Work Text:
Jack sighed and picked up the card again, flipping it around in his impatience.
“Stop it,” Vala hissed from beside him.
She was leaning against the table beside him, having eschewed the chairs in the room with a grimace when they’d walked in. Considering the general state of the bar out front, Jack wished he’d done the same; if it came down to needing to make a quick escape, he was pretty sure he’d lose precious seconds unsticking himself from the upholstery.
“You are horrible at this,” Vala continued with something like awe as leaning towards Jack in a way that would be alluring to anyone watching on the cameras, but really just let her hiss directly in his ear. Jack winced, but hid a smile when he saw how her hands were tense at her side, as she tried to restrain herself from snatching the card away. He might have promised he’d play nice, but it was hard not to push their usually unrufflable ex-thief’s buttons.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack drawled, letting himself slouch forward in his seat; a little for dramatics and a lot to hopefully start unsticking his pants from the chair. “I’m just a simple slave dealer looking to get in touch with a local thief, you’re the one acting like Air Force One’s touching down.”
“Considering that this thief has made off with Daniel, I would have thought you’d be equally anxious,” Vala replied.
Jack smirked broadly at her obvious, even to him, attempt to distract him from her hero-worship, she’d practically had stars in her eyes when Danny had turned up missing yesterday.
“And I thought we’d agreed that you’d play the ‘silent sentinel’ on this one?” Jack asked, leading Vala to roll her eye, but mime her understanding. Jack was not going to let this meeting dissolve into her talking shop while Danny wasted away on some unknown planet.
“Anyways, not all thieves provide a calling card,” Jack replied, spinning the card into the air and letting it drop on the table where it landed with the embossed ‘Arsène Lupin’ face up (as it always did).
“Indeed, Monsieur Brigadier General, I do find that the card serves its purpose admirably.”
It took all of Jack’s experience in dealing with the rather dramatic entrances of system lords not to double take, as a man - human, tallish, poncy French accent, by Jack’s reckoning - stepped out of the shadows at the back of room. Shadows, that Jack would swear hadn’t been there until that moment; especially, as he and Vala had done a thorough search of the room – in the guise of looking for lost change – when they’d arrived.
“I’m going to assume that you’re our kidnapper?” Jack asked as he surreptitiously checked the zat hidden in his coat while he glanced at Vala. She hadn’t said anything to warn them about this, but judging by her expression, it seemed that the bedtime stories she’d heard hadn’t included cloaking devices.
“Non, not at all.” The man continued as he stepped closer, revealing to Jack’s silent amazement formal evening wear, complete with full tails and a top hat in hand. “For all that I am indeed, Arsène Lupin; I am no kidnapper as I’m sure the lovely Vala has told you; in fact your dear friend Daniel has been assisting me with a rather delicate archeological task, as I mentioned on the card.”
“Considering that Danny’s unscheduled holiday started with him disappearing from his room and he somehow managed to end up off planet; I’m going to call bullshit on that one.” Jack ground out, wishing he’d had stayed standing. It was much easier to intimidate when standing, not so much when stuck to a chair.
“Well then, it can hardly be me at all,” Arsène said, with a concealed chuckle. “As I believe I, how do you say, picked Monsieur Jackson up from your bedroom, my dear Brigadier General.”
Vala made a choked off snort of laughter beside him and it was all Jack could do, pants be dammed, not to lunge across the table at the smug man in front of him. Calling card aside, it was really only Vala’s emphatic assurances that this Arsène wouldn’t hurt Danny and that he might be a good contact, that had stopped him from coming into this meeting guns blazing.
“Semantics aside,” Jack ground out in frustration. “You admit that you took him.”
“Mais oui,” Arsène said, and Jack noticed with some irritation that, like Vala, he elected to lean against the table rather than sitting. “But kidnapping? No. The good Professor is perfectly fine and able to leave whenever he wishes. Rather, he has requested that I reach out to you, so that you might send a small detachment of your people to assist him with his work.”
Jack sighed in frustration and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“So, diplomatic translation there – Yes, I kidnapped him, now he’s stranded in some temple somewhere, where, I’m assuming there’s a bunch of treasure that he wasn’t quite able to get access to. So now you want us to come and ‘rescue’ him; leaving you time and/or resources to finish the job.” Jack concluded. “Why the hell would we-”
Vala tapped his shoulder and Jack’s eyes snapped open. Even as he turned, he could see why she’d interrupted and that she was dangling a new card with Stargate coordinates on it from her fingers.
“He disappeared, didn’t he?” Jack groaned in frustration. “I can’t believe I closed my- Why didn’t you say something?”
Vala smiled silently and tapped the card against her lips.
“Get on the horn, speak, and send them the coordinates.” Jack snarled as he unstuck himself from the chair. “But I swear if this Gentlemanly Thief has harmed one hair on Danny’s head, I will send you both to the gallows!”