Behold, ficcage.

[splinteredstar]

Title: Balance

Fandom: Watchmen

Timing: Post-series.

Rating: G

Summary: Fifteen years later, and Adrian Viedt is completely fine. No, really.

 

His blond hair shone with streaks of silver in the morning light as Adrian settled into a chair, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes as a smile graced his lips. The wall of screens behind him silently flashed with programming from all over the world – trash cable stations and 24 hour news, advertisements for skin-regeneration and new, iridescent hair-dye. In front of him was his morning tea, a copy of each of several newspapers, and a wall of windows overlooking the rebuilt NYC.

It had taken a long time, but over the last fifteen years the cultural heart of the USA had been reborn into the sprawling metropolis that it was meant to be. Fifteen years, it’d been – fifteen years the world had been under Adrian’s guiding hand, either officially or not, and everything was going well.

He’d heard the comments, of course – his assistants worried about the strain, about headaches or heart attacks, and the tabloids jeered about how old he looked – but Adrian was fine. All of this was easy now, balancing the spinning cog work of the world on his fingertips.  He knew he would have to turn things over to a successor eventually, but flipping through a copy of the still-publishing New Frontiersman, Adrian was completely fine.

“What, you actually think that?”

“Yes I do, Edward.”

“Hah. It’ll collapse soon enough.”

“It will be fine, Eddie.”

Everything was fine. World War Three had been averted again and again, whenever tensions sparked too strongly, and environmental destruction had slowed to nearly a standstill. Adrian kept the world spinning, juggling different countries and interest groups and militias as easily as a practiced circus clown, each group orbiting around him in a pattern they didn’t know existed.

“Just wait. “ Eddie’s voice tickled Adrian’s ear, the smell of the foul alcohol he used to drink stinging Adrian’s nose. “You can’t keep everything balanced forever. Everyone breaks.”

“You broke.” Adrian said, sipping his tea and flipping to the next page. “I will not.”

Edward Blake’s laughter echoed through Adrian’s head before fading into the morning light. Adrian took a deep breath, tasting the lingering smell of alcohol, tasting blood and cigar smoke, and he did not look behind him or check the security cameras. There would be nothing to see.

Adrian finished his tea and his papers, pulled on his coat, and went out to balance the world on his fingertips.