Down to Cinders
Down to Cinders
PG
AU. Dan is actually Prince Stolas, and is bound to Walter.
Pretentious, nonsensical fill for captivity, for hc_bingo. Let me be frank with you: I don't know shit about the Ars Goetia. Feel free to let me know if I screwed up.
Contains: Character death at the appropriate canon time, delivered in a non-canon way.
It's a mistake. It's a mistake, and there's nothing he can do, all the demons under his command impotent, because there are laws.
It could be worse.
His Crown rots on a forest floor, and he hunkers under bright lights and clicks his beak as children gaze, dumb and glassy-eyed, at his elegant body. He takes their occasional abuse like an exhausted animal, shivering under his wings, weak in this world. But he remembers.
*
A boy with Hell-colored hair and a landscape face frowns at him. He reverberates with tense guilt; he should not be here. He has holes in his clothes and bruises on his wrists. He bites his lips, and the Prince gazes at him, bleary and half-blind from hot lights. Oh, how his restless wings ache.
But he's humble, here, without his crown, afraid for his feathers and legs, hungry for something this world can't give him.
The boy, clever thing with all his fingers and lovely, cracking thumbs, opens the cage door.
The Prince's heart sings falsetto. He is gone in a heartbeat, with a nip at the boy's skinny, beautifully wounded wrists.
However out of the cage he may be, he is still bound. The Prince will pay his debt.
*
The boy with Hell-colored hair dreams, and when he does, the Prince gives him what he can. He gives him the sky and its inhabitants, ancient bodies with stories he could never learn from human's libraries.
Where he can, he protects the boy. He leads his demons to circle him, a neverending loop that makes the boy's eyes turn flat and hard. The Prince, even with all his might, cannot ease everything in the boy's life.
He does what he can, but it's not enough. The Gates reject him, again and again.
*
The Prince gives himself a man's name and a man's body.
The boy gives himself a devil's face.
They meet.
*
As a man, the Prince does not wield half as much power as he should. It doesn't bother him. This is the simplest road home.
"Rorschach," he says as the man with a devil's face turns his back, "please. Let me at least take a look at it."
"It's fine, Daniel," he rebuffs, and the wound aches through the Prince until he doesn't know what to do.
*
"It's beautiful, huh?" Maybe this will suffice -
"Yes. Beautiful." His delicate, leather fingers linger on the rounded glass, devil face upturned and spinning with wonder.
"How much do you know about it?"
Tension cuts his body in sharp lines, and the Prince is relieved to see he's not been ignored all these years. "A little."
*
Nite Owl cuts across the path of a bullet, faster than a human should be able to, and the pain shatters him, but it's not enough. Fire licks at his fingertips; still, he can't return yet.
Rorschach, with his devil face and beautifully bruised knuckles, paws at the wound and shakes out each breath. "You'll be fine," he says, not believing it.
Nite Owl doesn't bother replying.
*
His name is Walter, and he lives alone in a small apartment that is too large for his bony frame. Dan perches on his window sill and watches him sleep. In a moment, he will give Walter Jupiter in his dreams.
Daniel, after all these years, can't help but be sincerely fond of his dotted face and iron shields. The two of them have been through quite a bit, in a lonely way.
*
Daniel is absent on a still night in 1975.
It traps them both.
*
He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't miss his crown quite as much as he misses the tendons in Rorschach's wrists and his crooked, timid smile after a good night. Or half as much as the devotion that drove them together, the frank curiosity that always turned into a mission, one way or another.
He doesn't know how to free him.
*
Antarctica is so cold, he's sure he'll never thaw out the ice crystals gnawing at his bones.
He doesn't look back as they go - he shivers, weak under his armor.
*
The boy with a landscape face cries, and cries.
*
This is it - this is what they've been after all these years. The Prince melts his bones, and the Antarctic wind ripples with heat. If he'd only realized, he could have ended this in 1975. His wings, so tired for so long, unfurl, and his claws reach out.
Dr. Manhattan and the young boy look on.
*
His claws sink into his throat.
"Oh," his mouth forms. "Oh." Blood runs down his chin. It hurts like he's killing himself, and not a human, a bruised boy who just wants rest.
*
The blood freezes in a few seconds' time. The body will take longer.
*
They're free. They're free.
*
When the Prince returns, he finds first at his feet a creature with a devil's face and beautifully bruised wrists.
PG
AU. Dan is actually Prince Stolas, and is bound to Walter.
Pretentious, nonsensical fill for captivity, for hc_bingo. Let me be frank with you: I don't know shit about the Ars Goetia. Feel free to let me know if I screwed up.
Contains: Character death at the appropriate canon time, delivered in a non-canon way.
It's a mistake. It's a mistake, and there's nothing he can do, all the demons under his command impotent, because there are laws.
It could be worse.
His Crown rots on a forest floor, and he hunkers under bright lights and clicks his beak as children gaze, dumb and glassy-eyed, at his elegant body. He takes their occasional abuse like an exhausted animal, shivering under his wings, weak in this world. But he remembers.
*
A boy with Hell-colored hair and a landscape face frowns at him. He reverberates with tense guilt; he should not be here. He has holes in his clothes and bruises on his wrists. He bites his lips, and the Prince gazes at him, bleary and half-blind from hot lights. Oh, how his restless wings ache.
But he's humble, here, without his crown, afraid for his feathers and legs, hungry for something this world can't give him.
The boy, clever thing with all his fingers and lovely, cracking thumbs, opens the cage door.
The Prince's heart sings falsetto. He is gone in a heartbeat, with a nip at the boy's skinny, beautifully wounded wrists.
However out of the cage he may be, he is still bound. The Prince will pay his debt.
*
The boy with Hell-colored hair dreams, and when he does, the Prince gives him what he can. He gives him the sky and its inhabitants, ancient bodies with stories he could never learn from human's libraries.
Where he can, he protects the boy. He leads his demons to circle him, a neverending loop that makes the boy's eyes turn flat and hard. The Prince, even with all his might, cannot ease everything in the boy's life.
He does what he can, but it's not enough. The Gates reject him, again and again.
*
The Prince gives himself a man's name and a man's body.
The boy gives himself a devil's face.
They meet.
*
As a man, the Prince does not wield half as much power as he should. It doesn't bother him. This is the simplest road home.
"Rorschach," he says as the man with a devil's face turns his back, "please. Let me at least take a look at it."
"It's fine, Daniel," he rebuffs, and the wound aches through the Prince until he doesn't know what to do.
*
"It's beautiful, huh?" Maybe this will suffice -
"Yes. Beautiful." His delicate, leather fingers linger on the rounded glass, devil face upturned and spinning with wonder.
"How much do you know about it?"
Tension cuts his body in sharp lines, and the Prince is relieved to see he's not been ignored all these years. "A little."
*
Nite Owl cuts across the path of a bullet, faster than a human should be able to, and the pain shatters him, but it's not enough. Fire licks at his fingertips; still, he can't return yet.
Rorschach, with his devil face and beautifully bruised knuckles, paws at the wound and shakes out each breath. "You'll be fine," he says, not believing it.
Nite Owl doesn't bother replying.
*
His name is Walter, and he lives alone in a small apartment that is too large for his bony frame. Dan perches on his window sill and watches him sleep. In a moment, he will give Walter Jupiter in his dreams.
Daniel, after all these years, can't help but be sincerely fond of his dotted face and iron shields. The two of them have been through quite a bit, in a lonely way.
*
Daniel is absent on a still night in 1975.
It traps them both.
*
He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't miss his crown quite as much as he misses the tendons in Rorschach's wrists and his crooked, timid smile after a good night. Or half as much as the devotion that drove them together, the frank curiosity that always turned into a mission, one way or another.
He doesn't know how to free him.
*
Antarctica is so cold, he's sure he'll never thaw out the ice crystals gnawing at his bones.
He doesn't look back as they go - he shivers, weak under his armor.
*
The boy with a landscape face cries, and cries.
*
This is it - this is what they've been after all these years. The Prince melts his bones, and the Antarctic wind ripples with heat. If he'd only realized, he could have ended this in 1975. His wings, so tired for so long, unfurl, and his claws reach out.
Dr. Manhattan and the young boy look on.
*
His claws sink into his throat.
"Oh," his mouth forms. "Oh." Blood runs down his chin. It hurts like he's killing himself, and not a human, a bruised boy who just wants rest.
*
The blood freezes in a few seconds' time. The body will take longer.
*
They're free. They're free.
*
When the Prince returns, he finds first at his feet a creature with a devil's face and beautifully bruised wrists.