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“Watch my tiles for me, will you, Jack?” Daniel got up from the chair in the commissary, heading for the dessert line one more time and refilling his Styrofoam coffee cup.
Col. O’Neill sat down in the vacated chair, eyeing the Scrabble board with evil glee. “Who’s winning, Felger?”
“Right now, Dr. Jackson’s ahead by 13 points,” the science nerd answered automatically.
Jack looked at the little wooden blocks with big letters and small numbers on them, then studied the board. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine.” Felger laid one tile on the board, then picked up his pencil and added to the tally under his name. “Seventeen points. I so own him now!” Jay grinned and rubbed his palms together.
Jack shook his head. He pointed at a row of letters on the board. “That’s cheating. It’s not a real word.”
“It is in Greek,” Jay explained patiently. “We’ve expanded the rules to cover any language we currently have catalogued and translated here at the SGC. As long as the word is in print in a book or a language database, it’s legal, too.” He sighed, his expression crestfallen. “Unfortunately, Daniel speaks way more languages than anybody else, so he always wins. I do this to challenge my intellect and expand my vocabulary.” He gave a little grin and leaned forward conspiratorially. “This is the closest I’ve come to beating him yet. I think he’s distracted. Some translation project on his mind or something.”
“Ah.” Jack knew exactly which project Felger meant, but his attention was fixed on the game board. He saw an opening, and picked up several letters and laid them on the board between rows of other letters, to spell a new word. “Let’s see, that’s… carry the one… 23 points, Felger. Rack ‘em up in Daniel’s column.” He smiled across the table, hands tucked in his lap.
Jay stared at the tiles. “Colonel, ‘omnibiblious’ is not a word.”
Jack stared, leaning back slightly in his chair. His expression was one of total surprise that Felger didn’t believe him, an act that the nerd obviously didn’t buy for a minute. “Of course it is. Look it up.”
The scientist’s skeptical eyes rolled up to meet his. “Okay. What’s it mean?”
“It describes a person who will drink pretty much anything. I’ve been known to be omnibiblious at times. I’m also choconivorous.”
“Oh, please, that’s not—“
“Jack! Did you take my turn?” Daniel reappeared at the table and set his pumpkin pie, chocolate pound cake and coffee down beside the game board. He looked at the tiles. ”Oooh, good word choice. I should let you take a couple more turns, while I eat my pie.”
Jack eyed him, moving to another chair so Daniel could sit across from his opponent.
“So, ‘omnibiblious’ is a real word?” asked Felger.
“Did you think it wasn’t, just because Jack put it down?” Daniel asked casually. He scarfed a bite of the pie and rolled guileless blue eyes up to the other scientist’s face.
Felger’s gaze bounced between the colonel and the archaeologist. “Well… yeah. You know how he is. The king of bullsh—“
“He’s smarter than he looks,” Daniel cut in.
Jay sat up very straight in his chair. He looked at that word on the board. He looked up at Daniel. He looked at the colonel. “I give up,” he huffed, and rose without tucking his chair under the table.
With a sly smile, Jack slid into Felger’s chair and started turning the tiles over on the board. “Smooth move, Ex-Lax,” he said approvingly.
“Jack,” Daniel growled disapprovingly around a mouthful of pie. He finished chewing and swallowed. “Jay is a very intelligent man. You lied to him and I helped convince him of that. Now, he’ll never play Scrabble with me again, because he thinks I cheat.”
“I didn’t lie.” O’Neill’s eyebrows lifted. “Do you? Cheat?”
Daniel straightened and wiped his mouth delicately with his napkin. “I do not.” His tone was obviously offended. “I have no need to cheat. I speak—“
“I know, 23 languages, yadda yadda yadda.” He waved a dismissive hand.
“Twenty-seven, Jack. Keep up.” Daniel was very nonchalant about his claim. He draped the napkin back over his lap and glanced at O’Neill over the top of his glasses.
“Bet I could still beat you,” Jack challenged. He turned over the last tile, dumped the ones from the two trays, and began to shuffle them around on the board.
“You speak – what, some English, and are fluent in every curse word known to man?” Daniel shot back.
O’Neill smiled, aware of the predatory gleam in his eyes. “Oh, there’s a lot about me that you still don’t know, Daniel. You gonna take me up on this, or cower in the corner?”
“SGC academic rules, or standard?” Daniel narrowed his eyes at the colonel.
“I’m open. I can play by geek rules. But be prepared to provide proofs.”
“Same goes for you.”
Daniel started to choose his tiles, lining them up on his tray.
“What’re we playing for?” Jack asked as he selected his own pieces.
“Highest score, of course.”
“That’s no fun,” Jack challenged. He frowned, thinking hard. “How about… if I win, you treat me to a hockey game, with all the trimmings. And if you win…”
“You take Teal’c and me to a museum,” Daniel finished. “And we talk about history and culture. All day.”
Jack winced. “Ouch. Tough stakes, Dr. Jackson.” He pondered briefly. “It’s a deal.”
They tossed random tiles to see who would play first, and Daniel laid out the first word.
O’Neill stared at it. “What language is that?”
“Tollan. Geek rules, remember?”
Jack peeled off the top sheet on the pad where Felger had been keeping score. He turned the sheet over and wrote down Daniel’s word with the points next to it. Then he drew a line down the middle of the next sheet and wrote his name and Daniel’s across the top, penciling in Daniel’s score.
“Don’t you trust me, Jack?”
The colonel looked into those innocent blue eyes.
“About as far as I can throw you.”
“Oh, c’mon! We’ve been to Hell together. Literally. We’ve died together. I watch your six; you watch mine. We’re teammates, best friends, and you still don’t trust me?”
Jack rolled a slow, suspicious gaze up to the man across the table. “Not when it comes to high stakes betting. My turn.”
Little by little, the patterns of words stretched all over the board. Scores remained fairly even, and Daniel was starting to look a little nervous when Jack picked up most of the letters on his tray and added to a pair of words already in place on the board.
“ ‘Aquadextrous’ is not a word, Jack.”
“You’ve heard of ‘ambidextrous’? It describes people who are neither right- or left-handed, but capable of using both equally. ‘Aquadextrous’ describes people who can turn bathtub faucets on and off with their toes. It’s a recognized skill, Daniel. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”
Daniel borrowed the pencil, took a piece of paper and started making his own list of words to confirm. Then he began absently picking at the empty Styrofoam cup that had lately held his coffee, dropping little white pills of the foam on the table in front of him while he pondered his next turn. He started when Jack called his name with a trace of irritation in his voice.
“Stop caffidgeting,” Jack ordered. “It’s annoying.”
“Caff… huh?”
Jack pointed to the dismantling of the cup. “Caffidgeting.”
“There’s no such word.”
“Is so.”
“Is not.”
“Is so. Add it to your list and I’ll prove it when we’re done here.”
With a put-upon sigh, Daniel scribbled down the word and turned his attention back to the board. He took his turn and watched Jack beam as he emptied his tray yet again. Daniel watched the word form, and wrote it down.
Lactomangulation.
“Okay, what’s that mean?”
“That’s when you’ve trashed the pour spout on your paper-and-wax milk carton and you have to resort to opening up the illegal side to get to the milk.”
Daniel glared at him, blatant disbelief written all over his face. “You’re yanking my chain, aren’t you? This is just another one of your very bad, not-in-any-way-funny jokes at my expense.”
Jack lifted his eyebrows with an air of superiority. “No, Daniel. It’s a real word, in current usage. Keep up.” He finished up with a smug smile. “Your turn. I’ll be back in a minute.” Sauntering over to the cash register at the end of the food line, he picked up a couple of cellophane-wrapped peppermints and carried them to the table. He pitched one down for Daniel, then proceeded to unwrap one for himself.
The candy slipped its packaging and landed on the floor. Jack picked it up, blew on it, and dusted it off on his jacket before popping it into his mouth. And saw the disgusted look on Daniel’s face.
“I disconfected it,” Jack assured him.
“It’s been on the floor,” Daniel reminded him. “And that’s disinfected.”
“Disconfection removes the germs from candy.”
“Jack...”
“Write it down.”
Daniel did.
“You’re getting a little caterpallor, there, Mr. Linguist,” Jack observed, enjoying the other man’s obvious frustration. This was just way too much fun. He had a new way to torture Daniel now.
“And caterpallor means…?”
“Ever bite into an apple, chew and swallow, and then notice there’s half a worm hanging out of your fruit?”
Daniel’s caterpallor intensified.
“Your turn. C’mon. Spell something.”
Dr. Jackson’s heavy, expressive eyebrows jammed together in concentration over furiously gleaming blue eyes. His mouth drew up into a pout. He spelled.
“Peppier,” Jack read aloud. “That’s a good word.”
”You mispronounced it. It’s pep-ee-ur, not pep-ee-ay.”
Jack dropped his gaze to his tiles. “You’ve obviously never been in a high-class French restaurant, Daniel. They have sommeliers who do the wine service, sauciers in the kitchen who prepare the sauces, and peppiers who walk around the tables to see if you want any freshly ground pepper on your food.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “What planet are you from, Jack? These are not real words!”
“The evolution of the English language is passing you by, my cunning linguist friend,” Jack said with just a touch of smugness. “You spend so much time on old dusty languages you’ve forgotten to keep track of your own.”
“Cunning… linguist?” The scientist blushed.
Jack grinned without a shred of mercy. “C’mon. One more word each and we’re done. Then it’s off to your rabbit hole to look everything up.”
Doing his best to concentrate, Daniel put most of his remaining tiles down, followed almost immediately by Jack’s last turn.
“Out,” the colonel announced cheerfully, using up the last of the free tiles. He bent over the score sheet, double-checking the totals. Using his fingers to help count, he finished the tally. “Ha! I beat you by nine points.”
“Not possible,” Daniel argued defiantly. “You barely speak English, Jack! Let me see that.” He grabbed for the score sheet and confirmed the totals. “Well, okay, your math is correct. But I’m challenging most of the words you used. I may not do much teen-speak, but I do hear some of the modern jargon, and no self-respecting teenager would be caught dead using any of these words.” Daniel picked up a piece of the chocolate pound cake left on his plate, along with his list.
“Well, I may not sound erudite very often,” Jack waited for the look of surprise from use of that big word, and got it. “…but I do have a certain flair for picking up unusual words here and there. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t live inside the bozone.”
Daniel just stared at him, too baffled to even ask for a definition of that one. He took a pen from his jacket pocket and wrote it down. Jack corrected his spelling.
The two men headed out of the commissary, down the hall to the elevator, each studying their lists in companionable silence. Stepping inside the car, Daniel punched the button for his floor. The doors slid closed slower than he wanted, so he punched the button again.
“Ellaceleration doesn’t work, Daniel.” Jack waited for the reaction, and got it. “Punching the button several times doesn’t make the elevator accelerate. Ellaceleration.”
Daniel scribbled. He stepped out of the car and took a bite of his pound cake, still contemplating the list.
“You’ve got to stop that,” Jack advised casually. “I mean, I’ve known for a long time that you’re a mastacambulistophile, but it’s really not good for the digestion.”
Dr. Jackson stopped in his tracks. He stared at his companion, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Who are you and what have you done with Jack O’Neill?”
The colonel grinned. He grabbed Daniel’s list and wrote the new word on it, handing it back with a flourish. “You first,” he said, and gestured the linguist into his office.
One by one, Daniel pulled out his references. Some were in actual books on the shelves, others were in the database, painstakingly entered by Dr. Jackson himself as a reference tool for other academics on the staff. Halfway through his list, the phone rang, but Daniel ignored it until the second ring sounded.
“So, you’re a telecrastinator, too, huh?” Jack asked.
Daniel’s eyes glazed over. He picked up the phone. “Uh… I can’t remember who I was calling.”
“Somebody called you, Daniel. You’re not having a phonesia incident.”
The linguist shut his eyes. “Hello? Yes, this is Dr. Jackson. I’m sorry, I was just… a little confused there for a moment, Dr. Sandoval. Yes, I’ll have those reference books sent up to you right away.” He rubbed his forehead, a sure sign of a headache.
Picking up a pen from Daniel’s desk, Jack dutifully added the other words to Daniel’s list. As the scientist hung up the phone, Jack gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. The Dopeler effect should be passing soon.”
He wrote that one down for the linguist, too. Then he picked up a bottle of Advil and handed it over. “Here. Have some exaspirin.”
Daniel sighed. “Jack, will you please just stop? I can’t stand this anymore. You’re going to make my brain explode. I can hear it ticking.”
“You’re right. I’ve been an ignoranus.” He wrote that down. Glancing at the pencil, he noted that it was rather dull and stuck it in the sharpener. Then he blew on it, scattering shavings all over the papers. “Oh, sorry. I should’ve done the penciventilation somewhere else.”
Jackson put his head down on the desk and covered it with his hands. He whimpered. “Jaaaaaack!”
“Okay, okay! Wait right there.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I’m numb. Absolutely stupefied.”
Jack strode gaily out of the office, a broad smile creasing his face. He greeted people with cheer, whistled when walking alone, and happily leaped into his office, eyes alert for that book, wherever he’d put it. After a few moments’ searching, he discovered it in the bottom of a desk drawer, snatched it up and hastened back to Daniel’s office.
The linguist sat with his head propped in his hands, looking abjectly miserable.
“Daniel, you know you can’t make colonel without some sort of degree, right?” he asked, holding the little tome behind his back.
“Yes, Jack.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder what subject I chose for mine?”
Daniel dropped his hands. Interest gleamed in his eyes. “I really never thought about it.”
“You know how I feel about clichés, right?”
“And so does everyone else on this base.”
“And you know how it rankles me when anybody ends a sentence with a preposition.”
Daniel’s eyes widened as the light bulb went on over his head. “Oh, my God.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “I thought, since I speak the language…”
“You’ve got a degree in English.” The fog seemed to be clearing somewhat behind Daniel’s eyes. He frowned. “But these words… They can’t be real.”
O’Neill tossed the little book down on the desk. “Felger said any word in print. This has been out there since the eighties, and there are websites that keep track of the new ones. I can’t remember how many of these books there are in the series, but I think those are all in this one. If not, I’ll dig out the others.”
Jackson stared at it. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Nope. I check the websites pretty often, because unlike some people I know, I like to keep abreast of the changes in my mother tongue.” He sniffed. “Think you can cross the sarchasm now?” He spelled the word aloud.
“Was there any particular game you wanted those tickets to?” Daniel asked dazedly, conceding defeat.
Jack frowned. “The preposition rule, Daniel. You know how I hate that.”
“Sorry. I’ll… I’ll work on that when I can get my brain started again.” He opened the little book, reading the title again. “Sniglets, huh?”
“Keep up, Daniel! Language is a fluid thing. And I’ll take any game in the playoffs, thanks.” Jack strolled triumphantly out the door, hands in pockets, whistling a merry tune.
He didn’t think Daniel would underestimate his language skills again anytime soon, and wondered if there was anyone else in the geek unit that he might coax into his trap. It struck him that he might be able to rack up quite a lot of prizes until Daniel blew the whistle on him.
The colonel hurried back to the commissary, hoping to find more victims for what he had first thought was going to be a boring afternoon at the base.
FIN