Armchair Warrior

Author's Note: Not much to say here, folks. This is an angsty little POV for Reeve, because I like Reeve, and he doesn't have many fics. So...yeah. Feedback is more than welcome, and please enjoy the story.

A woman died today.

She was young, beautiful, and alone, her head bowed in prayer. She knelt on cold stone, wearing a pink dress she had doubtless owned for years. A merciless blade, wielded by a madman, ran her through, spilling blood more precious than gold. She was given no luxury of last words, could feel no last embrace from a friend. It was over in one terrible instant, before she could so much as cry out.

Here I sit, a middle-aged man in a soft velvet chair, a strong, expensive drink on the table beside me. I'm surrounded by a penthouse apartment, its furnishings worth more money than many slum families see in a year, and I'm clad in a suit I bought just last week. My shoes are worth a month's rent in less luxurious buildings. I sit, and I watch, and I listen, and I talk at others like me, and I tell myself I'm noble. I tell myself I'm fighting for a cause. I tell myself I'm a hero.

I'm a liar.

I live my great adventure through a ridiculous stuffed toy that I spent millions in company funding bringing to life. I have never felt the bite of a blade, the heat of a fireball, the fangs of a dragon. If I lose a drop of blood during the day, it will be lost to a paper-cut. I watch a little screen, type in commands, speak into a microphone I pin to the lapel of my designer suit, and a machine millions of miles away charges into battle. I'm a grown man playing a game, an elitist pulling the strings of a puppet.

And I say I'm making a difference.

I've betrayed that woman and her friends for the sake of my fellow vipers. What does it matter, truly, that I sacrificed the first of my robots to solve a puzzle? The idea that there was some loss to me when a building imploded on a bunch of plush is ludicrous. I felt nothing, not even the pain of a creator at seeing his creation gone. I had another ready and waiting, another exact, disposable copy. A third is being manufactured now, just in case.

What hurts is hearing them congratulate me for a battle won. Hearing their voices, still strained with the grief of loss, thank me, reaffirm our common cause in her honor. They treat me as a fellow warrior, they trust me, they even wince when my creation's body is struck. They call me a friend, they trust me, they try to comfort me as I comfort them.

They are far too kind.

I'm no warrior. What I'm doing isn't heroism. It's self-serving; it's a way to ease the guilt I feel without taking any true personal risk. My job, perhaps, is at stake, but certainly not my life. I fear they'll all die, as she did, and I alone will be left. What, then, will history say? Will I, the sole survivor, be presented with the laurel wreath of a victory bought with others' blood?

Today, a band of true adventurers slept in a tent in the middle of nowhere, dining on tasteless travelers' rations. They risked their lives, fighting with every ounce of strength and energy they possessed.

Today, I ate at a four-star restaurant, and will soon settle down into a feather bed with satin sheets. I pressed a few buttons, and, doubtless, contributed to the extra weight I've been putting on, lately.

I can only hope the biographers are kind.

I can only hope that history will dismiss me for the inconsequential coward I am.