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A/N: Old drabble is old but the passion for them and Gregtophski has been resparked and I had to upload this here too. Will be working on more B)
They were just lazing around in Gregory’s study when a very peculiar subject came up.
“So,” the blonde started, for all the world sounding casual and non-threatening, “I’ve been looking into your past achievements—”
“Why the fuck are you doing that?” Kyle interrupted with a sharp glare, already on edge. You didn’t want Gregory of all people snooping around in your past. You might as well transfer a .pdf file of every incriminating event that happened in your life to the Brit with a sticky note that said blackmail me.
“and I noted that you lost a total of one spelling bee in the third grade,” said espionage professional continued, as if Kyle hadn’t so rudely interrupted him.
“… What?” Whatever Kyle had been expecting, this was not it.
“You lost to siblings, Rebecca and Mark Cotswalds—although may I comment how bizarre it is that they shared the prize, since their being family does not automatically combine them as a single competitor? But I digress. You lost. Why?”
“Dude, that was so fucking long ago; how the hell did you even find out about that—”
“Kyle, answer the question. You were the best speller in all those spelling bees, and you lost to home-school children. Were they really that advanced?” Hazel eyes were dead serious.
The other relented, begrudgingly. “… It’s not a day I like to think about.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve kind of repressed my memories of it.”
“Pray tell, why?”
Sarcasm, dry and humourless. “Well, other than having met my first crush who turned into a slut for other boys after I gave her my first kiss, and having her brother beat me up because of it, the spelling bee was fucking rigged.”
“I can’t see why it would have been. You were in the third grade.”
“I don’t know either! They had me spell this fucking made-up word when it was my turn—it wasn’t even legal—and just, what the hell did they have against me, man?” Kyle was visibly disgruntled.
“What was the word?” asked Gregory curiously.
“Fuck if I know. I repressed the fucking memory, remember? Besides, it was a fucking non-word, so what the hell does it matter?”
A beat and then a secret smile. “Oh right, I understand now. The memory has caused you to become kroxldyphivc.”
The hauntingly familiar word caused Kyle to completely still. “… What the fuck did you just say?”
A voice that was like scentless poison, deceitful and sadistic. “Yes. It’s a shame that you have been affected by kroxldyph in such a way.”
Subtle pained noses, the curl of a fist. “How did you—No, that’s not important. Why are you doing this. For what purpose can this possibly be entertaining—”
“Something which has a kroxldyph-like quality. It’s rare to see, so of course it’s entertaining.”
“Gregory—”
A smirk. “I can see why you lost, with such a hideous word. Kroxldyphivc is a hard word to spell. But if you think about it, it really isn’t so difficult; it lacks even the silent letter— ”
Barely controlled breaths. “I swear—”
“Would you like to know how you spell it?“
“FUCK. YOU.”
They spend the rest of their time together inventing the word, individually attempting to spell it and then cross-referencing the letters to determine its true spelling. Then they went and gave it its branch forms, present, past, and future tenses, its adjective and its noun and the verb that would describe having kroxldyphivc, and they had a merry gay time, breathing life into a non-word because it was kroxidyphilite.