(Open Log) You gotta know when to hold 'em

[bindlestifflost]

Who: George Milton, Nick Valentine, and anybody who shows up
When: April 22, starting around 6 PM until
Where: Apartment A-3
Summary: A night for playing cards, drinking beer or b.y.o.b. if harder, snacks and unwinding. Feel free to thread jack and jump all around, at least in my threads. This is just for some relaxed down time and catching up or introductions in a smaller, casual space.
Warnings: None expected. If your characters get to discussing anything triggery or get up to anything spicy, please CW in your individual threads.



Over the past week or so, hand printed signs drawn in sharpie on plain paper have shown up taped to walls around the apartment complex and on any easily accessible bulletin boards at ADI. A couple of them were also delivered to the flophouse with the request they be displayed somewhere the residents might see them.

They read:
Cards and Beer
Friday April 22 6 PM
Apartment A 3
George and Nick's place
You want more than beer
or chips and popcorn
bring your own.
Extra decks appreciated.

The night of, the door to A 3 is propped open. In addition to the dining table, a couple of card tables and cheap folding chairs are set up for games. Two bowls on the coffee table contain chips and popcorn respectively. There's a cooler on the floor in the kitchen filled with ice and cheap beer.

George or Nick will greet people as they come in and tell them to make themselves at home.

((OOC: Feel free to top level with your own character and make whatever prompts you like. George is generally easy-going, but if he catches anyone stealing, getting too hot and heavy in a bedroom, or otherwise being a general jerk about the apartment or the other guests, he will try to throw the offender out. If you want that kind of thread or want to succeed at something nefarious, let me know so we can work it out.))

Comments

[abrightboy]

"There are people who don't have it, but I don't think you're one of them," Malcolm tells him. "Didn't you say there were targets you broke your conditioning not to kill?"

cw past attemped suicide

[worthallthis]

"Steve," Winter says. That's the only one he didn't actually complete. That he remembers. "The other was-- after." He isn't one for fidgeting, but the plates in his arm shift a little, and he looks further away than usual. "I completed the mission. Then realized what it actually. Was. And tried to kill my handlers."

Tried to make them kill him when they came to collect him, in a fit of rage and horror, because he didn't actually think he could take out his field team. It's the one time he can ever remember actively trying not to survive.

Not that it had worked. They just brought him back again, and made sure he didn't remember any of it.

[abrightboy]

"People who don't have it, don't have it for anyone," Malcolm tells him. "There aren't exceptions."

[worthallthis]

Winter isn't sure he believes that. Field teams with HYDRA varied wildly on how they thought about other people, and each other, but he distinctly remembers a couple who would (and sometimes did) die for each other but would shoot targets without pause. Even really bad agents were still people, and sometimes people just cared about certain people and not others. Even Pierce cared about his daughter.

Ugh. Pierce had a daughter. He'd forgotten about that. But now he remembers his former handler waxing poetic about her one day while his asset sat in the goddamn chair and didn't care at all.

So his skepticism is clear, here. "Okay."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm's father thinks he loves his son. He talks about him all the time. He tries to make a connection with him. Malcolm wouldn't call it 'love'. Not for real.

"Have you had any other feelings you didn't understand?"

[worthallthis]

"All the time," Winter says. He's getting to the point where he doesn't think he could describe them if he wanted to. He's flustered and frustrated and actually kind of upset.

There's another feeling he doesn't really understand. "Right now," he adds. "I don't want to keep talking about this. But I should talk about this. So I can get better at being a person. But talking about it. Makes me want to punch you a little."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods sagely. "I have that effect on a lot of people," he assures. He shrugs. "What if we talk about it some more, but not right now? Sometimes it's good to take a break."

[worthallthis]

Winter hesitates, but then nods. He wants the out. He wants to not think about this. "Let's play some poker," he suggests, pushing up from the wall he'd been hunching into. "And drink something."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods.

"Do you want beer or wine?" he asks. "Neal brought some finger foods, too."