Hell's Book of Random One-shots

A Simple Game of Scrabble - Spencer Reid - Request

This was ludicrous.

Outrageous.

A completely unfair spectacle of a game that I stood no chance at.

It also happened that I couldn't make either of those words on the board and that, in itself, was driving me up the wall.

Why were all my letters so abysmal?!

There!

Another good word I couldn't make!

I puffed out my cheeks and glared to the other side of the table, where a smug looking doctor who shall be disowned happened to be sitting.

Even with the rules I had specifically set for his special circumstance in place, I stood no change in getting anywhere in this game.

I swear, half of these words had to be made up and we'd already had to resort to him using words I could at least recognise as actually being a word in the dictionary.

To make things worse, he was getting progressively more patronising the further we went on.

Who knew the cute, bean-pole of a man known as Spencer Reid had a fierce competitive side?

He leaned back from the board and smiled that annoying smile that was getting progressively more irritating, glancing at the word he had put down before noting his points down on the paper.

I hated him, sticking to my rules and still beating me like it was nothing.

The words weren't even that great either!

They just happened to be long words that racked up the points quickly.

I looked at the board, then at my letter line-up with growing resentment, there were barely any tiles left to pick up and I was growing ever more tired of playing this game.

It wasn't that I hadn't gotten a fair amount of points, but my words were useless and therefore meant next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I was about a second away from giving up, my heart had all but lost hope and I was ready to make myself a warm drink and ignore Spencer for the rest of the night.

That was until I spotted it, that one little word that made my heart jolt and caused me to sit up to further attention with an excited squeak.

Even better, it was one of those words that he had attempted to use to be a smartass.

With a mischievous smirk, I plucked up the needed tiles and laid them down the board before leaning back and folding my arms.

"I raise your quiz with a quizzically."

Leaning over, I rounded up my points then took a glance at his sheet.

"And that, my friend, pushes me two points over you."

His eyes flickered to his sheet and then mine before settling on the board, a small smile crossing his lips.

"Good work," he nodded, eyes finally scanning over his leftover letters.

I watched him, quirking my eyebrow a little as his eyes fluttered left to right then back again and again and again, each time his expression becoming something more and more frustrated.

Reaching over, he plucked up one of the few leftover letters and set it down, letting out an audible groan of displeasure.

"Are you kidding me?"

I smiled and leaned forward, resting my chin on my hand.

"Oh my, Spencer...are you perhaps...stuck?"

"No," he replied defensively, his face setting in a hardened expression of determination, "I'm just thinking."

"Thinking about how I won this round?"

"No, thinking about how you totally cheated and I will work my way around this."

With a gasp, I sat back up and pressed a hand to my chest.

"Cheated? Buddy, there's no rules in Scrabble saying you can't add on to existing words."

After a moment of silence, he huffed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well there should be."

My smile widened.

"Are you admitting defeat?"

"No, I'm admitting that you cheated."

I laughed and pushed my chair back, drumming my hands on the tabletop before I stood up.

"I will accept that win and go make some coffee, have fun tidying it up, loser."

Spencer shot me a look of displeasure, his eyes narrowed and his arms tensing a little more as I turned to waltz to the kitchen, gleeful in my victory.

Never, in all the year I had known him, would I have taken the genius doctor to be a sore loser, especially after winning multiple rounds of the same game beforehand, but I'd take it and run with it.

Boy, were the next few days going to be full of gloating hell for him.

"Next time, we're playing Trivial Pursuit, like it or not," he called to me.

"No way, next time we're playing Hungry Hungry Hippos."