There are links to images that compliment the story but you'll have to remove the spaces after the forward slashes and write in the dots before copy/pasting the links as they are coz FF sucks when it comes to allowing links


The Bet

As Chat listened to the rules for Scrabble, he decided this was definitely going to be an easy win. Not necessarily an easy win at Scrabble, since he'd never played before and had absolutely no idea how to take advantage of all these double letter and triple word score squares, but Marinette was absolutely going to be more embarrassed than him before the night was done.

She'd taken his challenge stubbornly, insisting that she could hold it together under her parents incorrect teasing. She was so sure he'd be humiliated into silence before she was, she'd made that the penance for losing. Whoever lost could not talk for a whole hour. Couldn't tease or defend against teasing. Oh yes, he was going to enjoy winning this one.

As soon as he'd arrived at her skylight, much earlier than usual, she'd told him to brace himself and accompanied him down to the main room. Once there her parents immediately moved from the counter where they were clearing away dinner dishes and setting up the board to greet him. Marinette's maman had reached him first, her hands either side of his face, pulling him down to her level so she could place a kiss on each of his cheeks. As he was still spiralling from her casual familiarity with him, Marinette's papa stepped in and gripped him in an enormous bear hug, which might have been painful from a man of his size, had Chat not been wearing his suit. He'd barely gotten a hello out to them before the teasing started, no mercy offered.

First of all, they'd ceased all attempts he made to call them M. Dupain and Mme Cheng, with a flick of a hand as they insisted he use their names. Sabine had implied they could be family in the not too distant future and said it was therefore unnecessary and downright silly to stay so formal. Chat's face had burned a little, which was thankfully hidden by his mask, and Marinette had rolled her eyes behind her mothers back as he reminded them that Marinette and he were just friends.

"Suuure," Tom had said with an exaggerated wink at him. Marinette had squirmed in place and blushed faintly and though she'd tried to do so discreetly, he's noticed.

"Papa..." she'd whined.

"Why Princess, you're not getting embarrassed already are you?" he'd smirked at her and delighted at the glare of determination she immediately threw at him.

"You wish Chaton."

It hadn't gotten any better from there for either of them, especially since Sabine loved to coo over their nicknames for one another, but he was surprisingly good at appearing to keep his cool despite the uncomfortable wriggling in his gut every time they alluded to something. Marinette however was looking more and more distressed as time wore on. And they hadn't even started playing yet.

So now they had settled at the table, Chat a little awkwardly as he and Marinette had no choice but to sit at a table corner each to leave room for her parents on either side of the them. The table was only really meant for three after all, but they could make it work. Tom explained to him that they would all take a letter from the bag of tiles and try and see who got the letter closest to A in the alphabet; this would decide who went first. They each took a little wooden square from the cloth bag sitting in the middle of the board and Sabine won first turn with the letter B and a soft victorious smile. He watched as she and Marinette picked out seven tiles each and discreetly hid them on their angled stands before handing the bag on to him.

As Chat took his turn choosing his tiles he started to consider if there was any way he could tease Marinette himself to make sure he won. It would mean her parents would have a field day and he'd get some of the mocking too, but he was sure he could wait till he got home to hide his face in his pillow and relive every mortifying detail against his will before he finally fell asleep tonight. Plagg would cackle and quote them while he pretended not to hear.

He passed the bag on to Tom and waited whilst Sabine studied her tiles before she started to pour them all back into the bag and select new ones.

"You're allowed to use a turn to swap tiles instead of putting down a word," she explained to him, when she spotted his confused expression, "We all usually swap our tiles on our first turn before we start, but it's up to you if you want to do the same."

"The game is over if you swap your tiles two turns in a row though," Tom added as an afterthought.

Marinette followed suit and swapped out her own tiles as well and, realising he couldn't make anything with what he had anyway, Chat chose to do the same. Tom continued the trend and as he arranged his tiles on his stand, his eyes flicked to the two teenagers with a smirk.

"Are you sure you're both comfortable like that?" he asked, referring to their positions at the corners of the counter-top, "It might be tight but I'm sure you could both fit against that side of the counter. Not that you'd really mind being so close together, I'm sure."

Marinette spluttered and his own stomach flipped but he pushed down the feeling to give her a smug look, knowing he was in the lead now after a noise like that.

She glared at him and he grinned, turning to watch as Sabine started to rearrange her new tiles, a smile lighting up her face as she did so.

"It's okay dears, you know we're just teasing," said Sabine as she placed the word PACIFY verticallyon the board, the Y (which he noted was worth four points) sitting on the central star spot to give her a double word score.

Marinette groaned. "I forgot to mention," she told him, "they like to try and relate their words to whatever they're doing or saying. She's trying to make us relax again so...pacify," she gestured at the wooden letters now staring at him on the board.

"So...it's like a pun," he said, grinning wider. This was definitely a way to play he could get behind. Marinette only groaned louder as her parents both grinned along with him.

"Oh come on Princess," he said, glancing at his tiles, "Take that bad attitude and...begone."

He placed the word AWAY on the board, using Sabine's Y before replenishing his tiles.

"I hate you all," Marinette said, grabbing a croissant to chew on as she placed the letters R, E and A beneath the first A he used to make AREA.

"You can't hate us honey," her father added, "we made all your snacks remember?" He used the R in Marinette's word to spell out BAKER across the far left of the board.

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It continued on in this way for a while, Marinette groaning each time one of them made a pun. Sabine made a reference to Chat's cat-like behaviour and placed down the word BOX while asking if he had any attachment to them like his name-sake. Marinette glared particularly badly at him as he placed all of his tiles on the board to make the word PRINCESS, with a little help from Tom rearranging the wooden pieces for him until he saw it. He grinned as she blushed at her mothers giggled comment about "sweet nicknames" again, and he managed to overlook his own embarrassment because he appeared to be winning their bet.

Marinette turned BOX into MATCHBOX and Tom placed MISFITS while telling them they were an odd couple but perfect for each other. They both flushed red at that one and Marinette whined at her father to stop. "Aye, aye Captain," Sabine snickered as she added ABOARD to the game.

Chat looked over his tiles, face still far too warm for his liking. It had become close between them again and neither one was winning anymore. He was perhaps, slightly in the lead but there was a long way to go before the evening was over and he was starting to react badly to some of the teasing comments before he could stop himself.

Trying not to dwell on it, he glared at his seven tiles as he realised he couldn't make anything from what he had. He glanced up pathetically at Tom, who took pity on him and held out his hand for the letter stand. Chat lifted it across the table, careful not to let Marinette see his letters, where the larger man studied the wooden pieces for a moment before handing them back with a defeated look.

"Looks like you need to miss a turn while you swap out you tiles," he told him apologetically.

Chat grumbled but did as suggested, arranging his new letters, G, I, F, L, two R's and Z on the stand. He glared at the board as Marinette grumbled about just wanting "the game over already" and assembled the word END.

"That's a pun! We're getting through to her!" Tom shouted, laughing and pumping his fist. His daughter grumbled in response, replenishing her tiles before dropping her chin onto her hand, pouting in a way Chat found more adorable than he wanted to admit. He glanced back at the board as Tom placed his tiles, even more determined to focus on his next move now to rid himself of that confusing thought.

"That's not a word!" Marinette started screeching at her father, "You're cheating Papa!" He looked at Tom's latest move.

"Zas?" he asked. He was pretty sure she was right; that wasn't a word.

"Read it and weep!" smirked Tom, presenting them with the Scrabble dictionary, opened to the entry for ZAS.

"Slang," he read aloud, "The shortened version of PIZZAS."

"That shouldn't count!" Marinette continued to screech beside him. His brow furrowed. It really didn't seem fair to use slang.

"It's in the dictionary, so it counts," Tom finished smugly, "That's twenty-two points because it's a double letter square." Even Sabine was glaring at him at this point.

"Have you been reading the Z's again dear?" she accused him before turning to Chat, "This is how he's so good you know. He reads the sections for the high scoring letters, like some kind of illness." She smirked suddenly as she looked at her wooden tiles. "You could almost say it's like a cancer."

She picked up her tiles as she finished speaking and placed the word MELANOMA on the board, a blank square in place of the E.

"Yes!" she said as Marinette put her face in her hands, "You see dear, we can make every word have a meaning. There's nothing that can be placed on this board that we won't turn into something funny."

Chat blanched as he heard her words. He was gawking between the board and his tiles in horror as he realised there was a truly excellent word he could play, but that he would seriously regret the consequences if he did, based on what Sabine had just announced to them all.

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He stared at the wooden letters again, hand in his hair, determined to find something different. He'd just missed his last turn to swap his tiles so he couldn't do the same again or the game would be over. There had to be something he could do. Maybe -

"You need a hand, son?" Tom asked, and suddenly Chat was very aware that all three members ogf the Dupain-Cheng family were scrutinising him closely.

"NO!" he yelled and immediately slapped his hand across his mouth to contain any further suspicious outbursts.

He watched, terrified, as Tom and Sabine shared a look which obviously conveyed something he wasn't privy to and Tom reached across Marinette to pick up his tile stand. Chat briefly considered stopping him but he knew that would be futile. He could only hope Tom somehow didn't see what he could see amongst his letters.

Tom looked at the letters for a minute or so, before he looked at the board and at that moment Chat could practically feel the revelation wash over the man. The larger man started to rearrange the letters on the stand, leaving a couple of gaps between some and pushed one off to the far side to mark it as unimportant. He smirked a little, then grinned before practically exploding in a rumbling laugh.

Chat's entire face bloomed a bright rosy colour as Tom began to place his tiles on the board for him and he buried his face in his arms on top of the tabletop when Sabine's giggled joined in with Tom's booming guffaws.

He whined audibly and risked lifting his head enough to reveal one eye, glancing up at Marinette. Despite a small dusting of pink across her cheeks, she seemed to find the whole thing more amusing than humiliating. A small smile played across her face.

She looked up from the board where her father had finally finished placing the word GIRLFRIEND, the first I intersecting with his word PRINCESS from earlier. As she glanced at him, he groaned with unease and flushed redder than he had ever thought possible.

"Well, Chaton," she said, bopping his nose with her index finger, "Looks like I win our bet."

[ ibbdotco/ gQD7DF ]


Day 6: Game Night

First of all, I want to say that this is the prompt I wanted to write the most. I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do with it and I got so excited I made graphics to go with it to help you all visualise the game. I got so impatient writing this because I wanted to get to the punch line already!

Okay, I know they're French and so they should be playing Scrabble in French and none of these words should intersect this way as a result. But I don't speak a word of French so I can't really do much about it this one time (I usually research French stuff or reference that everything is happening in French despite it being written in English, but this one was just...far too complicated for that.

Also, you have no idea the level of research that went into the rest of this. I do not play Scrabble. At all. I had to read the rules and check what letters a good player would be aiming to use, how many tiles you get etc... Then I had to find an image of a board and place the words on to make sure it was possible to fit them all on the way I wanted and try and relate the words I picked to puns of some kind... All while making sure they took turns in the correct order.

PS. Yes, that really is an accepted word in the Scrabble dictionary and yes, that is really what it means.