[fic] Watchmen; Moonless Night, Chapters 5-7; Dan/Rorschach
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Chapter Five
"Oh goddamn, goddamn,"
He is a young boy lying in the wide back seat of an automobile. (He knows this is a false memory even as he sees it; his mother never drove. They wouldn't have gone on vacation anyway.) There's upholstery against his back and shoulder. The padding is soft. His feet are clad in matching clean white socks with blue stripes. They scale the curve of plastic beside the window, sliding up. No one tells him to put on his seatbelt or sit up straight or stop eating so many Sugar Daddy Pops you lousy kid.
Clouds outside are drifting heavily like zeppelins and they're much slower than him and his car-he's passing them all by. They're leaving shadows and blots on the ground as they march on beside the road but he doesn't need to see them. He just knows. Or maybe he doesn't want to look yet.
The engine rumbles vibrations up into his bones and it's rocking him slowly side-to-side. It's comfortable here. There's no dust and this car's even got air-conditioning.
Then he wonders all at once, who's driving? Because maybe it's Dad and he sure would like to see what he looks like and ask if they're driving to Washington where Dad lives and to tell him he'll be real good when they meet the President 'cept maybe he doesn't want to meet Nixon and he's trying to turn his head and look but something's holding his neck stiff and maybe it's him, maybe he doesn't really want to see who's driving in the first place.
They're going too fast now and he has to brace himself in the cramped space behind the driver's seat. It's scary and he doesn't like it. Now he can see out the window and it's all a blur of black and white like the old television they had once. That makes him feel sick.
Something's wailing right outside the car and it's cutting into his head and is that the owlship's screechers? But he's not supposed to know about that yet
"-elevate the-"
"Sir? Sir, you'll have to stand back."
"-cc's of furosemide-"
He and Nite Owl are walking through a dense forest between two buildings off 42nd. Brambles catch and snarl on Nite Owl's cape and he told him capes were both useless and dangerous only to be countered with the existence of his own coat and scarf. Clearly it is an invalid argument because he likes his coat and scarf and the thorns pass over them like water. Sirens and babies scream; the Chrysler Building rises above the treetops, shining sickly and obscenely.
There's a man in the alley in the clearing. He looks officious and jovial all at the same time, with half-moon glasses and a half-moon smile. He does not like him.
"-quite nicely. Son? Son? Can you tell me your name?"
Who is this person? What is this? "Hrrn. Not your suuh, nn." There's something heavy about his mouth. Maybe he's trying to talk underwater.
"Okay. Okay." This man sounds chastised and hearing it makes him feel good.
Nite Owl shuffles beside him, pulling reams of paper from his utility belt. "Oh, I have records here for William, you don't have to do this..." William, good. Secret identity. Giving him an out. Maybe Nite Owl has not lost all of his skills. He appreciates this.
"I need to test his mental faculties, Dan. That's how this whole thing works. Just a few questions. We'll have plenty of paperwork for you to fill out in a second."
"Ah. Sorry."
A phone rings from an open window.
"Name?"
"William," he says obediently. This man is stupid.
"Hi, William." Much too sweetly kind, much too condescending. He's not a child, no matter how much- "You have a last name?"
"William Joseph Glick," he says without thinking, and no, no, Glick is even worse to say than Kovacs, much worse. There is a light sound of Daniel turning, surely wondering if that's his real name, wondering if for all the light antisemitic undertones of his usual reading he's Jewish too.
(Glick, Yiddish variation of glück, meaning luck; doesn't necessarily mean good luck.)
"Dan?" This man shouldn't know Nite Owl's name and use it like they're friends. He clenches his fist.
"Yeah, that's. That's his name."
"All right. Who's our current president?"
"Uh, maybe that's not a good topic-"
Whir whir whir, thud-thud-thud
"...sure he's out? I think I..."
"What were mine eyes to me when naught to be seen was good?"
//
This is not his bed.
His room does not smell of antiseptic and his room does not have the distant institutional hum of air conditioning vents and his room is not cold in the summer (is it still summer?).
Something is in his arm now. He is sure of it. Before was just a phantom sensation and he does not, will not believe in predicting the future; maybe they've done it before and only now has he caught them at it.
There is air moving across his skin. His face is gone. The inside of his throat burns and stings. His tongue feels swollen and too tender, like it used to on the days when he would spend the remainder of his paycheck on a carton of strawberries and would eat every last one as soon as he got home, no matter how much he told himself he'd save them for tomorrow.
And then he discovers that his arms and legs are bound.
They've caught him, and the thought is enraging.
This is only the first phase. They will come very soon now with cruel instruments and they will try to force it out of him: his name (was someone asking his name?), where he lives, about the masks, about Nite Owl-they will never get Daniel's name because even if they're not partners anymore there are things he swore-
They will be very sorry to have tried this. The sense memory of how easy it is to crack the bones of the wicked comforts him. They will not find a pliant subject when they return. It's quiet now. It won't be for long.
He pulls at the restraints. Again. Again. The burn in his arms is welcome physical exertion. The creak every time he pulls gets louder and louder. Very soon.
The door's hinges squeal, over to his right. Not free yet but he will bite if he has to.
"Rorschach? Jesus, you're... Hey, calm down."
His heart sinks and twists. Daniel? It sounds like he's across the room but that doesn't make sense. Must be restrained next to him. The thought of Daniel being captured as well infuriates him and he knew Daniel's dulled, retired senses would get him in trouble one day, but it is strangely relieving as well to think that they will have a better chance escaping together. Always easier with backup. Always has been.
"Nite Owl," he says carefully because there must be surveillance, "captured also?"
"What? No, I just went out for some coffee..."
The banality of it , the wrongness of it makes his head reel. Daniel has been walking calmly around this facility, going for coffee breaks while he's been-
Something about the situation is nagging at the back of his mind; his head aches with it. "Restrained."
"Well, yeah. You kept pulling your IV out. You don't remember?"
It it less disturbing to think that he doesn't remember something; more disturbing to think Daniel might want him this way. Is he helping them? Have they drugged him, has he been brainwashed, is he now following commands like the programmed machines he loves so much?
"What's in it. What are they putting in me."
"It's, uh. Stuff for the swelling in your brain. And some nutrients, antiemetics, barbiturates-"
"Barbiturates, Daniel?" It hurts his throat to growl like this but it's been many years since betrayal has burned so hot in his stomach and if it weren't for the restraints he's not sure what he would be doing. Something is-think. The smell of antiseptic. Antiseptic. "The hospital." His fingers are trembling. "You took me to the hospital."
"What was I supposed to do?" Sounds half-hysterical and he wonders if Daniel is crying, but there's also more than a small undercurrent of steel. (Nite Owl is fighting back.) "You slurred something about smoke, threw up in my tub, and passed out. You have a massive concussion!" Unflinchingly direct; Daniel is not letting him ignore these things. "God, I just-what, was I supposed to go catch a movie while you died in my bathroom?"
He's supposed to say that he's survived much worse. He's supposed to say he could have handled this without help. Instead he says, "Have always been prepared to die in line of duty. Honorable."
There's a long, thin silence broken only by Daniel's ragged breaths; then something hits the wall so hard it rattles and he thinks he can feel the reverberations even through the hospital bed. Footsteps recede.
He's left wishing he could see what the shadows look like on the ceiling above him. What faces they make. He's left thinking of how despicably weak he must have looked draped over the side of the bathtub without his face. (How vulnerable under Daniel's hands.)
His dreams twist up at him, vague and formless and uncomfortable. (If he doesn't come back, who will-)
It feels like several hours later when someone walks into the room. He's long since grown used to sleeping lightly enough to hear approaching footsteps; never knew when it would be useful. It is useful now.
When the man doesn't introduce himself, he knows it's Daniel. The cheap hospital chair creaks beneath him as he sits heavily, sighing.
After a moment's consideration, he turns his head toward the sound of breathing.
Daniel's voice is heavy with some emotion. "Listen, buddy. I'm sorry. I, I shouldn't have just left like that." There's a short, strange laugh. "It's just this damn hospital, you know? I hate hospitals. Almost as much as you do."
Yes. Daniel's mother had lingered in a hospital before her death, and his father also had a notable if brief stay. He remembers that conversation very well.
"And I dunno, I'm just too wound up." There's a rough sound: a hand scraping across an unshaven jaw. "Anyway. I should let you get some sleep. The neurologist will probably want to see you tomorrow."
The chair creaks again; Daniel is preparing to leave.
"Daniel."
The sound of his shoes stops somewhere near the foot of the bed. "Hm?"
His mouth is dry. He works his tongue over and over his teeth. It's too easy to picture Daniel hauling him back out of the stream of water, shaking him and calling his name. They have cleaned each other's wounds many times. "Meant well. Understand you wanted to help." Even if it is difficult to understand why.
Daniel exhales loudly, a little shakily. "Thanks, man."
He asks in order to have something different to talk about, even though he knows Daniel won't be allowed to do it. "Can restraints be removed now?"
"You'll have to ask the doctor you kicked." There's disapproval again, but this time it's not very convincing; it covers over something else that sounds like amusement. Or twisted pride.
It feels like a conversation they would have had when they were friends. When they were friends, he could trust Daniel to watch his back. Maybe now too. Old bonds last long. He turns his wrists in the restraints.
"Throat feels sore. Didn't before."
It's quiet. Now that Daniel doesn't want to confront him with the truth, he's seemingly much less willing to tell gruesome details. But even though Daniel hesitates, he doesn't hold out for long. (Even now his stare must be intimidating. He likes that.)
"Uh, well. I think you were screaming at your mother." His voice is quiet like he's embarrassed for someone.
His stomach gnarls in on itself. "Mother's here?"
They promised, they promised not to let her in without asking him first, maybe if she visits you two can talk a little, huh, but he never wants to talk to her again. He named himself Joseph Glick and she knows somehow, that's her daddy's name and he doesn't get to touch it, she'll be real mad this time,
"Rorschach?"
she's in the corner by the window,
"Rorschach, no. Hey, buddy, calm down."
A hand closes just above his IV insertion point, and it's a wide, male, gentle hand. His pulse beats under a strong thumb. Only two people are breathing in this room.
Yes. That's right; she's gone.
He shudders out a breath about the same time as Daniel does.
"Listen. Can I..." More hesitation. "Can I call anyone for you?"
It doesn't make sense until he reels backward in the conversation, mentally. They were speaking of family. He has always been able to tell that Daniel wanted to know about his personal life and his relations, always looking over curiously during certain cases but very rarely asking-'this one's really bothering you, huh? You have kids or something?' Daniel once gave him the contact number to his uncle in Sheboygan just in case something went fatally wrong (he had memorized the number and threw it away, at the time believing himself capable of stopping death by pure will), and smiled with the faint hope that he would divulge a sister or a wife in return.
He never told him.
"No."
He wants to say something else but instead he turns his arm to feel the bones shifting under Daniel's grip and says, "See you in the morning."
Chapter Six
He is floating. He has been floating on a wide sea, cast adrift on remnants. Under the sun's unflinching white glare-
No. No, he is on his back in his room-no, his hospital room. This place, he recognizes it now. It feels as though he's been here for a very long time, although it must be only days. Or one very long day. Or a very long dream.
He doesn't realize until he's poking at the IV strung into his arm that his wrists are no longer restrained. It seems that someone has advocated on his behalf.
There is cloth against his forehead; he follows it with his fingers all the way around until it disappears between his head and the pillow. Gauze to keep his bandage in place. To hold his head together. Something about the thought makes him want to snort, but instead he is fascinated by it, the way it rests against his skin and feels like yet another face, concealing. They have carefully avoided covering his eyes. That also makes him want to laugh in a way that feels mostly like being sick.
This scent is familiar: slow and deep, sandalwood. Reminds him of when egg drop soup and rice rested warm in his stomach. Men's cologne. (Daniel used to wear something else; lightly applied but stronger after they'd been fighting, heavy and musky and becoming a well-worn track in his sense memory, creating a nearly Pavlovian response of increased heart rate and adrenaline every time.) It could just be a remnant from yesterday, but-
"Daniel."
"Hrm?" A book slides to the floor with a loud clap. He attempts to keep his mouth in its unamused, straight line. "Hi, uh, I'm here."
"Hello. Do you have my face."
"Your...?" Daniel's fumbling, unalert. "Oh yeah, your mask. No, I've got it and your outfit in the basement. I, um. Didn't think you'd want to be found out like that so I dug out some of my old clothes from college before the ambulance came." Nervous. Daniel's words tumble over and over each other, guilty, quickly as if to avoid something.
It's hard to think of why the guilt should be there, because instead all he can think about is how his face is in the cold basement now, how it's right for it to be underground in the dark, like a burial and-
"Rorschach? Did you say something? I guess I can't blame you for being upset, I know how..."
(Should he be upset? What have they been talking about?) "Fine, Daniel."
His eyelids drift closed, a useless instinct to block out light and allow rest, except there is no light and he is not tired. He allows them to remain closed anyway as he lies there, alone but for one person. He may or may not sleep; it doesn't feel much later when he speaks again.
"Ambulance. Hospital. Will be expensive." The thought of it is a little like contemplating the face of futility. Scavenging has not been known to bring thousands of dollars to his hands. His current job only pays in the clarity of pain and righteousness. And one day prison, although he will not make that easy. His daytime job belonged to Kovacs and Kovacs is gone. (He did not want to see the faceless and bare-breasted mannequins, to see the mouths of his coworkers laughing after he finally saw and understood the dead heart of the world.) On that night, he knew what his job had to be. It will never be anything else again.
"No, it's-really." A choked-off laugh, something self-directed and bitter. "I mean, there's a wing here named after me. And I hear they want some new equipment for oncology. They're jumping at the chance to do something for me beyond checking my eyes, feeling up my prostate, and nagging me to get in shape."
Out of everything, his mind catches on the crude and pedestrian admission. Not certain why he should be so surprised at this coming from a man who routinely curses like it's nothing out of the ordinary. One of many, many things he usually allows to slip by.
"Hum. Should listen to doctors."
"Real funny coming from you," Daniel mutters, but there's very little vitriol left, as if they are both too tired for it.
//
"Name?"
"William Glick."
"Date?"
It is difficult to remember. Usually he is at the mercy of nature, even within the stinking concrete trash heap that is his city: morning light strikes through his threadbare curtains, turning the insides of his eyelids red. Summer leaves him discomforted (squirming on his mattress to find blissful coolness, limbs splayed). Rain soaks through his rotting ceiling, trickles down his back during patrol.
Here in this sterilized room, here away from the influence of weather and time, there is nothing to indicate day or season. Nurses walk into and out of his room, shoes tapping harsh rhythms, leaning over him to adjust IV lines or bandages, dousing him in sickly sweet floral fragrances until he wants to retch. There is a constant drone of noise from the hallway, low conversation or other patients' heart monitors or relatives weeping until it congeals into an indistinct mass of sound. Mealtimes appear to have no rhyme or reason, seeming to shift earlier and earlier into the day.
Visiting hours are marked by Daniel's presence in the corner of the room. As far as he can tell, Daniel is punctual and precise.
"Mr. Glick? Date?"
"Small oval fruit from Middle East." He knows what they think of him. No matter which Harvard sweatshirt Daniel threw onto him and no matter which records have been fabricated for his false name, every person at this hospital knows people like him. They know by the imperfect teeth, they know by the old untreated wounds, they know by the patches of dry skin which indicate vitamin deficiency. He is not one of theirs. They assume he is a destitute homeless man, a rich man's benevolent project and they have all, true liberals, been eager to promote their self-worth and self-image by graciously deigning to help him. Right up until they are confronted with the idea that he may have dignity and a personality and disdain for them. They will soon give him just as wide a berth as everyone else does, in disguise or out.
"Um."
"R-uh, Will. He's joking, doctor." It almost sounds as if Daniel isn't certain whether he is or not.
"October 1980. Forgive if cannot remember exact date. Quality of food makes days run together."
He has little patience for this. This doctor is checking him for mental abnormality when there are men who mutilate, who pervert their given place in life, who destroy the lives of children. Men who look aside. An entire society of clockwork dolls wallowing in filth and decay while dutifully putting on their clean clothes and obedient faces and deeming themselves respectable. He is not the one with a mental abnormality.
Everyone else is.
This doctor prods him, checks his responses to stimuli. To pain. Exposes his joints. Provokes reflexes beyond his control. (Daniel is watching this.) Asks him to smile and grit his teeth and lift his arms. Perform basic mathematical tasks he mastered when he was seven. Show motor skills any toddler could exhibit.
("Gawd, Marina, I think the kid's slow or something. Way he looks at me like he don't understand nothing. Fuck. Fuck! I didn't ask for this!")
Asks him to look into the light when there is none.
Art by jackiemei
There's a hand on his jaw, a different doctor now. Leaning close, too close with cold clammy palms and noxious breath, and apparently there's nothing wrong with his eyes at all. Apparently theory holds that the swelling of his injured brain tissue has compressed his optic nerves, but the situation should return to normal very shortly. No one says that it should have already returned to normal. They are lying to him, but he doesn't allow it to keep away his relief that very soon, he'll get to be Rorschach again. Very soon, he will return to the streets as he is meant to be. Very soon, there will be justice.
The doctor is encouraged by the grim upturn of his lips, mistaking him for a simple man.
//
They lead him back and forth across the room to ensure that he can walk. He placidly lets them do as they must. Will be a patient patient, for now, while his body repairs. It is only a vessel.
There are recommendations and pieces of advice and prescriptions, but none of this applies to him. He is not one of their coddled regulars, not a hypochondriac, not a Medicaid leech. When his sight returns, he will only need his muscles and hands.
It occurs to him late that night (must be late at night since there is no one turning the pages of a book beside him and no one is speaking softly in the hallway) that he cannot remember which voice he has been using. He would like to remember, but he keeps surfacing and receding into dreams of white fish sliding from between his clutching fingers until he does not think about it anymore.
//
It is cold on the day of his release.
Even through the thick institutional walls he can feel it, temperature difference on one side of his face indicating where chill must have seeped through windows.
If only these people knew how many police and government files have been opened on him, how much effort has been spent trying to get him behind the thick walls of another institution. And now they set him free like a common man, leaving nothing but drugs which are already filtering out of his system and the sticky residue of medical tape where his IV line was held in place.
The clothes they have returned to him are ill-fitting despite the fact that they belonged to a whip-thin man (he's seen the old pictures tucked away in back of the upstairs radio cabinet) and no doubt look like the secondhand castoffs they are. But the fabric is worn soft from use, old from neglect, and feels alien against his skin after so many years of wearing the same few items of clothing. Smells clean. Smells right and familiar. It pulls away at memories deep within his head, good ones. Of plots and plans and uncomplicated justice.
His stomach twists and shivers. Now he is wearing someone else's clothes and a bandage like a blank new mask wrapped to cover the top portion of his head. He only briefly adjusts his feet in a subconscious imitation of someone else's posture before remembering that even Nite Owl succumbed to internal weakness and fell to a flawed, naïve philosophy. This is only another temporary disguise.
There's a sharp smell in the air when he finally steps outside again with Daniel's assistance; along with putrid city there is the threat of winter, of deep snow and cold bearing down, and his joints ache with it.
Going home. Going home with his eyes still useless and the world still dark.
There is a particular exhaustion sinking through his bones. The memory of buildings rise up tall around him but now it is a jumbled mess, different images rising up in his mind's eye, flickering; this hospital is not on any of his nighttime or even daytime routes, he is certain. There are no half-familiar sounds and smells to draw him forward. Wind steals through thin clothing meant for summers spent lounging in self-indulgence.
It matters little.
"W-uh, Rorschach. Where are you going?"
His hands are already tucked into the empty pockets of these unfamiliar pants, back already turned. "Home." Where else?
"But you can't-" Funny now, how Daniel sounds like one who is lost. "I mean, I thought you'd want your mask back. Maybe rest until your eyes clear up. Eat something besides shitty food." The last one is intentionally delivered as a disarming joke. Flimsy reasons, all.
But his face. (How did he almost forget?) He'll want his face.
He has already conceded far, far too much to Daniel's suggestions.
Eventually, there is a hand closing over his shoulder and another pressing as gingerly as possible on the back of his head; he gets the idea, bows his body down, and climbs into what feels like the back seat of a taxicab.
Chapter Seven
Up the steps and this is not familiar: he never has come in through the front door, always comes through his maintenance hatch up through the basement, rising from the underground like a ghost.
Unfamiliar too is the body supporting him, ever since he stepped out of the taxicab and felt his legs begin to liquefy and give way beneath him. There is nothing shameful about it, nothing, they've done this favor for each other before when too dazed or injured to move out of danger (when Nite Owl's ankle had given way that night like the snap of rotten wood), it is not shameful. Fingers dig in just below his ribs and body heat blazes against his side through his new worn clothing. He is led up the steps like a half-willing marionette. There is an exhaustion now settling into his limbs, the tension of keeping alert in his hospital room finally draining away to leave him without even nervous energy, his muscles aching dully from lack of exercise. This is why he doesn't shrug off the help.
It must look to the neighbors spying out their windows, twitching their curtains, that Daniel is escorting an intoxicated friend home (is stumbling home to-) and his fingernails cut into his palm as he thinks the word friend.
They stand, swaying, as Daniel fumbles to unlock the door. At the click of a light switch he narrows his eyes in habitual preparation for light which doesn't come.
He is very tired.
The difference in their strides makes progress through the hallway awkward and jolting enough that when Daniel asks him if he'd like to bathe, the heavy rolling forward of his head is taken as a nod.
He knows Daniel must think him to be unhygenic. It is easy to remain clean when one lives a cosseted existence from dawn to dusk, when one never has to descend again into the swelling miasma of humanity choking alleyways, moving beneath sewer grates. Easy to remain sanitized when one never gets dirty. Once, he strove toward cleanliness (once, he wanted to impress): the misguided intentions of a young man who clung to vanity, believed in leading a normal life, did not yet understand how little it all meant in the final analysis.
Before he has a chance to argue they are already passing over the threshold onto tile-this is where the world slid away. Water is already drumming into the bathtub beside him, warmth coating him, vapor spreading across his face, invisible.
"All right. I'll be back in a minute."
The supporting arm is already sliding away, leaving him to grope for the edge of the shower stall. Something about what he just said doesn't make sense, something- "What?"
"You can climb in yourself, but I'm going to come back and sit in here with you." A pause. Much quieter, much more serious when he continues. "You're still not all together yet. I'm not going to let you pass out and drown."
This time, the weary incline of his head is intentional. Daniel begins speaking and then stops, clearly confused; faint footsteps and then the door is closed loudly enough to be heard over the rushing of water. It only then occurs to him that Daniel's tone was preemptively firm, as if an argument had been expected. Should he have argued? It is hard to think.
He divests himself of his (of Daniel's) clothing, quickly just in case. The shower stall is already growing slick with steam, and his fingers soon find a support rod he dimly remembers the existence of. The water scalds his feet, his knees, the backs of his thighs. All of his muscles protest in unison as he sinks down by degrees, but there is something which makes him glad he isn't expected to stand and shower.
It rises around him as he waits with knees updrawn and head lifted. It molds intimately to his body, stinging each new fraction of skin which has yet to become accustomed to it.
The temperature of this water, it goes far past utilitarian cleansing and verges close to hedonism, unraveling his muscles and loosening his tendons. This too is a dangerous luxury. He knows he should wrench the handle toward cold but he can only bear to lean forward once to shut off the faucet and draw the curtain. Water drags thick against his stomach, then his back as he moves.
He wills himself not to take enjoyment from this. Cleaning himself is his concession to Daniel, nothing more. (He wills himself not to think of just how many chemical agents are both odorless and soluble in water.)
It isn't much longer when Daniel enters after a knock, shutting the door after himself in a gesture that is comforting despite the fact that no one else is here to walk in on him. Only his face will be visible through the curtain's gap; no, only half his face, considering the bandages.
His back sags against ceramic. After the indignity of the hospital, after having more physical contact than he's been used to in years, he would appreciate solitude and privacy as his body restores itself.
Daniel means well. The thought feels somehow defensive, and he wonders if he's become so exhausted that he's taken to arguing with himself. He makes a mental note to make Daniel tell him the side effects of these medications they have chosen to pollute him with, blood contaminated and dirtied like the city water.
It is warm and he is floating-
"Rorschach? You asleep already, man?" It's a careful whisper, just before rough fabric scrapes against the hand he was allowing to dangle outside of the bathtub; his fingers curl around a washcloth.
"Hn."
They don't speak. Humidity dampens the hair at the back of his neck, pulls his breathing shallow, wet hot air in his lungs. It is quiet here, no neighbors screeching at their children through the walls, no hurried footsteps, (no voices crescendoing into perverted ecstasy), no cars backfiring like thunderous gunshots. The only sound is the low slip and murmur of water as he cleans himself with methodical, hard scrapes: arms, chest, stomach, legs. Anything else can wait until he is alone.
His hands skim across the surface, fingers creating thick ripples he cannot see. By morning. By morning his sight will be whole and he will be whole. He knows this with an unshakable certainty.
There is a sound of muffled discomfort, and it brings him back entire years at one leap. It is the very same half-groan Nite Owl used to make when they had no leads and he needed sleep, usually accompanied by a momentary lifting of the goggles as he swiped at his eyes underneath. He had always watched the gesture, half-fascinated by how easily the other man slipped in and out of daytime identity (fascinated by unfamiliar eyes).
Daniel must be just as tired, he realizes suddenly. Unasked for but constantly present, the only trustworthy figure in these strange past few days, an ungrumbling and vigilant touchstone. Acting as a friend, a partner.
There are things he should say, but nothing feels adequate or appropriate. Maybe in the morning, when he leaves.
"Finished."
"What? Oh. I'll just be right outside. Your clothes are up on the bathroom counter. There's uh, a towel rack on the wall just to your right."
Yes, he remembers.
The door shuts again and he's standing slowly, newly cold air rising goosebumps along his flesh. He steps down onto what should be tile and draws back his foot as if it's been stung because that isn't tile, he's stepped on something he shouldn't have-
It takes a moment for his mind to match the sensation to meaning. A towel. A folded towel on the wet floor, and he doesn't remember when it was put there. He only remembers that it wasn't there when he came in and knows what its purpose is. His lips twist with something unidentifiable.
New clothes are here, fresh clothes for sleeping that are not his. But this is his, this familiar smooth latex, trapped fluids displacing under his hand.
He imagines the gathering ink forming meaningless features, looking darkly up at him with his own stare. His fingers touch the inside but he hesitates.
No. Not now, like this. Not yet. Soon, very soon he will be able to put it back on.
It is a comforting thought as he slides it into the thinly-lined pocket of these pajama pants, as it slumbers heavily against his hip while he rejoins Daniel and allows himself to be led upstairs.
He must have become distracted, because the mattress is bumping against his thigh before he realizes where they are.
No, this is-Daniel doesn't mean it with anything but the most pure intentions but he can't, not this, not when he is so tired and his thoughts jumbled, not-
He's pulling his arm steadily out of Daniel's grip, stepping back with a rusty hurh.
"Rorschach? Oh. Oh, you can't-no, this isn't my bed, man. This is the guest room."
Yes. Yes, the guest room. He should have guessed. Every other time he has slept on the cot kept behind the workstation, but he's seen the guest room before, should have known.
"Goodnight, Daniel."
"Yeah. Uh. Goodnight, Rorschach."
He thinks he hears someone leaning heavily against the closed door, but after a few seconds the impression is gone.
This bed is clean. Too many blankets for practical use, padded and thick between his hands as he peels open the bed coverings as easy as flaying a fish. The smell of detergent has worn away from the sheets months or years ago from disuse. The mattress accepts his aching body as easily as water.
He sleeps.
He wakes.
There is an urgent need to urinate. Moonlight shudders on the walls, casting the shadow of his body as a quavering, formless silhouette, identical on both sides.
He is walking now, down the hallway into thick darkness, around a corner and a corner and another corner, and all he can see are thick white flakes falling at his feet as he moves. It is leaving a trail behind him.
The flakes come faster as he grimaces, skin pulling tight beneath skin. His face feels hot and tight and when he touches it with his fingers, he feels something bone-dry and crumbling. It itches and he rubs hard with the pads of his fingers, the twisted fixation of a child pulling at a scab. One entire section comes away from his cheek, pulling painfully at the new and tender skin underneath.
In the bathroom there will be a mirror so he can see what is happening to his face. It glimmers now at the end of the long hallway. Very soon he will see.
But maybe he doesn't want-
He wakes.
Sheets are twisted and grasping around his lower legs. It is hot beneath his bandage, hot in the creases of his joints, sweat too slick on his face. He does not, cannot know what time of day it is, but it only feels like minutes since Daniel left him in here.
From the next room, a gentle low rumble of snoring.
Turning onto his stomach, he waits for the air to cool his heated skin.
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