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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Leon gives a drawn out mmmhmm, all too familiar with that tendency too. He's clearly not bitter about it either, no look of intense weariness crossing his features at all, no sir.

"Yeah? Good choice, I can see the resemblance," he says, standing back while Hawkeye makes the final adjustments. "And I can respect that. Comes a point where there's not much to do but laugh, a lot of the time."

And/or crack bad jokes in the hopes that it'll help someone else lighten up. Tried and true coping mechanism, that one.

"The real hard part was figuring out how to laugh and throw up at the same time."

The light in place and switched on, Hawk stands and stretches out his back a little.

"Anyway. Enough about me- what'd you get up to? What war?"

Oh boy here it goes. Leon pulls a bit of a face, kind of sheepish and very 'I was hoping you wouldn't ask that'.

"This is gonna sound fake as hell," he says. "But I'm pretty sure every operation I've been a part of is classified. Uh. Not that I guess that matters here, now that I think about it."

He says that last part like it's genuinely only just occurring to him now, because it is. Huh. His handlers can't come yell at him for leaking sensitive information here, can they? Unless one of them bites it. Still, it does feel sort of weird to just launch into it, and he hesitates accordingly.

"I'll let you kill me after you tell me if I get to pick the method. Preferably old age," Hawkeye jokes.

"So you're with the C.I.A then? Or C.I.D? G-2? We used to get a weird number of your type through my mash unit, I nearly got fluent in speaking in code."

"Sure, it's a deal," says Leon, smiling. "Just don't tell my boss I said anything if he happens to show up here."

Which, you know, hopefully that doesn't happen for a number of reasons.

"I'm with USSTRATCOM, specifically as part of their anti-bioweapons task force. Spent some time in South America before getting sent off to Spain. Which is actually where I left off before, uh, all of this." He gestures around the room, indicating Pumpkin Hollow as a whole.

"If your boss shows up, I've never met you, never seen you, and I saw you going thataway," Hawkeye offers helpfully.

"Oh good, an acronym I don't know- don't explain it to me, I want to live in blissful ignorance of at least one of the Army's hundreds of acronyms. Spain? What were you doing in Spain?"

"Yeah, we've got way too many of those. I barely know what my official rank and title is at this point, myself."

He shakes his head, smiling a little, though his expression goes grim again at the question.

"Rescue mission. The President's daughter was kidnapped, and we managed to track her down to this remote village in the mountains," he explains. "You know, what's killing me about all this is I'd almost gotten her to the extraction point. Wouldn't have been easy getting there, but the end was in sight. I just tripped at the finish line."

...............

"Huh. You also fight Ming the Merciless and Killer Kane while you're there?" he might be before the genre of action films like Taken but that's the sort of set-up he would expect to see in some b-grade movie.

"Anyway- don't be too hard on yourself. If the lady we met when we arrived isn't messing with us, you'll get to go back and make it right."

Leon snorts, expression twisting into a wry smile.

"You have no idea. Some of the people I had to fight through sure had egos to match some kind of planetary overlord." Salazar and his ridiculous castle and line of annoying little clockwork dolls come to mind, and that's not even getting into Saddler's plans for global domination.

"But yeah, you're right. No point in beating myself up over it, if we've still got a shot. It just might take a bit. I'm still not sure how we're supposed to help fix whatever's going on here instead of just treading water."

"I worked with people like that, only I'd get arrested if I so much as punched them."

Unfortunate, because Frank did always deserve it.

"Anyway, I'm the wrong person to ask. My job is easy- I just sit around until some disaster happens or someone needs help. I'm only as far to the front as it takes to support your lovely rears."

A shrug, "I'd pick someone off the noticeboard to consult about helping, personally. Someone talks enough on there and they're guaranteed to be a busybody."

Leon nods along with that, looking sympathetic. Most of his direct points of contact with the chain of command are pretty tolerable, but there's a handful of folks higher up that he'd love to give an incredibly stern talking-to, for starters.

"Sounds like a plan," he says, mouth twitching into a brief smile at the innuendo. "I did get pointed Agent Jean's way pretty much right after I showed up here, but I haven't had the chance to talk to -" oh fuck what are Jean's pronouns "uh, them? Yet. And I should... probably stop by the temple and see what's going on there, since apparently the woman with the white hair was one of the goddesses. Might be some answers there."

At this point he realizes that he's more talking to himself than Hawkeye at this point, just trying to get his plans straight in his head. Right, he can do that later. Back to the conversation.

"That's right, though, you run one of the clinics here, right? How's that been going? I'd say we've got a lot of doctors for such a small town, but it seems like we really need all hands on deck when things really go bad."

"Oh yeah, Jean's nice enough. I met 'em a while ago, offered to fight some monsters for me. I don't usually go in for being a damsel in distress but I could get used to it."

Not like it's the first time Hawkeye's been a sounding board for someone else's plans- it's how he and Trapper used to work.

"Well, it's like my dad always said; you'll never run out of work if you become a doctor, but you'll never get a break either. It's actually been pretty similar to my old gig minus the hordes of bullet wounds- general practice sort of thing. Over winter we had some frostbite cases, and I get daily sort of cuts and scrapes. We had an earthquake a while back that I helped with triage on, but compared to the front, it's been quiet. Knock on wood but I both wish and don't wish I was doing more than just general practice- my speciality is thoracic surgery- but there's not much need for that sort of specialist work, not like if I was working at a hospital, y'know?"

"Yeah, I could see that," says Leon, nodding thoughtfully. "Honestly, aside from the nightly light show, being here has been sorta like a vacation. I'm sure I'll eat those words later, but for now?"

He shakes his head.

"I feel a little bad about it, goofing off here when there's something I should be doing back home."

Not enough to make him run off and go chasing down clues instead of helping set up a poker game, but enough that he's been thinking on it for a while now. He knows the deal is he'll get tossed back into the fray right where he left off if he holds up his end of the bargain, but still. Hard not to have some complicated feelings.

"I get it," he sympathises, "back home they'd be missing their chief surgeon. But uh- I'm gonna assume that time doesn't pass there how it passes here, otherwise I'm going to end up a medical marvel, coming back to life after a few months. That or a crappier second coming of Christ. The sequels are always worse."

But then he shrugs, taking a small sip of his gin.

"If you don't have a break, you'll break, though. Might help you in the long run, take some time off and clear your head so you can get back to rescuing maidens when we do."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I've gotta assume, too."

Could Ada take down Saddler without him and potentially get Ashley home if she felt like it? Probably. Could she do all of that and drag his sorry ass to a hospital without Saddler eating him first or something, where he'd spend the next month in a coma? Probably not. Weird as it is, it's much easier to assume time just works different here.

"Anyway, thanks for the advice, mom," he says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're probably right. I just have to make sure I don't get rusty while I'm here."

Hawk laughs, clearly not insulted by the light jab.

"Of course dearie, now make sure you take your cod liver oil after dinner and wash behind your ears," he coaxes in a voice an octave higher than his usual one.

"And if you need a maiden to rescue to keep yourself sharp, I have it on good authority I look good in a dress," hopefully he'll pick up on this flirt even if he didn't seem to pick up on the last one.

Unfortunately for Hawkeye, Leon is what some in the business call an oblivious motherfucker. As such he just laughs it off, catching some of the intent but assuming it's just a joke with no genuine flirtation behind it. You know, like very heterosexual men do to each other, especially in the military.

"D'you regularly get yourself into trouble while in drag?" he asks, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "Or are we planning on recruiting a third for some kind of elaborate training drill here?"

"I get myself into trouble in or out of it. Most of the trouble I get myself in is when I'm not wearing anything at all."

Well, if it's working to make him laugh, then the effort isn't wasted.

"Why, you got a third in mind?"

Leon actually does think about that for a moment, before shaking his head.

"Nah, haven't run into anyone who seems up to the task of playing dragon to your princess just yet. I'll keep an eye out, though."

But on that note, and in the spirit of getting the conversation back on track from nudity and LARPing...

"Speaking of other ways to keep sharp, I saw someone was advertising a fight club on the bulletin board a while back. You heard anything about that? I was thinking about going, if it leans more sparring than guys with too much machismo beating the shit out of each other."

Hawkeye has the space of a few seconds to think 'does this guy think I'm serious or is he just deadpan' before Leon says something that makes him physically bark with laughter.

"If you're not seeing a man made of kindling in front of you, I'm gonna need to look in the mirror harder next time. On a bad day I'd be lucky to fight a cold, much less anyone else. You might have to go back to the bulletin board for that one."

Leon's ability to deliver the worst jokes or followups to the same with a straight face has gotten him into trouble in the past and will likely continue, but the conversation moves on before either of them can break kayfabe about it.

"Hey, I didn't ask if you were in the ring, just if you'd heard about it," he says, though his smile makes it clear that he's not taking any offense at the response. "You're the one running a veteran's poker night - for all I know you're one of the ones patching these fine people up whenever the fight club meets."

He gestures around the room, indicating the people in attendance. Sure, not everyone here screams 'I miss punching people for fun, but with rules' exactly, but there's a little bit of that.

"Nobody's asked me to do that yet. Which-" he raises his voice a little, "if there is a fight club going on then someone should be medically supervising, even if it's not me," y'know just in case they haven't got anyone on stand-by.

"Aside from the fight club, I know that Mulcahy does boxing, if you do that. I'm sure he'd appreciate someone to train with. Not many people did it in camp back home- the one time my buddy had to step into the ring we had to put ether on his boxing gloves so the other guy didn't kill him."

Leon clearly gets a kick out of the general announcement, snorting a little as Hawkeye raises his voice.

"I think I saw someone volunteer to handle injuries on the board," he says, though he doesn't remember who just now. Not someone he's encountered just yet, he's pretty sure. "But I wouldn't have guessed. I might ask him about that when I get the chance. Boxing's not something I've done a lot of, but I know a little about it. Might be time to learn more. Hopefully without having to resort to drugging my gloves."

"Disregard that last announcement," he says at the same volume as before, then drops his voice back down.

"Well- good luck with it. I'm sure the good Father's an excellent teacher. He's great at turning the other cheek," and then a grin at his own joke.

"Enjoy the game, try not to lose to much money eh?"

"You got it, captain," Leon says, firing off another extremely lazy salute. He then proceeds to lose every single one of his allotted acorns.

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

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cw emeto mentioj

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wrap hereish?

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