withtheoldbreed | d-day + 187 through 193 ✯ spam

[Open Spam, throughout Port]

[Gene doesn't regret joining the Marines - God help him, it's true - but there's no doubt that the Army, Air Force and Navy guys over in Europe have the better deal when it comes to leave. There's no Paris or Rome to liberate in the Pacific, no London to be shipped back to for R&R, just the shitty shacks and tents on Pavuvu, overrun with land crabs and rats and still reeking of rotting coconuts.

So the idea of actually getting to explore the city - especially now that there's no war on, no Nazis running the place or snipers to look out for - is kind of neat, even if Gene's not so sure it's enough to really make up for the ship seeming like it was falling apart. Or the last port.

But he still hits the town - in civvies, probably for the first time since getting on board the ship - and does his best to enjoy himself. He doesn't speak French well enough to really communicate with anyone, but Snafu does, and they're so used to being in each other's company that it just makes sense to team up anyway... even if Snaf nearly gets them kicked out of at least one museum.

Because Gene's that kind of tourist - he gets up as close as people are still allowed to be to the Eiffel Tower and goes to the Arc de Triomphe, visits the Louvre and eats at some of the more modestly priced restaurants, walks along the Seine and finds himself oddly drawn to war memorials and places he recognizes from pictures when the city had fallen to the Nazis.

He can also be found in book shops and staring with mild confusion at the Apple Store. This Paris is very different from the one he imagines his brother had seen. Everyone's on their phones and looks different from what he's used to, and it's not bad, but he feels out of place. He has no idea with how Steve coped with waking up seventy or so years in the future, because even just this is very, very eerie.]

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[It's early on in the port enough that Mickey is still mostly functioning, if also almost as bewildered and out of place as Gene is. In fact, he's at the Eiffel Tower with his phone out, trying to figure out the best angle to get a picture from, when he takes a step back and literally bumps right into him.]

Hey--

[He turns, the watch it dying on his lips as he sees who it is. He takes a hasty step backwards, then freezes, staring uncomfortably at Gene.]

Oh.

[Gene turns too, expecting it to be some other tourist and has his mouth half around an apology (even if he was just standing here, not doing anything) before he realizes who it is.

If it helps, his answering stare is a lot less uncomfortable once they're a comfortable distance from each other.]

Hey.

[Um.]

You alright?

[There are worlds where this encounter goes a lot worse: where this is happening right after the Night with the Thing and Mickey is still feeling defensive and panicky; where Mickey had gone to bed right after Gene had left, and so Gene is still the most recent mistake on his mind. He'd gone on to do way stupider things, though, and somehow the world still hasn't exploded or anything in the aftermath. He feels like shit, but not because of Gene.

The upshot is that Mickey is incredibly ill at ease, but his first instinct isn't to lash out again just yet. Instead, he shrugs, looking basically anywhere but at Gene's face.]

Yeah. Yeah. Just-- you know.

[He holds up his phone and makes a click click sound with his tongue, which... may or may not mean photo to a guy who predates him by seventy years.]

[Fortunately, Gene's had some of the inner workings of such things explained to him over the last couple months, so it takes a moment, but yeah, okay. Taking pictures. He gets it.

He nods, and while there's a part of him that's still thinking about what happened - and Mickey probably is, too - fortunately they're standing right next to a giant distraction, and Gene... really doesn't care about what happened. Not really. He's got so much other fucked up shit to deal with, some guy trying to get his pants off isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to him.

So he glances over and squints up at the Eiffel Tower for a moment before looking back at Mickey.]

Weird to see it like this. [In person, with half the top missing.]

[He draws in a breath and lets it out as something almost like a laugh, shy and embarrassed and relieved all at once. He's socially awkward at the best of times, significantly moreso when faced with a situation like this, but -- yes, good, let them never talk about it again. That works for him just fine.

He turns to the Tower instead, still grinning strangely, rubbing the back of his neck until it stops feeling quite so warm.]

Yeah.

[He cranes his head back to look up at the broken top.]

Be fun trying to explain this shit back home, huh?

[As opposed to any of the other completely insane shit they've been through -- but he feels like this is a thing anyone could turn on the news and be like, uh, no, it's fine over. No one can prove that giant rabid dogs and demon parasites don't exist that easily.]

[Gene grins easily and chuckles, suddenly kind of pleased he doesn't have a camera. Not that he'd probably be taking pictures, anyway, because being able to explain this back home takes on a whole new meaning when you're a couple decades behind all this. How's he supposed to explain having weird, futuristic pictures of Paris, or anywhere else?]

Not even the Nazis fucked it up this bad. [But the Barge comes in, and of course, they apparently take the top off a national icon. Great driving, whoever's at the helm.

(There's a brief moment when he wonders why the Germans hadn't done more to destroy the city. There's still plenty he recognizes from pictures he saw before the war.)]

Really? Shit.

[Like, okay, Mickey mostly knew that already, but it's not like he's got Gene's firsthand perspective on it. He chuckles softly and shakes his head, finding that funnier than he probably should.]

Fuck us, then, huh?

Try'n avoid the national monuments next time you pick a port. [It's teasing, and comes out surprisingly easily, maybe like Mickey's just another guy in his squad or some other poor bastard on the frontline he happened to cross paths with.

It's a moment later that he gets a touch more serious, looking up at the tower without sadness, really, but something in his expression that's less easy to read. Wistfulness, maybe.]

Never thought I'd see it in person either way. Guess I can take it as is.

'Ay -- this one ain't on me, Sledge. I just picked this over New York. I dunno who the fuck was doing the steering.

[It's similarly light in tone, and for a minute it's a little surprising to him, that they really can just be joking around like this. There's still a little discomfort in him, but it's ebbing away rapidly the longer they stand here cracking jokes. It kind of feels like they might be, like, okay.

Then again, he's always bounced back before, right? Him and Ian had done it more than a few times: fighting one day, copacetic the next. They've pretty fucking well established by now that Gene is definitely not Ian, but there's a creeping awareness starting to dawn on Mickey that some of the stuff he's chalked up to being him and Ian stuff is maybe just... stuff that happens with friends, too.

Which is also the first time he's thought of Gene as a friend, so that's also kind of weird, but okay. He shrugs and folds his arms across his chest, peering at the monument.]

I guess. I don't get what the big deal was s'posed to have been before.

Guess it's no Grand Canyon. [Gene kind of regrets saying it as soon as it comes out of his mouth, because Rob's dead and isn't going to see anything like that ever again, but he tries to choke it down. He misses his friend, but thinking about him now isn't really going to do anyone any good.

So he reaches into his pants pockets for his pack of cigarettes and lighter, smiling sort of lopsidedly.]

Not that I've ever been there, either.

[And he offers Mickey the pack.]

[Despite knowing exactly what kind of horrors Gene's lived through -- or maybe not exactly, because only Gene knows exactly what it is going through his head in those moments of total panic -- Mickey tends to think of him as kind of... sheltered. On this, though, they're roughly the same:]

Shit, before this, I'd never been outside the Midwest before.

[He takes a smoke with a little gesture of obligatory gratitude, using his own lighter to light it up.]

Now I got Amsterdam, Paris... whole bunch of alien fucking planets...

[Gene actually hasn't traveled that much either, outside of being in the Marines, and he hasn't really been here for many other ports, so his curiosity's piqued as Mickey rattles off his list.]

What kinda alien planets?

Wherever we been to port.

[Hadn't Gene been there with him? It's hard for Mickey to keep track of who's around for what and when. He frowns thoughtfully as he draws on his smoke.]

Camping out on some Star Wars-looking place, that shitty tower with the ghosts... Pretty sure we were in fucking Narnia once. That was weird. Ian kind of flipped out.

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