Come one come all, bring your buttons

[tinstar]

Who: Raylan and whoever wants to play some cards!!
What: Button Betting Poker
When: Early August
Where: A random house in Milton

Content Warnings: None planned, will update if needed

[OOC NOTE: This will be used as a party style post. Use of an RNG is encouraged to determine win/loss, but if players want their character to lose, it can be worked out between said players. As this is the first instance of Poker night, Raylan has not assigned anyone to any one of the two tables or any of the hands that may happen. Standard poker rules apply, IC conversations can be had about worth comparisons for players with alternate formfactor of betting (IE - if someone wants to bet a singular pearl, the group may determine it is worth 10 buttons).
 
IC disruptions, (violence, table tossing, screaming, ect) will be responded to by Raylan as a peacekeeper. Cheaters, if found, will be expelled from the poker game and the cabin.

[There's no dinner bell, so this will have to do]

Raylan had posted a note on the Community Board about when he planned on having poker and as the days crept towards it, he kept himself busy making sure that the little cabin he'd chosen for the game night was clean and ready. Two tables stood in the open plan loft bearing house, each with a beaten and weathered deck of cards and five or six mismatched chairs around them, some in better shape than others. What got used would depend on how many people showed up - Raylan wasn't sure they'd get more than one table's worth but if he was wrong, he was prepared for it. A small fireplace was already lit and stoked on the night, bearing a tea kettle on its flattop that was warming some birch bark tea he thought might at least serve as refreshment.

It was a real shame they didn't have any wings or chips or something.

When he figured it was about time, he steps out onto the porch and pulls his gun. A shot is fired in the air and when the echo of the bang fades out, Raylan takes a deep breath and yells booming words out over the cold, drawl significantly more noticeable despite his efforts for it. Those who couldn't hear his voice would have heard the shot and those that could, would at least have some context for what it meant.

"Y'ALL WANNA PLAY SOME POKER?"

Comments

[meadqueen]

Honestly Randvi thinks the way that these people keep their floors bare is pretty gross. The whole point of having a good layer of straw down is that you can replace it if it gets dirty!

“He has a dog of his own, I think that he would understand that she can't help it.”

[friendsfordinner]

"It's because he has a dog of his own that he'd be on my side. Not everyone comes from Viking times or wherever the fuck you're from. Hell, Givens is from both of our futures. There's probably things I do that he finds old-fashioned."

After all, the twenty-first century is a marvelous time when people know things like what the fuck a 'zombie' is and also that you're not getting flogged if you admit you're a sodomite.

[meadqueen]

“What do you know about where I come from?” At this point it isn't even confrontational, she's just curious what assumptions he's working from.

[friendsfordinner]

"You're old timey, aren't you? You seem...older. From a time before mine. Don't know what time specifically, but if I think you're older, you've got to be old."

It's a very vague assumption but as far as Hickey's concerned, it's a good assumption.

[meadqueen]

“So they tell me.” Even with these Saxons preparing them to meet people from the past, most people are shocked when she tells them the year. “Where I come from, you would be faring much worse than you are here.”

[friendsfordinner]

"I suspect that's a general 'you' and not a me specifically," Hickey muses. He knows he'd be faring just as well in Randvi's time as he is in his. He's adaptable. He's indomitable.

"After all, I doubt we'd have those tinned goods we occasionally dig up back in your time."

[meadqueen]

“It is you specifically.” Theoretically it shouldn't be possible to look down one’s nose at someone with one eye, but she manages it anyway. “If we were in my home I would already have killed you for what you did to Sveta.”

He’s right about the tinned goods, though. Those are convenient even if they often don't taste very good.

[friendsfordinner]

"For what I did when I wasn't in my right mind?" Hickey points out. His tone is casual, but there's an edge to it. He'd really prefer Randvi not make this a problem. After all, it would ruin poker night. But if she's going to make this a problem, he's going to fight back.

"I hope you hold Little and Kieren and Wake with the same contempt. As well as everybody else who fought or killed or maimed but didn't get caught. Be hypocritical if you didn't."

[meadqueen]

“Did you apologize? You did not even help to honour the body properly, Constable Fraser had to do it.” Most of the others, even if they had had their minds warped by the creature, had expressed remorse for their actions. Hating Edward Little almost feels like a waste of time since he's doing such a fine job at it. She is afraid of Kieren Walker and Alan Wake, but there is no reason to share that with this man.

“Svetlana is… she is special to me. You take care of your people, I take care of mine. If that makes me a hypocrite then I’ll wear that name with pride.”

[friendsfordinner]

Idly, Hickey wonders just what Randvi means by 'special.' Special as a friend, or special in a way where Randvi's heart is going to end up broken. Because Hickey doesn't know Svetlana all that well, but he's fairly certain about one thing: that girl is straight.

"Then I hope she's not one of the ones who's changed by this place. Or I hope you take it well if she falls."

[meadqueen]

Her heart is already broken, thanks, but Randvi thinks she's being subtle about it.

“I hope that I did the right thing, pleading with the others for your life. I might not do so again.”

[friendsfordinner]

"Fortunately, I don't plan on getting myself in a situation where you'll have to plead for me ever again."

Which is jinxing it. Hickey knows he's jinxing it. But he's got to say this just to make sure, to cement it. After all, he doesn't plan on getting in trouble like that again. (If only because Billy will kill him if he does.)

[meadqueen]

He's definitely jinxing it.

“Did you plan on it the first time?”

[friendsfordinner]

"Nobody planned on it the first time," Hickey points out, "which is why I'd appreciate it if you and the rest of the people here, stopped bothering me about it. Ridiculous to blame a man for the choices he made when he wasn't in his right mind."

[meadqueen]

“You approached me,” Randvi points out. She would have been happy frowning at him across the room all night, or better yet not seeing him at all.

“Don't you feel anything at all? About being forced into doing those things by a power outside yourself?”

Francis thinks he was faking but the group did declare him innocent.

[friendsfordinner]

"Of course I feel something," he scoffs. "I feel...dunno if it's regret. You have to have made the choice to do something to regret it and no matter what anybody says, I did not make that choice. But I wish it went differently."

Hickey means that. He's utterly sincere in that belief. Granted, he feels it should have gone differently in other ways than Randvi or the rest of the group thinks it should have gone differently (if this place was going to drive him to kill someone, it should have driven him to kill someone annoying vs. don't kill at all). But a part of him is aggravated by how things turned out. After all, he'd kind of like to have kept that whole 'cannibal' thing under wraps just a bit longer. Let the people here shed more of their morals first.

[meadqueen]

“At least that's something, I suppose.” Not the remorse many others are expressing but not delight in destruction either.

“If we find a way to prevent the creature from controlling us so readily would you use it?”

[friendsfordinner]

"Obviously," said with a tone of voice that's 'no duh.' "What, d'you think I liked doing things that I wouldn't have done otherwise?"

No! He didn't like it! Hickey wants to be on equal level with the Darkwalker, he wants that god to recognize him for his potential and for who he is, not boss him around like some useless little underling!

[meadqueen]

“I think that not openly using it is a convenient way to blame your actions on the creature’s influence even if they are not.”

Randvi is blissfully unaware of Hickey’s Darkwalker situation but Francis had suggested that this might happen.

[friendsfordinner]

"And I think that there are people here who'd say that it was all my fault, that my actions were purposeful, no matter what happened."

He shrugs slightly before continuing, "I've got bad blood with a few here. Foolish to pretend otherwise. And I know some of those I have bad blood with will happily cast aspersions even if they're false."

[meadqueen]

“Yes, it would protect you as well.” At least he sees a bit of reason. “I am hopeful that we will discover the cause soon.”

[friendsfordinner]

"Agreed," Hickey nods. There's a pause before he continues,

"But until we discover that cause, shall I kick your ass at poker?"

[meadqueen]

Randvi smiles, hefting her bag of buttons.

“I won't surrender.”