During the rewatch with nbc_revolution on LJ, it came up about how much I wanted to see Miles play music. It was suggested to write a fic with him ending up in New Vegas to play and instead, this happened.
I don't own Revolution, this is just for fun, enjoy!
If there had been one thing Miles missed the most about not having electricity, it was probably music. Sure there were probably a million other things he could miss but right now it was music. Sure, there were still plenty of acoustic guitars around but it wasn't the same as listening to the sounds of those electric guitars blasting through the speakers. Led Zeppelin and AC/DC were meant to be played so loud you damaged your hearing and the emotions couldn't be replicated with those acoustic guitars, yet he still carried one he had found on his way out of Philadelphia to Chicago. It had been years since he had played, high school before he had signed up for the Marines and long before the Blackout. He had dreams at one point of making it big as a rock star but in those days the sound he loved was only played on classic rock stations and that was slowly dying as pop-punk music took over. There was no room for the sound he loved and there wasn't much time for it once he had signed up.
Now that he was no longer General Matheson of the Monroe Militia, he had plenty of spare time on his hands. One thing he had lots of practice with over the years was making drinks and that was how he found himself offering up his services as a bartender at The Grand in Chicago. He knew better than to use his real name and since one of the few books he had managed to finish was "The Stand" by Stephen King, he chose Stu Redman. Of course that was only after he had snuck downstairs and watched the miniseries as a child and read the book to find out what else had happened, since the book had been released as complete and uncut. If the book had been a bit smaller, it probably have been one of the other things to carry around with him, or at least something to put in his new room at The Grand.
Bartenders also had a lot of free time on their hands so Miles spent most mornings and afternoons tuning the guitar and trying to remember the songs. He had learned simply by listening to the music and repeating it back, but alas that was not possible these days. Sure, he could find plenty of books with the lyrics written down and he could sing the lyrics but it wasn't the same. He kept up with his practice day after day, at first using it as an excuse to just pass the time and not think about what he had just lost. Bass was still in Philadelphia, alive and still crazy. Controlling the Republic, but he couldn't be the one to kill Bass. They were family and since it had been years since he had seen Ben, he didn't know if Ben was still alive. Maybe that would be his next journey when the weather got warmer, last time he had seen Ben he had been only a few days out of Chicago. Eventually he'd have to find Ben or somehow get word to him that Rachel was dead. How could he break his brother's heart like that? He had already destroyed one brother, could he do it to another?
So Miles kept up with his practice of music while he had free time. The old man who had hired him to tend bar didn't mind what he did in the mornings, as long as he showed up to start his shift and was sober enough to make it through. Miles wasn't paid in any form of money, he was allowed to stay at The Grand and as long as he didn't drink too much, he could drink whatever the bar had. Miles saw a bottle of single malt Scotch and hid it away in his rooms immediately, assuming the old man didn't understand quite the value of pre-Blackout Scotch. Most music that was being played around was the old country twang, something Miles had tried desperately not to listen to while he was in Jasper. His parents were into Merle Haggard, George Jones, Garth Brooks, George Strait, and Alan Jackson, all of whom he could deal without. Of course, when the power went out, those songs were the ones stuck in everyone's mind and he couldn't escape it. It was easier in Philadelphia when he could just glare at people and they'd quiet until he passed, but here in Chicago? It was unavoidable and he couldn't make a scene and let the militia find him. He knew Bass would hunt him down and demand he be brought in but he wasn't going down without a fight and was definitely not going to draw any unwanted attention to himself.
At least that's how he started. But of course things could never go according to plan. He tried to kill Bass and couldn't. He tried to stay completely under the radar in Chicago, but that didn't last long once the old man had walked in while he was practicing one day.
"Ya know Stu, if we put you out on our slower nights, I bet we'd draw a bigger crowd than that honkytonk crap place down the street."
And that was how he ended up headlining his own one man show two or three nights a week at The Grand. He hadn't meant to start but once he got out there, he remembered the thrill of being on stage from back in high school. At least he was still just Stu Redman. And there weren't those crazy spotlights on him, one good thing about no electricity, he supposed. He started out just playing the songs he liked, Zeppelin's "Kashmir", AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," Black Sabbath's "Crazy Train," Guns'n'Roses "Sweet Child O'Mine" KISS's "Rock and Roll All Night" and other hits by those bands.
People started coming to the bar just on nights he was playing and that kept the old man happy. They even started requesting songs, Nirvana, Green Day, Blink 182, and tons of bands he had never heard of. He started trying to track down any albums he could find, there were still some scattered around the city and he was sure he'd be able to find an old phonograph and some relic, Chicago was old enough, someone still had to have one junked up in their attic and those hipsters loved collecting albums, go figure. He drew the line at hunting down anything remotely pop sounding. On the nights he'd play, the old man would tend to the bar. It got to be so busy the old man hired some young girl to help keep up, but she wasn't good at mixing drinks or guessing what the patrons would want the same way Miles did. Eventually another guy replaced her, but not before she revealed that she had a talent playing the piano and she could accompany his music, changing the sound even further from the original so that now a few nights a week it was just him and the guitar but she joined him on some nights, only to class up the joint. He tried to remember what the music reminded him of, ah Richard Cheese used to do the same thing of taking the lyrics to songs and slow them down. She'd even sing along on some songs.
This lasted a few months before the old man died and the guy tending bar took off one night for better opportunities. Miles couldn't entirely fault him, other than he took the piano girl with him. Miles had intended on staying here this long and why he hadn't bothered to learn their names, but The Grand had become his home and he just went back to tending bar. Over the months of playing, the patrons had brought in guitars, asking him to tune them, some of the guitars getting left behind as the owners would find their way elsewhere. The one he played all those nights he tucked back away in his room for another day and just left the remaining ones out, opening the bar to open mic night so that he still wouldn't lose touch with the music.
Years had passed and him playing had seemed like a distant memory when his entire world changed, again.
"Excuse me, maybe you can help me."