Summary: Companion piece to MysticSpiritus' "Sephiroth's Honor" and "Honorable Mentions" and AmazonTurk's "Caged Canary." Also my own "Ball and Chain". Three fathers-to-be discussing fatherhood and their spouse/fiances' pregnancies over drinks and cards.
Disclaimer: Mystic owns Gwen and this AU, Amazon owns Kandi, I own Akalara, and Square Enix owns Seph and Kuja and Rude. I ain't gettin' paid for this, even though it would be kickass if I was. I don't even own the AMV I'm listening to/watching ("Advent Children - Within Temptation - It's the Fear").
Queen's Quornor: Since my dear friend Mystic sent in the 100th review for "Seed" she gets a oneshot. She requested that I do something with Zack, Seph, and Kuja sitting around discussing their significant others' pregnancies and their own impending fatherhood. I haven't played FFIX before, or had all that much to do with Kuja, so forgive me for any indiscrepancies involving his personality or mannerisms. I only know what Amazon and Mystic have written about, and what I have read in "Final Fantasy Online" (absolutely hilarious fic, btw). But, I shall try my best! Also, I have never played poker. I do, however, have a good deal of experience with rummy. That's how I spend half of my time with the grandparents, just playing cards. So, that's the game they're getting here. And Reverend Masters is based off one of my favorite comic characters, the Rev. Will B. Dunn from Kudzu. If you want a good idea of what he's like, go read the strip!
Gin and Rummy
There comes a time in every man's life when he desperately needs some time to himself. This is especially true when the woman in his life is spending most of her time demanding that he bring things to her and fulfill her every request. It is forgivable when these demands are prompted by discomfort and sheer need, but a man can only take so much before he has to get away.
Thus, it is understandable why Sephiroth, Zack, and Kuja were holed up in one of the private rooms in Starstruck, one of the casino/nightclubs a few miles away from the Shrine. With Akalara in her fourth month, Gwen beginning on her second, and Kandi ten weeks along, their loving husband/fiances were in need of a little guy-time. With permission granted by the women in question, they had been given leave to go out and have fun for the rest of the night, so long as they were back in the Shrine before sunrise and didn't make too much noise when they got back in.
Since Kuja had never played poker before, Zack and Sephiroth had decided to go easy on him by playing a comparatively easy card game: rummy. Drinking, of course, was going to be fully indulged before the night was over. They already had a decent start on that; together, they had polished off a full bottle of gin in the first ten minutes since they had claimed this room.
"Three cowboys." Zack laid down a trio of kings from his hand, then discarded the deuce of hearts.
"Thanks, Zack!" Sephiroth snatched up the deuce and laid it down with the three, four, and five of hearts before discarding the queen of spades.
Kuja frowned at his cards and drew from the deck, then reached out with a card and tapped Sephiroth's laydown. "Ace on you," he proclaimed, laying the card down in front of him. Then he discarded the king of clubs.
The two SOLDIERs slapped their hands down on the king, Sephiroth's reaching it a split-second before Zack's. With a victorious smirk, the silver-haired man claimed the card and lay it down in front of himself. "Did you forget, Kuja? If there's a laydown that a card can be played on, and the person holding it throws it away, it can be claimed by anybody who spots it, if they get to it before the next person discards."
"Sorry. I am afraid I just forgot." Kuja sighed, looking down at his hand.
"What's wrong, man?" Zack asked, drawing another card from the deck.
"I'm just worried about Kandi."
Sephiroth and Zack exchanged looks. "Kuja, there's nobody in the Shrine who would want to hurt her now. Rude's gone, and if anything goes wrong help's only a few feet away," the silver-haired man reassured, watching Zack play the six of diamonds on Kuja's trio of sixes.
"I still can't help worrying, though." Kuja reached out and took a drink of gin. "I almost lost her once; I couldn't live with myself if something happened to her now. Her or the baby."
"I know how you feel. If anything was to happen to Gwen..." Sephiroth frowned and picked up a card.
"Blood would be spilled, if anybody hurt Ak or the baby." Zack drained his glass and reached for the bottle. "I don't care what Father Vapone would say about unnecessary murder. I lose her and the sonovabitch responsible for it dies. Plain and simple."
"I think most everybody would feel like that, be it Gwen, Kandi, or Akalara." Sephiroth contemplated his cards and discarded the ten of hearts. "They're Guardians, they're friends, and they're pregnant. Of course people would be out for blood if they got hurt or killed. I think we more than proved that when Kandi was attacked."
Kuja went deep, picking up six cards in the discard pile to get at the nine of hearts and its accompanying ten. They were laid down with the jack of the same suite. "It still worries me. What if the doctors were wrong, and the placenta comes loose again? What if they can't get her to surgery fast enough? What if she falls down some stairs or something? What if..."
"Kuja, just don't worry about it! God will look after her; Rhianna won't let Him forget." Zack took another drink of gin and drew from the deck. "Everything's going to be all right. We'll have three little brats running around wreaking havoc soon enough."
Sephiroth smiled. "At least I'm assured of what my baby's going to be. Unless there was one hell of a mistranslation in that scroll, Gwen and I will be sacrificing sleep in favor of a daughter in about seven months."
"Ak and I are having a son." Zack smiled as he laid down two aces and a joker. "We're naming him Zack Jr."
Kuja gave him a curious look. "How are you so certain? It's too early in her pregnancy for the baby's sex to have been confirmed yet."
"Because there's no way a SOLDIER such as myself could have sired a girl, that's how!" the black-haired man exclaimed, throwing away the seven of spades and taking another swig of gin.
"Oh really?" Sephiroth arched one silver brow in amusement. "Then how do you explain my daughter, hmm?"
Kuja smirked and drained his glass. "Yes, do explain, Zack. I am curious to hear of this as well."
Zack flushed, realizing his mistake. "Well, you would be having a son as well, Seph, if the baby hadn't been altered in the Lifestream. When you and Gwen were resurrected, the baby she already carried was swapped out for the Final Guardian, which happens to be female!"
Sephiroth snorted and picked up the seven, laying it down with the eight and nine of spades. "Nice try, Zack. Our resurrection had nothing to do with the baby's gender. She was a girl from conception. I commend you for your efforts, though." He reached out and tapped Zack's aces with the last remaining ace. "Ace on you."
Kuja smirked and drew from the deck after the general discarded. "Kandi and I will take whatever we are given. I truly do not mind if the baby is male or female, so long as it survives the pregnancy."
"By the way, Kuja. When exactly are you and Kandi planning on getting hitched?" Zack asked, refilling the silver wizard's glass.
"Sometime in February. We haven't finalized the date, yet." He glanced slyly at the SOLDIER as he threw away the five of clubs. "What about you? If you don't act soon, Akalara's going to have that baby before she gets her wedding band."
Zack scowled. "She's due in May, so we've got time. But we are making plans."
"So when is the wedding supposed to be?" Sephiroth asked, sipping his gin.
"We're also looking at February. As for where, we don't want anything major. Just a small ceremony in my hometown, to satisfy the folks. They've been worrying that I'd never settle down for years." Zack drew a card and laid down five cards: the three, four, five, and seven of diamonds, with the second joker replacing the six. That done, he settled back in his chair, his hands empty. "I'm floatin'."
"What, did they not believe that you actually found somebody, even if she did get pregnant before you asked her?" Kuja asked, taking a drink of gin.
"Oh, they've met Akalara, and they like her. It's just that they don't think I'll actually go through with it."
"So you're getting married in Gongaga just to prove to your parents that you won't leave your fiance stranded at the alter?" Sephiroth asked, frowning down at his hand and discarding the jack of hearts.
"Actually, Ak's the one who suggested it. I wanted to get married here at the Shrine." The black-haired man finished off the gin and retrieved another bottle from the bar behind them. Starstruck provided fully-stocked bars in each of their private rooms; usage of the bar came with the initial fee. "What clinched the decision was that there's two religious dudes in Gongaga. There's Father Sebastian, and he takes care of all the Catholics in town. He's my family's priest, in fact. The other guy is Reverend Masters; he's the man that tends to the religious needs of pretty much everybody else. Since Ak's not into organized religion, we're going to have him oversee the ceremony." Zack laughed. "You'd like Masters, Seph. He's a really crazy guy, but totally believable when it comes to God. When he hears people bashing somebody from other religions, or something like that, he beats them with his cane while shouting Bible verses at them about 'love thy neighbor' and the like."
The silver brow raised once more. "Well. That's certainly one way of getting the point across."
Kuja laid down the eight and nine of diamonds, then discarded the three of clubs. "What are you doing for the honeymoon? Kandi and I are contemplating either Costa del Sol or Wutai, with Lady Rhianna's permission."
Sephiroth refilled his glass, watching his second-in-command draw from the deck with anxious peridot eyes. He still had a full hand of cards. "Gwen and I spent our honeymoon in Costa del Sol. It was...memorable, to say the least."
"More than that, from what I hear. Gwen told Ak and Kandi everything when you two lovebirds got back." Zack tapped his card on Kuja's nine and laid it down, then leaned back once more. "We're actually thinking about spending a week somewhere in Division One. Japan, maybe, or the Yucatan Peninsula. Rhianna's helping us figure out where."
Sephiroth chewed his lip, looking at his cards and the one he had just drawn. "You know that you both would stick out like a sore thumb, right? It's not like here at the Shrine; most people from the original Earth don't look like people from our world."
Zack waved his hand, watching Kuja lay down a trio of queens and discard the ten of hearts. "Disguise materia will take care of the problem, should need arise. But we shouldn't need it; there are a lot of weird-looking people there. If we just say her hair's dyed, our eyes are contacts, and I use a ton of gel every morning, we should be fine." He reached for the deck, examining the card he drew. Kuja and Sephiroth both held their breath, anxiously watching the SOLDIER's face for clues as to his intent. Zack twiddled the card between his fingers, a teasing smirk on his handsome face, then tossed it into the discard pile. "I'm out."
Grumbling, Kuja and Sephiroth began counting their cards, matching the cards in their hands with the cards they had laid down and figuring out how many points they had left. Zack merely counted his cards. Once they had finished, the silver-haired general reached for the scorepad. "How many points did you get?"
"210," Zack answered with a smirk.
"90," Kuja replied, pushing his cards into the center of the table. "What about you?"
Sephiroth reddened slightly, writing down the numbers under their names and adding them to the previous scores. "35," he muttered. "But only because you caught me with a full hand, Zack!"
"And you caught both of us in the second round when you laid down both jokers, two aces, and the entire house of spades on your first turn after Kuja dealt!" Zack gestured towards the scorepad. "So how do we stand thus far?"
"I'm still in first with 695 points, and you're in second with 670. Kuja's got 485 points."
"Still got a ways to go until one of us hits a thousand," Zack noted, reaching for the deck and shuffling it. "So has Gwen started in with morning sickness yet, Seph?"
"A little. She learned from Akalara's misfortune." The general wet his lips on more gin. "What's getting to me are her late-night cravings. Gwen asks for the oddest foods I've ever heard of, hands-down."
"Such as...?" Kuja asked, refilling his glass once more.
"Well, last night's request was barbecued ribs, Texas-style, with shitaki mushrooms and pistachio ice cream topped with pickles."
The other two cringed. "Dude, that's sick!" Zack said, making a face. "Ak gets sick a lot, but at least she only asks for normal stuff. I don't think I could stay in the room if she wanted that."
"Kandi hasn't asked for anything thus far. Whatever she's been craving, she's made herself."
"I only get sent out into the cold when it's too late for Ak to cook, or she can't make what she's craving." Zack smiled, beginning to deal the cards. "My lovely fiance's a damn good cook, so I can't complain about most of what she makes. She shares it with me!"
"So that's why you've been spending so much extra time in the gym," Sephiroth murmured with a smile, accepting his cards. "She's fattening you up."
Zack shrugged and put the deck down in the middle of the table, laying the topmost card beside it, face-up. "Ak loves my muscles. I love her food. She likes me hot and sweaty. I like her liking me hot and sweaty. It's a pretty sweet arrangement, on the whole."
"There is one thing to lament," Kuja stated, examining his cards. "In a few short months, none of us will be able to continue the sexual marathons we currently enjoy. We will be confined either to celibacy or the mercy of our hands for a month or two, and then unable to indulge out of sheer exhaustion. The children will take up all of our energy."
Sephiroth and Zack nodded, almost mournfully. "I do not believe we need to fear, however. Our women enjoy sex as much as we do; sooner or later, they will become as anxious for sex as we, and find a way to resume our previous intimacies," the general pointed out, drawing from the deck. He frowned, then discarded the six of spades.
Kuja snatched up that card and its predecessor, the king of diamonds. "I fully expect Kandi to ambush me about three months after the birth of our child. She won't be able to last any longer than that without sex," he said, laying out the king, ace, and queen. He then put the six right back where Sephiroth had laid it.
"Knowing Akalara, she's going to come up to my office or something wearing a trench-coat with nothing but a garter-belt and thigh-highs underneath it. She's wild enough to try it." Zack's trademark lopsided grin flashed. "Not that I'm complaining, that is."
"Gwen just might tackle me. She has turned into quite the little nympho since I wed her," Sephiroth watched Zack lay down all three aces and two queens with a joker. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say that you were dealing from the bottom of the deck, Zack."
"You watched me shuffle and deal, man. This is just luck of the draw." Zack threw away the jack of clubs.
"I pray that Lady Luck will fly to one of us before the night is over. We have quite a bit of money riding on this game, after all," Kuja said. He took a drink of gin and dug out his wallet. "Shall we up the bet?"
Zack and Sephiroth grinned at each other, the competitive spark flaring in their glowing eyes. "Loser has to take the three women out to dinner. All at the same time."
The Silver Wizard paled. "You cannot be serious! My canary, your goddess, and your warrior, all together and hormonal at the same time in the same room? They would tear each other apart and then burn the restaraunt!"
"Afraid, Kuja?" Sephiroth taunted, laying down three sevens.
"It is not myself for whom I fear. Rather, I fear for our ladies and their keeper."
Zack smirked and raised his gin in a toast. "Well, just make sure you don't lose, then!"