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

[notinflictthem]

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.

Comments

[notinflictthem]

Hawkeye pops the lid to sniff it, then deposits it with the lid on to the refreshments table, stealing something for himself to eat.

"With how many of us are from the US Army specifically, we can just about go into business setting up an outpost. Might be something to do with the danger of the profession. Or else the army's expanding into the Marrow Isles."

He taps the flask of gin on the table, "drink? We got started without you so you might need two to catch up."

[inaurate]

Smells like booze, he assumes! It's nothing fancy, but not bottom of the barrel either. He wanted to make a good impression. "I'll just stick with one for now, thanks. Still gotta figure out how the game works before I let you inhibit me too much." He winks, pulling out a bag of-- oh, someone already brought nuts. Well, now there's more! "Did any of you know each other before you came to the Hollow, or do you all just happen to be from the same army?"

[notinflictthem]

Hawk pours the both of them some of the gin, because it's a rite of passage before you play poker in... well, previously the Swamp, now his clinic. The booze Claude brought goes on the table with the rest, and Hawk takes the nuts appreciatively too.

"I knew that one over there, with the glasses- that's Father Mulcahy, he's a chaplain. Some of us are... technically from the same army, but it doesn't sound like many of us came from the same time or world. Frinstance, that guy there- Leon? Same army as I got drafted into, but he's later than I am. Peter- ginger guy with the concentrating face- same war as me, but he's also from well after me, and he wasn't from the same army. We're a nice little mixed bag here."