Thanks to my beta reader Lorenquille to whom this is dedicated

A Tale of Two Posse's

Yami slumped back in his chair as he desperately fought to find a way out of this terrible predicament, Tristan's hadn't moved for 10 minutes and Kaiba and Merik were about 3 seconds away from killing each other. He knew that if he didn't do something soon he would have to resort to drastic measures and the thought of that made his stomach turn. Finally he gave into the inevitable and threw down his cards.

"That's it, i give in!!"

The sound of Yami's raised voice stopped Kaiba and Merik in their tracks.

"I can't take this anymore!!"

Kaiba had seen that look in Yami's eyes before, he knew fine well that Yami was about to go into a fully fledged rant and right on schedule Yami stared Kaiba and Merik back down into their seats and lost control.

"I simply cannot believe that this is happening, we've been playing this game now for 3 hours and still you don't understand. Kaiba, I've told you before you cannot equip a 7 of diamonds with an ace, and Merik nowhere in the rules does it say that the Queen of Hearts may be summoned in attack mode! Furthermore the fact that this game is called Poker does not mean that you can torment Tea every time we complete a hand, i mean look at what you've done to her!"

All three of them turned to look at Tea who was hunched in a chair nursing rather a large amount of finger sized bruises down the length of her right arm. Kaiba and Merik's heads snapped back to face Yami as his rant entered round 2.

"When i agreed to come round and teach you all how to play this i didn't expect to end up with 2 demented idiots, a woman who is beginning to scare me with that weird humming noise, and Tristan desperately trying to stare down a goldfish!"

Tristan decided that this was a good point to leap to his own defence.

"I know i can beat him Yami, I've been practicing with my bird."

This was one of those points where for about 5 seconds everything seemed to make sense until realization dawned on everyone. It was just a matter of time until someone said what they were all thinking, as it happens it was Kaiba who spoke first.

"But Tristan, you don't have a bird"

"Yes i do, it's in the living room of my house. You know, the one on the sideboard that you guys call Pegasus"

For exactly 1 minute and 24 seconds there was complete silence as everyone replayed the last sentence in their minds. Even the strange humming coming from the chair fell silent. Nobody knew what to say, so Merik said all that he could.

"Tristan, how in the name of Ra do you stare down a stuffed owl?"

To Tristan this seemed like a perfectly simple question.

"It's really easy, all you do is sit right in front of it and........."

Tristan's face turned a very pale variety of white as what was said hit him like a sledgehammer. His world suddenly seemed a very small and lonely place and with a tear in his eye he finally plucked up the courage to speak.

"What do you mean, stuffed?"

In the confusing moments that followed no-one noticed that a miraculous event had occured, Tristan had won the staring contest.

Meanwhile, at Devlin's game shop.

"So i said to him, `i don't care how many fish fell out, i'm still not using the mashed potato`"

Duke put down his glass and nodded appreciatively at Mai.

"I have to hand it to you Mai, that is one of the weirdest stories i've ever heard but the fact it's true makes it very disturbing"

Just then there was a rather tentative knock at the door just before Joey's voice called through the keyhole.

"Ok you guys, if anyone laughs then i swear i'm going home"

"It's alright Joey we won't laugh, we promise", said Serenity.

The door opened and Joey walked in with his head hunched and his hands covering his face. Mai, Duke and Serenity all stopped what they were doing and waited with baited breath for Joey to reveal his face. Slower than an arthritic centipede Joey took his hands away, and the sound of stifled laughter was deafening.

"Hey!, you guys promised"

"We're not laughing Wheeler, we're snickering", said Duke.

Joey walked over to the kitchen and stared into the bottom of a pan. His face was really perfectly normal, that is if you're a 20 year old woman on a night out. Mai pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen then walked over to Joey and began to tick off the list.

"Mascara check, Blusher check, Eye-liner check, Lipstick check ,and may i say very well applied, and last but not least Eye-shadow check"

The tension fell out of Joey's shoulders in an instant.

"So i pass then?"

"You sure do sister, i mean brother"

"That's what you get for making stupid bets Wheeler", laughed Duke

Joey was far too busy washing the make-up off to hear anyone laughing. After a few minutes he appeared back in the living room wiping his face with a towel.

"You just got lucky Devlin, i was 3 bars away from winning that one"

"Luck has nothing to do with it Wheeler, my gerbil has never made it from one end to the other in one go"

Serenity, who was in the corner stroking and feeding the gerbil decided to venture a question.

"Duke, why does your gerbil monkey swing from one end of his cage to the other?"

Mai's face froze with anticipation of Duke's answer. She hoped that he wouldn't tell the entire story and, as luck was smiling on her at the time, he didn't.

"Well Serenity it happened just a few weeks ago. Bakura, Merik Tristan and I were all here playing Duel Monsters over a large amount of alcohol and, well to cut a long story short, Bakura convinced us to go bowling"

Serenity looked decidedly confused.

"What's bowling got to do with it?"

Again Duke opted for the shortened version.

"It's got plenty to do with it when the bowling involves 10 empty wine bottles, a clear perspex ball and a rather unwilling rodent"

Mai decided that she had rode her luck enough and decided to change the subject.

"Hey everyone, you'll never guess what i saw Tristan doing in his living room yesterday"

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---Disclaimer---

The joke about bowling is simply that, a joke. Please do not attempt this or anything similar as it is simply meant for comedy and nothing else, thankyou.