Longing

He wishes his brother is here. Even when everything had gone to hell between them, Bass wishes Miles was here for another round of whatever the hell they are these days. Another nightfall. No Miles. Him sitting with his damn back against a wall, aching thoughts moving around in his head.

He swears he will singlehandedly kill the moron for his stupid as hell let's lead those damn kaki assholes on a fun goose chase tip across Texas idea, after he finds him and drag his ass back to their current camp.

The moment he had watched Charlie's determined face and swing of her hips when she had walked her ass out of their camp, passing him and his kid near that fire, he had known he could not let her go on her own. It was late. Dark. Neville out there, his kid still dead as fuck in Austin. Her worry for Miles, who should have made it back by now, on his own damn mind as well as he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, brooding and staring into the fire in front of him.

Her loyalty and unwilling to do anything else but to put her own ass on the line for Miles, for family, in her every step of determination. Loyalty burning bigger and stronger within her than Bass has seen in his own kid's face. It had fucking hurt like hell. he disappointment of Connor turning his back on him, burning inside of him ever since his son had told him to go and get his boyfriend with rough ego and dark hurt laced under it in his kid's voice.

Bass had tucked his gun in the waistband of his jeans when he had looked at Connor, disappointment and hurt battling to be felt first. He had followed Charlie, and hell, Rachel out there.

He had insulted Charlie, insulted her tracking skills, unable to keep his mouth shut when angry longing for finding Miles had set him on edge. She had been distant, harsh, closed off. They had fought together and were trying to find Miles no together. But she is far away somehow. Too fucking far. A thought not far behind.

He sits with his back against a large rough brick wall of an abandoned structure in their camp. The bitter chill of the bricks behind him is moving into his leather jacket and bones. Shadows around the building are accompanying the dark longing for a brother and fear for losing him at the same time.

It is late, although the hours until sunrise and daylight are not burning fast enough as far as he is concerned. Two days out there, and still no Miles. Two days of bitching and listening to Rachel's whining. Cold eyes and her being her whining arrogant self, thinking that on this terrain she would know better than to find a brother he grew up with and fought together with for so long. Yeah right. Fucking bitch. He watches the ground in front of him. His jaws locking.

Two days of searching for fucking nothing. Two days of him following Charlie with his eyes when she was tracking his brother down.

Her eyes on the landscape before and around her. The stains of blood as a reminder of what she had to do in Austin still on her damn hands. Hoping she would fine some sign of Miles in the cold desolated landscape. Bass remembers insulting her. He is hearing his own dark edged tone of his words again. So you are good, but not that good. He curses at himself for being such an asshole to her when he closes his eyes and moves his hand over his face.

Fires are burning throughout camp meaninglessly. He looks up at the familiar sound of a chain belt rustling through the night. He expects them to pass and move away in the night. Instead the sounds are getting closer, reaching him through the dark chilling night air.

Charlie is restless. She has stayed out there until there was no more light. Thinking of everything Miles has taught her, listening to the Texan land, grey and a chilling win running over its fields. Looking for any sign hidden in the ground that could lead her back to Miles. That could bring Miles back to her.

The sunset is forcing her to return to their camp. Again. When al she wants is Miles next to her again. A piece of her out there. A piece of her without she could not be her.

Connor had asked her if she was going out there again, an hour before nightfall when he came looking for her when she was splashing some water in her face to keep her tired mind and body focussed. She had told him she had to. He had told her he was sorry. He had told her that if Miles could have found a way out , he would have by now. She had looked at him, and had refused to even consider that truth.

They were going to find Miles. They had to.

She has ignored Connor after that. She has ignored her grandpa. Her mother. She has wanted to drink. Badly. To taste the burn of forgetting. But she can't. Her mind needs to be clear, her body needs to stay sharp for the moment when the sunrise calls her again.

So she walks. Restlessly. Her boots take her to the other side of the camp. Passing fires, passing the group of men and women they fight with. And then she reaches the structure in the shadows of the night in their camp. She has watched walk his ass over there an hour ago. It is the exact same spot her boots and a dark sad tired longing part in her take her now.

She finds him in the shadows of the abandoned factory in the north corner of their camp. She is not sure why she is even here. Her restlessness has lead her to him. Maybe to tell him she is not taking any more of his infuriating insults anymore. Although a voice inside of her tells her he is just as tired and fucked up for the fact that they could lose Miles as she is. And a hurt Monroe is a Monroe who lashes out. She has learned that about him by now.

So she walks. To him. Monroe. A part of Miles that is still here in camp, here with her. She cannot face the long hours before she can grab her pack and weapons again to look for him, alone.

She stops before Monroe. He is huddled up against the wall before her. When he looks up the dark of the shadows of the night and the dark colour of his jacket match the misery in his eyes. The shadows shielding them from the many eyes from camp. Her mother crashed into sleep, her grandpa concerned for her. Connor passed out in his bedroll.

Which left her with him.

Bass looks up. He finds her looking at him, her face flat, her eyes filled with hollow dread and fear, but still with burning Matheson strength. Fuck. Su much of Miles there. Her eyebrow is raised like she does so often when she is waiting, thinking something through, deciding, annoyed with something. Monroe realises she is probably doing all of those things right now.

She waits and she is not even sure for what. Until he nods. Or maybe it is just a shadow falling over his eyes. Either way, Charlie moves to sit down next to him. Her leather jacket next to his black leather. Her back now too against the rough bricks of the stone wall behind them. It does not take long before the chilling cold of the wall creeps into her. She craves to feel the roughness of the stones against her back, keeping her on edge and awake.

Long hours lay before them, when dawn is what separates them from sitting here and being back out there. There where they can find Miles. A piece of both of them.

Charlie pretends to feel the storm of everything wrong with needing to sit with Monroe now. But the prospect of losing Miles and what she had to leave behind in Austin just break her willing to fight the wrongness of it all. Somehow, he is the only one she can sit next to in silence to keep herself from running wild with the images that spread fear through her like a forest fire of losing Miles.

Bass pretends he does not feel her knee close to his thigh. He shifts, stretching some sore muscles that are aching through his whole body with exhaustion. He knows this should be fucking awkward. He feels pathetic as hell for feeling some longing of her body next to his. But is not awkward. And somehow her silent acceptance of the both of them in the shadow against one one wall, does not make him feel pathetic at all.

'When is the last time you slept?' Her voice is fragile when she opens it after many hours of not talking. Giving away her exhaustion and fear what could be next when the dawn arrives. She turns her head towards him, leaning against the wall, her elbows know resting on her knees she has pulled up to her upper body.

Bass looks up, as he turns his head towards her. Charlie rarely ask him any question. And it is the rough want to connect with him on some fucked up level that made him let go of something inside. A pained sigh is escaping his throat. His eyes focus on something in the distance. His silence and lack of answering is his answer. He looks at her. His eyes are going over her face, lips, or maybe that is just her and those shadows again, and back to her eyes.

She is one of those few people out there that understand him unable to answer that damn question with words is how far he is in dark territory know. And one look at her eyes tell him she gets him. He does not have to talk. She has already understood.

Bass soaks her up with the little light there is from the fires in the distance. She looks like hell. Austin has washed some of the brightness in her eyes away for good. Her face is harder and exhausted and it is breaking him when he feels his chest constrict when she does not even try to mask and hide her hurt and dark fear for him. Her eyes are open and raw and filled with every fucking fear he feels, right in front of him.

'You?' His voice is raspy and so low she barely hears him.

Charlie's eyebrow raises a bit with his question, but she is too tired to move when she thinks about her own question he is now asking her. And she does not even remember what it is like to sleep.

She had slept when the world had been black and white. When her mother had been dead and not in Philly because she had walked there. When uncle Miles had been a memory she had not even remembered. Before she found out that values and men can be different than what you think they can be for you. Before comfort was hidden in blue eyes unlike everything else. Before she had shot another one man in Austin. Before there was a possibility there would be a tomorrow without Miles. Or maybe it had always been a possibility. But it had never been this close.

Tired tears start to fill her eyes. She watches Bass' eyes burn into hers, darker by the night. He never looks away from her. She nods no as her mouth opens slightly with an exhausted sigh.

Bass watches her thoughts in her eyes and hell, he wants to pull his arm around her all of a sudden. He is not sure it will be for him or for her. Or for Miles. His family also his. But there is something in Charlie right now, so unlike the woman that shows her how strong she is every damn day, that makes him aching to reach for her. Or maybe it is for him, reaching out for a part of Miles.

Charlie feels nauseous with exhaustion when she moves her head back to the wall behind her. The idea of Miles out there by himself, hurt, wounded, alone, cold washing over her. And then, she is remembering another wall. The wall Neville had pushed her back against when he had fired his gun over her head. His bullets firing into the wall above her.

The glow of the fires in the distance get blurry with the tears that are gliding into her eyes. Her heart and mind filled with dread of what could come. Swirling with the dead fear remembering what it felt like to feel Neville's gun against her temple and having to go through that all over again when he will find her again. She hears the click of his gun again.

Bass watches her, lost in thoughts until something spikes in her eyes. Something cold and primal and shocking. He cannot look away. He knows what she remembering. Connor had told him when he had walked into camp earlier that night. What Neville, that son of a bitch did. He knows where that angry red bruising spot on her temple is born. And his fingers ache to kill Neville, before he can hurt her. He knew, from the very fucking moment he had understood what happened, that the son of bitch would come for her.

Charlie hears the sound of Neville pulling the trigger all over again and an agonizing sound escapes her throat. Everything, everything is too much. The night too long, Miles chest and neck not there to bury her head in now she feels so vulnerable and open.

Her shoulders tense up and an agonizing sigh escape her throat. She is trying to pull herself back to a place of control but exhaustion prevents her from even trying. She tenses when she feels Monroe move.

Bass watches her. Her last energy for this day draining from her body. He moves his arm slowly around her shoulder. Totally prepared for her to lash out or pull back or get up and walk away from him. But she doesn't.

She thinks about pushing him away. She thinks about getting up. She thinks about why this should not happen. She thinks about her own weakness, for breaking apart sitting next to him. For taking some of the comfort he is offering in the shadows where it is just them.

But then she feels his arm. She feels her exhaustion. She feels how she needs this, she feels his sigh in his wide chest next to her and she feels that maybe, maybe they both need this. That he needs this too.

Something that gets them through the hours before they can find Miles, a part of both of them. Get them through the hours before dawn. The hours between sitting here and being out there again. There were Miles is.

Charlie lets her head fall to his jacket, her cheek brushing his leather jacket. She feels him breathe as his chest is rising and falling under her cheek. Bass feels the slender line of her body under his arm. He takes in her scent and finds some kind of fucking solace knowing he still cannot sleep. But at least she, Charlotte, she is here.

She is feeling how wide and strong his arm is behind her. His leather jacket and his wide arm and shoulder and chest are all replacing the chilled roughness of the brick wall behind her. He is tall and wide and steady next to her in the shadow of the building behind them.

There is no moon tonight. There is no light from the stars. But he is here. She is here. Both of them thinking of the one man they long for, out there.

His arm is steady and hard around her, but it his gentle his hand that cups her head. And when tears are filling the back of her throat and she tastes them on her tongue, she feels how he gently presses a kiss against her temple. Softly and barely touching the bruise of where Neville shoved his gun in her face. And there, then, she knows he knows.

His lips are subtle and firm and strong and warm and slightly wet. His breathe warm against her skin. His hand cupping her cheek and his fingers in her hair.

Bass kisses her salty skin. It is the only thing he can offer her, and hell, she hopes she understands. That he is there, if she wants too. For now, for tonight. For longer than tonight, but neither of their fear filled hearts can think of longer. So he kisses her now.

And she leans closer to him as her hand moves to his arm, her fingers wrapping themselves around his arm. And then, he knows she knows. That he is here.

He keeps on holding her, his mouth close to her hair, her hair close to his jaws. And finally, her eyes feel heavy and she lets herself fall into sleep against him. Just for now, just for this once, she tells herself.

Bass looks at her, he looks at his own hand around her head. He sits. Awake. Not closer to any fucking sleep. Longing for Miles. Craving for sunrise so they can look for him. So he sits there. Fucking worried out his damn mind, longing for a brother he wishes was here. He isn't. But she is here, Charlie is here, and he is sitting with her hours before sunrise with her against his leather jacket.

Author's Note This piece was about longing and missing someone so badly and finding solace with somebody who is a part of that person you miss so very much. Miles. Bass. And Charlie. I have written it for the prompt #242, when is the last time you have slept, for Charlie and Bass. Thank you so much for reading this piece! Love from Love