Like Father, Like Son
By: Riley
Summary – Despite his father's absence in his life, there were some things that Kelly Severide picked up from him.
"Dad, can you help me with my homework?"
Young Kelly Severide walked out the front door of the house and onto the wooden porch. Closing the front door behind him, Kelly went over to his father, waving a sheet of paper in the older man's face, effectively cutting off his view of the street. Kelly waited for Benny Severide to take another long drag of his cigar before waving the sheet again. "We're working on the solar system and I have to write down some facts about the sun."
Kelly sat down on the porch by his father's feet, resting his chin in his hands. "I don't know anything other than it's a star and it's made of fire."
Benny smiled, taking another drag from the cigarette. "Facts about the sun, huh?" He blew out the smoke and Kelly's eyes widened, watching as it dissipated into the air. He had known that all fire and smoke was bad, why else would his father risk his life every day to go to the Firehouse and put out fires day after day. And yet he was sitting there, smoking a cigar. "Yes, Kelly, its made of fire."
"The same kind of fire you put out, right?" Kelly looked up at Benny, eyes wide with wonder. His long lashes fluttered as he waited for a response.
Benny reached out and ruffled Kelly's hair. "Right." He thought for a moment, tapping his fingers against his chin. "It takes somewhere around eight minutes for the sun's rays to land on earth."
Kelly's nose wrinkled before he lifted his eyes to stare at the bright circle in the sky. Immediately his eyes squinted, trying to adjust to the light. "But the sun is about a gajillion miles away!"
"I'm sure it's less than that, but yeah, it's far away," Benny said. "Light travels fast, though. Faster than the eye can see. Besides, it's made of fire, and you know how quickly a fire can spread." Benny lowered his cigar and watched his son for a few moments, entertained at how intently he was looking at the sky, his blue eyes shining from the rays reflecting off of them. "If you go blind, it's not my fault."
Kelly immediately lowered his head and started to rub at his eyes. Benny chuckled. He reached up a hand, lightly placing his fingertips on the sunglasses that were tucked into his shirt collar. He glanced at them for a moment then lifted them up, unhooking them from his shirt. He passed them over to Kelly. "Here, these should help." He reached over and placed the frames onto Kelly's face, pushing them up so they rested against the bridge of his nose.
Kelly adjusted them, beaming at his father.
It was years later, long after Benny Severide had left Kelly and his mother, and yet, every now and then, he would find himself looking out the window, staring at the sun. Going on his smoke breaks, Kelly would sit out on the bumper of a fire truck, watching the sky as the sun sat in high above him, or slowly started to set. And while he sat there, he would smoke a cigarette, holding the object between his thumb and index finger, only moving it to the other, safer ones whenever he needed to gesture with that hand.
The sun shone through the window of Squad 3's truck, where Severide sat in the passenger seat, feet up on the dashboard, hands resting on his stomach, a thoughtful, yet stern look on his face. As the sun shone on him, Kelly raised a hand and blocked off the sun, he didn't want to go blind. After a moment he reached over onto the dashboard and picked up a pair of sunglasses.
He studied them for a moment before sliding them onto his nose and continued to watch the sun move across the sky.
A/N: I thought of doing this one-shot after re-watching Chicago Fire to get caught up with yesterday's new episode and was inspired when Kelly said that he had really been without his father for 21 years, when he had left to get with Katie's mother, and then left her to be with, I believe her name is Beth. And because Benny had also been at Firehouse 51, I figured there had to be some similarities between the two.
Cheers,
-Riles