Chapter Text
It had taken less than a year to drive out the Patriots, and now the free press they’d encouraged was left with nothing to cover but the weather and business reports. It didn’t sell papers. Short actual news to fuel demand, the press engaged in the sort of speculative gossip journalism not seen since before the blackout when everyone had been required to declare allegiance to either Team Jen or Team Angelina in the War for Brad Pitt.
Bass tried not to let it bother him. During the Monroe Republic there had been rumors about him and Miles. Him and Jeremy. Him and both Nevilles, individually and together. Basically, if he, she, or it seemed likely to have functioning sex organs or a lubricateable hole, someone claimed Bass had taken it for a test drive.
The stories about Charlie bothered him though. One paper called them “The Lady and the Tiger,” accusing her of shenanigans worthy of Anne Boleyn while Bass was reduced to a vicious animal on a chain. Another paper dubbed their capital “New Camelot.” Charlie was Guinevere, a powerless figurehead holding down the castle, while Bass was out nobly questing for the good of the kingdom. He wasn’t sure if he was Lancelot or Arthur. It probably depended on which one of them the paper decided to pin an affair on first. A third claimed they were at each others throats and ran extensive Op-Ed pieces supporting the alleged position of one or the other.
When Charlie stopped by his office to pick him up for lunch, he waved the latest cover at her. It was all written between the lines about their very special relationship with his horse.
“If it bothers you, don’t read it,” she said.
“We should feed them some news.”
“Clearly you have embraced the idea of a free press.”
“Fine, not government stuff. What about creating a social news story? We could do a royal wedding. It would give them something to write about, at least for a while,” Bass said.
Charlie ignored what he’d implied. Half the country thought they were married already, and the rest, even the ones who thought they were fucking, were certain they hated each other. If he wanted to stake a public romantic claim to her, he was going to have to get down on one knee and do it properly. “How will more articles about what I’m wearing strengthen my professional image?” she asked.
“It won’t,” he conceded. He took a moment to assess her and decided not to push the issue. She was a Matheson. You’d only ever know as much about her feelings as she felt like telling you and pinning her down would be more trouble than it was worth if it was even possible. “Lunch in public or private?” he asked.
“They’re setting up for us in the Congressional dining room.”
He slid into his uniform jacket, a match to Charlie’s save the different ranks they bore, and checked his image in the mirror. “Both it is.”