tamingthemuse | Prompt 27: The Game is Afoot PG

Title: The Game is Afoot
Author: SunnyD_lite
Fandom: Angel the Series
Prompt: Hamartia (defined at the end)
Warnings: None
Rating: PG – Spike language
Set: Non-canon, season 5 or after
Word Count: 517
Summary: A moment in time. Disclaimers at the end of the story. Huge hugs to

bigsciencybrain,

enigmaticblue and

cordelianne for hand holding and line proofing. Thank you all!!

Spike surveyed the ground of battle then quickly checked his resources. With a sly smile he unleashed his attack.

"H.A.M., using your high scoring 3 point ART, then I.A for a total of 13. Oh lookie, a triple word score! That's 39."

"That's not a word."

"Is so."

"Is not."

"Is so."

"Is not and I can't believe we're wasting time arguing about this."

"Wasting time? We're stuck in a shipping container full of bleeding board games—what should we be doing? Oh, I'm sorry, was Scrabble too intellectual for you? I think I saw Trouble back there."

"The only trouble I see is—"

Spike just turned around and raised an eyebrow toward Angel. "That's your witty comeback? I mean even Andrew got off better zingers, occasionally anyway."

"If it's a word, use it in a sentence."

"It's from Aristotle's Poetics, but you never read Classics did you?"

"Reading Classics? This is coming from you? At one point all I had to do to needle you was mention Oxford."

Spike spun on his heel and leveled a third degree glare at that comment. "Bloody HELL! I'm a vampire with a soul. If I beat the First messing with my brain and made peace with my evil past, you think my schooling going to drive me batty?"

"No, I think you're stalling on a sentence because it isn't a word."

"Keep your shirt on… or there's a thought, we could be playing strip Scrabble."

….

"Oh that look was bloody worth being stuck here with you for the last twelve hours!"

"And you're stalling again. I bet you can't cuz it's not a word."

"Cuz? Are you trying to be cool? It's not a good look on you." He sighed then, hands clasped behind his back, he began to pace through the little free space in the center of the container. "As I was saying, Aristotle's Poetics uses Hamartia to describe a hero's fatal flaw, the stumbling block that prevented his success, oh for instance, keeping secrets from his team. It's derived from a word meaning missing the target, usually used in context of soldiers. Of course, later English criticism theory appropriated the term to mean tragic character flaw, Macbeth's ambition is a commonly cited example, and why the hell are you looking at me like that?"

"I met William the Bloody, and was forcibly introduced to Spike, and heard about your sanity challenged Spike –not that anyone would notice much of a change there, but where did University Don come from? Should I find you another pair of glasses?"

"I was wrong, Trouble is too strategic for you, maybe there's a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos in here. Something to wile away the time until we're rescued. We are going to be rescued, aren't we? I mean it's not like I got the briefing memo, but you had a plan, right?"

…

"That however, is a look I really didn't want to see. We're in a storage container, locked on the outside mind you, on a train through the desert, AND YOU DON'T HAVE A PLAN?"

-fin-

Disclaimers: I continue not to own Spike or Angel, they were created by Joss and owned by various corporations. Nor do I own Scrabble, Trouble, or Hungry Hungry Hippos. See that summer of babysitting Dawn taught Spike all sorts of nifty things!

The Prompt: Although Spike did try to give the definition, a fuller description can be found HERE