Torchwood: Fanfic: More than words

[m_findlow]

Title: More than words
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 618 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, Playing scrabble" at fic_promptly
Summary: In which cheat is spelled J, A, C, K

A quiet night at home is a rare treat, so when Jack and Ianto finally do manage a night off alone, they make sure they don't waste it. There are plenty of things they can do to kill a few hours, but they've come to realise that as fun as all the sex is, there needs to be more to their relationship than just what happens between the sheets. There are plenty of other ways that they can spend quality time together, and they've discovered that board games are a good way to enjoy their time together without always having to resort to sex, though Jack has a naked version of just about every game they've ever played.

The other thing Ianto knows is that Jack will cheat at just about any game. For him it isn't so much about the pride that comes from winning, it's just that Jack can't help himself. There's a twisted delight in cheating, especially if he thinks he can get away with it. Whether it's stealing the cards in the Cluedo set, so that Ianto has no chance of ever uncovering the murder weapon, or using a trick dice roll to win at snakes and ladders, running away with the monopoly money, or even stooping so low as to start purposefully rubbing up against him when he's trying to keep his balance with his left foot on green and his right hand on yellow, there's nothing Jack won't do to win.

But there's one game where Ianto has finally leveled the playing field. Scrabble.

When it comes to scrabble, he's decided that if you can beat them, join them. If Jack can use words he's picked up on alien planets, then Ianto can spell words in Welsh. Or French, or Japanese for that matter. Whilst their arguments about words often get very heated, there's a golden rule that if the Torchwood database can match a result, the word stands. Fortunately, there's now lots of uses for odd letters.

Ianto has discovered one other main advantage over Jack when playing scrabble. In Welsh they don't require a lot of vowels, and no one has ever been happier to have seven tiles on their rack that include two Ls, a G, an N and a B. Ianto only has to take one look at the board as it currently stands to know that within the next move, he's going to absolutely annihilate Jack with a triple word score that is going to make his Gaspinxa, a large hairy orange creature with ten foot furry limbs, look like child's play. Just because it has an X, doesn't make it a wining word.

As usual, when Jack decides he's losing, it's the time to up the ante, which for Jack means using dirty tricks to distract his opponent. Suddenly every word that gets laid down on the board gets progressively more dirty. Ianto can play that game too, and his vocabulary of naughty words increases every time they play. Finally there's a really good use for the letter X.

Jack is usually the first to give in to his own dirty tactics, though they've often gone head to head. Sometimes Jack will give up the game, stealing the letters he wants and rearranging them to tell Ianto exactly what he wants. It's the only time they've found a suitable use for the letters F and K in a single word which isn't firetruck. It never lasts long though until all they can think about is tearing each other's clothes off and forgetting all about silly little plastic tiles and double letter scores. Once they've reached the point, there's only one kind of scoring they want to do.