The cards disappeared behind Gawain's back, and Evelyn frowned, lips pursed, but corners creeping slightly towards a smile. It was a smart move on the part of the mirror-walker, and her mind was left trying to guess where the cards had ended up. As the cards reappeared, she focused on the deck, waiting for the cards to get dealt.

>>"Let's see if your echoes are as good as you say..."

"Is that a challenge I hear? I'm trying to play fair, but if you tempt me I'll figure out all your tells and keep them to myself." She chuckled. It would be hard to do slightly hung over, but she was never one to back down from a challenge at least where her powers were concerned.

>>"Is that a challenge I hear? I'm trying to play fair, but if you tempt me I'll figure out all your tells and keep them to myself."

"You already know all my tells" Gawain shrugged the threat off with a smirk. Evelyn had been around him long enough to know, and besides, she had read him like an open book five minute after they first met.

"It might be a challenge, though" he said, dealing the cards "What are the stakes? From what I hear about college culture, this is the part when people start stripping. But as far as I can tell, you've got a few layers of advantage on me. I really don't wanna play against all those odds..." he added with a cheeky grin. As if he minded at all.

>>"It might be a challenge,"

Evelyn smirked and rolled her eyes. She didn't seem to think it was very likely Gawain would beat her. Even tipsy she could still feel the echoes watching the cards and trying to guess and note where each ended up.

>>"What are the stakes? From what I hear about college culture, this is the part when people start stripping."

This remark made Evelyn both laugh and blush at the same time. She was fairly confident in her abilities, so she didn't feel as concerned as she might have. But the image of undressing around anyone, especially Gawain, made her pulse race a little. But her smile still took a smug look to match his cheeky expression. "If you're so worried about my unfair advantage we can make it interesting. Every time you loose, you take off one item of clothes. Every time I do, I'll take off two." Perhaps it was the lingering traces of alcohol spurring her to try, but the gave had a risk/reward sort of appeal to it.

>>"If you're so worried about my unfair advantage we can make it interesting. Every time you loose, you take off one item of clothes. Every time I do, I'll take off two."

Gawain blinked in surprise; given his track record of making the echoes shut up and Eve blush, he did not expect her to actually take him up on the joke. But now there was no backing out of it in honor. Damn being a knight.

Gawain looked her up and down for a moment, partly to see if she really was serious, and partly to do a quick head count of clothing articles. Then he picked up his cards.

"You are on. Let's do this."

Gawain's surprise just encouraged Evelyn in her choice. Part of her felt worried she'd actually loose and have to be the one undressing, but the other half was overly confident and amused at the idea of watching Gawain do the honors. It was cards. Poker. She had the echoes right? This should be an easy thing to do.

But picking up her own cards and trying to tune the echoes in on the game was difficult. She should have found a coconut.

Darn coconut...

Her hand had a queen of hearts, a two tens, and then a few completely unhelpful numbers like 3's and 5's. Keeping her eyes down, she watched Gawain assess his own hand in the corner of her eye. Her echoes slowly shifted their attention that direction, somewhat sluggishly trying to get involved in the situation.

It took all of Gawain's remarkable skill in poker to lose the game.

Evely, drunk-slash-hung-over as she was, still had the ultimate mutant power for winning a game of cards. Gawain could almost hear the echoes re-calculating after every move. And yet, when it came to her turn, she seemed to be too preoccupied with the numbers running in her head, and kept making the wrong choices.
If the young knight had left it up to her, she would have been seriously underdressed in under half an hour.

Good thing Gawain was a knight of honor.

"You win" he concluded at the end of their first game, throwing down his cards. They were sitting on the bed facing each other, which was probably for the best, given the chance that drunk echoes might just decide to shut down mid-game.

"So... I guess I lost my shirt."

The game felt like a blur to Evelyn. Well, maybe not a blur. Like a massive headache of calculations and overalazying and rethinking and general brain discomfort. But she was determined to win, determined enough that she made some dumb mistakes, and missed Gawain not taking advantage of them. When the round ended and Gawain lost, she blinked and wasn't sure quite how to respond.

Gawain was going to loose his shirt.... Her cheeks caught a pink tint to them, but she grinned slightly. "Well go on then. Off with it." Her blushing gave away how completely unfamiliar she was with situations like this.

Whoever thought it was easy for guys to take off their shirts was underestimating the power of visual media. Gawain had had his fair share of moments of shirtlessness, usually during training, but that was a whole different scenario than playing strip poker with one's girlfriend.
Evelyn was blushing furiously and Gawain felt his own cheeks warm up. He tossed the shirt on the bed and settled back to shuffling cards. The room's air conditioning was cool on his skin, and the blush creeping down his neck made some of the scars stand out. His right shoulder was covered in the pattern of shattered glass, and on his left was a very old scar, one that he got the first time he tumbled into New York City and through Rupert's mirror. There were some other bruises and scratched, some from recent training, some from previous fights. Shuffling the cards for the next game, he flashed a cheeky smile at Eve.

"It's okay to stare."

>>"It's okay to stare."

And stare she did, but not in a bad way. Gawain was fit, and it was hard to pay attention to the cards when she was staring at his exposed chest. While he had shown her some of the scars before, now she could see just how far they expanded. He had certainly seen some battles over the years. Much more than she had.

It was also odd to think just the day before she had been complimenting him on how he looked in a dress.

"You look good. You should go around like this more often. Although, maybe not during cards....I think you're getting an unfair advantage now." It was somewhat distracting. She had no idea where half the cards had landed, and would be once more playing off Gawain's body---

--language. Body language. She shook her head and tried to turn the echoes back to the cards. Staring was definitely happening, and her face felt bright against her pale hair.

>>"You look good. You should go around like this more often. Although, maybe not during cards....I think you're getting an unfair advantage now."

Gawain snickered at her reaction, color, look, words and all. It was all kinds of flattering.

"And it's not even a Maya day" he grinned, dealing the cards for the second game. "As for walkin' around like this, I don't know. Wouldn't want to hurt Sam's ego..."

He chuckled as he picked up the cards.

Evelyn was right about unfair advantage. Whether because it was for that, or for his amusement at looking at her, but the game was unsalvagable, and he had to admit victory in the end.

"I win" he concluded, grinning at Eve. Now this was getting interesting.

She lost. Tipsy/hungover, tired, and distracted by Gawain, there was little the echoes could do to redeem herself. She glanced down at her outfit, and it felt like her deal was going to bite her faster than she'd like. Sticking out her tongue at Gawain, she slipped out of her shirt, a thin undershirt still protecting her skin from the air. The tank top didn't feel like much though as she debated what else to get rid of. She should have worn socks. Socks would have been helpful about now. Instead, she stood and used whatever courage she had left to kick off the skirt she was wearing before plopping back on the bed. Gawain had seen more when she was wearing her bathing suit anyway.

It didn't keep the color from her face though.

"There. Happy?" She said, tucking her bare legs close and pushing her hair from her face. She tried to focus more on the game this time. There wasn't much else she could loose if she got distracted again.

>>"There. Happy?"

"Yup."

And with that, the unfair advantage was fairly balanced into oblivion. Gawain kept his eyes on shuffling the cards. Granted he had seen Eve in a bikini before, but that was totally, unfairly not the same. Gawain dealt the cards for the next round, feeling his blush match hers, trying to keep his eyes down.

This was going to be an interesting game either way...

Evelyn wasn't quite a sore loser, but growing up with the echoes made her somewhat startled by not winning. The first time, she accepted it and held up her end of things, but by the time she was loosing again, she felt herself somewhat childishly toss her cards on the bed in a flustered fold, then flopped forward across them as her brain struggled unsuccessfully to locate the ace of hearts.

"I give up." She muttered into the blankets, then pulled herself so her head was resting on Gawain's leg. Her tipsy mind wasn't thinking through her actions anymore, so it was probably for the best sleep was beginning to take hold. "I think I lost the echoes somewhere back during the last shuffles. I'm not smart enough without them to play this game." She didn't know how Gawain lived without echoes. It hurt to think without that part of her brain functioning.

Gawain laughed as Eve gave up and flopped down on the bed. He did not mind not winning again; he really could see no honorable way out of that possibility.

"It's fine" he chuckled, patting her head "we'll just blame it on the alcohol."

She looked ready to go to sleep. Just like his leg.

"Hey" he muttered gently "C'mon up."

Pulling her into a sitting position he swept the cards off the bed and then lay down, pulling her to rest her ead on his shoulder.

"that's better. You can sleep now."

Evelyn didn't object when she was moved so she was resting her head on Gawain's shoulder. She snuggled into the crook of his arm, hand resting lightly on his skin. It felt nice, and her brain almost forgot to feel embarrassed. She liked being around the mirror-walker, and had the drunk side of her been more in control and the sleepy side, she might have enjoyed it a bit too much. Still, she kissed his neck and let sleep take hold, already distracted from thoughts of the headache she had before.

"We should hang out like this more often..." She muttered sleepily. "Maybe then having playbacks wouldn't suck so much." Whatever memories she got didn't worry her right then. Whether it was sewer monsters, her mother, or just a game of cards. There was a feeling of safety around Gawain. She may have complained before, but it was kind of nice having a knight by your side.