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Who: Hakkai, Jedao, and Gojyo
When: Late June after the Two-Step flood
Where: Hakkai & Jedao's cabin
What: Well, it's not not family therapy. Hakkai tries to manage a Vaguely Positive Interaction between his husband and his best friend, with poker and booze, because he learned all his coping techniques as a part of the Sanzo-ikkou.
Warnings: Awkward emotional territory and three guys who're maybe not handling their personal issues in the best and most objectively healthy ways. Alcohol use. Hakkai is hoping for no violence.

He'd told Jedao he wasn't going to overdo it on the snacks. Halfway through folding the third plate of intricate little dumplings, he can admit that he's perhaps a little nervous, but--

-- Well, dumpling folding isn't overdoing it, surely. He does stop at three plates, and puts out a few little sauce-jars and bottles on the table rather than mixing the dipping sauces himself once they're steamed. He's not going to be too nervous, because if he gets nervous, he's aware that he becomes the problem.

Three years on the Barge is enough to teach him a little self-control, he tells himself firmly, and sets out plates and glasses too while he waits for Gojyo's knock. He doesn't expect anyone to work everything out today. All he's hoping for is that things are-- okay. Okay is good enough.

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Jedao spent the hour before meditating, and feels, if not more hopeful, at least calmer than he had when Hakkai first proposed the idea. He's gotten the recommended bottles of whiskey and vodka, and also a small crate of more bottles very deviously hidden under the table. He's got a the dishes of black and white pattern-stones out to act as chips, and he's shuffling a double deck of cards as they wait.

Gojyo is quite on time for being him: it's only two or three minutes after seven that he knocks on the door. The last time he was here, the door opened for him without him having announced his presence, but it'd feel... weird not to knock this time.

He's been very tempted to get a head-start on the drinking, but ultimately decided against it. He has visited on of his lady friends earlier during the day, to take some tension off.

7:03 says that Gojyo is at least as anxious about this as Hakkai is refusing to be.

Hakkai calls to the room's computer, "Open the door, please," as he's heading over there: the enameled door sweeps back into its slot and Hakkai, behind it, gestures Gojyo in.

"You're almost early," he teases lightly: he's glad Gojyo doesn't already smell like alcohol, although Jedao has certainly brought enough to make sure that will change soon. "The table's over there. I'll deal first."

Since it lets Jedao and Gojyo avoid direct interaction for at least the first round.

"It's too bad we don't have a fourth, or we could play mahjong," he adds a bit wistfully. Poker is fine, but he does like a game with a little additional strategy.

"Tendi could be a fourth some time," Jedao suggests. She's smart and tends to overwork; it'd be a kindness to drag her into something fun, and he's pretty sure she and Gojyo get along.

"She's good at card games", Gojyo confirms (having quite possibly visited Tendi's cabin earlier in the day). He's not sullen, but definitely a little subdued. "Dunno if she knows mahjong."

"Uh..." He takes out his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and holds it up with a questioning look at the two of them. Normally Gojyo doesn't give a fuck if people object to him smoking, but he really doesn't want to piss anyone off the first thing he does here.

Edited 2025-06-26 07:08 (UTC)

"Well, we could teach her," Hakkai says cheerfully, and glances at the cigarettes. "I'll get an ashtray."

He's got one tucked away in a drawer that last came out when Eiffel was still on board -- but no, he doesn't think either of them minds cigarettes, even if he and Jedao don't smoke.

Jeep chirps a greeting from the corner of the living room, long neck lifting from his bed, and Hakkai sets the ashtray down by Gojyo before commandeering the cards to shuffle and deal.

Jedao is relieved that Hakkai fields the question; he doesn't mind, finds the smell vaguely comforting exactly because he associates it only with Eiffel, but feels utterly self-conscious of the optics of giving permission, how easy it would be to take offense at the implication that Jedao had the right to forbid or permit.

He yields the cards with a small, grateful smile.

"And she works too much. It'd be good for her."

It wasn't something Gojyo consciously considered, but... yeah, there's a high likelihood that Jedao answering either way would have started things off very wrong.

To Jeep: "Hey, pipsqueak."

He goes take a seat on the opposite side of the table from Jedao while fishing up a cigarette and lighting in. Thank fuck for having something to do with his hands until Hakkai comes back and deals the cards.

"Yeah, she... tried to teach me this super-convoluted card game once. Don't think I could've followed the rules even if I'd been completely sober at the time. So she'd probably catch on quickly."

Edited (I forgot Jeep!!) 2025-06-26 16:39 (UTC)

Hakkai laughs, bumps his shoulder against Gojyo's and settles between the two of them to deal the cards in a practiced flurry of pasteboard.

"Well, we can teach her mahjong and she can teach us all whatever that is."

Wildly complicated card games sound fun. He's dealing simple five-card draw, nothing too intricate, and his gaze flicks from Gojyo to Jedao as he picks up his own hand afterwards. Jedao might be planning to be on his best behavior; Hakkai plans to play as cutthroat as he can, because he's probably the only one here who won't hurt anyone's feelings by winning.

Jedao intends to win precisely one quarter of the hands so that it doesn't look like he's throwing it on purpose, and having a mathematical target at least gives him something to focus on.

Meanwhile, Gojyo's intellectual self-deprecation is obviously a trap of interstellar proportions, but Jedao isn't sure where the line is between skirting it safely and rudely ignoring the thread of the conversation. He smiles mildly.

"Or Istradez, maybe. He wouldn't be weird about it, although I don't know if you two have met?"

Gojyo bumps Hakkai's shoulder back, silently grateful that Hakkai seats himself between him and Jedao.

Bold of Jedao to assume Gojyo doesn't take pride in his ability to catch on quickly when it comes to games. He does make a living off gambling, after all ~~even if he's likely the weakest player in the room right now~~. Fizzbin is just that complicated. He answers without quite looking Jedao in the eye, under the excuse of looking at his cards.

"That's one of the new guys, right? Haven't talked to him, no. ...'Weird about it'?"

"Well, better him than Mikodez," mutters Hakkai, who is still nursing his grudge over Jedao's comfortable captivity in Shuos custody. No matter how much Jedao thinks it was a kindness. He pushes a few tokens into the pot with an edge of aggression.

Yes, a trap exactly like that. In answer to the question, Jedao nods.

"Istradez has spent a lot of time around people who got kind of obsessive about games," Jedao explains. "Mikodez among them. But he's more relaxed about that kind of thing."

[Poker things are going on as they talk!!]

"...Uh-huh. I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like Tendi would be the the better option. She wouldn't get weird about a game."

Gojyo gets that there's a lot of context he's missing here, but... what an absurd thing to obsess about? What the hell.

"It's a... thing, for the faction Mikodez runs," Hakkai explains, not quite making a face about Mikodez this time. "Games are for revealing how people think and for forcing them to think in certain ways, and they're trained in it to the point that they can't just play a game no matter how simple. Istradez might be his brother--" that's not a secret, they're identical but for fashion choices-- "but he's not part of that faction, so he's a bit more reasonable about those things."

It's possible that some of his disdain for Shuos games is lingering from the memory of Vidona Hakkai, but he chooses not to interrogate that too closely. It's not a Barge identity he likes to revisit.

It's nice, in a bittersweet resigned sort of way, to have confirmation that Gojyo isn't even listening to him, or if he is, he's not going to let what Jedo actually says get in the way of finding things to snipe and object to. Jedao specifically said Istradez wasn't weird about it.

Nevermind Gojyo being wildly ~~faction-racist~~ offensive. He's a barbarian, he doesn't know any better.

Jedao helps himself to another big swallow of vodka, and folds a full house - not that either of them can see his possibly-high-scoring hand as the cards go face-down back into the bottom of the deck.

"You're right, Tendi makes more sense," he agrees blithely.

Edited 2025-06-26 17:56 (UTC)

Jedao said Istradez spent a lot of time around people who got obsessive about games; Hakkai said he and Mikodez are brothers, so they resumably grew up together; and Hakkai also confirmed that Istradez is a bit more reasonable about those things. It makes sense to Gojyo that Istradez would be less weird but still weird. Gojyo's own game strategy tonight is much the same it usually is: he'll attempt to win every turn, but if he doesn't, it's no big deal.

Jedao agreeing that blandly feels so out of character, though. Gojyo casts him a look before averting his eyes, taking a swallow of whiskey and forcing himself not to read any mocking into Jedao's tone.

"You guys all from the same world, huh?"

Hakkai takes the first hand with four of a kind and passes the cards to Gojyo to deal the next, taking a drink. That question is Jedao's to answer, not his.

"We are, although I'd never met Istradez before the barge, and Mikodez and I were colleagues at best."

Which is very funny, under the circumstances, and technically true, which is the best kind of funny and true.

"You'd recognize them to look at. Lord Michael and Lady Iphigenia."

His family from the breach, although only employers to Galahad. Both of them minor nobility who weren't cruel, nor stupid, but focused largely on their own pursuits. They'd half-raised Jedikiah after his parents had...died, in a benevolent but slightly distant way.

"Oh. Them, okay."

Gojyo remembers 'Galahad' feeling overall positively about them, at least as far as nobility went. They'd been kind to 'Jed', at least according to the standards of that world. He deals the cards with a practised hand.

Although... brothers. Can breaches change your sex? Creepy.

Uh. Say something, self.

"...Breaches are fucking weird."

Hakkai lets out the tiniest breath of an agreeing sigh, collecting his new cards as Gojyo deals them.

"Breaches are weird," he agrees. "I was a songbird once."

He thinks of Eiffel as a gnome with a fake beard; he thinks of the river of the dead and the island of dinosaurs, although those had just been ports.

"That one was very weird. I was a bird and also a pirate."

"Animals are annoying enough without them being sentient." (Apologies to Jeep.)

Changing sexes is, admittedly, probably less weird than changing species. Although to Gojyo, the absolute weirdest change is...

"And there was one where I didn't smoke."

Clearly, that 'him' was antithesis to Gojyo's core being! He takes another swallow of whiskey. He wins this round with a straight flush.

"The biggest change of all," Hakkai says, absolutely earnest in tone but giving Gojyo a sidelong glance sparking with humor.

"I usually prefer ports myself. Even if there are dangerous monsters, they're more interesting to explore, and there's nothing to -- deal with afterwards."

It hadn't been that strange being Jedao's manservant, as breaches go. But there had been some others that were... stranger.

It puts Jedao even more in mind of the River of the Dead, the strange thing he'd become there, clay and blood and flame and darkness, a hungry ghost. He can still remember the taste of Hakkai's chi.

Not a poker table conversation, though.

"I like the ones where we get to see oceans," Jedao says, which is bland but true.