A Night's Silence

A rather short City of Heroes fic
by Fox Lee © 2012

City of Heroes game content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of NCsoft Corporation and its Licensors and fuck them all for ending it.

Just a quick look at Honeytrap and some other Calibre folks over Christmas.


It was nice to get a break over Christmas.

Last year it had been Lebanon, and before that Yemen, though neither had been as bad as the December in Sudan. People had claimed that the widespread presence of metahumans would change the way war was done, but then, they had also claimed that the internet would create the paperless office*.

This year, though, things were quiet. Too quiet, really - there was no chance it would last for long - but somehow the comms were silent and the Sun Tzu was all but empty. Arslan and Dorn were there, of course, but one knew better than to intrude on them during quiet moments. The Commander, by contrast, had taken off much earlier, claiming an emergency summons to a suspiciously private affair which apparently involved a bottle of whiskey not-quite-concealed under her jacket.

Will had worn his dress uniform for the first time since the Incident, his eyes trembling slightly even as he punched Saxon for making fun of his hat. It had been too many years since he'd been able to go to this particular meeting - enough that there were some friends he'd never see there again - and you didn't get in the way of a night like that.

Was Saxon going to see his brother? Hard to tell, really - that was a dynamic that even he wasn't going to claim he understood. But families were families, no matter how bizarre, and more importantly when Saxon left without telling you why, you respected that.

Swivel had been the last to leave. He'd pratically needed forcing out the door, but there was no stammered excuse that would have been acceptable - tonight was for he and Abbey. Doubtless he would be woken in the morning by a moose trying to climb through his window that turned out to be his sister, heralding the first Christmas he had ever been able to spend with the family whose loss he had long since accepted. Life was full of surprises. Some of which drank all your beer and passed out in the garden.

Of course, there was Ryker. His lips tingled at the mere thought of Christmas dinner at the Baptiste household, of an exotic piping hot feast fit to melt the snow off the windows. And - oh! - the dessert! The man could work magic with the worst of produce - with fresh fruit and cream and honey, his work was positively transcendent.

But no. The tumultuous year had finally left Ryker in a state of rest, albeit with a slightly larger family than before. It was one that shouldn't be intruded upon, even if invited - not tonight. Tonight would be silent and lonely, but with a warmth that was entirely unique. Tonight would never happen again.

Miele looked at the empty seat across from him, smiled, and helped himself to another strawberry daiquiri. It was nice to see your family grow up.


There are some things you can't let subordinates handle, Martel thought as she poured a second glass. The first sat untouched, a fifty dollar glass of respect looking sad and strange on its hospital tray.

She had never expected it to end like this. Maybe he had, though; he'd called himself the reminder of another time, when fear had lied to everybody that it was all right to treat each other like things. A time when he couldn't go public, because the system had a different kind of justice for men like him, and that was Not Enough.

She wished she could believe it was true.

He'd spent the second half of his life trying to make up for the first half, and when that was over he'd spent it in places like this, cold rooms with no windows and doors without handles. Probably, this was what he had wanted. Maybe he'd never felt that he'd fully atoned, but at least he had been forgotten. And more than anything, he would be happy that MeSCOp's funeral had been long before his.

What did you say, at a time like this?

"I'm sorry, old man. I'll remember you. But... just me."

There are some things you don't ask subordinates to handle.



*Downplay had, in fact, designed a perfect paperless office, but nobody had been interested in the patent, and the design was widely deemed "too impersonal".