Oxford Street Tube Station, London, Wednesday Afternoon

[bitten_notshy]

It was considerate of Portalocity to put the main port to and from London in a dimly lit alcove of a crowded underground station; no one was looking at anyone else, and, even if they were, there'd probably been stranger things to remark upon that morning than two (to all appearances) young men stepping out of a glowing blue doorway to nowhere. Certainly Jack was not going to break his stride to remark on how unusual it was.

He did, though, pause when they were out of the station. "Guidebook first, I think," he ventured. "Seeing as it's been some time since I was here."

[OOC: For Mitchell, unless someone else is in London today.]

Comments

[chosehumanity]

"I haven't been to London in a long while," Mitchell returned, tugging his gloves tighter onto his fingers. "Bristol was always a bit kinder." He took a quick survey of the area where he stood - it had changed, but it wasn't like he hadn't been there since 1960 or worse. "Shouldn't be too far to a bookshop."

[bitten_notshy]

"I don't think I've been to Bristol," Jack said, half-apologetic as he did his own survey of the street.

Given 110 years and the horrible tendency of modern people to plaster things with advertisements and blinking signs, it was ... changed, but he didn't think he was completely lost. (Then again, Jack never thought he was completely lost.)

"Were you there a long time, then? And yes, a bookstore should be easy to find. I need a few history texts, too."

[chosehumanity]

"I've been back and forth," he said, fumbling around the inside of his jacket for his packet of cigarettes. He pulled one out, and slipped it between his lips, ignoring the phone in the same pocket which, for the third time, now, beeped with a text message. "You should try Bristol some time," he continued. "It's a little less..." He pulled a slight face. "Of a mess."

[bitten_notshy]

"I suppose I like messes," Jack said, not sounding especially bothered either way. "They tend to be busier, for one."

He turned his head. "Are you beeping?"

[chosehumanity]

"That's just George," Mitchell said, waving it off. "Fandom hasn't been giving him enough to worry about personally." He glanced across the street, shoving his sunglasses firmly back onto his face, and nodded at the crossing. "That would be our street."

[bitten_notshy]

"Fandom's been quiet for once," Jack pointed out lightly. "So he didn't go learn to carve his own canoe, or whatever they're doing in the Catskills?"

He obediently turned, though. "And I think this would be a bookstore. Good eye."

[chosehumanity]

"That should get you some guidebooks." Mitchell was perhaps slightly pleased with himself for remembering, but that much was allowed. "Please. George had an acute coronary when he heard I was stealing out for a few days," he continued, starting in that direction, "I'm not sure the Catskills would help with his issues."

[bitten_notshy]

"There's a whole shelf of travel books," Jack said, pulling a few out and hesitating only slightly before adding one on Bristol to the mix.

"He did?" George was worse than Jack was, then. "How did you convince him you could both manage?"

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell shot him a glance from the corner of his eyes. "It's George," he said, "You just wait out the flailing and tell him to go piddle out on the lawn."

... They had their own kind of shorthand. "So what's next on our list?" he asked, "Find a place to stay overnight, see how the town's been doing..."

Later That Night...

[bitten_notshy]

Once the room had been found (and accepted for what it was) and Mitchell had been given a thorough grounding in the locals not of the human variety, they were back out and through the maze of Soho.

"Sebastien said this place was here three hundred years ago," Jack said, conversationally. "Can't be too much to ask it lasted another hundred, can it?"

He was feeling the city out as he walked, trying to imagine himself here.

Re: Later That Night...

[chosehumanity]

"Vampires don't like to stray far from home base," Mitchell agreed, a little more warily. He'd never been much for London. "At least back where I come from."

Re: Later That Night...

[bitten_notshy]

"They tend to end up back in the same places even if they try," Jack said thoughtfully. "Human nature, I suppose."

He paused in front of an bog-standard pub with an old sign and a boring name. "Well, the front part is still here. What we'd want would be downstairs." He was going to assume it was and just walk through like he had absolutely no question as to what he was doing, but he managed a smile at Mitchell, first. "Ready to see your kind?"

Re: Later That Night...

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah, I'm practically leaping for it," he said, dryly.

Most of the friendly, human dorkiness had already drained out of his features on the way there; with his hands shoved down his pockets, he seemed positively distant.

Re: Later That Night...

[bitten_notshy]

"Well, obviously," Jack said, looking him over.

He looked more like a vampire than he usually did. There was some prickling at the back of Jack's neck that he was going to ignore.

He reached for the door and walked in, absently nodding to the bartender as he looked for the stairs.

Re: Later That Night...

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell followed, his eyes flitting evenly towards that bartender. Then they skimmed over the rest of it - not that he needed that. There were matters his sense of smell was keenly made for.

"This way," he said, guarded, and nodded towards an old door to their left.

Re: Later That Night...

[bitten_notshy]

Jack followed silently. One of the first lessons he'd learned was that there were times when the best thing he could do was shut up and let things play out.

There were only a few people in the side room, and they drew some curious glances but not much more. "This feels right," Jack told Mitchell. "I'm going to go talk to her. Do you want to come along, or should we split up?"

He'd chosen his quarry almost at random, but she looked young and easily flattered, and that always gave Jack an advantage.

Re: Later That Night...

[chosehumanity]

"Think you can manage?"

Which was not to say Mitchell wasn't going to engage in his own personal brand of hovering all the while, but...

His eyes skimmed across those few people there, his shoulders straightening out.

Next Morning, Whitehall

[chosehumanity]

Mitchell had to swing by a store to pick up some crisps as per request by George, soon. But they were in London now, and there were certain places he had to visit, or at least pay some recognition to.

The Cenotaph. It wasn't a memorial day; that didn't take away the value of seeing it. He strode along the pavement, ignoring the bustle of cars and busses as they approached.

"Some things don't change."

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[bitten_notshy]

Jack's own bag of crisps -- not bad, though real food was better -- had been stashed in his coat pocket respectfully as they approached the memorial.

"Some of the country names are different," he noted. "But no. They don't."

His general impression of history -- in all worlds -- was that it was a succession of inevitable wars. The American revolution he suspected he'd see in his own immediate future, if he went back to that timeline, was just one more example.

He'd stay quiet for a moment.

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[chosehumanity]

There was a silence, Mitchell with his hands in his pockets, utterly silent. He'd left saluting well behind a long while ago, but with the monument in sight, it deserved recognition.

Finally, he did speak up again.

"It was built in 1919," he said. "The end of the Great War." Perhaps some irony, then.

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[bitten_notshy]

"The Glorious Dead," Jack read, still quietly and doing, again, math in his head.

1914. He'd be -- 32? Old to enlist, but too young not to.

"They built it fast."

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[chosehumanity]

"Nothing like dead youths to light a fire under their collective arses," he snorted. "You know, back then, everyone thought it was going to be this massive, glorious thing, and those of us who didn't make it back were going to have heroic deaths in service. But it was brutal. Down in the mud and the dirt and the cold, waiting for the order to capture another inch of terrain..."

And here he thought his classes got the lot of this out of his system.

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[bitten_notshy]

No, it rather clearly wasn't out of Mitchell's system, but that was all right. There were some things people never got over.

"Where were you?"

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[chosehumanity]

"France," he said, with a slight inclination of his head. "Lulluch. Then the Somme Valley. That's where the vampires found us. Just... strolling around the battlefield as they pleased, taking up with the dying or the ones that weren't going to be missed."

Re: Next Morning, Whitehall

[bitten_notshy]

The word Jack muttered under his breath was in no way flattering. Looked at a certain way, that could be seen as generous -- the gift of instant death or eternal life, and all.

Jack was not entirely inclined to look at it that way.

"But they gave you a choice?"