withtheoldbreed | d-day + 187 through 193 ✯ spam

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[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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[He doesn't - Ricki gets a small but genuine smile in greeting, and he doesn't start looking like he's about to move on, or head out, even if part of him knows he's probably only got so much time before Snaf texts him to let him know he's either bored out of his mind or ditching him for something more fun.]

I've got this thing I can't resist.

[He admits, on his way over, voice dropping a little lower- bookstores are like libraries, in that the good ones have a hush to them.]

I know it's pointless, but reading future histories of my past, seeing how it all turned out-

[Gene shakes his head immediately, glancing down at the biology textbook he's looking at, because he understands what that's like, he does, but he's on the complete opposite side of this.]

I've been avoidin' all that. I don't wanna know what happens. [He doesn't want to know where K/3/5 is headed next, or what horrible stuff might happen to his buddies after Peleliu. He's read enough war literature to know someone like Ack Ack could be mentioned in a book about Peleliu, and Gene has no interest in finding out who else isn't going home.]

If it helps, it's totally useless. I can see the shapes of my world in the books- a fellow named Kim Philbin who did many of the things my old boss Bill managed to pull off in my world. A few of the same POW camps but with different names on the prisoner rosters.

[He hunts and hunts, but never finds what he's looking for.]

Like we're a half-step out of sync.

[Gene shakes his head firmly, glancing up at Ricki and then back to the book again.]

I don't wanna know.

I know specifics about what I'm goin' back to, I'll spend too much time worryin' over stuff I can't change.

That'd be the difference, I suppose. I don't really believe I'm going back.

[Skirting around the bookshelf to browse the other side. It's low enough he can still see him over the top of it, but gives him a little space.]

[It's fine. As long as Gene doesn't spend too much time thinking about what's going to happen after Peleliu, he's fine. The slight shift in topic means he can just roll with it.]

You don't think you're gonna graduate?

Not a chance, I'm afraid.

[He admits, plucking down a book on self-help, of the home organization and anti-clutter variety.]

Why?

[It's probably a stupidly personal question, but it's something Gene's been thinking about a bit. Between Jimmy and Snaf, he's had a lot of reason to wonder about what exactly convinces someone they're not going to graduate, and he just... doesn't get it. Wouldn't you want to?]

[It does take Ricki a little aback. But hell, if he's blunt enough to ask, Ricki will do his best.]

You've killed people, yeah?

Yes. [Which, while said politely, does sound a tiny bit like he's got an "of course" tacked on there. He's a marine, he fought the Japs, of course he's killed people.]

Did you regret it?

[Deeply personal, again, but these are questions about human morality. It's going to get sticky.]

[It's a complicated question, but Gene has an answer. If it sounds well rehearsed, it's because it's something he's had to tell himself since the first time he made a close up kill, when he'd shot the Jap with the sword coming out of the pillbox at him and Bill, when Bill had been half blinded with blood and shrapnel, screaming his name as the corpse collapsed on top of Gene.

So he's had some time to think about it.]

It's a war. [He says it bluntly, and he can hold Ricki's gaze when he says it, so evidently even if part of him regrets it, he's not ashamed.] If the Japs hadn't attacked us first or done what they did in China, we wouldn't have needed to be there in the first place. And if I hadn't done my job, a lotta other people would've gotten killed.

I don't like that I had to do it, but I'm not sorry I did.

Exactly.

[He agrees, reshelving the book on organization without looking where he's sliding it, because he's watching him back.]

And that's just it. I did what I had to do. I'm not sorry I did it. Only, it seems like the things I did in the service of my greater good were a little too objectively awful for my scales to balance out, in the end. But as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really change a thing.

[The answer makes him uncomfortable, and there's maybe a flicker of that in his expression for a moment, but he can hold his ground. He's not especially scared or threatened or anything, and they're in a public place. If something happens, they've got lots of witnesses.]

Don't you wanna go back?

No.

[He admits, pulling another book down, melting into something a lot more passive, peaceful.]

It's a bloody mess back there. Sometimes, I'll admit, I think about becoming a warden to try to get the deal, try to save someone that once upon a time, I couldn't- but that isn't going to change the fact that I don't believe in it.

[Gene nods, entirely uncertain as to what to make of that - any of it, really. He can't help but think about Snaf and Jimmy, how both of them sort of have that same weird acceptance of their fate and no drive to return to where they came from. Jimmy he knows is losing out on something by feeling like that - Tommy needs him, and Richard and maybe even his mom, too, and Snafu... well. He's a completely different matter, because Gene's emotionally intelligent enough to know that a lot of his upset and worry about that has to do with selfishness. He doesn't want to lose his friend.

So he doesn't know what to say, and finally glances back at the bookshelves, running a finger along the title of one while he tries to come up with something.]

Guess the Barge isn't so bad when you look at it like that.

I didn't say that.

[He says, with a little shrug.

The brutally honest truth is that Ricki would rather be dead. Barring that, he will of course take going home, but he isn't impelled enough to play along, to try to graduate.]

[And again, Gene's not sure what to say to that. He just honestly doesn't understand wanting to be dead - he's twenty one years old. He didn't graduate from college, he's never kissed a girl, or had a real job or visited or done half the things he wants to do, and he'd been staring death in the face every single day on Peleliu. He wants to get out of there, he wants to walk away from this, and giving up on that just seems so insane.

So he goes back to looking at the books, not dismissing him or anything, but just... uncomfortable and not sure what to do now.]

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