Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Morning

[suitably_heroic]

Monday morning, and he didn't have a damn thing to do - it was days like this Atton was actually glad he'd signed on to be a student over anything else. Nothing he had to do, no place he had to be, and a common room stocked full of food: that was the right way to do it.

He crashed out on the couch and groped around for the remote. He was starting to develop some real affection for Earth television, terrible as it was; he was going to enjoy himself zapping from one channel to the next and--

Wait, that was a card game.

He jumped back a channel. Yep. That was definitely... "Interdimensional Poker Stars?" Atton muttered, squinting. "...What is that?" Furry thing. Looked vaguely familiar.

He shrugged and settled back. Interdimensional poker tournament full of bizarre creatures from other universes? Sure. Bring it on.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[nottrivial]

Alec didn't normally spend much time in the common rooms that weren't his own, but he'd just come from training and the noise from the TV had gotten him up the extra flight of stairs just to see what it was. He hadn't been banking on the TV program being quite this odd, but then he was always fairly impressed with the new heights of the inanity of mundie television.

"What is this?" Was that a selkie playing poker with a jellyfish? What?

[suitably_heroic]

"It's poker," Atton said, terribly helpfully. "It's some Earth card game."

[nottrivial]

Yeah, that was really phenomenally helpful, Atton. "Yes, I've heard of it," Alec said, in a tone that implied that he sort of thought most people had. "I wasn't aware it was played like a competitive sport."

[suitably_heroic]

"It's a card game," Atton said, throwing him a look that read duh in big neon letters. "Of course it's played competitively. Otherwise, what's the point?"

[nottrivial]

"I meant more emphasis on the 'sport' part," Alec clarified. "I know it's played with the purpose of someone winning and everything; I just didn't realize it was televised and played in tournaments. It's not really a game of skill."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rolled his eyes at him. "Spoken like a guy who's never won a card game."

[nottrivial]

Alec... well, yeah, he had to give Atton that. "I've never played one."

[suitably_heroic]

"I can tell," Atton said, and nodded at the TV. "Sit down. Watch. It might change your mind."

[nottrivial]

Alec looked dubious, but slowly took a seat on a couch not far from Atton. As he did, his Sensor thrummed in his pocket, alerting him to the presence of a not-ordinary-human nearby, but that had been happening often enough lately that Alec just glanced Atton's way once and then ignored it.

"So the goal is to get over twenty-one?" he checked.

No, Alec. Wrong game. And also just wrong in general.

[suitably_heroic]

"No, that's Jackb-- Blackjack," said Atton. Who had finally figured that one out recently, Sparkle. "Damn, you're a young one, aren't you?"

[nottrivial]

"...I'll be seventeen next month." God, Atton.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, you're a kid," said the guy who was at least four years older than him. "Poker's a little more complicated than that. It's about getting the best hand."

Even if it was still inferior to pazaak.

[nottrivial]

"That doesn't strike me as something that involves an overabundance of skill," Alec pointed out. "Since dealing is random."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rolled his eyes again. "Dealing is random, but choosing to play on and raise the stakes isn't," he said. "Poker, like any good card game, is all about reading your opponent. Knowing when he's got a good hand and it's time to pass, knowing when he's bluffing and you need to see how far up you can get him to raise those stakes..."

Seriously. Have some respect for card games, Alec.

[nottrivial]

"...Right." See how convinced Alec was, Atton? He was so, so... not at all convinced because he thought this was silly "If you say so."

[suitably_heroic]

"It's psychological, it's not chance," Atton told him.

[nottrivial]

"I can't really believe that," Alec said frankly. "These games are mostly played by-- drunk people, aren't they? I don't see them strategizing much."

[suitably_heroic]

"No, actually, you have to be sober to play a good hand of cards."

Not that Atton wasn't good enough at faking drunk if it won him a game of pazaak. "Space, shut up and watch for a few minutes before you start spouting ignorance, all right?"

[nottrivial]

Alec scowled, but dutifully shut up and watched.

He had to admit there did seem to be at least a little strategy to it, but when what looked like a fistfight broke out in the background between what appeared to be a vampire biker and an alien, he turned to Atton with an unfairly satisfied expression on his face as if to say You see?

[suitably_heroic]

"That's just background noise," Atton said dismissively. "You don't see them playing cards, do you?"

[nottrivial]

"Well, not right now." Because of the security guards pulling them off of each other, see? "You're really telling me you think people are actually doing any thinking in this kind of environment?"

[suitably_heroic]

"You'd be surprised what kind of environment someone can think in," Atton said, then cast Alec a glance. "And in what environment they apparently can't."

[nottrivial]

Oh. Oh dear.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Think about it," Atton advised. "I'll wait."

[nottrivial]

"Well, I know I couldn't think in that setting," Alec said after a pause. "That's why I doubt anyone else can. It's impossible to concentrate with that much noise."

You know. If you were Alec.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton rolled his eyes. "And yet billions of beings around the galaxy live in places like that and they get by just fine," he said. "What are you, a Jedi?"

[nottrivial]

Yeah, living in a mostly-abandoned church with a million bedrooms but only his immediate family living there did kind of render a person a bit spoiled. Just a tad.

"A what? No." No reason to sound so defensive, Alec. "I don't even know what that is."

[suitably_heroic]

"Good," Atton said, tossing his feet up on the coffee table. "Life doesn't go quiet just because you need to think, kid."

[nottrivial]

"No," Alec said, "but you can't deny that not all loud obnoxious activities are necessarily intellectual pursuits."

[suitably_heroic]

"See, there isn't a word in that sentence that's wrong," Atton drawled, "Except the part where you implied that's what you said in the first place."

[nottrivial]

Atton had a pretty solid point there. Alec failed to grasp this.

"No, it is," he argued wrongly. "Because just because they're able to play in a loud and disruptive environment doesn't mean they're thinking very hard about it."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton shot him another look. "It also doesn't mean they're not," he said, "In fact, I'm thinking they're a whole lot better at thinking under pressure than you are, kid."

[nottrivial]

"I doubt that," Alec said dryly. "If that were the case, I don't think they'd be applying those skills to a card game."

Please stop being a pissy bitch, Alec.

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah?" Atton said, "Where would they be applying them?"

Seriously, Alec, he was going to shove you through a window at this rate.

[nottrivial]

"Something a little more important." Alec, just stop embarrassing yourself. Keep being a pissy bitch if you wanted, but stop sounding like a pretentious doucehbag. "Combat. Strategy. Not a mundie game."

...And now he sounded like a Jedi pretentious douchebag.

[suitably_heroic]

Yeaaaaah.

Atton raised both of his eyebrows.

"You think people who've been through that much poodoo, who grew up in a place like that, give a damn about combat or strategy?" he asked. "A lot of these card players are normal people who had it rough. They just want a mouthful of food and a place to sleep. You think they're going to waste that energy on 'something a little more important' when they could play some cards and maybe feed themselves?"

[nottrivial]

"I don't know," Alec said, a bit frustrated. "I don't know their backgrounds or what sorts of universes they come from. But it would be a lot more productive."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton leaned towards him. "Not everybody wants to pretend like they're a hero," he said. "The smart ones definitely don't."

[nottrivial]

Alec had to stare at Atton for a moment, incredulous.

"Right," he said finally. "That's incredibly short-sighted. I don't know what kind of world you come from, but I can promise you that that isn't always true."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm from a world that's filled with people like you who think they can make the world a better place," Atton told him. "Only to screw it up more, leaving a trail of bodies behind."

He'd know.

[nottrivial]

"I don't do that." Well. Not personally. Others like him, though? They... kind of had a tendency to do that. "Anyway, that's not... I'm not saying that's what just anyone should be doing, if they haven't been trained or equipped for it with the help of a society that backs their efforts. But it's more valuable than cards. That's all."

[suitably_heroic]

"I'm thinking maybe if more of you people who did receive training and equipment and had arrogant little ideas about world-saving planted in your head went out and played cards instead, maybe less people would be dying," Atton said.

That was a pretty deadly look right there.

[nottrivial]

The deadly look was definitelly resonating, because whatever Alec had been about to say promptly got swallowed when he saw it. "That isn't true where I'm from," he said instead, staring hard at his hands. "For all I know it could be for you, though. I don't know."

[suitably_heroic]

"Then stop running your mouth about things you don't know a damn thing about," Atton told him.

[nottrivial]

"Clearly." His tone wasn't entirely conciliatory, but the word was, so Alec wasn't expecting Atton to call him on the edge to his voice. The bottom line was that he was already kicking himself about having gotten involved in this discussion in the first place, so yeah, Atton, he got the message. "I'll just. Let you watch your poker, then."

[suitably_heroic]

"Yeah, you do that," Atton drawled, side-eyeing him. "Do me a favor? Don't try to save anyone on your way out."