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]

"Ah, like the reserves," Hawkeye starts, but... Oh boy, that's a loaded sentence if ever he's heard one. His brow creases in a clear acknowledgement that 'what happened' sounds like the lead in to the sacking of Rome, Forbidden Planet edition. But Gaeta moves on, so Hawk does too- it can't have been pleasant by the simple evidence in front of him.

"One of the first times we visited a big city to see my Mother's family, the sun went down and I started freaking out because I thought the stars had all gone out. Back home on a clear night, we'd have to shut the blinds to keep the light out, there were so many of them."

He sounds wistful. But then, he always does these days, talking about home.

"So genetics, huh? You're a scientist?"

[not_a_traitor]

"It's incredible, when the conditions are right," he murmurs, in quiet acknowledgement of Dr. Pierce's tone. "Sounds like you got as close as you could get to seeing a ship's view, without leaving your planet. And without the claustrophobia too," he adds, in a weak stab at a joke. "The light pollution isn't bad here, but if the constellations aren't what you're used to..."

That makes it worse, sometimes. A spectacular view is still an alien view; all it does is drive the homesickness deeper.

Gaeta sighs. "I wanted to be. That was the plan: Fleet Academy, four years of service give or take, earn a free ride to the best university on Leonis, internship at Picon Laboratories afterward if I got lucky..." A small, bitter huff. He rubs a hand down his face. "I had it all charted out. Then, three years into my service, the attacks happened and -- "

He stops.

Starts again, more cautious, as if he were breaking bad news as gently as possible: "I don't know how many other people you've met that, ah. Come from a place that doesn't exist anymore. But I'm one of them. All twelve planets of my civilization were wiped out."

[notinflictthem]

"I keep looking for Orion's belt and getting disappointed. Orion must be missing it," he trades back, but...

Hawkeye pulls up a chair to listen, fingers laced loosely together, nodding occasionally. He bobs his head considering Gaeta's sort-of question.

"Planets, no. But farms? Villages? Towns that don't exist anymore? More than I'd like, the military I got drafted into seemed to think the best way to save people was to make sure there wasn't anyone left to need saving. You uh-" his voice gets softer, mirroring that tone, "you still had family on them? Either way, I- I'm sorry. Not that it helps, but- hell, I don't know what would."

[not_a_traitor]

"I did." Not much louder. "We all did. The vast majority of the survivors only survived because we were in the air."

As for the rest of what Hawkeye says... well, isn't that all a planet is? A collection of towns, farms, villages? Burn enough of them, and soon there's nowhere left to go -- and no one left who can leave.

Gaeta's jaw sets. "I'm sorry, too," he says, still low, but very clear. "That your military decided that's how they'd use their authority. And that they drafted you, gods."

Even at their worst, the Fleet didn't start hauling unwilling people off the civilian ships and chucking them into Vipers.

"I don't know how much that helps, either. I don't think anything can."

[notinflictthem]

"Wouldn't have been so- so rotten and so galling if they'd just been honest about it. You ask any of the boots on the ground, we're there for 'peacekeeping' or 'to stem the red tide so that impoverished people halfway across the world don't get into our backyards and steal our hot dogs right off the grill'. It's madness. The army keeps spitting in our face and telling us it's raining, and we're meant to keep saluting them while they do it. And for what? To make some weapons manufacturers rich off bombs and bullets?"

There's a core of real anger to his words, something caustic and liable to kick up if he keeps on like this. He folds both arms around his middle, shakes his head.

"You want a drink?"

[not_a_traitor]

And oh, Gaeta knows that anger well. He still tastes it more nights than not, even if he made his peace with the mutiny's end; even if he knows he'll never be under the Admiral's command again.

For seven years I have done my frakking job, and for what?

"Gods yes," he says, fervent. A humorless chuckle follows. "If I'm off morpha for the foreseeable future, at least that means I can drink again."

[notinflictthem]

Hawkeye retrieves a couple of glasses, fills them both with his patented homemade gin.

"To your health," he hands Gaeta the glass, "to the little guys here there and everywhere, and to peace."

[not_a_traitor]

"To doing what's right," adds Gaeta. He clinks his glass against Hawkeye's. "So say we all."

Then he quirks the faintest mischievous smile.

"And to cleaning everybody out as soon as I get the hang of poker," he says before taking a placid sip of his drink.

[notinflictthem]

Hawkeye laughs with all his teeth, that anger clearing out of him like smoke from a chimney as he takes his own sip.

"If you walk out of here with the deed to the clinic, you're hosting next time," he warns.