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

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"So they're these cube-shaped toys, right?" Leon starts, setting down his cards (face down) after getting his hand settled for the next round and gesturing with his hands to indicate a roughly two-fist sized shape.

"Each side is a different color, and is divided up into... usually nine squares, in a three-by-three grid. The rows of squares can all rotate freely, so to set up the puzzle, you twist the cube in different directions to scramble the colors." Without really thinking about it, he mimes the motion as he speaks, twisting his hands in opposite directions. "Then you or somebody else tries to unscramble things and get all the sides back to being one solid color each. That make sense?"

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta listens to this explanation, first with an expression of polite bafflement, then growing interest as the description takes proper shape in his mind. "Yeah," he says. "Honestly, that sounds like a good puzzle for a navigator -- you're rotating a three-dimensional object in what could be trillions of permutations, then have to reverse-engineer it back to the starting point. If you don't have the right spatial reasoning skills, you'll have a much harder time solving it."

Bids start to circulate; Gaeta murmurs call and puts in a few more acorns.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Yeah, you've got it. It's all about spatial reasoning. If you just twist randomly it makes things worse, but if you can keep track of where each colored square is even if you're not looking at it, you can piece together how it got to where it is and go backwards."

Leon all but beams, the expression subtle but pleased, and distracted enough by it that it takes him until someone prompts him that he's holding up the game to remember to place his bet.

"I still don't think I'd make a great navigator myself, but hey, if I see that guy in the alleyway selling all the weird stuff's found a Rubik's cube somehow, I'll bring it to you so you can give it a shot."

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta hides a brief smile of his own. Dare he say it, he's a little charmed by Leon's earnestness; it's hard not to be, especially after a couple glasses of Dr. Pierce's gin.

"I'd like that," he says, and means it. "...What kind of weird stuff does that guy usually sell? I've heard about him, but haven't seen him yet."

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Seems like mostly trash that washed up on shore," says Leon. "But last time I was in there he had some kinda - one-person escape pod looking thing. Like a little submarine, but not like any I've ever seen before. Maybe you'd have a better sense of what it is."

Being from a spacefaring era and all. Leon knows being from a more technologically advanced time doesn't grant you immediate expertise in everything that came before, but maybe the wider frame of reference would help.

"Other than that, there were a lot of canned drinks he seemed pretty confused by, a few swords, a panini press, some kind of weird onion..."

[not_a_traitor]

"A pod looking thing," he repeats, slowly, "and a... weird onion?"

Well, good to know that once Gaeta has enough money for a leg and a nicer set of clothes, he can turn his attention toward acquiring weird onions! Maybe he can smash them in the panini press.

"Never mind -- " He waves his hand, dismissing the comment about the onion. "The pod -- what made you think it was a submarine and not a spacegoing ship?"

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

Leon just shrugs about the onion. He's as confused by it as anybody else here!

"I didn't get a great look at it, but it had what looked like a pretty big propeller in the back," he says. "Not the kind of thing that'd be much use in a vacuum, at least as far as I know."

But as far as he knew up until like five minutes ago, FTL travel wasn't physically possible either, so he's willing to defer.

"The guy wanted 6,000 brass for it since he could tell it's not from around here, though, and was willing to admit it was in pretty rough shape. Might not be much use to anyone unless one of us who got here on the ferry knows how to repair it."

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta, midway through taking a sip on his gin, almost chokes on it.

"Six thousand?" he sputters. "Gods, I'm making maybe a tenth of that a week. And it might not even work?"

What the hell, shady merchant! It's almost like... he's being shady. (Then again, he supposes buying a full-fledged submarine would be on par with buying a private shuttle back home. Still, though! The shuttle dealer would make sure said shuttle worked first!)

"At least when I was bartering for toothpaste I could just round up some extra magazines or shoe polish or something."

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Right? I mean, I guess in the one point in his defense I'm willing to go with, I'm not sure anyone on the island can fix it with the tech we have available to us here. One of the people here I was talking to about engineering stuff said they haven't figured out titanium yet, and that was holding back a lot of his trying to recreate the stuff he's used to."

Not to mention any other prerequisite materials that might be relevant.

"So his thought might be more that someone'll come along who knows how to salvage it for rare parts, but who knows with guys like that? I figure if anyone wants to buy the thing, they'll have to pool resources for it."

[not_a_traitor]

Gaeta winces. No titanium? It's easy to accept the rudimentary electricity and transportation when you're dealing with it every day; he hadn't even considered -- but should have -- that it would extend to seemingly basic materials, too.

"Yeah, good point," he says. With a sigh of feigned melancholy, "Guess I won't be building a rocket out of acorns after all."

Then again, considering the fresh pile of them about to come his way...

The round concluded, everyone lays down their hands, and to the shock of barely anyone (but to a handful of hearty groans), Gaeta's won again. Smirking, he gathers up his winnings. Again.

To Leon: "But maybe I will be able to buy the sub on my own."

wrap!

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

"Maybe if we can convince the guy to go in on the acorn economy," Leon huffs, amused, and flicks an acorn from the pot at him. "Come on, that beginner's luck isn't gonna last forever. I'm good for one more round if you are."

He is, at this point, pretty resigned to a total losing streak, but this is the most fun he's had in a while. Might as well stick through to the last game.