Title: Word Games
Author: blueskypenguin
Pairing: Zelenka/Lorne pre-slash
Recipient: planetkiller
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Summary: Locked in a room with a board game. Well, what would you do?

Word Games

Walking on strange planets wasn't anything new to Marcus Lorne; not by any stretch of the imagination. Gate travel, also, was something he'd been accustomed to for a good deal of time now. As a long time member of the Stargate Project - whether on Earth or in the Pegasus Galaxy - there were certain things that had become routine, certain things that he'd just become used to.

Power failures were something he was pretty familiar with too. Except this time, he was stuck in a room the size of the average bathroom with the city's top engineer and a load of boxes during said power failure. That was a first.

"Hovno, tato is spravedlivý má náhoda," Zelenka muttered under his breath. He reached for his radio, and began shouting down the connection to McKay. "I am stuck in closet, McKay, and no offence to the good Major but I would like to leave."

"None taken, Doc," Lorne said, enjoying Zelenka snarking at McKay from the far corner. It was like watching a tennis match, he'd discovered, even if you couldn't see both players. While McKay was the most annoying scientist on the planet - and he'd met many - if you paired him up with Sheppard or Zelenka his mouth could just run and run and there was nothing more entertaining than watching them bounce off each other.

McKay was replying testily. "I'm so sorry, Radek-" Lorne felt that any more sarcasm could have burned out the radio, "but you're just going to have to entertain yourself for a few hours with 'the good Major' and kill Kavanaugh when you get out."

"What did he do?" Zelenka asked wearily.

McKay tutted. "Just sit tight Radek, we'll sort it." There was a click on the radio, and then there was silence.

"I could kill that man at times," Zelenka said, looking up to the ceiling of the small room as though looking for some sort of divine intervention. No such luck.

Lorne, however, grinned. "You and me both, Doc. What's in these boxes anyway - this room certainly isn't the Ancient lab we were looking for-"

For the first time since the door had closed behind him and the city had suddenly lost power, Radek took a look around. "I do not know. It may be some of the supplies from the Daedalus. I have never seen any of this before."

"I didn't even know they were putting stuff in this part of the city." Lorne eyed up the side of one of the boxes, the window on the western wall giving a good deal of light to see. "It's got the SGC logo on it, so I'm guessing it's meant to be here. " He looked over to Radek, catching his eye. "Shall we open one?"

Radek shrugged. "What is there to lose?"

Lorne lamented that they were most likely someone's last words, and pulled a pocket knife from one of the pouches on his jacket, slitting the brown tape that was holding the box shut.

"Evidently," Lorne grinned, "the answer to that question is 'Scrabble'." And he punctuated his sentence by pulling out an unused copy of the board game from the top of the box. "Do you think these are our early anniversary presents?"

Raising an already rather high eyebrow, Radek smiled. "And what anniversary would this be, Major?"

"Ours of course," he replied cheekily. He grinned as Radek's eyebrows joined his hairline. "The expedition's, I mean - eighteen months for all of you next week, am I right?"

"I hardly think that the SGC would be giving us Scrabble to celebrate, Major." Radek moved forward. "But it would help pass time, no?"

Shrugging, Lorne crouched down to the floor and opened the game as Radek manoeuvred around the boxes to join him. The Major pulled his gun up over his head and laid it on the floor next to him and got himself comfortable.

"So, do you remember how to play?"

####

"'Geekery' is not a word, Major." Radek said wearily. After the appalling spelling of 'defence' that Lorne had tried to get away with, this was the icing on the cake of bad linguistic skills.

Lorne glared. "It is too a word. You engage in an act of geekery."

Radek raised an eyebrow.

"I promise you it's a word!"

Radek stared at him darkly.

"Fine!" Lorne sighed. "I swear we'd be better off playing in French than in English. And before you say it - yes, I know, American isn't English. For a man who isn't even from England you're surprisingly DEFENSIVE about that language."

"Je pense que si nous jouions en français, vous perdiez toujours." Lorne blinked at Radek, who smirked. "We play in French if you wish, but you stand better chance in American."

Lorne didn't seem to be taking the snark in. His breath was still caught on the French that he heard, but didn't understand. "So hot," he breathed under his breath. Radek 'hmm?'ed.

"Oh, nothing. I guess I'll just play this 's' then," he said more audibly, trying to cover up the drool he was sure was escaping from the corner of his mouth as he turned 'geek' into 'geeks'. "Your play."

Radek placed his last three tiles onto the board, using the 's' from 'geeks' to create 'same' and smiled triumphantly. "I win, Major."

"I demand a rematch!" Lorne exclaimed. "And a dictionary next time - geekery is a word."

Radek smiled, but any response he was about to give was drowned out by McKay's voice on his radio. "Radek, you'll be able to leave now. Get back up here, there's still things to fix and I can't delegate simple tasks to you without you being here to do them."

"Yes, master. Igor obeys," Radek muttered, earning a laugh from Lorne. Radek grinned in response. "We can play rematch any time, Major, but you will still lose."

"Not with a dictionary at my disposal," Lorne retorted, packing up the tiles and the board from the floor, putting them back into the box. "I'll beat you next time, Doc."

Radek laughed. "Of course. Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be, let's get back to the slave driver," Lorne quipped, delighting in the smile he got from Radek.

"He means well, just socially inept."

Having spent 'quality time' with McKay offworld, Lorne could believe it. "Anyway, rematch tomorrow?"

"You bring the game, I'll bring the dictionary."

"An American dictionary," Lorne clarified as they left the room with a half-relieved sigh. "You aren't going to screw me over with a Japanese one or something, are you?"

Radek tried for an innocent face. "Would I do that?" Lorne raised an eyebrow. "Fair point. Tomorrow, my quarters, nineteen hundred?"

"Sure thing." And the unlikely pair began walking back to the main tower.

*

Three hours later, Lorne swore as he leafed through a dictionary. "Geekery is too a word, stupid book."