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

John Rambo - Starters For All

[theydrewfirstblood]

One More Drop Of Poison

John smiles when he sees the notice about the game. Hawkeye’s threatened it enough times that he’s sort of ready—a lot of social contact makes him more uncomfortable than twitchy these days, but poker night…it seems harmless enough.

He shows up about twenty minutes early to help set up if he’s needed—and he comes bearing gifts: namely a little of his homemade jerky for anyone who’s interested.

Devil’s In The Chair

John sort of alternates, stepping back every couple hands or so just to sit back and watch the others play and smack talk each other—but he’s also open to conversation if he’s not at the table.

He wins some. He loses some—he’s dead middle of the road in terms of his winnings, but his losses tend to come from buying whatever you’re selling. He will absolutely go down as having one of the best poker faces of the night.

[inaurate]

dream of foreign lands

Claude ends up arriving a little late-- he got caught up with who knows what, the guy keeps himself busy as a rule, and when you're used to being the boss who they can't start the meetings without, being super punctual matters a lot less. Being a few minutes late just meant Lorenz got mad at him, and when wasn't he anyway?

But hey, he's got a bottle of booze and a snack to contribute, so that hopefully makes up for the lack of punctuality.

"Hey, I saw the notice-- I'm not too late to join in, am I?"

ghosts are rattling at the door

Claude is characteristically evasive about giving details of his own experiences in war, but will readily admit to leading from the front, giving the broad strokes. It's-- refreshing, talking to people with vastly different ranks in their respective armies from his own. As much as he tried to make himself approachable, there was always a distance between him and the troops he led. There's none of that here. He may not fully understand all of the modern military references, but there are plenty of other things that, as it turns out, transcend space and time.

As for the poker... it takes him a few hands to get the hang of it, but his poker face is impeccable. You'd have an easier time trying to see through the backs of the cards than to read what he's up to on his face.

[nothingbadeverhappensto]

1. One more drop of poison

Leon spends some time after reading the posting on the bulletin board wondering if he should go. There's all sorts of disqualifying factors - the classified nature of his current job with USSTRATCOM and all his previous postings, the less than entirely voluntary nature of how he joined up, his own mixed feelings about the military, things like that. But ultimately he decides it's worth checking out, even if he excuses himself early.

So he turns up, twenty minutes early as expected, and salutes (a little sarcastically) at whoever answers the door.

"Private Leon S. Kennedy, reporting for duty. Need any help setting up?"

2. Ghosts are rattling at the door

The risks Leon take are calculated, but boy is he bad at math. Which is to say, he's not very good at poker. By the end of the night he's lost pretty much all his chips despite betting conservatively, largely as a result of tremendous gullibility. He's not a sore loser, though, and is happy to take jabs at himself as his pile of chips shrink.

"Glad we're playing for acorns," he says, snorting and throwing down another losing hand. "Wouldn't want to die and go into gambling debt in the same month. What would my mother say?"

Ari Tayrey - OTA

[astrogator]

One more drop of poison

Predictably, Ari Tayrey is there early. She looks different today, in coveralls that those who knew her before might recognise as the same bright and cheerful shade of spacer blue as her Tradeline uniform. There's even the same silver trim, and some careful embroidery - a ship patch on her arm, a little silver eight-pointed star at her shirt collar. It's all very flatteringly tailored, too. She looks like a Tradeliner again, which for her is tantamount to getting her very identity back. Tayrey practically bounces into the room and gets straight on helping with setup.

Then she's asked if she's ever played poker. 'Not really,' she admits. 'But I play kalixtri. We keep a scoreboard in the junior officers' lounge shipside and I'm in credit.' Which probably says something about the gambling culture on Tradeline starships.

Ghosts are rattling at the door

This is not kalixtri, and Lieutenant Tayrey is not in credit right now, but she's still playing with enthusiasm. 'Can't expect to make a healthy profit my first flight out,' she says, casually slipping into Tradeline pilot metaphor because she's comfortable and she thinks this group won't query it. She doesn't understand all their references, after all, but it doesn't seem to matter.

'But you never know. Probability's fickle.' And Tayrey's still feeling out the game, working on the mathematical analyses that are sure to make a win more likely.

Number 6 (Peter Starr) | OTA

[be_seeing_you]

One more drop of poison
Number 6 is right on time, on the dot. Of course he is.

"Watch me play and see for yourself how good my card skills are," he says with playful smugness. If it weren't for the fact that all of them are veterans, he'd be boasting about how he'll be walking away with all of their brass within the hour. But these ones might actually present him a challenge. How exhilarating.

"I'll take that drink, thank you." Ah, home made gin. There's something terribly nostalgic about the bitter acid taste of it. He'd better be careful to sip it slowly. "Cheers."

We'll kneel and say a prayer
The man plays a mean game of cards. He has the kind of poker face that could make a Las Vegas card dealer cry. Just that same smug look of confidence in perpetuity. If his hand isn't ideal, no one will ever know. His expression barely changes even as he discards and draws. Good luck telling when he's bluffing. Clearly, he knows what he's doing since his hands seem to be consistently good, even when he isn't the winner. Might he be watching the dealer a little too closely?

The ghosts are rattling
Number 6 is the king of spicy trash talk. Challenge him at your own peril. (Come at me!!)

Felix Gaeta | OTA

[not_a_traitor]

and you'll dream of foreign lands

Gaeta already planned to go to one of the clinics soon, hoping to get some advice on how the frak to finagle a good prosthetic leg around here. Then, lo and behold: there's the notice for the poker game.

He has no idea what poker might be, but, well. He supposes he can find out? Meeting more of the village's veterans is the real perk, after all; this is the longest stretch since New Caprica that he's lived around so many civilians, and, in ways subtle and not, it's starting to make him itch a little. Like he still has to represent the Fleet in the best light possible, even to people who wouldn't know the Fleet from a hole in the ground.

Frak that.

He gives himself extra time to reach the clinic on his crutches -- overestimates the amount of time, in fact, and turns up early even by military standards. "Never heard of it," he says in response to Hawkye's question, cheerfully dry. "What is it?"



the ghosts are rattling at the door

Luckily, Gaeta gets the hang of the game quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. His actual poker face may not be anything to write home about, but...

Look, as he argued many a time in many a Triad game on Galactica: counting cards is not cheating. It's basic math anybody can learn, applied to a finite set of variables -- a set of variables that just happens to land him his fair share of the acorn pot for several hands in a row.

He might look a little smug as he rakes his winnings toward him.

Ava Starr | OTA

[decohere]

Toward the end of the event, a curious shade of a woman lurks by the entrance, flickering nervously out of view if anyone glances her way for too long. She turned down the invitation of attending, encouraged her husband to go without her in hopes of him making some likeminded friends. While she continues to hide away with her excuses of not being ready yet, of not having the energy to deal with people she doesn't know.

It's tough to get momentum when sulking suits her needs just fine. But eventually she makes her way there to check in, almost turns away when she sees the sign. Hawkeye's. Ava squints suspiciously to find that associated face in the crowd. But so far no Avengers appear, and so she continues to quietly linger.

OTA

[lightconductor]

generic arrival

Watson isn't sure he wants to be here. Cards are not his favourite, but he knows he likes a bet or three, and sometimes that's caused him trouble over the years. Putting himself in this situation seems like the sort of thing that only a fool would do, and yet he is.

When he arrives, he looks more than a little uncertain, but he has a bottle of whisky under one arm.

the ghosts are rattling at the door

Eventually, he opts to sit out of poker and watch, smoking a cigar with a glass of gin at hand. Relaxed, he leans back in his chair, content for the moment to listen to the conversation without joining in.