Mocking little Firefly
Author's Note: An epilogue to my A Mary Sue Story, of which, the only thing you need to know is: five years after The Blackout, General Blanchard tried to poison Miles, but ended up killing his ladylove, the owner and operator of the Firefly Distillery, instead.
Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this one-shot.
I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.
Miles stalked through to the rear Mess hall courtyard, trying to escape the stomach-curdling smell of roast beef and the infuriating sounds of jovial, normal dinnertime conversation. His back was prickling and sweating underneath his itchy new militia uniform. He hated the way the shirt constricted and rubbed at his neck. He loathed the need to be up, and dressed, and functional, but due to the relatively high chance that General Blanchard had more spies about, Miles needed to appear normal and relatively un-phased by the death-threat and its collateral damage. If General Blanchard discovered that the best way to unravel the Republic's leadership was through targeting their loved ones, no one would be safe. The whole point of the fucking Republic was to keep civilians safe, especially from random acts of violence.
He hated General Blanchard more than mere words could ever express, but knew he couldn't throw the Republic into an unwinnable war with Texas over one woman. He'd just have to suck it up. Miles strode past a pile of empty crates, and on one of the crates, the logo for The Firefly Distillery sat, condemning him with its malformed little body.
Miles stared, nay glared, at the outline of a fat-bottomed little bee charred into the side of the coarsely manufactured wooden crate. It was supposed to be a firefly but it didn't really look like one in Miles' opinion. It never had, but this was the first time that it pissed him off.
Miles hefted his belt-knife – a crappy, every-day knife, post-Blackout forged, not his grandfather's – and threw it. The knife etched a shallow arc through the air to embed itself tip first into a wing of the fat-bottomed firefly. The blade vibrated back and forth slightly making a faint, almost soothing hum, but the crappy wooden crate quickly dampened its vibrations.
Miles walked five fierce strides across the dusty courtyard to the crate, and yanked out his knife by the blade. He walked back and repeated the almost meditative motion over and over again. He slowly chipped away at the damning image in a futile attempt to purge his rage, guilt, and uselessness.
By the time some worried officer had informed Bass of Miles' unusual behavior, and led him out into the courtyard, Miles had well and truly eaten away at the mocking little stamp, leaving nothing but a splintered surface with a few dark flecks.
Bass levered himself up onto a stack of nearby, sturdier crates and watched. After he watched a few more throws, he said, feet kicking, boots shedding muck like a Husky in spring, "You know you can just send those crates back to Jake if you don't want to see them anymore. Or burn them. Whatever makes you happy bro." His boot-muck smelled like dung.
Miles grunted and pulled out his knife, ignoring Bass as he stalked back to his mark. He knew Bass was gonna try to get him to talk about his feelings or drink his troubles away, and he wasn't in the mood for either of those options.
Bass was – as per usual – undeterred by Miles' taciturnity. He said, with an annoying degree of humor in his voice, "Honing your vital knife skills?"
They both knew that knife throwing was a tactically useless skill, even now, but then again, so was whoring, but that never stopped Bass.
Miles grunted, again, and tossed his knife, again. This time the arc was off and the knife bounced off the crate. The knife tumbled through the air, twisting and turning erratically like a football bounced off a driveway. It landed in the dust of the courtyard a few yards from Bass. Bass just laughed at him, unperturbed – as was customary – by the way Miles glared at him.
Bass half-slid, half-fell off of his temporary perch and said, "Come on in Miles, you've sulked about enough for today. Lemme pour you a drink, and you can take a break from your solitary brood-fest." Bass gestured grandiosely at the small rear courtyard, the stack of crates, and the wood-chips before trying to place his arm around Miles' shoulders in a companionable manner.
Miles grunted and deftly dodged Bass' friendly arm. He couldn't drink anymore. Each swallow burned, not in the familiar, comfortable, "I am alcohol, hear me roar" sorta way, but in a "you failed, you failed, you failed" sorta way. He knew there was some sorta drug that made you sick if you drank – Ben had threatened to sneak it into him on it several different occasions, namely at his wedding – but Miles doubted it could make him feel worse than the memory of Mary Sue, her distillery, and her whiskey.
Bass looked at him, his familiar, piercing blue eyes and familiar fat lips pouting at him under his blonde mop of hair. Bass was trying his patented "puppy-dog" look, but Miles was long impervious to such a blunt instrument.
"No." Miles said tersely, trying to close the matter, and bent down to pick his knife off of the hard-packed courtyard. As he stood up, he shot a glance at Bass; he was grinning like a loon. Do loons actually grin? Loons were a kind of duck right? Ducks can't grin.
"Ah hah! Made you speak!" Bass crowed, having won some petty personal game.
Miles snorted and turned, palming the dulled and slightly bent knife in one hand and running the other through his limp brown locks. Maybe the wash house needed some more wood chopped. Maybe he could try working things out that way.
Bass shouted after him, "You can't keep running forever! God, I don't know why I even put up with you and your moody-ass ways."
Miles grunted to himself and grumped off. It wasn't his fault he was a moody SOB. It was just his way, just like it wasn't Bass' fault he was an annoying hound dog.
- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)