
“Other than working for Torchwood, what is there?” Gwen asked, and Owen said, “We all got protective of them around anyone who didn’t have one of their own. So did the others. You told me the guy with the pink nearly killed you when you tried to get it off him.”
“Possessive and protective,” Jack sighed, not seeing that it helped them much.
And then Tosh said, “We’re treating them like they’re the most precious things we’ve got. It’s almost parental…”
There was a pause, and then everyone looked at Jack.
“There’s no way these are eggs?” Owen asked, and Jack hesitated a fraction too long.
Owen and Gwen scrambled for the autopsy room to check the blue and yellow, and Tosh ran a quick test on the white, saying, “There’s nothing to indicate life…”
“Oh god,” Jack said suddenly. “It’s not an egg. It’s just a points system. Somebody’s trying to play Cavarian Combat with us.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a glance before staring at Jack, who looked utterly shellshocked.
“What’s Cavarian Combat?” Tosh asked, and Jack looked at the red ball in his hand, then said, “Shit. If they’ve dealt out all the positions then we’re playing tonight. But they can’t! They can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
“Jack, explain,” Ianto demanded, and Jack shot him a despairing glance, then yelled for Owen and Gwen. He waved them towards the couch when they came running up the autopsy room stairs, and then looked between the four of them, wondering how to begin.
“It’s a game,” he said eventually. “I saw the end of one match ages ago, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I was only there to meet somebody else and my mind was on other things…”
He paused, but nobody interrupted him. Cautiously, he continued, “As far as I can remember, the rules aren’t too difficult. You have two teams. Fifteen on one, six on the other. The fifteen work together as a squadron. Decisions are made by the group as a whole – when they start playing their minds are kind of combined so they can be quicker in the game. The six are independent. They work individually and make their own decisions.”
“Fifteen and six is twenty-one,” Owen interrupted. “There’s twenty-two balls.”
“White ball’s on her own,” Jack said. “She’s the whole point of the game. Both teams have to try and catch her. They can fight each other, and steal the balls, but the idea is to get the white ball. Anyone who loses their ball is out of the game. They lose. And the team that doesn’t catch the white ball loses too.”
“And?” Ianto prompted, when Jack paused.
“And the losers die,” Jack told them.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Tosh asked, “Is there a time limit?”
Jack nodded. “If nobody catches the white ball by the end of the game, she wins. But then both teams die.”
“What if I let both teams catch me at the same time?” Tosh asked. “Then surely it’s a draw…”
“But you’d still lose,” Jack said. “White ball always loses. White ball always dies. That’s why the game’s been outlawed. It’s effectively a death sentence for whoever plays on their own.”
Tosh swallowed and said nothing, while the others looked at each other. Eventually, Gwen said, “There must be some way we can all survive. Can’t we just refuse to play?”
“You’d lose automatically,” Jack said quietly. “And the others won’t have any choice. They don’t know the rules in advance. When they get dumped in the game they’ll play because they’ll be scared.”
“Then what do we do?” asked Ianto.
After a very long pause, Jack said quietly, “I may have one idea. But I can’t guarantee it’ll work.”
“Better than nothing,” Tosh muttered.
Jack looked around at them, aware of the sudden rush of fear and helplessness they were all feeling, then took a deep breath and explained.
~*~
At ten o’clock that night, with all of them still in the Hub keeping an eye on each other, Jack suddenly dropped the folder he’d been reading, took up the red snooker ball, and walked over to the paving stone lift. Looking up, he said, “Red balls have been called. I can hear the rules. Cavarian Combat, timed game. Ianto?”
“Nothing yet,” Ianto said, standing, then, “Here. Colours are called –” and Gwen and Owen got up, clutching their snooker balls and tilting their heads as if listening “– and black ball takes precedence. Authority falls in colour order.”
“Good,” Jack said, a little distractedly. “That should make things easier.”
Tosh stood up at last, saying, “I just got something. I think I’ve been called too.”
“Alright,” Jack nodded, as the others joined him and they crowded onto the lift, “then let’s play.”
~*~
It was a strange group of people that gathered in Roald Dahl Plass that night. There were a dozen strangers grouped together at one end of the oval, and Jack, with a lingering pat to Ianto’s shoulder, went to join those, while Ianto led Owen and Gwen to the trio waiting at the Bay end.
Tosh went to wait in the middle of the oval, glancing nervously between the two teams. For a few moments, nothing happened, then the last two red balls turned up. The moment they’d joined their group, all the balls lit up in the right colour, and each player heard a quick data burst of the rules and instructions for the game. The red balls fell into formation, in unison, and the colours spread out warily, the couple with the brown and green sticking together. Ianto – black ball, Tosh caught herself thinking – glanced pointedly at Owen and Gwen as they moved to shadow the other three of their team.
Suddenly, the towers around the edges of the oval sparked violently, and cords of purple electricity sprang into existence between them, forming a fence that enclosed the whole basin. Tosh shivered, and looked from one end of the enclosure to the other. Nowhere to hide, and twenty-one people intent on catching her. It struck her suddenly that it didn’t matter what the time limit on this game was – they weren’t going to get anywhere close.
And then the white ball in her hand flared again, the fifteen red balls broke into a run, in perfect time with each other, and the game began.
To start with, it wasn’t too difficult. Both teams charged straight at her, and all she had to do was wait until they were close enough then bolt towards one of the edges, and the triangle formation of the reds went blasting straight into the colours and knocked them flying. They were quick to pick themselves up, and the reds didn’t stop to take anyone’s colour and put them out of the game. They seemed to be having some trouble with the group-mind decisions, running on for a few too many steps before stopping, turning to face a different point and moving round in pursuit again.
Tosh took advantage of the colours’ brief scattering to put some distance between herself and the rest of the players, trying not to back too far to any one side so she didn’t get cornered. The colours were in difficulties – it seemed they’d had a little of their game-conditioning knocked out of them when the reds had burst through, and green and brown were hovering nervously by one of the far towers, while blue – Owen, she remembered distantly – was holding back pink and yelling at black for help. The reds changed formation abruptly and rushed at her again, now a column but still moving as one mass at the speed of the slowest, and easily outrun when she had to.
She lost track of time, dodging frequent red pursuit and at one point darting through the divided colours to take refuge on their other side. Three tried to catch her as she went, but she swayed away from grasping hands and heard a furious shout of, “Leave her!” and then they backed off. Glancing round to find the reds again, she witnessed Ianto-black-ball taking command of the colours, fury and fear in his voice as he yelled, “Do as I say! Hold off the reds and leave white ball alone!”
They obeyed, and she had a moment to catch her breath and see the red formation properly. They were in their triangle again, and would have looked ridiculous if they hadn’t been so terrifying. The colours attacked them as they swept through, and she darted around behind the ensuing battle, aware of black ball ordering his team not to put any of the reds out of the game. She wasn’t quite sure what those tactics would achieve, but it didn’t matter much, as she had to get moving again when the reds broke away and swung back around.
The colours darted back in to shield her again on the next attack, and yellow ball grabbed her arm and pulled her away as the others tried to head off the reds once more. But then their strategy changed. They broke formation, into three even groups, and split around the colours – either side and straight through the centre – and Tosh couldn’t dodge away. Then one of the red balls stopped suddenly, and all three groups came to an abrupt halt. Together, they took one step forward, then stopped again. The colours backed off warily, then black ball glanced at his team, saying, “Form up around white ball. Jack can’t hold them forever.”
“I can try,” the red ball gasped, the rest of his group swaying forwards but getting nowhere, fighting his individual influence and failing to overrule him, even fourteen to one.
Tosh clutched at her side, head swimming as she gulped in a few breaths and struggled to get rid of the stitch she’d gained. Yellow ball – Gwen, Gwen, remember their names properly! – gave her a reassuring pat on the arm and joined the other colours as they formed a close circle around her, watching the reds.
“Why are we protecting her?” pink ball asked Ianto, angrily. “If we just take the ball, we’ve won.”
“No,” Ianto snapped. “We take white ball, and we lose. Everybody loses.”
Pink ball glared at him, then abruptly turned and went to snatch the white ball from Tosh. Ianto and Owen grabbed him before he could, pulling him away, Ianto shouting, “I’m black ball and I have authority! If I tell you to leave her alone, you leave her alone! Do you understand me?”
“You’re not playing for the team!” pink ball accused him. “We’ve got white ball right here. If we throw away this chance and the reds get her instead then we die. Are you trying to get us killed, is that it?”
“Shut up and do as he says,” Owen snapped, shoving pink back into place in the circle. The reds took another step, and pink ball glared daggers at Ianto, but obeyed reluctantly.
Ianto watched him for a few moments, then turned his attention to Jack and the reds, just as they took another dragging step forward. A few of them edged sideways, the columns spreading out into a curving line, then moving round to encircle Tosh and the colours, not getting any closer to the group, but cutting off any escape route. Then they began to move in.
Every step they took was clearly a battle against Jack. He was dragged along with them, keeping his place in their circle, but visibly resisting. Tosh could hear Ianto counting, under his breath, the seconds between each of the red team’s steps. And she could see Jack shaking with the effort of imposing his will on the others.
“Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight –”
And the reds took another step forward. The colours tensed, but Jack choked, “Stop!” and managed to bring them to a halt. Ianto started counting again, from one.
This time he barely made it to thirty seconds before the reds stepped forwards once more. Tosh noted absently that green ball and brown ball were clinging to each other’s hands in fear, drawn close together for the small comfort of knowing that someone else was in the same predicament. She heard Ianto count slowly up to forty-four, then Jack let out a gasp of pain and the reds forced their way further forward.
“Jack?” Ianto called, sounding a little too nervous for his role. “How much longer do we have to stall them?”
Jack closed his eyes and clenched his fists, then half-sobbed, “I don’t know,” and fell to all fours as the reds surged forward without him.
The colours shrank back in unison, but their defence was spoiled when pink ball quickly turned and tried again to take the white ball from Tosh, yelling that it was their only chance, and Ianto and Owen had to pull him back again as the reds broke into a run and Tosh closed her eyes and fought down a scream, clutching the white ball so hard she was sure either it or her fingers would break in the next second.
And then everyone stopped as the balls lit up again, and, with a terribly inappropriate chiming sound, they were told, “Time. No clear loser.”
Cautiously, the six with a coloured ball relaxed and glanced at each other, while the once-united red team staggered apart, looking dazed and confused. Ianto turned to look at Tosh, who forced a smile to prove she was alright.
Smiling back, Ianto said, “I think that qualifies as well-played.”
Gwen gave Tosh a hug, and Owen nodded to Ianto briefly, then turned to make sure that none of the players were suffering any immediate ill-effects from the game. Ianto left them to it and went to help Jack get back to his feet.
“It’s not over,” Jack said breathlessly when Ianto hauled him upright. “They’re just trying to figure out who to kill at the moment.”
“Are you sure?” Ianto asked warily, pulling one of Jack’s arms over his shoulder and glancing back at the group of players. “They’re all out of the game now…”
Jack waved his free hand at the towers around the edge of the basin, saying, “If it’s over, then why haven’t they turned off the fence?”
Ianto hesitated to answer that, aware that Jack had a point. He was about to ask what they should do next, when there was a sudden bright light and a loud rushing noise, accompanied by an unpleasant feeling of pins and needles through his whole body. When he blinked his eyes clear, he found that he wasn’t looking at the basin any more, and Jack was the only one of the players still with him.
“You cheated,” said a petulant voice, and they both looked around, seeing only an empty grey room, with sparking purple electricity blocking what appeared to be the only door.
“We didn’t cheat,” Jack said cautiously. “We just got everyone to win.”
“Not so,” the voice said, sounding bored now. “You all lost.”
“We didn’t,” Ianto objected. “The colours didn’t let the reds get the white ball, and the reds didn’t let the colours get it either. And white ball kept hold of it. Everybody won.”
There was silence for a long moment, and Jack shifted restlessly, then finally asked, “What the hell are you doing playing Cavarian Combat on Earth, anyway? It’s illegal. It’s specifically outlawed in the Shadow Proclamation, section 38, paragraph 3C.”
“That cannot be enforced. None on this planet knows of the Shadow Proclamation,” the voice said sharply.
“I know it,” Jack pointed out. “And so does Ianto here. And before you think about killing us just to keep this quiet, let me tell you we’re not the only ones who know it. In fact there’s a few hundred people around that do. They just keep quiet because they know they’re not meant to know about it. Doesn’t change the fact that it applies.”
There was silence again, and Ianto glanced at Jack, expecting him to say something else. Jack shrugged, waiting for the voice to make the next move.
“Why Earth?” Ianto asked instead. “Why did you come here to play the game?”
The voice was quick to answer, saying, “You humans love games of any sort. We hoped to establish Cavarian Combat here and promote it throughout the galaxy. It is the only such game of our planet. The tradition dates back to prehistoric times, and we cannot allow the Shadow Proclamation to destroy our culture so easily.”
“I get the feeling it’s not the game they mind,” Jack said, rolling his eyes a little. “It’s the fact that you kill the losers that gets everybody so upset.”
“But there must be punishment!” the voice cried. “Or there is no incentive! It has been this way for millennia!”
“You could try rewarding the winners instead of slaughtering the losers,” Ianto said dryly. “It seems to work for us humans.”
“But the tradition –” the voice started to wail, but Jack interrupted, saying, “Every tradition was an innovation once. If you want to keep the game you’re gonna have to move with the times a bit here.”
This time the silence dragged on for a good few minutes, and Jack sat down in the middle of the floor, pulling Ianto with him and saying, “They’ll be discussing that one for a while. Cavarians were never quick to adapt. That’s why they tried to spread the game in the first place. Everybody used the same set of moves and it got boring after the first few hundred years of it. That and they were beginning to run out of players.”
Ianto sighed, and asked, “They will listen to reason, won’t they?”
“Sure they will,” Jack said cheerfully, throwing an arm around Ianto’s shoulders and hugging him sideways. “If they don’t they know fine well they’ll have the law after them for the next thousand years or so. They didn’t count on anybody on Earth knowing the Shadow Proclamation well enough to send out a complaint.”
At that Ianto had to stifle a laugh, despite the precarious nature of their position. Leaning against Jack comfortably, he said, “So. How long do you think we’ll be stuck here, sir?”
“No idea,” Jack told him. “Why? You thinking of ways to pass the time?”
“I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” Ianto smiled.
~*~
An hour later, sitting back to back, with Ianto well on his way to winning an eighth consecutive game of word association (they’d agreed not to allow any sexual associations, which made the whole thing a dozen times more difficult for Jack and had forced him to surrender most of the games from sheer frustration), they were half-blinded and deafened by the same bright light and rushing sound, then they were sitting on the ground in Roald Dahl Plass again, Jack already complaining about the pins and needles as they both struggled to their feet. The others were all still there, crowded together by one of the towers, all of which were still projecting the purple barrier.
Tosh spotted them first, leaping to her feet and rushing to hug Jack, then Ianto. The rest of the crowd scrambled up, shivering, and then the purple electricity cut out abruptly. There was a pause as the group looked at Jack and Ianto, then, spontaneously, they raised a cheer.
As the crowd swarmed around the two of them, wanting to know what had happened, Ianto managed to suggest (loudly and pointedly) that they should all go and warm up somewhere indoors. Jack was quick to cotton on, and, with Tosh, Owen and Gwen’s help, they successfully shepherded the group to the tourist information centre (which was just about large enough for them all, when a few of them squeezed into the back room instead), and while everyone was discussing their bizarre night, Ianto efficiently plied them all with retcon-laced drinks.
~*~
The last taxi to go was for the man who’d played as pink ball. On the roadside, about to get in the car, he had the good grace to apologise for getting in the way of Ianto’s game plan, and, shaking hands warmly, swore he’d be back at a decent hour the next day to discuss selling the story to the local (and national) newspapers.
Ianto smiled and nodded and waved and waited until the taxi was out of sight before letting out a sigh and turning to head back to the Hub. He found Jack sitting by the fountain and the paving stone lift, waiting for him.
“That the last of them?” Jack asked, and Ianto nodded, about ready to collapse beside him on the stones and go to sleep right there. He felt as tired as Tosh had looked when they’d sent her home earlier.
“Come on, then,” Jack said, getting up and grabbing Ianto’s hand, pulling him onto the lift. “Sleep.”
Ianto smiled slightly, saying, “Word association again? Bed.”
“And I lose,” Jack grinned, activating the lift and then wrapping one arm around Ianto’s waist as they descended.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you for it,” Ianto assured him quietly, leaning against him and closing his eyes until the lift reached the floor inside.
“It’s a shame, really,” Jack murmured as they stepped off the stone and headed for his quarters. “The first ever non-lethal game of Cavarian Combat, and nobody’s going to remember it in the morning.”
Ianto shrugged, and said, “We will, and the Cavarians will, even if no-one else ever hears about it. Which reminds me.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“What’s the Shadow Proclamation?”
Rating: PG-13 (some swearing, innuendo...)
Word Count: 5283
Summary: When snooker balls start turning up mysteriously in Cardiff, Torchwood investigate...
Prompt: Jantolution Challenge #4, Prompts: Snooker, Wicked Game
Cavarian Combat
Jack was pacing the area by Tosh and Owen’s workstations, throwing and catching a red snooker ball as he went. It was perhaps one of his odder moments, Ianto reflected as he brought them their lunch, particularly since none of them had any idea where he’d got the ball from – and the incessant pacing was clearly driving Tosh and Owen up the wall. They’d never seemed so glad it was lunchtime before. Not even when they’d had a time-loop way back when – before Gwen’s time – and gone through the whole morning a few dozen times over before Jack had sorted things out.
As Owen took his chance (and his lunch) and got up to make a run for it, Jack suddenly stopped, turned to look at them all, and said firmly, “Boardroom. Now. Bring your lunch with you,” and then stalked into his office. The others exchanged glances, then Ianto shrugged and took the tray upstairs, and Owen, Gwen and Tosh followed him.
Jack joined them a few minutes later, with a file of photographs. Frowning.
Owen sighed, putting his sandwich down and saying, “We’re not gonna like this, are we?”
“I doubt it,” Jack confirmed, putting the red snooker ball on the table and passing Ianto the folder.
Ianto had a quick look through the photos, seeing nothing of interest until he spotted one recurring feature. Cautiously, he asked, “The snooker balls?” and Jack nodded. Ianto passed the folder on, and let Tosh have a look at the photos.
They were all of ordinary people – though clearly CCTV pictures – going about their business in Cardiff. But here and there someone was pausing to pick up a snooker ball, or investigating one already found. There were fourteen different people pictured.
“Somebody dropped a set?” Gwen suggested lightly when she and Owen got the photographs, only for Jack to glare at her.
“Fifteen people have found a red snooker ball in Cardiff in the last two days,” he said. “There’s fourteen there. I’m number fifteen. Last in the triangle – bottom right.”
The others exchanged glances.
“Don’t ask me how I know,” Jack sighed. “I just do. I’m willing to bet the others know their positions too.”
They all stared at him for a moment. Tosh started to ask, “What are you talking about?” but stopped when Owen reached out to take the red ball and Jack slammed his hand down over it with a barely stifled hiss.
“Not good,” Ianto muttered, standing and putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder, saying, “It’s alright, Jack. Sit down and relax. No-one’s going to take the ball.”
Jack winced a little, then shook his head and sat down, muttering, “I should never have picked the damn thing up.”
“So there’s something going on with snooker balls,” Tosh said eventually, “and you think aliens are involved?”
“Gotta be something,” Jack pointed out, looking glumly at the red ball. “And I have a hell of a bad feeling about it.”
They discussed the situation over lunch, but couldn’t come up with much. Tosh spent the afternoon running tests on the snooker ball, with Jack hovering anxiously around the workstation as if unable to let the ball out of his sight. He wouldn’t let anybody else touch it, either, slowing down Tosh’s tests, since he had to be the one to connect the ball to anything. His nervousness was even more irritating than the pacing had been.
“I’ve got nothing,” Tosh sighed eventually, and gestured for Jack to unhook the ball from all the equipment. He pounced on it eagerly, ripping the wires away and checking the ball for any damage, cradling it with possessive tenderness. Owen gave him a disgusted look and grabbed his coat, saying, “I’m out of here,” and heading for the door. Gwen and Tosh were quick to follow him, sparing a few worried glances for Jack as they went, but relieved to get away nonetheless.
Ianto saw them out, then returned to Jack and slid an arm around his waist, resting his chin on Jack’s shoulder. Jack stroked the red ball absent-mindedly, leaning against Ianto slightly and murmuring, “What do you think about all this?”
“I think it’s more dangerous than we’re giving it credit for,” Ianto told him honestly. “With Torchwood, these things usually are. But I also think there’s nothing we can do without knowing more about it. For the moment, we put it aside, think about something else, and go to bed.”
Jack smiled, saying, “Ah, I see your cunning plan.”
“Then play along,” Ianto suggested softly, kissing Jack’s neck. Jack just sighed appreciatively, and did as he was told.
The next day, Tosh ran another set of tests on the snooker ball, and managed to set up a scan to find the others. The results showed the other fourteen red balls, and three more. Jack ordered everyone out to fetch them, Tosh directing them all separately from the Hub as more began to pop up in the city. He warned them to be careful before they dropped out of contact and concentrated on the hunt.
Jack was first back, with nothing to show for his troubles, and in a very bad mood. Gradually the others trailed in, Gwen first, looking guilty, with Owen following, and finally Ianto.
“Do we have anything?” Jack asked them impatiently, and Gwen and Owen exchanged glances, then held out the yellow and blue balls respectively.
Jack stared at them for a moment, then folded his arms and said, “I’m sure I remember telling you to be careful. Did it at any point cross your minds that picking the things up might not be the best idea?”
“We had to,” Owen told him. “It was the only way to stop anybody else from taking them. We lost the rest of the bastards because we were too cautious.”
Jack looked between Gwen and Ianto, who nodded agreement.
“At least tell me you saw what colours went where?” Jack sighed.
“A man took the pink before I could stop him,” Gwen volunteered, and Owen just shrugged.
“A couple by the castle took the brown and green,” Ianto told them.
There was a pause, then Jack asked, “That’s it? We’re still missing the black and white. Tosh?”
Tosh checked her scans again, shaking her head and saying, “There’s only twenty signals, and three of them are the ones we’ve got here. The other two aren’t showing up if they’re out there.”
“Okay,” said Jack. “Fine. The second those two turn up, I want everybody out to fetch them. And don’t pick them up!”
He turned and swept back into his office, leaving his team feeling somewhat sheepish. Ianto decided to take the opportunity to vanish out of the Hub on the pretext of fetching lunch.
Jack was still irritated half an hour later, when Ianto knocked quietly on his door and slunk in, carrying a Subway sandwich like a peace offering. He barely glanced up from his computer, looking through the archives for any report on something similar, plagued by the nagging feeling that he should know what was going on.
“What is it?” he asked distractedly, when Ianto put the sandwich on his desk and then hesitated, staying.
“Nothing good,” Ianto told him, looking down at his feet when Jack glanced up.
Jack abandoned his research and sat back, folding his arms and waiting patiently. There was a long pause, and then Ianto reached into his pocket, and quickly put a black snooker ball down on Jack’s desk.
Jack didn’t say a word, just sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“It was by the tourist information door,” Ianto told him. “I couldn’t exactly leave it lying around, could I? I did try to be careful, but it slipped out of the leaflets I was using to carry it, and I had to catch it to stop it from going in the Bay, and –”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Jack interrupted, giving him a weary look. He fetched the red ball from one of the desk drawers, and reached over to put it next to the black, saying, “Whatever this is, you’re part of it now. Gwen and Owen figured out that once you’ve got a ball of your own, you’re allowed to touch the others.”
Ianto picked them both up, and Jack ran a hand through his hair, still trying to remember where he knew this sort of thing from.
“We haven’t had anything like this turn up before, have we?” he asked Ianto, knowing how good his memory could be.
“Not that I know of,” Ianto told him, sitting on the edge of the desk and idly clicking the snooker balls together. “If any of the Torchwoods have had a sudden invasion of snooker balls I haven’t come across the report. But I’m still trying to sort out the archives from everything before nineteen thirty-five.”
Sighing again, Jack stretched and then slumped in his chair slightly, saying, “I’ve seen this before. I know I have. A very long time ago… I just can’t remember it properly.”
There was a knock at the door, and Owen looked in, glancing between the two of them and then smirking a little.
“We’ve got something you two should probably see,” he told them, then, looking at Ianto, added, “When you’ve finished playing with Jack’s balls, that is.”
“Predictable, Owen,” Jack said lazily, getting up and retrieving the red ball while Ianto pocketed the black again, ignoring Owen’s jibe.
They went out to the workstation area, and found Tosh examining a white snooker ball. She looked up as they approached, and said quickly, “It was on my desk. I don’t know where it came from, but it was just lying here and I couldn’t help it!”
“Fine,” Jack said, folding his arms. “Fine. Everybody ignore my warning. Now we’re all stuck in this.”
“We should compare notes,” Ianto suggested calmly. “We all have the snooker balls, so what else do we have in common? It might give us an idea of their purpose.”
“Other than working for Torchwood, what is there?” Gwen asked, and Owen said, “We all got protective of them around anyone who didn’t have one of their own. So did the others. You told me the guy with the pink nearly killed you when you tried to get it off him.”
“Possessive and protective,” Jack sighed, not seeing that it helped them much.
And then Tosh said, “We’re treating them like they’re the most precious things we’ve got. It’s almost parental…”
There was a pause, and then everyone looked at Jack.
“There’s no way these are eggs?” Owen asked, and Jack hesitated a fraction too long.
Owen and Gwen scrambled for the autopsy room to check the blue and yellow, and Tosh ran a quick test on the white, saying, “There’s nothing to indicate life…”
“Oh god,” Jack said suddenly. “It’s not an egg. It’s just a points system. Somebody’s trying to play Cavarian Combat with us.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a glance before staring at Jack, who looked utterly shellshocked.
“What’s Cavarian Combat?” Tosh asked, and Jack looked at the red ball in his hand, then said, “Shit. If they’ve dealt out all the positions then we’re playing tonight. But they can’t! They can’t do this! It’s illegal!”
“Jack, explain,” Ianto demanded, and Jack shot him a despairing glance, then yelled for Owen and Gwen. He waved them towards the couch when they came running up the autopsy room stairs, and then looked between the four of them, wondering how to begin.
“It’s a game,” he said eventually. “I saw the end of one match ages ago, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I was only there to meet somebody else and my mind was on other things…”
He paused, but nobody interrupted him. Cautiously, he continued, “As far as I can remember, the rules aren’t too difficult. You have two teams. Fifteen on one, six on the other. The fifteen work together as a squadron. Decisions are made by the group as a whole – when they start playing their minds are kind of combined so they can be quicker in the game. The six are independent. They work individually and make their own decisions.”
“Fifteen and six is twenty-one,” Owen interrupted. “There’s twenty-two balls.”
“White ball’s on her own,” Jack said. “She’s the whole point of the game. Both teams have to try and catch her. They can fight each other, and steal the balls, but the idea is to get the white ball. Anyone who loses their ball is out of the game. They lose. And the team that doesn’t catch the white ball loses too.”
“And?” Ianto prompted, when Jack paused.
“And the losers die,” Jack told them.
There was a long moment of silence, and then Tosh asked, “Is there a time limit?”
Jack nodded. “If nobody catches the white ball by the end of the game, she wins. But then both teams die.”
“What if I let both teams catch me at the same time?” Tosh asked. “Then surely it’s a draw…”
“But you’d still lose,” Jack said. “White ball always loses. White ball always dies. That’s why the game’s been outlawed. It’s effectively a death sentence for whoever plays on their own.”
Tosh swallowed and said nothing, while the others looked at each other. Eventually, Gwen said, “There must be some way we can all survive. Can’t we just refuse to play?”
“You’d lose automatically,” Jack said quietly. “And the others won’t have any choice. They don’t know the rules in advance. When they get dumped in the game they’ll play because they’ll be scared.”
“Then what do we do?” asked Ianto.
After a very long pause, Jack said quietly, “I may have one idea. But I can’t guarantee it’ll work.”
“Better than nothing,” Tosh muttered.
Jack looked around at them, aware of the sudden rush of fear and helplessness they were all feeling, then took a deep breath and explained.
At ten o’clock that night, with all of them still in the Hub keeping an eye on each other, Jack suddenly dropped the folder he’d been reading, took up the red snooker ball, and walked over to the paving stone lift. Looking up, he said, “Red balls have been called. I can hear the rules. Cavarian Combat, timed game. Ianto?”
“Nothing yet,” Ianto said, standing, then, “Here. Colours are called –” and Gwen and Owen got up, clutching their snooker balls and tilting their heads as if listening “– and black ball takes precedence. Authority falls in colour order.”
“Good,” Jack said, a little distractedly. “That should make things easier.”
Tosh stood up at last, saying, “I just got something. I think I’ve been called too.”
“Alright,” Jack nodded, as the others joined him and they crowded onto the lift, “then let’s play.”
It was a strange group of people that gathered in Roald Dahl Plass that night. There were a dozen strangers grouped together at one end of the oval, and Jack, with a lingering pat to Ianto’s shoulder, went to join those, while Ianto led Owen and Gwen to the trio waiting at the Bay end.
Tosh went to wait in the middle of the oval, glancing nervously between the two teams. For a few moments, nothing happened, then the last two red balls turned up. The moment they’d joined their group, all the balls lit up in the right colour, and each player heard a quick data burst of the rules and instructions for the game. The red balls fell into formation, in unison, and the colours spread out warily, the couple with the brown and green sticking together. Ianto – black ball, Tosh caught herself thinking – glanced pointedly at Owen and Gwen as they moved to shadow the other three of their team.
Suddenly, the towers around the edges of the oval sparked violently, and cords of purple electricity sprang into existence between them, forming a fence that enclosed the whole basin. Tosh shivered, and looked from one end of the enclosure to the other. Nowhere to hide, and twenty-one people intent on catching her. It struck her suddenly that it didn’t matter what the time limit on this game was – they weren’t going to get anywhere close.
And then the white ball in her hand flared again, the fifteen red balls broke into a run, in perfect time with each other, and the game began.
To start with, it wasn’t too difficult. Both teams charged straight at her, and all she had to do was wait until they were close enough then bolt towards one of the edges, and the triangle formation of the reds went blasting straight into the colours and knocked them flying. They were quick to pick themselves up, and the reds didn’t stop to take anyone’s colour and put them out of the game. They seemed to be having some trouble with the group-mind decisions, running on for a few too many steps before stopping, turning to face a different point and moving round in pursuit again.
Tosh took advantage of the colours’ brief scattering to put some distance between herself and the rest of the players, trying not to back too far to any one side so she didn’t get cornered. The colours were in difficulties – it seemed they’d had a little of their game-conditioning knocked out of them when the reds had burst through, and green and brown were hovering nervously by one of the far towers, while blue – Owen, she remembered distantly – was holding back pink and yelling at black for help. The reds changed formation abruptly and rushed at her again, now a column but still moving as one mass at the speed of the slowest, and easily outrun when she had to.
She lost track of time, dodging frequent red pursuit and at one point darting through the divided colours to take refuge on their other side. Three tried to catch her as she went, but she swayed away from grasping hands and heard a furious shout of, “Leave her!” and then they backed off. Glancing round to find the reds again, she witnessed Ianto-black-ball taking command of the colours, fury and fear in his voice as he yelled, “Do as I say! Hold off the reds and leave white ball alone!”
They obeyed, and she had a moment to catch her breath and see the red formation properly. They were in their triangle again, and would have looked ridiculous if they hadn’t been so terrifying. The colours attacked them as they swept through, and she darted around behind the ensuing battle, aware of black ball ordering his team not to put any of the reds out of the game. She wasn’t quite sure what those tactics would achieve, but it didn’t matter much, as she had to get moving again when the reds broke away and swung back around.
The colours darted back in to shield her again on the next attack, and yellow ball grabbed her arm and pulled her away as the others tried to head off the reds once more. But then their strategy changed. They broke formation, into three even groups, and split around the colours – either side and straight through the centre – and Tosh couldn’t dodge away. Then one of the red balls stopped suddenly, and all three groups came to an abrupt halt. Together, they took one step forward, then stopped again. The colours backed off warily, then black ball glanced at his team, saying, “Form up around white ball. Jack can’t hold them forever.”
“I can try,” the red ball gasped, the rest of his group swaying forwards but getting nowhere, fighting his individual influence and failing to overrule him, even fourteen to one.
Tosh clutched at her side, head swimming as she gulped in a few breaths and struggled to get rid of the stitch she’d gained. Yellow ball – Gwen, Gwen, remember their names properly! – gave her a reassuring pat on the arm and joined the other colours as they formed a close circle around her, watching the reds.
“Why are we protecting her?” pink ball asked Ianto, angrily. “If we just take the ball, we’ve won.”
“No,” Ianto snapped. “We take white ball, and we lose. Everybody loses.”
Pink ball glared at him, then abruptly turned and went to snatch the white ball from Tosh. Ianto and Owen grabbed him before he could, pulling him away, Ianto shouting, “I’m black ball and I have authority! If I tell you to leave her alone, you leave her alone! Do you understand me?”
“You’re not playing for the team!” pink ball accused him. “We’ve got white ball right here. If we throw away this chance and the reds get her instead then we die. Are you trying to get us killed, is that it?”
“Shut up and do as he says,” Owen snapped, shoving pink back into place in the circle. The reds took another step, and pink ball glared daggers at Ianto, but obeyed reluctantly.
Ianto watched him for a few moments, then turned his attention to Jack and the reds, just as they took another dragging step forward. A few of them edged sideways, the columns spreading out into a curving line, then moving round to encircle Tosh and the colours, not getting any closer to the group, but cutting off any escape route. Then they began to move in.
Every step they took was clearly a battle against Jack. He was dragged along with them, keeping his place in their circle, but visibly resisting. Tosh could hear Ianto counting, under his breath, the seconds between each of the red team’s steps. And she could see Jack shaking with the effort of imposing his will on the others.
“Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight –”
And the reds took another step forward. The colours tensed, but Jack choked, “Stop!” and managed to bring them to a halt. Ianto started counting again, from one.
This time he barely made it to thirty seconds before the reds stepped forwards once more. Tosh noted absently that green ball and brown ball were clinging to each other’s hands in fear, drawn close together for the small comfort of knowing that someone else was in the same predicament. She heard Ianto count slowly up to forty-four, then Jack let out a gasp of pain and the reds forced their way further forward.
“Jack?” Ianto called, sounding a little too nervous for his role. “How much longer do we have to stall them?”
Jack closed his eyes and clenched his fists, then half-sobbed, “I don’t know,” and fell to all fours as the reds surged forward without him.
The colours shrank back in unison, but their defence was spoiled when pink ball quickly turned and tried again to take the white ball from Tosh, yelling that it was their only chance, and Ianto and Owen had to pull him back again as the reds broke into a run and Tosh closed her eyes and fought down a scream, clutching the white ball so hard she was sure either it or her fingers would break in the next second.
And then everyone stopped as the balls lit up again, and, with a terribly inappropriate chiming sound, they were told, “Time. No clear loser.”
Cautiously, the six with a coloured ball relaxed and glanced at each other, while the once-united red team staggered apart, looking dazed and confused. Ianto turned to look at Tosh, who forced a smile to prove she was alright.
Smiling back, Ianto said, “I think that qualifies as well-played.”
Gwen gave Tosh a hug, and Owen nodded to Ianto briefly, then turned to make sure that none of the players were suffering any immediate ill-effects from the game. Ianto left them to it and went to help Jack get back to his feet.
“It’s not over,” Jack said breathlessly when Ianto hauled him upright. “They’re just trying to figure out who to kill at the moment.”
“Are you sure?” Ianto asked warily, pulling one of Jack’s arms over his shoulder and glancing back at the group of players. “They’re all out of the game now…”
Jack waved his free hand at the towers around the edge of the basin, saying, “If it’s over, then why haven’t they turned off the fence?”
Ianto hesitated to answer that, aware that Jack had a point. He was about to ask what they should do next, when there was a sudden bright light and a loud rushing noise, accompanied by an unpleasant feeling of pins and needles through his whole body. When he blinked his eyes clear, he found that he wasn’t looking at the basin any more, and Jack was the only one of the players still with him.
“You cheated,” said a petulant voice, and they both looked around, seeing only an empty grey room, with sparking purple electricity blocking what appeared to be the only door.
“We didn’t cheat,” Jack said cautiously. “We just got everyone to win.”
“Not so,” the voice said, sounding bored now. “You all lost.”
“We didn’t,” Ianto objected. “The colours didn’t let the reds get the white ball, and the reds didn’t let the colours get it either. And white ball kept hold of it. Everybody won.”
There was silence for a long moment, and Jack shifted restlessly, then finally asked, “What the hell are you doing playing Cavarian Combat on Earth, anyway? It’s illegal. It’s specifically outlawed in the Shadow Proclamation, section 38, paragraph 3C.”
“That cannot be enforced. None on this planet knows of the Shadow Proclamation,” the voice said sharply.
“I know it,” Jack pointed out. “And so does Ianto here. And before you think about killing us just to keep this quiet, let me tell you we’re not the only ones who know it. In fact there’s a few hundred people around that do. They just keep quiet because they know they’re not meant to know about it. Doesn’t change the fact that it applies.”
There was silence again, and Ianto glanced at Jack, expecting him to say something else. Jack shrugged, waiting for the voice to make the next move.
“Why Earth?” Ianto asked instead. “Why did you come here to play the game?”
The voice was quick to answer, saying, “You humans love games of any sort. We hoped to establish Cavarian Combat here and promote it throughout the galaxy. It is the only such game of our planet. The tradition dates back to prehistoric times, and we cannot allow the Shadow Proclamation to destroy our culture so easily.”
“I get the feeling it’s not the game they mind,” Jack said, rolling his eyes a little. “It’s the fact that you kill the losers that gets everybody so upset.”
“But there must be punishment!” the voice cried. “Or there is no incentive! It has been this way for millennia!”
“You could try rewarding the winners instead of slaughtering the losers,” Ianto said dryly. “It seems to work for us humans.”
“But the tradition –” the voice started to wail, but Jack interrupted, saying, “Every tradition was an innovation once. If you want to keep the game you’re gonna have to move with the times a bit here.”
This time the silence dragged on for a good few minutes, and Jack sat down in the middle of the floor, pulling Ianto with him and saying, “They’ll be discussing that one for a while. Cavarians were never quick to adapt. That’s why they tried to spread the game in the first place. Everybody used the same set of moves and it got boring after the first few hundred years of it. That and they were beginning to run out of players.”
Ianto sighed, and asked, “They will listen to reason, won’t they?”
“Sure they will,” Jack said cheerfully, throwing an arm around Ianto’s shoulders and hugging him sideways. “If they don’t they know fine well they’ll have the law after them for the next thousand years or so. They didn’t count on anybody on Earth knowing the Shadow Proclamation well enough to send out a complaint.”
At that Ianto had to stifle a laugh, despite the precarious nature of their position. Leaning against Jack comfortably, he said, “So. How long do you think we’ll be stuck here, sir?”
“No idea,” Jack told him. “Why? You thinking of ways to pass the time?”
“I wouldn’t want you to get bored,” Ianto smiled.
An hour later, sitting back to back, with Ianto well on his way to winning an eighth consecutive game of word association (they’d agreed not to allow any sexual associations, which made the whole thing a dozen times more difficult for Jack and had forced him to surrender most of the games from sheer frustration), they were half-blinded and deafened by the same bright light and rushing sound, then they were sitting on the ground in Roald Dahl Plass again, Jack already complaining about the pins and needles as they both struggled to their feet. The others were all still there, crowded together by one of the towers, all of which were still projecting the purple barrier.
Tosh spotted them first, leaping to her feet and rushing to hug Jack, then Ianto. The rest of the crowd scrambled up, shivering, and then the purple electricity cut out abruptly. There was a pause as the group looked at Jack and Ianto, then, spontaneously, they raised a cheer.
As the crowd swarmed around the two of them, wanting to know what had happened, Ianto managed to suggest (loudly and pointedly) that they should all go and warm up somewhere indoors. Jack was quick to cotton on, and, with Tosh, Owen and Gwen’s help, they successfully shepherded the group to the tourist information centre (which was just about large enough for them all, when a few of them squeezed into the back room instead), and while everyone was discussing their bizarre night, Ianto efficiently plied them all with retcon-laced drinks.
The last taxi to go was for the man who’d played as pink ball. On the roadside, about to get in the car, he had the good grace to apologise for getting in the way of Ianto’s game plan, and, shaking hands warmly, swore he’d be back at a decent hour the next day to discuss selling the story to the local (and national) newspapers.
Ianto smiled and nodded and waved and waited until the taxi was out of sight before letting out a sigh and turning to head back to the Hub. He found Jack sitting by the fountain and the paving stone lift, waiting for him.
“That the last of them?” Jack asked, and Ianto nodded, about ready to collapse beside him on the stones and go to sleep right there. He felt as tired as Tosh had looked when they’d sent her home earlier.
“Come on, then,” Jack said, getting up and grabbing Ianto’s hand, pulling him onto the lift. “Sleep.”
Ianto smiled slightly, saying, “Word association again? Bed.”
“And I lose,” Jack grinned, activating the lift and then wrapping one arm around Ianto’s waist as they descended.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you for it,” Ianto assured him quietly, leaning against him and closing his eyes until the lift reached the floor inside.
“It’s a shame, really,” Jack murmured as they stepped off the stone and headed for his quarters. “The first ever non-lethal game of Cavarian Combat, and nobody’s going to remember it in the morning.”
Ianto shrugged, and said, “We will, and the Cavarians will, even if no-one else ever hears about it. Which reminds me.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“What’s the Shadow Proclamation?”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-31 11:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 11:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 01:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 11:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 07:28 am (UTC)*grin*
I like this. Good read.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 11:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 09:44 am (UTC)Just loved : “When you’ve finished playing with Jack’s balls, that is.” *giggle* and the last line too :D
Well written.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 11:47 am (UTC)Hee. Thank you very much and I'm glad you got a good laugh from those lines... :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 12:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 12:33 pm (UTC)Wow. That was just inspired. I love the image of human snooker on Roald Dahl Plass and the word association game was such a good idea! great stuff :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 12:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 01:32 pm (UTC)Great fic. Once again mem-ing! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 02:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 02:59 pm (UTC)Great fic. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 03:41 pm (UTC)Great story.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 04:41 pm (UTC)“We’ve got something you two should probably see,” he told them, then, looking at Ianto, added, “When you’ve finished playing with Jack’s balls, that is.”
*snickers*
But Ianto can't keep his hands off Jack's balls(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 07:07 pm (UTC)*looks innocent* :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 05:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 07:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 07:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 07:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 08:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-01 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 11:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 11:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-02 08:34 pm (UTC)This was really excellent.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-03 11:21 am (UTC)Thanks. ^_^
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 12:24 pm (UTC)Also, loved the word assosiation, because Jack would lose, so hard if they weren't allowed anything to do with sex. The man is carnal beyond belief.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 01:06 pm (UTC)Ianto's a dirty cheater, really. He knew fine well there was no way Jack would win with those rules. :D
And thanke. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-12 03:19 am (UTC)I love this and Jack bluffing about people, Ianto in particular, knowing the Shadow Proclamation is inspired.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-17 04:16 pm (UTC)^_^ Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked it. :D And I was rather fond of Jack lying through his teeth so they wouldn't get killed. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-27 03:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-28 01:52 am (UTC)^_^ I'm very glad you liked it, thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-07 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-07 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-10 10:02 pm (UTC)Hee. Glad you like, thanke!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-11 12:56 am (UTC)Whoever said the fans should play this on the Plass is very right. The Reds could have comms instead of a mind-link, maybe?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-12 07:47 pm (UTC)The reds should be able to manage if they just keep an eye on each other and follow where everybody else leads. Like fish, shoaling... ^_^ Hee.