"Hey, fowl owl," the eel hissed, pointing a webbed finger at the reduced pile. "That was part of the pot. What are you gonna put in to even it back out?"
Andras looked up lazily from Zac, cocking his head to the side like a bird examining a worm. "Oh, yes. How about this: shut the fuck up and show your cards or I'll kill you."
The eel looked nervous, swallowing hard.
Andras hooted a laugh and unbuckled his scabbard, slamming his cutlass onto the table with a heavy thud. "You're right. It wouldn't be fair to not match your bet."
The eel-man looked a bit pissed, but he grumbled, eyeing the fine steel. "That's more like it."
The owl and the eel stared each other down, cards held tight, the air crackling with tension. The other scallywags and rogues watching went silent, sensing blood in the water. Zac, however, felt a bit bored. Without any sense of fear, the tension fell flat. He just waited to see the owl-man put down a royal flush and win the dream scenario.
"Read 'em and weep," the eel-man laughed, slamming his cards down. "Full house. That little human is gonna hate you for dragging him into this." He stood over the table, leering at Zac. "Gonna drain him till he begs me to stop, and then I'm gonna fuck 'em."
"Pshh," Zac laughed, rolling his eyes. "I doubt you'd get me off unless you fucked me and we both had blindfolds on."
The eel looked furious, but then an evil grin split his toothy face. He snapped his fingers, and a blue spark arced between his webbed digits. "Ever heard of e-stim? Because your prostate is gonna get to know it real well."
Zac swallowed hard. "Oh fuck."
Andras laughed, a low, confident sound. "Well, too bad. You lose." He fanned his cards out on the table with a flourish. "Guess I'm gonna be milking this bitch the old-fashioned way."
"Yeah!" Zac pumped his fist. "Suck it, loser! Now give us the gold so we can spread it out on the bed and screw on it!" He looked up at Andras, eyes shining. "You're so fucking hot and cool. I bet you shave with a bowie knife."
The eel-man stared at the table for a second, then burst into wet, coughing laughter. "What the fuck, Andras? I had a full house!"
Zac and Andras both looked down at the cards the owl had spread out.
It was just two pairs.
Andras quietly hissed, "Shit. I palmed the wrong one."
"That soft pink hole is mine now!" the eel jeered, starting to walk around the table, unbuckling his belt. "Hey boys, gather up the goods. I'll be back in an hour. Don't think it will take much longer to make this soft thing forget his name and beg for my silver eel." He grabbed his crotch lewdly, thrusting his hips.
Zac looked around in panic. "What?! What the fuck?!"
The eel's anthropomorphic fishy crew began to gather the pile of winnings, cackling and slapping each other on the back. Zac looked up at Andras, expecting a plan, a trick, a hidden ace... anything. But the owl just looked annoyed.
"Well," Andras said, reaching for his cigarillo. "Can't win 'em all."
"Really?" Zac squeaked.
Andras looked down, smoke curling from his beak. "Oh. Do you want me to save you or something?"
Zac grabbed the owl's coat lapels, shaking him. "I want you to fuck me, you idiot! Not some random dream douche!"
"Hey!" the eel shouted. "I can hear you, asshole!"
Andras sighed, a long, weary sound. "Do you really? You seem like you'd let anyone rail you. So desperate."
Zac clenched his fists and yelled in frustration. He grabbed Andras's sword off the table and pointed it shakily at the eel. "I'm not your prize! There is no way I'm wasting this dream getting toothy head from some rando who thinks electrocuting my prostate would be enjoyable! I'm not a cow!"
The eel looked down at Zac with a mixture of amusement and anger. He easily backhanded Zac, the blow knocking the human to the floor with a thud.
"Ow! You bitch, you got me with your nails!" Zac groaned, rubbing his cheek.
"Hey, fish-face." Andras rose from his chair, his voice low. "No need to rough him up. It's not like he can defend himself."
The eel crossed his arms, smirking. "So what? I'm gonna be pinning him down and fertilizing him in a few minutes. He's gonna get a few bruises anyways."
Andras's feathers ruffled indignantly. "I was talking about my sword." He reached down and plucked the cutlass from Zac's limp hand.
Zac sighed into the floorboards. "He's such an asshole. I hate that it makes him even hotter in a rougy-asshole sort of way."
The eel laughed. "Fine. You can have it back. I didn't want that rusty piece of junk anyways. Too boring for a real pirate."
The eel reached down to grab Zac when a few cards fluttered out of his sleeve and landed on the floorboards.
Zac, Andras, and the eel all looked down at the dropped cards. A flush, a straight, and an extra ace.
The eel looked back up at Andras, sweat beading on his slimy forehead. "Uhh... how'd those get in there?"
Andras's feathers puffed out, doubling his size, and the shadows in the room grew noticeably darker. "You try and cheat me?"
"Hey, you did the same thing, buddy!" the eel held his hands up defensively.
"But I didn't win," Andras hissed.
A couple of the eel's crew came over—a scallop-man and a sunfish-man. Zac didn't know if this was serious; an anthropomorphic scallop was just way too stupid to be real. It was literally a shell with legs.
"So," Andras continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I'll be nice. You can keep the gold. But the human is mine."
"Fat chance of that," the eel-man sneered, seemingly more confident with his goofy crew behind him. "I won, not fair but square, and the human was only part of it because you-"
SHINK.
The eel's head slid off his neck and hit the floor with a wet thud.
Andras reached down and picked up the disembodied head by its slick hair. "Cheat me again and I'll turn you into a quadrapus."
"I think killing him is worse," Zac said, pushing himself up and dusting off his maid outfit. "But then again, I've died before. It could be worse."
The scallop and the sunfish gurgled in outrage. The sunfish-man pulled out a strangely spinal-cord-looking whip, while the scallop-man clicked his shell aggressively, looking like a demonic pair of castanets.
Andras looked exasperated. "Really?"
The two fishy fighters attacked. Andras casually threw the decapitated head at the sunfish, hitting it square in the face with a wet smack. As the scallop charged, Andras used his sword to stiff-arm its shell, holding the flailing mollusk at bay.
"Bastard!" the sunfish yelled, trying to wipe the electric eel's blood from his eyes. He cracked his bone whip, aiming for Andras's head. Andras quickly pulled back his sword, causing the scallop to fall forward.
CRACK.
The bone whip struck the shell with the sound of a gunshot. Andras smoothly spun around and shoved the off-balance shellfish backward, right into his partner.
The sunfish yelled as the large scallop shell fell onto him with a sickening crunch.
Andras looked down at the pathetic pile of seafood. "I don't have time for small fry."
The scallop-man kicked his legs, howling from beneath his shell. "I'm gonna filter feed you to death!"
Andras sighed in disgust. With a quick, downward chop, he severed the flailing legs.
Zac winced. "That looked a bit painful."
Andras turned back to Zac, lighting his smoke as the two defeated and now quite disabled pirates cried in agony. "Once their captain died, I thought they would have been wise enough to scram. I can't abhor such stupidity."