Application for Rorschach / Walter Kovacs (The Watchmen)

[sugarcube_nazi]

A slight figure in a trench coat and fedora stepped warily into the room. He looked around. Where one would expect to see a face, there was instead a white fabric with symmetrical black markings, which shifted slowly, creating different shapes that might resemble any number of things, depending on who you asked: now a pretty butterfly, now a dead

Comments

Vote: Squib

[waste_lock]

Nny actually approved of the application, more or less (although the self-righteousness made his fingers itch for a knifehandle), but one thing was intolerable.

"Fucking CHEDDAR!!!!"

Re: Vote: Squib

[sugarcube_nazi]

Upon hearing this outburst, Rorschach assumed an alert, wary stance. He waited patiently to see if anything would come of it. Preferences in cheese could only evoke such passion in a maniac.

[cardarchitect]

Near let the remark about 'intellectualism' slide for now. Surely Mello would have something snide to say about it.

"The last person I met who thought he could cure the world of evil died like a rabid dog," he said calmly. "He told himself he was a god but he was nothing more than a mass murderer. Your ideals seem similar, although I gather your methods are more direct."

[sugarcube_nazi]

Rorschach grunted dismissively. "You're right about my methods. I don't kill masses. I hunt down the guilty. Not murder if they deserved it. Justice."

[cardarchitect]

"And what is your standard of proof?" Prepared for debate, Near sat on the floor and began arranging legos into a low wall. "Or do you claim to be an infallible instrument of divine wrath?"

[sugarcube_nazi]

He watched the young man's lego construction curiously. "Obvious when guilty. Facts add up."

[menace2plants]

Crowley had met people like this before. Downstairs loved people like this. They could dream up torments demons would never think of.

"No, you see, good needs evil to define itself," he pointed out. "It's like your mask. Without the black and white, it'd just be grey."

[sugarcube_nazi]

"Hurm." Rorschach considered this view, but only briefly. "Stupid. Good doesn't need evil. Good isn't the opposition to evil; it's what was there before that was corrupted. Rorschach needs evil. But the innocent victims of it... No."

In the back of his mind, Walter Kovacs was thinking of a little girl and dogs fighting over a human bone.

[menace2plants]

"You're behind on theology, aren't you?" He flashed a debonair grin. "It was by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve unleased the original sin upon the world. So by merely knowing there is a difference between the two, you admit that there is evil within you. Lovely bit of irony, don't you think?"

[sugarcube_nazi]

"I've studied theology," Rorschach said roughly. "And it was by giving into temptation and disobeying the will of God -- by sinning -- that they brought sin upon us all. Before the first sin, there's no knowledge of evil, and maybe no knowledge of good, but there is good. A little child can't imagine... the evil someone might do... It doesn't even cross her mind. She's too pure. And she's pure because she doesn't know. She hasn't been tainted... But someone will come who has, and they'll make her know. She has no choice, like Adam, and Eve. No. She'll be forced to know it. They'll make her feel it: kidnap and torture her. Because sin is here in the world and mankind is fallen. And that's why I must do what I do."

[righteous_pen]

Mikami stopped reading at question 5D and looked up at Rorschach, a wild gleam in his eyes. He hadn't slept properly in over a week, and it showed.

"There aren't enough," he breathed. "People who are willing. Not in this world."

[sugarcube_nazi]

"No," Rorschach agreed. He considered the stranger and took a step forward. He was surprised to meet someone who shared his vision so soon -- and pleased. With the other Watchmen claiming retirement, he was eager for an ally. "Rorschach," he offered.

[righteous_pen]

That explained the mask. It was disturbing to watch for too long, the patterns constantly shifting where there should be a face. At the moment, it looked a little like Ryuk.

"Mikami." He extended a hand, cautiously. "Why do you wear that?"

It seemed wrong, in someone who worked for justice. Of course, if he'd been a little more together he'd have remembered that covering one's face didn't have the same significance in this world that it did in Kira's.

[sugarcube_nazi]

Rorschach accepted Mikami's hand briefly and firmly.

The question made him pause. He answered simply, enigmatically. "It's my face."

[serrulata]

"Of course it stinks of intellectualism," Kurama said from the doorway. It may be mentioned that the lingering smell of marijuana smoke probably still clung to him. "It's a school."

[sugarcube_nazi]

((Hee, that made me laugh.))

Rorschach turned to look this newcomer over. He sniffed, and then made a low, rumbling noise in this throat. "Hurm... What kind of school?"

[serrulata]

((I love to provide the lols. <3 ))

"Magic, if you believe in such a thing." He looked down (and down, Kurama was quite a bit taller than the 'new kid') at the applicant, a half-amused expression on his face. It wasn't hard to guess at the reason for the disapproving noise Rorschach had made. "Among a few other subjects."

[sugarcube_nazi]

"Magic," Rorschach repeated. "Meaning what. Occultism? Animism? Some flower-child drivel based on seeking enlightenment through drugs?"