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

[astrogator]

'I will,' she reaffirms. 'Sometimes you need someone on the outside to talk to, you know? Everyone went through it, but that doesn't mean everyone's experience was the same. Or that everyone's feelings were the same.' It's harder, feeling alone in a crowd, feeling unable to talk about your pain because there's nothing you can say that people don't already know.

Tayrey gives him a soft smile. 'It's not the same at all, I know, but it helps me to talk about home. About the things I miss, especially the things that are most different from here.' She still has hope of return, she never lost it, but she imagines the principle holds. To have other people know where you came from and what you value. To have them understand.

'So you can say whatever you want to me. If you ever want to.' She means it, even knowing that aspects of his homeworld might be way out-of-sector for her.

[not_a_traitor]

"Yeah." His smile doesn't grow, but it firms up by a measure. "And -- I want to hear about your home, too. Whenever you want." Gaeta nods toward the other veterans that've started trickling in. "Can't let them sit around and talk about Earth all day like they own the place, right?"

And speaking of the gathering crowd...

"I think the game's starting soon," he adds. A tiny, mischievous spark lights his eye. "Maybe I'll make up something ridiculous about the Colonies. Throw 'em all off."

and wrap?

[astrogator]

Tayrey nods eagerly, because she'll be more than happy to tell him as much as he wants to know about the home that she misses so badly. For now, though, there's a game to be won!

She laughs lightly. 'Now you have to! Make it plausible enough that it'll fool them, but outlandish enough they'll keep thinking about it.' Although she hadn't ever made anything up completely, Tayrey had definitely amused herself by playing into Company stereotypes to shock her peers from spacer families. It had been too easy, she couldn't resist it.

wrap! <3

[not_a_traitor]

Lightly musing, "So probably not that ninety percent of the population was actually a rare species of penguin. All right."

But who knows! Get enough gin in him, and he might give it a try.

Together, they head for the game.