shifted_logs | The Seventh Match

Entry tags:

The Seventh Match

Characters: Gene, Diva, Spectators
Location: The Coliseum.
Time: Two days after the last fights.
Summary: The seventh of the death matches.
Warnings: Character death warning.

Today, Weber had let in a visitor early. With his coffee cup balanced on the seat between them, he was all smooth smiles, a performance designed for one.

The Doctor wasn't happy with Weber, but his conversation with Ten reminded him that he still owed the man a cup of coffee. So he brought him one, and got right down to business. "Tried to find the Emperor, but he never showed up. Any tips? Or are you gonna point a revolver at my head for interfering?"

Weber startled. He almost dropped his cup. Then he drew his revolver, not to point it at the Doctor, but to aim for the head of the man in sable robes who had appeared behind the Doctor, the one known to Naminé merely as the king. Weber got to his feet. “My liege.”

The king returned the smile. “My liar.”

Weber’s gun hand was severed from his wrist in the flash of the king’s sword. Silver blood fell from the wound, but Weber didn’t hesitate. He was forward in a moment, his other hand swinging up for the king's face, but the king caught that and twisted, forcing Weber to the ground.

“Oh, your most glorious majesty.” There was no stopping Weber’s smile, even as he cradled his injured arm to his chest. “How the sight of you brings me to my knees.”

“Were it that you would learn your place there.” With Weber now held down, the king offered the Doctor a brief flicker of his attention. “Another victim, my liar?”

The Doctor rose from his seat—no, the Oncoming Storm rose from his seat. "Let him go. I'm nobody's victim, and neither is he." He stepped forward, placing a hand on Weber's shoulder. "This ends now, your Majesty. I gave you a chance, and you've lost it."

“Doctor, don’t—”

Weber’s shout was pointless. In a gesture too easy and too familiar, the king shoved his sword through the Doctor’s chest and twisted.

The Doctor gasped, both in surprise and pain. His jumper was stained with blood as he collapsed to the ground, and he knew he was dying again. "Time to be a real boy, Pinocchio," he whispered, only for Weber to hear.

The two immortals watched the Doctor die. Then the king drew a card from his robes. As the Doctor's body dissolved into nothing, so too did a gold bracelet on the king's wrist. He drew out another card. One of his gold rings thinned, almost imperceptible to anyone at a distance. The king released Weber and offered him his hand.

And Weber, with his now-regrown hand, took it, sweeping his fallen hat up from the floor and putting it back on his head. “The fight, my liege?”

“Of course.” The king took the Emperor's throne with the arrogance of born royalty. Obedient, the man in the silver-stained cravat sat at his king's side. They were decadence and dissonance, gold jewellery and black fabrics, one's clothing from the West, the other from the East. They had held thrones like these so many times before, and each fell easily into the familiar parts.

The king waved a callous hand. “Gene Hunt.”

Weber gave a sad smile. “Diva.”

The king said, “Get on with it.”

The sand in the hourglass fell, unable to reach the black and silver blood lingering beneath its frame.

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"Then what did you mean by 'end it'? Or is that yet another question you're going to avoid?" he asked, frowning at them.

"A very different game," said the liar, "and surely not one you're interested in playing. Don't get distracted by our matches."

"Your true concern," said the king, "should be with the fights."

"My concern has always been with the fights!" he snapped, offended that his actions would ever be called into question like that.

"If you're the hosts of this game, then you must know the rules. Or perhaps you don't or are unwilling to share what those are directly. My other self--the one you just killed," he added rather angrily, "said you couldn't speak directly about things, Weber, so. How exactly do you propose I ask my questions and still receive my answers? I really don't have the time to waste asking questions that will just get me nowhere." And he pointed at the hourglass to emphasise his point.

Gene snorted, taking the glass and pouring himself a drought before passing the tin back to Diva. The fact they were sitting here, on a picnic blanket, chatting and drinking when a timer was counting down their living moments wasn't missed. The whole bloody thing was ludicrous, but what was he going to do? Kill Diva? Even if he'd been able to, he couldn't do it. Gene Hunt was no murderer, and he'd be damned if some poofter managed to get him to off one of CID. He'd shoot himself, first.

Which was still an option. At least saving Diva would mean Gene had done something rather than sit back and let that Weber bastard have his way with the Plane-goers.

"Hate the place myself," he grunted, glancing toward the stands, none too happy to see some other bloke up there with the sodding prick. "Place is nothing more than a headache."

She poured her own, smiling down at the glass. Diva didn't really care for beer, since she drank for the taste of liquor rather than how buzzed it got her. But she still sipped from it politely, fitting the unfitting idyllic scene of their picnic awaiting death.

"Ne, it's not that bad. I mean, without the Plane, I would be--Well, I guess I would be dead, since it's been so long since Nathan killed me. But what I was going to say was that I would still be Amshel's. I'd still be that person that Gene definitely hated."

It was said with fondness. Despite her past year, she still was more grateful to the Plane than any other because of the new life it had brought her.

"But then again," she added on, teasing, "I don't know if it's true anymore, but you did hate me for a really long time. So I was probably just a part of that headache! It's not my fault that Sam is charming, in his way. Goodness, you really were protective of him. Like when I took him to that fancy party and he didn't tell you? I thought you were going to hit him right in front of me!"

The king looked at his liar for explanation, and the liar said, "They change their bodies when they experience fatal injury. So this man is the next body of the man you killed. Don't you ever do background research?"

"I was interrupted over breakfast with Famine."

"Don't tell me: chocolate pillow cookies."

Ignoring that, the king said, "Pestilence thought you needed help."

"Did he. He needs help with his origami frogs. Shall we answer in order?" The liar held up his hand.

"Agreed." The king took the liar's hand in his. A united effort. A united front. "We know the rules of the fights and are charged with seeing them followed."

"But there are rules we can't directly explain."

"My liar is near-incapable of being direct. It is his great illness."

"And aren't you clever enough to know the rules for questions and answers?"

"Yet these two will see death today. You haven't yet the strength to overcome us or the knowledge to stop us."

That little display did answer some things straight away--like how he should have taken his other self's words more seriously when it came to the indirect/direct business. Of course, he was never going to tell him this or else he'd never hear the end of it. Personal pride aside, he had wondered whether that remark about Death in Oliver's letter from Shay held any credence, and with the talk abut Famine and Pestilence, he was beginning to believe it was true in some way. But was it the one he had been familiar with earlier in his life? Were the other two going to accompany Death soon? He couldn't help noticing that in all the talk here, that War hadn't been mentioned. Hmmm.

"Oh, I'm clever enough," he said in a low voice, his arms folded over his chest. He knew he couldn't save those people, even if one was a vampire, and it took everything he had not to rein in his anger with that failure danced in front of his face yet again. "So clever even I surprise myself sometimes.

"I have a feeling about who has charged you with these fights, and I'm betting it isn't Death. I'm betting your Death, unlike the one I knew, just might put a stop to this if certain conditions were allowed and considering you're all such a tricky lot, I'm betting there is something in place--which leads me to suspect the fourth one in that bunch of horse-lovers is involved or is the head honcho. Who can resist battles such as these? Especially ones where innocents and pacifists die."

It was a wild observation, of course, but he couldn't readily dismiss that line of questioning either. If he could figure out who was behind it...

Weber couldn't hide the amusement. "You're shooting in the dark, dear. Still, you have a rough idea of your targets. But we must be offended on War's behalf. We both like her, and that's very rare for us."

"War," said the king, "is an honourable woman. Death is an appalling excuse for a living creature. If War were running these fights, none would be forced into battle against their will."

Sirius had little patience for picnics, or conversations with kings. Diva was quickly becoming a friend, and Sirius had no intention of letting her die.

Unfortunately, he was essentially helpless -- he had no wand, and wandless magic was difficult enough even at full strength. So he paced outside the forcefield, wondering if there was some other way he could break through it.

"Hurry up, Doctor," he growled, hoping the man outside the Emperor's box was having better luck.

The thought of Diva still taking orders from Amshel was a sour one and Gene made a face, burying what he was about to say in a drink. No, she was certainly better off without the div, even if it meant she was under his skin all the bloody time. But she had changed, and even if he wouldn't admit it, Gene was proud of her.

"What makes you think I still don't?" he challenged, though there was a hint of amusement threading through his voice. "And I'll give him a good clock to the chin when this is all over for doing it, too. Thanks for reminding me."

Diva couldn't help but laugh, a little. Even if Gene was trying to hide it, Diva could see through it easily enough. But she already knew that Gene cared for her. He was the best practitioner of "tough love" that she had ever met, but she didn't mind.

"I just have a feeling, is all." She considered bring up how much nicer he was to her after he shot her terribly, but this conversation had enough talk of death already.

Her lips turned into a frown at the threat, though. "You had better not! You're not allowed to hurt Sam when I'm around, Gene. Especially not for something that was my idea anyways. You can't blame Sam for that."

It also helped that Diva was very stubborn and pushy about it. If she remembered correctly, she really had badgered Sam into going, and he wasn't that comfortable there.

"Wouldn't happen to fancy the colour red, would she?" he asked. "I'll be sure to send her flowers for tarnishing her good name." Of course, he was just being sarcastic and would sooner send flowers to a Dalek. War was never honourable. Yet...he was on the right track, sort of. The question was...who else could be behind it? People possibly like the Eternals in nature, but not in boredom. They haven't spoken of using ephemerals yet and they liked to throw that terminology around like a hot potato.

"So someone who doesn't like to play fair, huh? That much was clear from the very first match," he said, keeping his voice in an even tone. "Now! From what I can understand, there is a barrier around this arena," and he threw a paperclip he had in his pocket at the arena just to illustrate what he meant. Good thing it bounced away, or it would've pegged the man in the arena in the back of the head. "And there is one right here." And he knocked a couple times on it just to be annoying.

"I'm betting if we had enough people, we could break the barrier, but it can't be that simple. You can remove and restore the barrier quick as can be. And simply breaking the barrier won't cease these proceedings, so there has to be something else. Some other thing we need to do..." And he trailed off for a moment, not caring that he'd been thinking out loud again. He was watching King Bob and Weber's expressions as he spoke, gauging their reactions. He was back to that same dilemma plaguing him since he'd received that letter from Shay. His eyes fell on the hourglass, the grains of sand still flowing downward.

"That hourglass..." he said softly, glancing at it. "The sand didn't begin to flow until you officially started the match, and you said to make sure it never stops flowing if the match is to continue. Will that hourglass only work in this Coliseum, or can it be removed once someone has it in their possession?"

Both Weber and his king were very good at poker, in no small part because they had on more than one occasion had played a game where whole worlds were riding on their ability to hide their emotions and to bluff. So they showed no response to the Doctor's open monologue.

Weber did, however, lean forward when the subject of the hourglass came up. "Don't touch the hourglass. Don't try to do anything with it."

"It could be entertaining," said the king.

"Yes," replied the liar. "It could be entertaining to see your reaction if they tried it while, say, Naminé was fighting? Or Callindora?"

The king and the liar looked at each other for a moment. Then the king accepted his loss. "Very well. The hourglass will only bring death. Leave it."

He'd rather hoped touching the hourglass would draw out the real person behind the fights. Oh well, when one door close, another opened. Never mind the king seemed to have favourite people. He only just now connected the chocolate strawberries to what Weber said about chocolate pillow cookies. Perhaps if he wanted to appease the king, he'd bring him something--a slice of Evelyn's cake perhaps? ...It still had to be good, hadn't it? Granted, it'd been in stasis for...a really long time.

No, he was letting his mind wander away on one too many stray tangents.

"What about life?" he asked, both eyebrows raised in question. "Surely there must be a counterpoint to the hourglass of death; something that can bring life. Or if not life exactly, something to balance it out."

A frown crossed his expression. Even if there was some device or object, it hadn't been of any use before now. "Another question for you. You're not in charge of this, and yet you're overseeing it and enforce the rules, like the one where combatants can't seek outside help during the match. I take it that extends to any strong action taken from an outside party while the match is taking place even if the combatants aren't actually seeking out such aid?"

Edited 2010-07-16 14:11 (UTC)

Gene outright snorted, giving Diva his best 'oh please' look. "I'll yell at him for anything I damn well please, luv, and there's nothing you can do about it. The div can take it, anyway. Sure as hell deserves it."

He grinned, finishing off his glass and pouring himself another from the tin. If nothing else, he'd prove she should have gotten them a Party Seven, time be damned.

She was surprised that he was finished already and only took a small sip of her own glass. Actually, no, she wasn't that surprised, considering this was the man that had challenged a vampire to a drinking contest and lost. Terribly. The thought made her smile.

"Oh, I know he can take it, but if it was my idea in the first place, there's no reason to take it out on poor Sam. He can't help that I'm so convincing," she said with a cheeky grin, but settled into sipping her beer again.

"I just want him to be happy is all. Well, relatively. I love him, but he's not a very happy person, in a lot of ways. It's depressing, isn't it?"

"If you'd rather," Gene offered, beginning to rifle through the picnic basket for some food. Might as well, really. "I could always shoot you again. See how convincing you are asking a bloke out with holes in your head."

It probably wasn't the best joke he could make, but Gene didn't really care, considering the vampire in silence over his cup, one hand still in the basket. "It's bloody annoying is what it is. Div wouldn't know a good time if it kicked him in the arse."

Diva paused, looking down at her cup. Gene would find sandwiches (since it was the only thing Diva could make herself, really) inside, but Diva was quiet as he rifled through.

"I know," she said after the pause, "and that's why I try to take him out to do things with me. He was always uncomfortable, though, since it was too..." Diva paused again, but this time she was reaching for a word to describe the parties. "...Too...rich, I guess? I don't know, since I'd never really gone to any other kind of party."

She took another sip. "Do you regret it, by the way? I mean, shooting me that much."

Pulling out a sandwich (really, Diva?), Gene took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Not the lifestyle for a copper, luv," he offered. "That's for fops and poofs and the scum who try and run my streets. A good copper don't need any of that and Tyler's the best there is."

He frowned at her question, polishing off the sandwich and taking another swig. "Only that I didn't have another clip. What you did deserved more than I gave and you know it." Gene looked her over, imperious and silent a moment. "Did you even feel it?"

A smile came to her lips on Sam's behalf. Diva had a feeling he wouldn't need that much reassurance that he was a good policeman, but it made her feel oddly at ease. But the smile fell quickly.

"I felt every single one. You shouldn't have to ask that," she said quietly. It seemed like she wouldn't continue with the conversation, but after a silence, continued, "I don't know what it feels like for normal people, because I've never been normal, but I've been dying ever since I can remember. And it's the worst thing, because when I die, it's painful until I just---Everything is gone. So for however long it takes for me to come back, it's like time is just stopped, but I never know it until I come back, and that hurts too. But because I spent fifty years stuck in a tower where I was always dying, I can block it out and pretend it doesn't happen. Because, you know, when I would scream, they would just gag me or take out my vocal cords and wait for them to grow back. It always hurts, but it's not the same for me as it is for Saya. Because when Saya would get cut by my Chevalier, she would scream so loudly, and I wondered why, because I only thought it was okay to scream when something really terrible was happening, like when your legs are broken or when you're being hurt so much that your body can't keep up with healing it."

Diva laughed and smiled like it was a fond memory. "I feel everything. But they're not worth talking about, since it doesn't really matter for me, does it? That's what Amshel made me believe. If I had to kill people I liked or let people that Amshel wanted to impress do whatever they wanted with me for a night, it was fine because it'd always be fine because there aren't any marks by the time it's over. I don't need to cry or be upset about things like that, because even if I can feel it, they're not there."

She finished off her beer, looking at Gene coolly. She had lived a hard, terrible life, but she had no problem admitting any of it because of what she had just described. What she felt didn't matter as long as other people were satisfied.

"That's why Sam is so important to me. He didn't want anything from me. He was the first person to really, truly care about what I felt."

For once, Gene remained silent while Diva spoke, taking in her story with a stony expression. There'd been a reason he hated Amshel more than the vampire, no matter how much death Diva wrought. If it weren't for that bastard, maybe the broad would have turned out decently. Or at least more like a normal bird than she had.

Knowing the sort of pain she'd gone through didn't make up for the deaths she'd caused, though, and while Gene now had a better sense of what Diva physically felt, it didn't mean shit if she didn't understand how others did.

"That's not what I meant, luv," he finally offered, pulling out a fag and lighting it with a flick of his wrist, slipping the zippo back into his pocket a moment later. "You hurt when I shot you. You have any idea how much it hurt those blokes you offed? You feel anything at all when you killed 'em, or is it still just a game to you?"

"Surely not, but nice try." Then the liar looked over at his king. "He didn't mention anything like that to me. Did he mention it to you, your majesty?"

"Not at all," said the king with a shrug.

The liar mirrored the gesture's sentiment with the look on his face. "If the one running this hasn't told us of ut, then it isn't an illegal move. Not unless we're told otherwise."

She was flustered that she had misinterpreted what he said so badly. Her hands came to cover her face and she stammered in embarrassment briefly before settling back into the conversation.

"I...I know it did. And it hurts so many more people than me. I didn't really want to believe that for a while, but it..."

Her hands fell from her face to her lap, and she settled into the routine of topping off both of their drinks. Diva was the hostess, gracious and lady-like, just as she had been taught. It contrasted greatly against the nature of their conversation.

"I don't know a lot of their names, the people I killed. Ne, but one of them, I'll never forget. Thomas Davis had a wife and a baby girl, and they were both so beautiful. Ne, I know that because after it happened, I saw her. She was yelling and screaming at me, saying things like how she hoped that I suffered and died for what I did, but that wasn't anything I hadn't heard before. It was when she just started crying, right there, like she was hurting so much. I don't think I could forget that if I wanted to. It hurt, to see that. No matter what I did, I'd never really seen anything like that before."

Gene wasn't one for heavy conversation and this one had reached his weight limit with Diva's addendum. It was enough to hear her say it, even if the Guv didn't necessarily believe she fully understand what she'd done. But it was a start, and compared to the broad he'd first met, it was a completely different person sitting here pouring him a pint of Party Four like they were at tea with the Queen.

Pulling out his gun, Gene looked the revolver over, checking the chamber, then casually leaned over and pressed the barrel to Diva's chest. He made sure to look her in the eye, expression grim, before tilting the gun up and tapping her lightly on the chin.

"Just don't let me catch you doing it again," he said, raising his cup with his free hand and taking a drink before tossing the gun off to the side on the blanket. "And I told you we'd need Party Seven."

She couldn't help a slight intake of breath when the gun was pressed to her chest. Diva didn't tense up or try to move, again perfectly willing to let Gene shoot her. But when he tapped her chin, she reached up and touched the spot lightly in surprise. She stared for a moment, but...Diva couldn't help but laugh.

"Ne, Gene, don't scare me like that! I'd definitely be mad if you ruined this dress," she said with a laugh. It was a relief that he hadn't, since she understood the gesture as Gene's trust. Considering she had only guessed that she had some of it, it made her happy, in an odd way.

So she took a sip of her beer, smiling over the edge of the glass. "I'm so sorry, then, Gene. It's not my fault that you drink like a pig."

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The Seventh Match

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