notinflictthem: (Fleming)
"Hawkeye" Pierce ([personal profile] notinflictthem) wrote in [community profile] ph_logs2024-03-16 08:47 am

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.
astrogator: (pic#16123162)

[personal profile] astrogator 2024-03-31 01:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Everyone should take her side, Tayrey believes, because she'd been fighting for her freedom in terrible circumstances. She has a moral certainty about it. Except that people hadn't sided with her. Too many had sided with her captor, had hated her, and it still disturbs her to think about. It shook her. Her captivity dealt her all sorts of damage, but her inability to trust people now, to believe that most of them are essentially good? That's part of the worst of it.

Ava's an exception, because Ava was never cruel, never said that Tayrey should give up hope and be satisfied living as a prisoner under torture. Never hurt her, despite plenty of opportunity. Ava was misguided, deceived, but no more than that.

She tries to shake off her preoccupations. No need for them to intrude on her life here; she needs to move forward.

'I'll bring fruit juice next time then,' she says, trying to recover her old cheer. 'And beer, although I don't suggest mixing them together! You'll be back next time? I'm going to teach kalixtri.'
Edited 2024-03-31 13:40 (UTC)
decohere: (Default)

[personal profile] decohere 2024-04-01 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
Everyone had been fighting for their survival in freedom in those same circumstances. If any of Ava's tireless efforts had actually paid off, maybe she'd feel more justified in it.

Maybe she wouldn't dread others finding out the things she did, the stances she took, the things she advocated and sacrificed herself for by befriending the enemy. But she's already told herself that here will be different. She'll stay out of things, for everyone's benefit. Especially her own, with how shattered her self confidence has become through her repeated failures. She'll stay on her farm with her trees and eventually apples, and nobody will get hurt from all her wrong choices anymore.

Hard to convince herself that nobody wants her when here's Ari already asking about next time. She laughs slightly at herself, for always being so eager to run away. And tentatively nods. "I'll try to make it, to learn your card game." But she can't make promises she's not sure she'll be able to keep, depending on how downhill her health has gone by then. "Maybe I'll be able to bring my own cider, eventually."