The Triumph of Alligator Blood
By: DangerMouse
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This was a bad idea, Brooklyn thought moodily, staring at the stoic face across from him. The Great Hall in the castle was near silent, the only sound coming from Hudson, sitting in his favorite easy chair, flipping through the pages of a large book Elisa had given him as a present. Lexington, sitting to Brooklyn's right, let out a loud sigh.
"Just do it already!" the smaller gargoyle said, shifting restlessly in his chair. "We don't want to sit around here all night!"
"I'm thinking," Brooklyn growled, glaring white-eyed at his rookery brother. Lex opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Broadway and Angela, walking into the hall from the kitchen, the large gargoyle weighed down with food. As the two made their way to where their clanmates were gathered, Broadway glanced at Brooklyn, raising an eye-ridge in amusement.
"He's still sitting there?" he asked Lexington.
"Still sitting there," Lexington confirmed with a nod.
"Will you two please shut up?" Brooklyn nearly shouted. Angela cringed and went over to sit by Hudson.
"He's so worked up about this," she said to the older gargoyle, sitting on the couch next to him. Hudson looked up his book and shifted his vision over to the Trio, Broadway having dropped down in a chair at Brooklyn's left.
"Aye, I told 'im not ta' agree ta' it," Hudson replied. Brooklyn twisted around in his chair, scowling.
"Could you two keep it down?" he cried. "I'm trying to concentrate over here!"
"Not something he does often," Broadway quipped, then shrank under the look the red gargoyle gave him. Lexington lifted up his hands to massage his temples with his talons.
"Just make a decision and finish this!" Lex said, a pained expression on his face. "We would like to move on!"
"Fine!" Brooklyn shouted. He looked back at the stony expression across the table, studying it. Finally, he let out a rather undignified snarl and tossed the cards he was holding down on the table. "Fold!" he yelled. "Happy now?"
Across the table, Owen casually put his cards face down, then reached out with his good hand to sweep the large pile of poker chips towards himself, straightening them into neat columns. Without hesitation, Brooklyn reached across the table, snatching away Owen's cards.
"I don't believe this!" he cried, giving a low moan as he looked at the cards. "A pair of sixes!" Brooklyn waved the cards around in a frustrated circle. "He bluffed me on a pair of sixes! I had three of a kind!" Somewhere behind him, Hudson was chuckling.
"My deal, is it?" Owen asked, taking the cards back from Brooklyn, shuffling them into the pile with ease, one-handed. "Seven card stud, aces high, no wilds. You in?" he asked Brooklyn, who currently had his head buried in his arms and was making very pitiful noises.
"Never play cards with Owen, lassie," Hudson told Angela, opening his book to where he'd left off. "Best poker face in the world." Angela nodded sagely, sitting back on the couch to watch as Owen skillfully dealt out the cards, a tiny smile briefly touching the corner of his lips.
~The End~
A/N: In case you were wondering...Alligator Blood: A compliment given to an outstanding player who proves himself unflappable under great pressure.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!
