InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Super Special Awesome!"

DCI Gene Hunt (asgenehunt) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2009-01-14 21:04:00

Entry tags:

astor bennett, complete, day 28, gene hunt

Who: Gene and OTA
When: Day 28
What: Lounging around
Rating: G
Status: Incomplete

Settling down on a bench just outside the garage, Gene was, although he'd be hard pushed to admit it, finding that there was nothing he was left wanting for in this place, materially. It was uncanny, and more than just a little unnerving that he found everything he needed only seconds after he'd thought of it himself. Everything, except when it came to envisioning a nice big door that led out into Fleet Street. No such luck with that one. He was starting to think that maybe there really was truth in this 'planet being alive' notion.

It was the lack of incidents, of anything to react to, that he never thought he'd miss, but did. He hadn't heard of one murder or drug ring since arriving. There was no need to stay on a constant edge, or to always be ready to jump into action, and no Met to work for. God help him, he was even missing his team, although he'd shoved that sentiment so far down that even he hadn't realised it. Acknowledging it would mean that he was going to be stuck there for a long time, and that, above everything, was something he couldn't accept yet.

Without being fully aware that his hands sought out a cigarette from the pack of Embassy Filters in his pocket, it was only when he had to use both hands to light the tip that he found himself taking a satisfying drag. Well, so much for hanging onto that bolting wagon. Seemed that even here he was unreasonably stubborn at knowing when to let go.

He sat with his elbow propped up on the bench arm, chin in the palm of his hand with fingers against cheek, absently letting a cloud of smoke drift upward which only swelled thinly in the light of day. The day he returned back to London one way or the other would be the day he gave up again. Until then, it was a case of taking in any little comfort that he could.

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asgenehunt
2009-02-05 11:43 am UTC (link)

For a second, Gene thought that the girl was going off on a tangent by offering her name, before he realised her mild offence to the term he'd given her. He took the point.

"Manchester," he replied to her question. "I was in London when I came here," but nothing on Earth, or any planet, was going to get him to claim that murky pisshole as his home. Fair enough, the bars there weren't so bad. At least, the ones that weren't caked in glitter and filled with the kind of vagrants who looked like they'd been vomited out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. And the music. God help the world if that was where it was going. The incessant thump-thump-thump-thump of instruments he couldn't rightly name were enough to give him a headache. If he wanted the same effect, all he needed was to get sloshed on some of Jack Daniels' finest.

"England," he added, in case that was needed. He hadn't meet many people from overseas, and the ones he did tended to know which country they were in. It was only during his time in National Service and the occasional holiday with his missus that he'd been abroad, neither of which had been good situations to socialise in. "1980's," as yet another afterthought. He'd stayed away from most of the residents, but by then he'd realised that he wasn't from the same time as those he'd overheard talking.

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miami_angel97
2009-02-05 01:55 pm UTC (link)

Manchester didn't ring a bell, but London did. Big Ben was in London; she'd learned about that in some class or another. It was that big clock. The Empire State Building of London, her teacher said and whether or not it was true, Astor didn't know.

She went on walking with him and kept quiet because it looked to her like now it was his turn to go off into thought. He added 'England' and she nodded. Once he'd said London, she'd known that, but she was also one of the more excelled students in her history class and she knew most of her classmates probably still wouldn't know what he'd been talking about. And then he said 1980. "1980?!" she asked, eyes wide. "That's like a million years ago!"

He must be really old...

"I came from 2007," she added, blushing by way of apology for her outburst. Some grown ups didn't like being told they were old. Like...they already knew and they didn't need or want Astor rubbing it in.

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asgenehunt
2009-02-05 04:45 pm UTC (link)

"Hey, it might be a bit behind in your time, but we know how things are done there," he pointed out firmly, but not aggressively. Which meant, that was the world he knew and liked. There wasn't all the newfangled junk that seemed to be here. He hadn't even attempted to use the computer in his room, which looked far more complicated than the one he'd brought in for the office. Except, perhaps, to experimentally press a key and have the thing singsong at him in some metallic tune. Almost as bad as the London bar music. It was difficult to get his mind around the idea that apparently what had been a fantastic piece of technology in his time was little more than a relic now. Story of his life, that.

"2007," he mused. Hell. All right. Credit to the girl, that did sound a long way off, even if he was seeing it from a past perspective, and she from a future one. A few decades was a lot to catch up on, and frankly, he wasn't sure what he wanted to find out about. It was impossible not to be curious, though. And if he was going to be stuck there, it would help to know something of where everyone else was from.

"Well, how's that time working out for you? Anything worth a mention happen in the last ten years?"

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miami_angel97
2009-02-05 05:00 pm UTC (link)

Astor smirked a little. "If you say so, mister," she giggled. She wondered what they did for fun back then...it was practically the middle ages, wasn't it? Did they even have TVs and video games? Oh, my God, how the heck did kids to their homework without computers and the internet? Did they have that back then??

"Pretty good, I guess," she replied to his question with a shrug. It was all she knew. "Um. Well, there was...oh! There was the Challenger crash in 1986. We went to this place in New York last year on a field trip where we went in a simulator. That was kinda fun... The Challenger...it was a rocket. You know, the ones that go in space?" She paused. "There's wars. And terrorists...they blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers when I was five...I just learned about that in school..."

"What about back then? What kinda stuff happens then?" she asked.

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asgenehunt
2009-02-12 06:00 am UTC (link)

Gene wasn't going to pretend that half of that made sense to him, in case Astor decided to follow him up on any of it, and then he'd be forced to admit that actually, no, it didn't. And he'd rather take another knock to the head than acknowledge he'd been bested by a kid.

"Events, well. First woman prime minister," he muttered, but begrudgingly on a matter of principle. "Upheaval in the Polish government, the pope was shot, and a whole lot of claptrap about who shot JR." Even he realised how that paled in comparison with Astor's recital of world events. Mulling over the Challenger crash she mentioned, he could remember watching the news about the very first launch of a space shuttle. Columbia, or something that sounded just as American. Gene would have liked to think that people would have gained back the common sense to not fire anything else into space - wasn't cheap, and sure as hell wasn't smart - which was possibly because he didn't understand the science of it, except that it involved ridiculous space suits, a rocket, and some bastard big engines.

"Terrorists and blowing up buildings. Now I know the world's going to hell. Or at least is heading that way," since it had apparently made it to 2007.

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miami_angel97
2009-02-12 12:53 pm UTC (link)

"Prime minister is like president, right?" Astor asked, raising her eyebrows. "And...who's JR?"

When the man said that the world was heading toward hell, Astor shurgged. "That's what my grandma says, sometimes," she told him. She didn't really know the difference. To Astor, most of it didn't really make much sense, anyway.

Astor noticed that the building toward which they were headed was much closer, now, and she smiled up at him. "Thanks for helping me, mister," she said sincerely. She paused. "What's your name, anyway?"

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