ph_logs | Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground (Mingle)

Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground (Mingle)

CHARACTERS: Hawkeye and the Veteran’s Poker Club
DATE: March
LOCATION: Hawkeye’s clinic
SITUATION: Poker game (for veterans)
WARNINGS: Presumably discussion of conflict and ptsd

You need one more drop of poison and you'll dream of foreign lands

A notice goes up on the board, and Hawkeye sets up the clinic for the occasion. Obviously he’s not moving all his medical supplies out- at the back of his mind is always the possibility that something could happen that demands he put his doctor hat on again. Not choppers, but something.

But he sets up a table and chairs in the middle of the main room, with a stack of cards and some ‘chips’ (acorns, he went out and gathered some acorns, which he’s painted different colours). There’s a flask of his homemade gin, some finger food from the Oak and Iron, and he got a box of cigars for the occasion. Feels just like the conferences from home, only without sandwiches that move and Frank. So, y’know, infinitely better.

Prior to starting, while Hawkeye’s setting up, he’ll engage in some small talk with anyone who shows up early- which, they’ll all be military, it will probably be all of them.
“Ever played poker?”

Or

“Can I get you a drink?”

Or

“Can you grab that tray of implements for me?”

At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we'll kneel and say a prayer

When everyone who’s arriving arrives, Hawk sets himself at the table, one of his surgical lights over top of the table to set the mood.

“Alright- this is poker, it’s a little game we like to play back on earth, because we like losing money. I’m gonna teach you five card draw, just to get us started. I’m going to deal each of you five cards. What you’re looking for is to have the highest hand at the end of the round, then you take the pot. Easy. Hands are ranked by how hard they are to do- if you get numbered cards in order and they’re all the same suit, that’s a straight flush. Then we go four of a kind, which is just that- four of the same number. Full house is if you have three of the same number and a pair of a different numbers in the same hand. Flush is if you have all your cards in the same suit. Then straight, which is by number order but not the same suit, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and then if you have absolutely nothing we score it by your highest card.”

Hawkeye clears his throat, takes a sip of gin.

“I'll deal to start with, we all bet based on our hands and how confident we are that we’ll have the highest ranking hand, then we discard any cards we want and redraw back up to five. Then we place our final bets, and reveal our hands. You get lost at any point, just ask. Questions?”

And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil's in the chair

Shittalking, chewing the fat, commiseration, and general socializing with Hawkeye during games goes under this header. Tls for your characters welcome in the comments.

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John’s handshake is firm, but lacks any real machismo—it’s firm because his grip is strong, steady and measured rather than enthusiastic, and doesn’t hang on for too long. It’s the greeting it’s meant to be rather than a way to take the measure of a man.

John feels safe enough to forego more than a visual threat assessment—and when Leon identifies himself as Army, John’s small smile warms a little.

“Army’s turning out. I like it—no squids or jarheads I’ve met so far.” He observes good naturedly. “One flygirl, but she’s spacebound so she gets a pass.”

The question about his time in town gives him pause.

“Time gets…messy here. I’ve been around a few months, but I dipped out for a couple days by everyone’s reckoning here. For me, it was three years. Been back a couple, three weeks, give or take? Maybe a little more ‘n that.”

Respectable! If anything that raises John up a fair amount in Leon's estimation, at least as far as he can claim to judge character by a handshake alone. He smiles too, clearly amused - though his eyebrows raise in surprise and curiosity at the mention that they've got someone from space with them for the evening.

Of course, John drops a completely different sort of revelation on him before he can ask about it.

"Really? By dipped out, you mean... what exactly?" He has a vague suspicion, but doesn't want to guess aloud. He needs to hear this himself.

"One night I woke up...couldn't resist the urge to go back to the ferry." John explains softly, uncomfortable just thinking about it. "And I...left. Went back to my world--didn't get killed like I thought I did."

There's real comfort in that--that he didn't die in that sheriff's station, didn't die in Teasle's greasy grip, didn't get his commanding officer killed.

"Spent three years in prison after the mess that got me here initially, pulled out for a special assignment--but the bullet still found me." He continues. "Only this time it was in combat. Sort of...small mercies, I guess."

Leon takes a long moment to process the implications of that, and even then he's not sure what it all means.

"Huh," he says. "I didn't know that could happen. I mean, I assumed going back to our worlds was sort of the goal here, and that we couldn't do that until we fixed - whatever's going on."

He doesn't know what to think about that. Did Mortanne decide John had done enough, and send him back? Then just... grab him again after he ran into another bad situation? Frowning, he shakes his head and sighs.

"Either way, I'm sorry. Sounds like it was difficult."

"Not sure anyone knew that was a thing." John admits. "But for what it's worth, it...it was good for me to go back, even with doing time."

Just for a second, he's breathing in the forest again, earth and pine and the crisp, razor sharp scent of the cold. He's back in Hope, as readily as he'd ever been taken back to 'Nam, and for that split second he can't breathe.

Thank God the kid keeps talking. Leon is here, not Washington. He's a friend, not Teasle or Galt or any of those son of a bitches.

Taking a deep breath, he offers a wan smile and a nod, but both are genuine.

"Thanks, Kennedy. 'Preciate it." he replies. "Like I said, turned out to be good for me. Three years of an eight year run--helped me get my head right. I was...a mess before. Still am, but at least I got a handle on it."

Ohhh boy, yeah, Leon recognizes that look by now. He's no therapist, but he's been around it enough times on enough people to get a general sense of what to do. Keep talking, keep listening, be an anchor in the present moment, be something calm and easy to focus on.

"Of course," he says, nodding resolutely. "Glad it helped you get yourself straight again, at least more than you were. I'm not gonna pretend I know what you went through, but..."

He pauses, considering what he's trying to say carefully.

"Getting through some of the stuff that happens out there is - hard. Especially when you get called back to do it again, when you thought you were out. So I'm all for anything that helps people keep it together."

Thee kid talks like he's seen action, even if he hasn't been through the kind of mental minefields John's got living in his fucking head--and that's enough to give him pause, bring him closer to the present.

"You, uh--you been in the shit, Private?" he asks, looking away to nudge a chair into place--then, realizing there's one he hadn't put up against the wall where some had been laid out for those out of the game to relax, he hoists it up into his hand and offers it to Leon, nodding to the row of chairs in question that could use one extra near the end.

"Or know someone who has?"

Leon nods, solemnly.

"Yeah," he says, taking the chair and hauling it over to the end of the row as he thinks about how much to say about what he's seen. "Both. I was a cop before I, uh, joined up. Got myself into and out of a situation bad enough that some important people took notice, and got... recruited. Said they wanted people with skills like mine."

The way he says 'joined up' and 'recruited' with notable hesitation does not make it sound like he's thrilled about it. He shrugs, rolling his shoulders as much to ease tension as to gesture.

"Pretty sure I just got lucky too many times in a row, though."

Cop.

The flash of panic he feels is a knee jerk reaction, but he breathes through it. The kid knows where he is, shook his hand--he showed John more respect with that one simple action than any of Teasle's men, much less Teasle himself.

Enough time has passed that he can lean on that kindness and let the fear go...but it takes a moment of visible hesitation before he can reach out to clap the kid on the shoulder even as he rolls it to try and shake off memories John can only speculate at.

"Careful--you say you were born in Bowie, gonna think you're comin' for me." he quips with a small, sympathetic smile. "S' pretty much how I got into Special Forces--my CO saw something he liked and roped me into it. Between the 101st Airborne and Baker Team, I did three years in 'Nam, so...I get it. And I get that it itches, so if you ever need to blow off some steam, I got an ear."

Leon catches that look and gives an apologetic look - of course John's leery of the cops, he just said he was in prison up until recently. Whether he thought it was good for him or not, that's not the kind of experience where a lot of people walk away with rosy views of the police.

Still. The moment passes, and he's able to laugh it off, at least. That counts for a lot, and Leon relaxes again, nodding.

"Thanks," he says. "I might take you up on that some time."

He probably won't. Getting Leon to talk about his feelings is like pulling teeth before the invention of anesthetics - it's messy and takes a lot of alcohol. But he appreciates the offer all the same.

"So when are you here from? If you served in Vietnam, that's somewhere around the 70s, right? I'm still getting my head around how we can all be here from different years, honestly."

"Yeah, it's a trip--different realities, too." John replies, straightening out a couple chairs to decide if he needs any more for the poker table. "Got a buddy here who's a walking, talking falcon. 'Nother who's an elf..."

His expression shifts, soft with affection and shadowed with sorrow at the same time as he thinks of Sam. At least things seem better...but it still hurts that he doesn't think they can ever be more than that.

"Got another from a world where dead people can reach right out and grab you." he continues. "Anyway, uh--war's over back home. It's 1985, and when I got back here the second time I was sort of on a furlough. Black ops--assumption, they didn't tell me at the time, but I got hung out to dry. S' how I died...they said I'd be up for a pardon if I finished the mission."

"Mm," Leon grunts, frowning deeply at that last part. "Yeah, there's a certain kinda guy in a uniform or a suit who likes promising that kind of thing, isn't there?"

We have the authority to do as we please with you... You, and the girl. Leon had been more focused on Sherry's safety than his own at the time, but at the end of the day the strong implication for him had been jail time or worse. Seems to him like John's story is a lot like how his could've ended up if the chips had fallen slightly differently.

He sighs.

"Sorry to hear that. 'Least we both get another chance at it though, right? If not back home yet, then here."

"It's not always about the guy who makes the promise. It's the men above him." John replies. "The guy who came to me, he was my CO during the war. Him? I trust with my life...he got me home. It was everyone else who turned their backs."

He has to believe that. Hearing Trautman on the radio when they forced him onto the radio...

He shakes it off and smiles slightly at Leon.

"You're not wrong 'bout that second chance here. Truth is, I like this place." John admits. "Missed it...didn't realize how damn much 'till I got back and all the memories came back full force."

"Yeah. I get you." Sometimes getting fucked over comes from higher up the chain, and it all just cascades down to everybody underneath. That's another lesson he's gotten to learn pretty well.

"Anyway. Can't say I blame you. People are nice here, about all sorts of things I'm not used to people being so nice about." Access to food, lodging, medicine. Differences in faith. Gender and sexuality. Probably other things Leon just isn't in as much of a position to notice. "I was telling Hawkeye that being here has sort of felt like a vacation, in a weird way. Even with the stars falling out of the sky and attacking people at night."

Better than some of the horseshit he has to put up with back home, that's for sure.

The mention of Hawkeye produces a rare smile from John as he nods in agreement.

"Yeah--I was singin' the same song when I first met him 'round the time I got here." John admits. "Found out people here got good attitudes and open minds about...a lot of things they don't back home."

He thinks of Hawkeye's flirting--and of Sam, with a painful stab of longing.

It only occurs to him to ask then, with a curious tilt of his head.

"Say, uh--I'm from '85, I know Hawk's from the '50s, what year is it where you came from?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, forgot to mention when I asked. I'm from 2004. Weird to think that's the future for some of you, but from the sound of it I'm solidly middle of the timeline."

He glances over at Ari as he says it - not having picked up on Gaeta being a spacer just yet. It helps with the surreal feeling that he hasn't really had the chance to talk to any of the future folk about, say, world history or anything. Mostly he's just had a crisis about lead pipes and asbestos with Bart.

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Then they'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground (Mingle)

If all else fails? Fuck you we do what we want. XD

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