ax_main | Scott & Inu-yasha, this afternoon

Inu-yasha joins Scott for some TV, and gets a lesson in WWII. Somehow they seem to actually get along?

Scott settled back on the couch comfortably as his documentary on D-Day began. He hadn't seen this one, and he was looking forward to what the producers swore was footage that had not yet been shown. The more information available, the better able he would be to understand the three-dimensional view of the entire scene.

Inu-yasha was bored, and bored enough to think watching TV might pass the time. Way better than actually doing any of the homework they expected him to do outside of class. Yeah, not happening.

He could hear the TV before he reached the open door, but that was probably a good sign. He still hadn't figured out how to use the remotes, and as long as no one was watching some awful chick show, he wasn't too picky. Pausing in the doorway, he took in the room. It was empty aside from the kid with the weird glasses, the one who smelled like cars a lot and shared a room with the bird guy. Inu-yasha didn't know much about him, but that was good as far as he was concerned. Neutral - the guy hadn't tried to pick a fight, or faked some kind of friendliness.

So Inu-yasha didn't feel too weird joining him. He stalked over to an unoccupied couch, dropping himself gracelessly into the corner (and incidentally giving himself a view of the room and door). He looked at the TV for a minute, kind of confused. He didn't watch much TV, but this didn't seem like the stuff he was used to seeing. Head tilting just a bit to one side, he asked, "What's this?"

"The landing at Omaha beach, D-Day," Scott said, sparing the interloper a glance before turning back to it.

Golden eyes glanced back at him. Was that supposed to make sense, or was he being made fun of? But he didn't pick up any signs of that, so he asked, "It's what?"

Okay. Scott bothered to turn and look at the other teen, as though gauging whether or not he was being facetious. Finally, he answered, “The allied invasion of France during World War II. D-Day."

Inu-yasha couldn't quite read the other boy's face because of his glasses. Some of that sounded at least a little bit familiar anyway. "Huh. That's the one where they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right?" He turned his eyes back to the TV, but he wasn't able to say those names without his native accent coming through. Dammit.

"Ultimately," Scott said, nodding, "rather than attempting an even larger amphibious landing than this one."

Inu-yasha was peering at the TV curiously now, watching the old footage. "So this is the... Europe side, or whatever?"

Scott turned his gaze back to the TV, though he did not ignore the other teen. "Western front, the reopening of a western front, in the European theater," he agreed. He watched as wave after wave soldiers on the beach went down due to machine gun fire old cameras could not catch.

"Theater?" Inu-yasha frowned, not understanding at all, but pretty sure theaters weren't involved in war. ...not that any of the rest of it had made sense either. "The hell are you talking about?"

Scott hit the pause button. If Inu-uasha really had that little understanding of what Scott was talking about, it did no one any favors to leave him in the dark. Of course, Scott also had no intention of missing his show. "Wars are often spoken of based on broad, geographic areas, called theaters. World War II had two theaters, Europe, and Asia and the Pacific Islands, which are usually lumped together as the Pacific theater. Within those theaters, you had multiple fronts."

Inu-yasha blinked at Scott in open confusion, which only deepened as Scott kept talking. "...you talk like a book."

"I can go back to not talking at all," Scott offered dryly.

"Why do you know all that?" Inu-yasha asked, bypassing Scott's comment entirely.

Scott thought this might have been one of the weirder conversations he'd had in his life, and that was saying something. His life up until now had read like a series of freak accidents and unfortunate events. "Because I study military history."

Inu-yasha's brow furrowed. “…but why?"

"Because there is a lot to be learned from it? Because I like to study the mistakes of our past and project them into our future? Either or." Scott said.

"You plannin' to take over the world or somethin'?" Inu-yasha asked, raising one dark eyebrow at the other guy.

Scott snorted. "Please, I'm not exactly the President for Life type. But I know we don't live in an entirely peaceful world."

"Well yeah, but that means you learn to fight, not learn all this stuff," Inu-yasha replied, head tilting to one side.

"Battles can require more than fists," Scott said. Counting just on your individual ability to fight was short-sighted. Not all battles were bar brawls.

Inu-yasha frowned, glancing back at the paused TV. "Battles like that? You wanna die in lines like them?"

"Warfare changes. Tactics change. That does not mean there is nothing to learn from the past," Scott replied, not looking at all bothered by Inu-yasha's critique.

"Huh." Inu-yasha looked back at the other boy, trying to figure him out. Who thought about wars like that?

Since the other boy had shifted to studying him, Scott went back to his show. "A picture would last longer," he commented, only the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice. He didn't like being watched.

Inu-yasha frowned at him, but turned his attention back to the TV. That part at least made sense. Despite the weird teacher-like knowledge about some ancient war, Scott didn't seem like one of the idiot rich kids.

Distracted again by the footage, soldiers running up a beach and getting cut down, Inu-yasha scowled. "What idiot signs up for shit like this?"

"Some of them were conscripted," Scott pointed out. "But some did it because they felt it was the right thing to do." You could never underestimate the power of a good and inspiring narrative in war.

Inu-yasha snorted. Idiots who let other people trick them into dying for them. "Bet they changed their minds."

"Honestly, many of them didn't. There are veterans from that war still alive, and I've never heard a single one of them say it wasn't worth it." At least with that war, that period. Obviously every war was different, and conscripts and volunteers had different perspectives too.

Idiots, Inu-yasha thought but didn't say. He let the program roll for a while, listening to the narration about a whole war he knew nothing about.

Well, not nothing. Just mostly nothing. After a while, he frowned. "Why didn't they just use another bomb on them?"

"In Europe?" Scott clarified.

"Yeah," Inu-yasha replied, not clear on what made that side of the war different from his own home country.

"V-E Day happened before they had tested the bomb mechanisms yet. They weren't done," he said. "Timing just happened to be on Europe's side."

Inu-yasha frowned - hadn’t it been D-Day? Was he getting his letters confused? - but let that sit with a nod, going back to watching.

Scott turned back to his show, perfectly content with the silence that settled between them.

Inu-yasha watched the rest of the program without comment, arms crossed over his chest and ears twitching occasionally. As the credits ran, he tipped his head to the side, then looked over at Scott again. "Now what?"

"Now I either watch another, or go do something else. Do want to watch another?" Scott asked.

Inu-yasha considered for a moment, before saying, “Sure. Is there one on Japan?”

"Probably." Scott began flipping through the options before he finally landed on one about the Pacific Theater. "Let's do it.