E. B. Sledge (
withtheoldbreed) wrote2015-05-23 07:53 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.]
[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.]
no subject
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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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.]
no subject
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...
no subject
What kinda alien planets?
no subject
[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.