Work Text:
Summer in Chicago
'You're the most beautiful girl in the world,' Bass said earnestly
'And he should know,' Miles said, sliding his friend a beer as he sat down. He gave the girl a wink to make her giggle. 'He knows all the pretty girls.'
'Ignore him,' Bass said, wiping yoghurt off his daughter's face. 'The only pretty girls I care about you and your mama.'
Lizzie grinned, all gap teeth and big brown eyes, and smooshed more yoghurt over her face. This time she got it in her hair. Bass huffed in exasperation and folded his handkerchief to find a clean side.
'Beautiful girls don't smear yoghurt on their face,' he said hopefully.
'Yes!' Lizzie crowed, kicking her feet. 'Da!'
Miles stretched his legs out under the table and sipped his whiskey, watching his best friend fuss over his kid. It was weirdly bittersweet – not that he planned to tell Bass that – since at this point he didn't figure he was ever going to see Ben or his niece and nephew again. His other niece that was, he mugged affectionately at Lizzie.
She crowed and stuffed a handful of yoghurt, hand included, in her mouth.
Bass gave up and sat back, wiping yoghurt off his hands. He looked relaxed, more so than he had since before this all started. Happy. Chicago had been good for him.
'You got a little -' Miles said, pointing at his cheek with his thumb. Bass wiped and looked at him expectantly. 'No, just over a bit.'
Two more swipes and Bass caught on, throwing the handkerchief at him across the table. By then Lizzie had finished her yoghurt and was wriggling to get down. Bass unhooked the bar and lifted her down, releasing her to totter across the garden in pursuit of butterflies and bugs.
'I've been thinking,' Miles said, rolling his glass between his hands.
'Thought I smelt something,' Bass said, picking up his beer. 'What?'
'This thing we're doing? I was thinking the Monroe Republic sounds good.'
Bass blinked, surprise softening his face. 'Really? I've been going with the Matheson Empire, I mean it was your idea and, well, you are older than me.'
'A couple of months,' Miles.
'Nearly a year.'
Miles checked Lizzie wasn't paying attention before he gave Monroe the finger. 'Sod off,' he said. 'Look, we don't need two generals right? So I'll be General Matheson and you be President Monroe. I do the hitting, you do the talking – maybe stick around our new capital so people can find you.'
Realisation dawned on Bass' face. 'No.'
'What are you Lizzie now?' Miles asked. 'No what.'
Bass leaned over the table and grabbed his forearm, squeezing. 'You're my brother, Miles,' he said. 'My family, same as Lizzie and Helen. I'm not leaving you to fight alone.'
Miles leaned in and confided. 'I have an arm, Bass.'
'No.'
'Ok, we'll talk about it,' Miles said, sitting back and smirking.
Bass rolled his eyes, but before they could start arguing properly Helen came out of the house. She glanced over at Lizzie, laughing at her yoghurt and mud covered daughter, and came over to the table.
'Jeremy's here,' she said. One hand touched Bass' shoulder affectionately. 'He's been talking to the local patriots, he says he needs to talk to you.'
Bass rolled his eyes. 'It'll be about adding interim to everything again,' he grumbled, standing up and kissing Helen's cheek.
'They'll all talk,' Miles said. 'Yet the minute the shit hits the fan, suddenly they want our help.'
Winter in Chicago
No. No no no no.
Miles stumbled through the slush and smoke, dragging his rough scarf up over his mouth and nose. Until fifteen minutes ago the street had been covered with drifts of snow. The explosion had vaporised it, along with levelling two of the houses.
Behind him Jeremy yelled at him to wait, that back-up was on the way. He was right, it was the prudent thing to do. Miles couldn't.
The wrought iron gate hung in a twisted ruin by one hinge, the metal hot enough to singe Miles' glove as he wrenched it out of the way. Smouldering wreckage and hot bits of metal scattered the garden, clots of molten glass hardening in ice-like puddles.
None of them had taken the patriots seriously. That had been a mistake.
Miles kicked the back door and headed into the kitchen, coughing as the thick, acrid smoke caught in the back of his throat and scorched. It smelled like shit – they'd used fertilizer and one of the neighbouring houses. They'd been taken over by militia officers, so either Toynbee or Jefferson were traitors or incompetents.
And dead, once he got their hands on them.
'Bass,' Miles yelled, searching the rooms with mounting desperation. There was a dead woman in the drawing room, curled up like a charred doll in the corner. When Miles gingerly touched one shoulder, fingers scraping skin and soot off a cracked scapula, her head rolled back with a crackling, creaking nose. The side turned to the wall was bruised and broken, but still recognisable.
Helen.
Miles closed his eyes. He wanted to pray, but there was no sense of anything listening. He pushed off the wall and staggered upstairs, dragging himself along the bannister.
'Bass!' he yelled, hunching over as another cough cracked his chest. 'Sebastian fucking Monroe, where are you?'
There was a long, horrible silence and then a weak voice croaked 'Miles' from down the hall. Still coughing Miles followed the wall down to Lizzie's bedroom. It had a shared wall with the house next door, he realised. Toynbee then.
He shoved the door open, putting his shoulder to it when it jammed. Inside Bass was kneeling on the floor next to a rubble-smashed cot, a limp, little rag-doll of a body clutched in his arms. His face was grey and empty, wet with tears, and he barely moved as Miles staggered over to him.
'Come on,' Miles said, digging his fingers into Bass' shoulder. 'We have to go. Bass, come on.'
Bass blinked and looked back down. 'They're dead,' he said, voice scraping raw out of his throat. 'I was outside and it just...they're dead, Miles. Just like that.'
Miles wiped his sleeve over wet eyes. 'Come on, man. We have to go.'
'Why?'
'Because...because we got to kill them for this,' Miles said, dropping to his knees and touching his forehead to Bass. 'We kill them for what they did to Lizzie and Helen.'
Bass took a breath. 'Yeah,' he said, scrambling to his feet. 'We're going to kill. All of them.'
They staggered out of the burning house. Helen's brother was there. Miles didn't have to tell him anything, Kip took one look at the body Bass was carrying and his face crumbled into grief. While Jeremy comforted him Neville dragged Toynbee over.
The other man tried to stammer some sort of excuse. It didn't get far. Miles gave Bass his sword to shut Toynbee up.