Well, here is the next one. A little humorous, I guess. Tell me what you think! Hope you enjoy it!

NOTICE: I changed out the Regal and Genis cooking for one of the oneshots I had planned for later ("They are each other's shield"). And that one will be replaced with something different entirely. Sorry if you were looking forward to the Regal and Genis bonding.

Disclaimer: I still don't own ToS. It's tragic, I know.

Title: Gambling

Character(s): Lloyd, Zelos, Raine

Pairing: None

Summary: There's nothing wrong with healthy competition between friends, right?

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Raine shook her head at the boys in front of her. They had to make everything into a competition. She never understood why. Maybe something to do with the alpha male status, she guessed. She'd have to check into it later.

"Beat that!" Lloyd challenged, smacking down his two cards with an unneeded flourish.

"I think I will!" Zelos waved his three in front of Lloyd's face. "21, baby!" Ah, blackjack. Lloyd's discovery at Regal's casino.

Lloyd growled. "Dammit, Zelos! I thought I was going to win, too. I had 20!"

Zelos laughed as he collected his winnings (it was only candy, but he wasn't complaining). "Maybe next time, bud."

Lloyd frantically looked around his side of the table. There was no more candy. "Shit." He glanced back and forth between his own empty spot to Zelos' candy filled area before declaring, "New game!"

Zelos raised an amused eyebrow at his friend. "Sorry to say, Lloyd, but you're out of candy."

"No," Lloyd crossed his arms, "If I win, you give me half of your winnings. If I lose..." he drifted off. He hadn't thought of that part.

"If you lose, you have to," Zelos' eyes roamed the room and when they landed on his fellow Chosen he snickered, "take Colette on a date."

Lloyd's face flushed and he blubbered, "A-a date?"

"Hey," he shrugged with a smirk, "I'm a romantic. Indulge me." As he saw Lloyd's eyes narrow threateningly he chuckled and said, "Oh, come on, Lloyd," he puffed out his chest mockingly, "be a man!"

Raine just shook her head again. This wasn't going to end well...

...And it didn't.

"I hope you learned something from this, boys," she tapped her foot on the ground. She looked between the two of them disappointingly. Lloyd, his hair free from his hair ties and his torn jacket in his hands, nodded. Zelos nodded as well, the white headband knotted in his normally neat hair. She almost laughed when she noticed he was without a shoe. Almost. That was until she flicked her eyes to the wreckage around the room. Tables and chairs were overturned, one chair was destroyed completely. Shattered beer bottles littered the floor and a few spatters of blood could be found on the wood. She was glad that the blood wasn't theirs, but that didn't make the situation any more tasteful.

"Good," she replied, "now what did you learn?"

"Never throw the first punch?" Lloyd offered sheepishly.

"Cheating is bad," Zelos suggested.

"No!" Raine scolded. "Gambling is bad."

"The bar fight wouldn't have happened if that guy didn't cheat, though," he winced when he tried to pull his headband from his hair,"so honest gambling is fine!"

Raine pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. These two were impossible. "Zelos, gambling is not in any way honest."

"Hey, if that idiot hadn't cheated then Lloyd wouldn't have had to hit him," Zelos shrugged.

"But if you wouldn't have gambled in the first place then that man wouldn't have needed to cheat," she argued impatiently. She crossed her arms and scowled at the Chosen.

Zelos waved his hand around. "The chicken and the egg, Raine. We don't know which came first. We-"

"-Just," she forcefully cut him off then sighed, "forget it. Clean this mess up so we can leave."

When she turned her back to the two men to exit out the door, she was tempted to throw the heaviest book she owned at them. Instead, she shook her head forlornly and tried to ignore the coming headache that was forming from their comment.

"First one to finish cleaning doesn't have to do chores!"

Everything, everything had to be a competition, didn't it? She never thought she'd sigh so many times in one day. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered with those two. They were definitely a handful, that was for sure.

Well, thank you so much for reading! Please review, please with chocolate covered cherries and star shaped sprinkles on top :)