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

[decohere]

"Actually did start as a joke. Afraid I tempted fate. Or the Erda, it was called. One of those be careful what you wish for situations..."

[not here-ish]

[be_seeing_you]

From across the room, "That's how I got these wings as well. We really should have known better."

[lightconductor]

Watson looks at her, and then glances at Number 6 with his eyebrows raised.

"Hm. I suppose there could be worse things," he says, uncertainly.

[decohere]

"I offered to chop them off for him, when they first sprung out... but hopefully such surprises are kept to a minimum in this world..." Ava trails off thoughtfully.

"You haven't heard of such strange happenings here?" she's certainly hopeful.

[lightconductor]

"Hrm. That would be a terrible amputation to attempt," Watson says, thoughtfully. "Probably best you did not. And no, I have not heard of any such thing here. Well." He lets out a small, wry laugh. "We did have a sort of shared dream of other versions of ourselves, and that other version of me certainly was, at times, a seal, but that was temporary."

He did secretly enjoy being a selkie, just a little.

[decohere]

"Oh!" A surprised laugh now that the reference has context. "I thought he meant like the navy kind. Not an actual!"

[lightconductor]

"Ah, no, I'm afraid I was army in any case." Watson chuckles. "The mockery might be harder to bear if I hadn't been the only one so afflicted."

[decohere]

"I feel like such a fake fan, I had known that," Ava looks slightly embarrassed, but amused. "But it sounds so absurd. Were you clapping about for fish?" Ava's never seen a real seal. Her only idea of it is the depiction of them doing balancing tricks on balls like some sort of circus act.

[lightconductor]

"Certainly not," Watson says, dignified, and then laughs. "I caught my own. No, it... it was quite the experience, I have to say."

[decohere]

"Never encountered anything quite so strange on your mystery adventures with Sherlock, hm?"

[lightconductor]

"Ah, well." He laughs a little, helplessly. "There was a whole business with a hellhound, but that turned out to be a large, vicious dog painted with phosphorus. Very different from the sort of things we run into here."

[decohere]

"Baskerville, right?" Ava nods with familiarity. "Hn, I thought it didn't really get any weirder than a man that turned into a giant green monster bashing up Manhattan when he got angry. Or a billionaire war profiteer flying around in a metal suit because he rather blow up terrorists himself than let the military use his weaponry. Or. There's this god that flies around with a hammer chasing after his evil brother..." Ava trails off, trying to remember what point she was making, other than these worlds are far stranger than she anticipated.

[lightconductor]

"Goodness. And here I would say that such things would be impossible in my world. A god with a hammer, hm," because doesn't that ring a bell. Watson shakes his head, and then a thought catches up with him. He frowns.

"Hang on," he says, "I haven't written that story. I wasn't even sure I would ever be able to do it justice. How on Earth do you know it?"

[decohere]

"Yeah, some old Norse mythology turned out to be aliens all along." She wishes she could mentally transfer that aliens meme to Watson, but she's sure he'd be even more confused.

Ava looks slightly surprised at the call out. "Ah, I don't know? You must have written it down or told somebody at some point... Just because you're here now doesn't mean you vanished from the timeline." She thinks. Who knows. It's never seemed that complicated to her.

[lightconductor]

"... an alien Odin, then. Well."

It's hard to know what to think about that, then. Frankly, the puzzle of how and what Ava knows what she knows is a little more arresting, if perhaps ultimately inconsequential. "You mean, there's some version of myself that has not, as I am told, died, and is continuing to live in London and write? Hm. I'm not sure I understand how that is meant to work."

There is only very little science fiction in his time.

[decohere]

"Oh, yeah. It's multiversal theory. You leaving your timeline causes a split. How do I best... ah, well I first confirmed it when I met this man, Sergeant Barnes," and she doesn't mind telling him a bit more of a drawn out story since she knows he's the type that can appreciate it.

"He came from 2014, several years before my own time, 2018. He was a well known war hero, who got captured and tortured by the enemy and turned into a brainwashed assassin. Turns out those same fascists were running the agency I was... working for, behind the scenes. So even though we hadn't met prior, our lives were significantly altered by the same event. Sergeant Barnes had a superhero best friend who uncovered the conspiracy and revealed it to the public, completely dismantling the whole agency. So many people involved got arrested. He used that time to go missing. And so did I. But unlike me, he had friends... and enemies alike, trying to track him down. Baron Zemo, who was taking revenge for his family being killed when the Avengers destroyed his entire country, wore the Sergeant's face in a terrorist attack and framed him. Causing the Avengers to split over the matter of... the Sokovia Accords. Where the world's governments demanded that enhanced individuals, such as the Avengers as well as myself, be held accountable for our actions, but also under the authority of governmental power. Anyway!" Because she knows this is rapidly getting more complicated than she initially intended.

"There was an entire confrontation at an airport in Germany. International news and all. This was 2016, two years after the time he left. Ergo, the timeline that I experienced wasn't altered by his leaving. ... does that make sense?"