To Be A Hero
"God, you all suck, you have no clue, no fucking clue at all."
Arched eyebrows. A calculated smirk. A jaded laugh. "And you? You do, I imagine? Give me a fucking break." Feet firmly placed upon the dining table, chair tilted precariously backward, large Havana inserted in piehole, puffing lazily.
"Better than you." No way to calculate emotional content. The mask hid it too well, the voice gave little away, other than blatant disgust. And that much was obvious anyway.
"Now, now, gentlemen..." Daniel was ever the peacemaker. He hated to see them at each other's throats, it went against his grain. "Can't we get along for one simple meal? Please?" He sat across from the Comedian, next to Rorschach, having just taken his glass of wine in hand, in an attempt to relax with his friends. Old friends. Close friends. Why must it be this difficult? "Laurie?" he called, pitching his voice to be heard in the kitchen, "need a hand?" Perhaps he was hoping she did, anything to move him away from the combatants.
"Don't be silly," came the admonition from the head of the table - another country heard from. "You can't avoid everything, Daniel, sometimes you just need to make your voice heard."
"I'm not trying to avoid anything, Adrian," Daniel insisted, although part of him was still hoping for the culinary reprieve. But a moment later that hope was dashed, as Laurie herself appeared, pushing open the swinging door to the kitchen with one foot, balancing whipped cream laden pumpkin pie in one hand and a stack of small plates and cutlery in the other.
She glanced around at these men she loved so much, took in the tensions, the postures, and sighed, as she set the pie upon the table. "C'mon guys," she admonished them, "It's Thanksgiving. Lighten up, willya?"
Rorschach edged his chair, at the foot of the table, back just a little bit more, as if to distance himself from the rest of them. He seemed uncomfortable, as if not used to the company of people. Even these people.
"Life's too short to be so serious, right?" The Comedian grinned around his stogie as he glanced at his distraught daughter - whether she knew or not, he did. Whether he thought about it or not was between him and his conscience. "All I'm saying is that the public needs heroes, they need us, that isn't going to change."
"And all I'm saying is you got your head shoved up your ass," Rorschach spat out venomously. "Be careful, they want us. Dead. And out of the way."
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, Laurie pausing in mid pie-cut, the others frozen in their respective postures. A moment that was broken by the sound of Eddie's raucous laughter as he threw his head back and let it all out.
"Now Eddie," Daniel began, even as Rorschach stood, shaking his head at the pitiful clown.
"Sorry, Laurie, gotta go," he mumbled, slipping from the room, and then out of the building entirely.
Laurie glared at the Comedian for being a wiseacre pain in the ass, at Daniel for being too soft, at Adrian for not saying something, anything to ease the tension between the friends. She banged the knife in disgust upon the table, slumping into an empty chair. A tear slid down her cheek, then another. She made no attempt to wipe them away.
"At least we got through dinner," Daniel tried to look at the bright side.
"Happy Thanksgiving!" Eddie toasted, picking up his glass, raising it high in a salute to the others before downing it in one gulp.
Just then the door opened, and they all glanced toward it hopefully, expecting the re-entrance of Rorschach. A large blue figure, very blue and very naked, stood there, a placid look upon his face. "Did I miss much?" he asked, "sorry to be so late, I was working."
"No, John, it's fine," Daniel said, "Happy Thanksgiving."
Dr. Manhattan glanced around the table at his lover, and at his friends, wishing he could tell them what he knew, but what purpose would that serve? None.
This had been their last supper. Let sleeping heroes lie.