Fic: Clean (Nite Owl/Rorschach)
Title: Clean (3/3)
Author: MustInvestigate
Disclaimer: I only own action figures
Rating: eventually NC-17
Character(s)/Pairing: NiteOwl/Rorschach
Warning: Graphic m/m sexual activity
Summary: Hrm...I wanted to get Rorschach naked. So I packed every possible cliché around that idea and called it a story.
Rorschach paced the length of the cramped storage room with such ferocity that, when he abruptly stopped and perched silently among the boxes near the door, Nite Owl felt compelled to take over. He watched his own footprints appear in the centimetres of dust that covered every surface and restrained the urge to point out, again, that the only tracks in sight were their own. Discounting the trails left by generations of mice and even less appealing vermin, of course.
“Should have let me break his finger,” his partner muttered. It was maybe the third sentence he’d offered since Nite Owl had come downstairs to found him sitting on Archimedes’s roof, impatient to be off. And the first two weren’t particularly edifying, just: Last of the batch will be moving tonight. Not much time to find out where, and who.
“If he heard the wrong rumor, breaking bones wasn’t going to get us the right tip.”
“He lied. Should have been sure.”
“The guy was swallowing his tongue when you were only talking. He’d have given you his mother wrapped in a shiny bow to get your hands off him. The tip was good, or he just thought it was good.”
Splotches near the jawline moved. He muttered, “Weak, Daniel.”
Nite Owl stiffened, feeling his hands curl into fists of their own volition. Daniel might be weak. Unlike the rest of the masks, he didn’t even have a day job to keep up with, using the time to build and perfect gadgets - essential equipment he was then pathetic enough to give away to people who already stripped his cupboards bare. Sure, Daniel was too soft. He’d concede that.
But it was Nite Owl who fought the great underbelly of the city at Rorschach’s side, and if anyone would understand that, it was Mr No Real Name himself.
Which was why he knew it was a trap. In the absence of expressions - though the movements of his mask gave away more than he suspected Rorschach realised, to someone with time and a photographic memory - Nite Owl had been forced to become a fluent in the language of twitches. Even crouched off balance and looking away, the perfect target, Rorschach’s muscles were tense as piano wire and ready to spring.
And because Nite Owl really, really wanted to start that fight, he forced himself to relax and exhale slowly, staring at the empty street from a tear in the posters coating the window until he could hear again through the sound if his own heartbeat.
Rorschach snorted, dismissive or disappointed, and shifted to a more comfortable stance.
It was hard, waiting to ambush, and got worse as it became more obvious no one was coming. Nerves drew tighter and tighter until he felt like an over-wound watch, chafing at the snail’s passage of ordinary time. He’d slept poorly and too long and suspected the tickle in his throat from the lingering arctic chill in the bedroom would bloom into a miserable summer cold by morning. A friendly bout of mutual ass-kicking would be just what the doctor ordered, and maybe even good training for them both, but Rorschach never fought unless he meant to turn his opponent into an unconscious, handcuffed lump. It would be good to blow away the tension that had settled between them, but Note Owl knew that actually laying his hands on his partner would be the beginning of the end no matter who won.
Nite Owl was fairly sure that would be him, in any case, because Rorschach had been completely off his game tonight. In between bars, they’d chanced on a mugging. Three boys - one of the Queens Greaser crews, with oiled hair and pegged jeans, far from home territory - on a middle-aged man. One young man dug through a wallet while the other two kicked their semi-conscious victim, cheering each other on.
They moved with their usual efficiency, at first - Nite Owl grabbed the closer assailant and flung him into the opposite wall, then checked out their victim. He knew without looking that Rorschach had incapacitated the banker of the group - perhaps by a flying kick to the knee or something equally breakable - and used his body as a battering ram against the second attacker, who would just be realising their recreation had come to an abrupt end. It was one of Rorschach’s signature moves.
“Sir, can you hear me?” The pulse was strong, if erratic. A shallow cut bled into the man’s eye. He blinked and tried to shake his head.
“Try to stay still, sir. You may have internal injuries.” Nite Owl ran his hands along the man’s sides, grateful when there was no wince to indicate broken ribs. “Police and emergency medical assistance will be here with you soon.”
Nite Owl ducked as someone cursed and threw a punch near his head. He looked over to see the second assailant still on his feet, bleeding from the mouth, just as he leapt into the three-week pile of garbage that surrounded the trash cans next to him and waded through to the other side.
When is the goddam mayor going to get this trash strike fixed? Daniel grumbled from the recesses of Nite Owl’s subconscious. He watched, amazed, as his indomitable partner paused, swayed, then detoured around the pile, breaking into a sprint five paces behind the teen. The two disappeared around a dark corner.
“I’ll be right back,” he told the man, who was struggling to his feet despite Nite Owl’s instructions, and followed, rounding the corner just in time to see the mugger taken down with a flying tackle.
Rorschach straddled his chest as the boy flailed, trying to throw him off, and punched him twice. Limp body over his shoulder, he returned to the scene of the crime in the posture Nite Owl associated with extreme embarrassment. The victim had already staggered out to the main street, and was yelling about ninja assassins to a pair of startled beat cops.
“That’s our cue,” Nite Owl remarked sourly, but Rorschach had already dumped the boy with his mates and stalked off in the direction of Happy Harry’s.
Nite Owl would have thought nothing of that hesitation, if it hadn’t been combined with a much surlier than usual disposition and…the other thing.
The thing which was Rorschach touching himself.
Not sexually, no. Not really. And he didn’t seem aware he was doing it until he’d catch himself, stiffen, and drop his hand, glancing sideways at Nite Owl to see if he’d noticed.
He was doing it again, in fact. Nite Owl watched the reflection in the streaky glass tug off one glove and run a finger between his neck and scarf, absently caressing the material. Nite Owl stared at the sliver of skin this revealed.
All fucking night, he’s at this, he groaned internally.
First, he’d just pushed the trench aside to adjust his suit jacket, fingers slipping almost accidentally between two buttons to run along the ribbed vest underneath. Later, it was the sleeves. They needed to be tugged down, then pushed up on his forearms, then pulled back down again. Gloves off each time, fingers trailing around a strong wrist, then gloves forced back on with rough, embarrassed haste. But the absolute worst had been leaving Harry’s, when Rorschach had actually undone his trench, unbuttoned the suit jacket, and slowly, luxuriously, tucked in the shirt flaps that had come loose when he’d slammed their informant into the bar.
Nite Owl both blessed and cursed the stiff armor protecting his crotch.
Marsha’s towel trick hadn’t worked so well. Maybe it was different when you were undressing yourself, but when stripping another person, you were working blind and ended up with hands in…places. He’d managed to unbutton and unzip every fastener with only minor groping, but actually getting tight clothing off someone who kept struggling toward semiconsciousness just enough to roll exactly the wrong way was another matter. Gritty skin and hard muscles moved under his hands.
When they first started working together, Nite Owl had been as curious as anyone else. There was a person under that mask, and it could be anyone. It was a source of deep annoyance that his partner never reciprocated once Nite Owl was comfortable enough to ease back into Daniel in front of him, to give him fundamentally unfettered access to his home. Eventually, though, he got used to it. Unlike the Comedian, who never missed a chance to attempt ‘Twenty Questions’ with Rorschach (thus far only managing to establish that he was not female, paying for the intel with a fractured nose), Daniel stopped wondering what was behind the splotches. His partner was a suit, mask, fedora, and general air of disgruntlement. The chin and lips that occasionally appeared were alien elements and disappeared as soon as the mask came back down.
Daniel suddenly added arms like a stevedore and a stomach that could crack walnuts to that general picture and found himself effortlessly imagining the rest of what lay barely hidden. Rorschach twitched under his hands and muttered nonsensical phrases, head dropping back. Daniel’s body, sure it had correctly sussed the situation, centralised every drop of blood below the waist.
Daniel wondered if a man could actually pass out from this temporary blood loss and forced several deep breaths into his lungs, insisting to himself that the situation was no sexier than a frat boy chancing on a passed-out girl at a mixer. He beat up guys like that and left them for the police to scrape off the sidewalk.
Rorschach groaned, the noise a mix of annoyance and confusion, “Dan’l…?”
Daniel’s cock throbbed. He was almost certain the eyes were opening under that mask.
It didn’t occur to him that his partner’s clothes were probably adequately loosened, and he noticed the sweat now beading on the flushed neck in a purely non-medical manner. He had a mission, dammit (get those clothes in the washing machine pronto - no, wait, keep partner from dying of dehydration!) and he would complete it.
Daniel whipped the sheet back and stripped him, top and bottom, in two efficient moves, pausing only to think, Christ, definitely a redhead, before covering him again. He flipped the sheet up over his head as if Rorschach were a bird that would obediently fall asleep when covered and waited for the outraged howl.
Instead, the sheets rustled and ejected a freckled forearm, which flopped over the covered head and was still.
Daniel gathered up the clothing and buried his nose in it as he left, the stink of the fabric almost enough to subdue his erection.
When he had the house to himself again, Daniel lay in the same place (after a bewildered, unsuccessful search for the sheets) and tried to nod off. He built half a forlorn fantasy that he’d already met his partner’s secret identity on some long-ago night, given the name David and been told an equally fake name over a perfunctory and untouched drink, until hands moved under the bar in an easily decoded sequence and they stood as one and walked separately together somewhere moderately more private… But reality intruded too sharply. He just couldn’t see Rorschach in one of those places, even in a daydream. And none of those five or six men had been ginger, or more freckle than skin.
Rorschach froze, right on schedule, and tightened his scarf. The sliver of skin disappeared, but not the memory of temptation. He forced his hand back into the glove and tilted his head fractionally in Nite Owl’s direction.
Nite Owl looked away, the picture of nonchalance, and knew once again that he could have pointed and laughed with more subtlety. In the back of his head, Daniel felt somehow ashamed that anyone would find fresh clothing such a distracting novelty, especially his partner.
“We should go. Repeat inquiries.”
“It’s 3 am, Rorschach. The bars are closed, and I’m not up for any civilian B&E tonight.”
Rorschach kicked a box in frustration and faced the wall, arms folded tightly.
“What do you think is in here, anyway?” Note Owl offered as a distraction. “It’s obvious no one’s even looked at them in ages. I wonder what stock the fella couldn’t unload when he went bust?”
Rorschach shrugged.
Nite Owl ripped open the nearest box, raising a cloud of greasy dust, and laughed. “Hey Rorschach, look at these!”
He tore into the plastic bag inside and grabbed a handful of chattering teeth. They spilled to the floor with a clatter. Rorschach tilted his head and nudged one with his toe.
“What are these even for?”
“This must have been a novelty shop. You know, tourist junk, gag gifts, that kind of thing.” He ripped open another box and found squeaking rubber spiders. “I loved this stuff as a kid.”
Rorschach grunted and kicked the chattering teeth into a pile.
Nite Owl dug further and found salt and pepper sets in the shape of breasts, a box of ‘World’s Greatest Lover’ mugs, and a handful of pens. He flipped one upside-down and laughed.
“I even had one of these,” he said, tossing it to across the room. Rorschach tilted the pen, watched the ink flow away to remove the bathing beauty’s swimsuit, and grunted. He dropped and ground it under his shoe like a cigarette butt.
Nite Owl popped open one of the larger boxes along the wall, raising his eyebrows when it proved to contain inflatable…sheep? He read the name on the boxes (“The Famous ‘I-Love-Ewe’!”) and decided against sharing the joke.
“You try one,” he said instead, hiding a smile as Rorschach sighed tolerantly and looked at the boxes surrounding him. We might make it to dawn without killing each other yet.
The smile faded abruptly as he removed another lid to reveal a selection of flavoured lubricant and realised exactly what kind of novelty store it had been.
“You know, what, never mind. We shouldn’t even be - ” he began, but Rorschach had already picked up a large box and opened it the expedient way, by turning it upside-down. Double-headed dildos almost the size of baseball bats rained down around his feet.
Nite Owl really, really tried to choke down the horrified laughter, but succeeded only in adding hiccups to the mix.
Rorschach tackled him to the floor and straddled his chest, knocking the wind out of him. For one terrifying moment, his lungs struggled to prioritise a hiccup against a desperate gasp for air and failed to achieve either, but a glimpse of his partner’s roiling mask scared the hiccups away for good. He thought of the mugger earlier and flinched, expecting the same blows.
“Look,” Nite Owl squeaked, gasping in another short, painful breath. “Sorry. I didn’t. Know.”
The blotches shifted from something like a moth to something like a bull’s skull. He was breathing hard through his nose and growling with every exhale, clearly beyond his comparatively conversational rants on the city’s degenerate perverts.
“And I’m sorry. About touching. Your stuff. It clearly dis. Turbed your. Your groove. If you will. And I’ll. Never - ”
Rorschach wrenched his mask up to his nose and came down for the kill, horns becoming wings.
It was the worst kiss that ever made him instantly hard.
It missed his mouth completely, for a start. How much can he really see through that thing? the small and clearly insane voice of Daniel wondered from well underneath Nite Owl’s overwhelming terror. Teeth scraped along his chin before rough lips found his and settled heavily, unmoving.
Nite Owl tried to breathe through his nose, smelling sandalwood and, for some reason, industrial-grade pineapple.
Rorschach pulled back, tilted his head to the familiar ‘formulating plan B’ angle, then grabbed a double handful of Nite Owl’s cape and yanked him upward. Teeth settled in his bottom lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.
Nite Owl groaned, only half in pain, and managed to get one glove off by trapping his hand under his back and yanking it away. Rorschach shifted easily with the movement. He slid his bare hand under Rorschach’s scarf and dragged his fingernails along that tormenting stretch of skin below the mask, still waiting for the inevitable punch.
When a few more seconds passed, he sprang to take advantage of this brief, mad window of opportunity and got his other arm around Rorschach’s waist, under the trench, pulling him closer. Rorschach released his lip, which flopped back against his teeth with a small, undignified plop. He pressed forward, capturing those lips with his own, and felt a high, sharp cheekbone brush against his face. More information for his mental picture - there was at least one cheek under the mask.
Kissing Rorschach was a new experience. Nite Owl was lost in the feel of skin and the bead of sweat that dropped from the crumpled edge of the mask to his neck, but Daniel watched and analysed. Whatever Nite Owl did, Rorschach imitated a moment later, clumsier and with more teeth. Nite Owl ducked to kiss the skin beneath the mask at his jaw, feeling the pulse fluttering at his lips. Rorschach nudged Nite Owl’s chin out of the way and nipped along his exposed neck.
I’ll be in turtlenecks all week, Nite Owl thought, and didn’t care one bit. He pushed the hood from his head, taking the goggles with it, and the room plunged into shadow. He reached carefully forward, picturing the familiar chin, the chipped teeth that had never suffered braces, and rested his fingertips on the twitching skin.
He pushed a little further, running his tongue across the rough lips and between to the suddenly clenched teeth, wondering if this liberty would shatter the spell that let them lay together on a filthy floor necking like kids. But Rorschach, after a long pause, reflected this too, lips opening fractionally under Nite Owl’s. Nite Owl pressed his advantage, tongue darting inside to taste the back of Rorschach’s teeth.
Rorschach made strangled noises deep in his throat, like a heartbroken boy trying not to sob.
When Nite Owl pulled away to breathe, Rorschach kissed the corner of his mouth, almost gently. Nite Owl hadn’t been so close to coming in his pants from heavy petting since Daniel was a teenager. He winced to think of cleaning that mess out of the interlinked armor.
He let his head drop to the floor and pushed lightly on Rorschach’s shoulders. Rorschach jumped at the touch and scrambled backwards, stumbling over Nite Owl’s feet. He focused on unsexy thoughts - stripping and rebuilding Archie’s engine, UN debate transcripts, Aunt Mabel playing tennis - until the moment passed.
There was something sticky under his shoulder and spreading. Nite Owl touched it with his gloved hand and realised they’d shattered a bottle of lubrication - pineapple flavour. It gave Nite Owl wonderful ideas, or tried to; his mind balked at believing he was that lucky.
Rorschach crouched nearby, leaning on his hands like a sprinter waiting for the pistol’s crack. It was a new addition to Nite Owl’s nonverbal Rorschach dictionary, not keeping perfectly still so much as simultaneously running out the door and drawing closer.
“C’mere,” Nite Owl said. “Just needed to catch my breath. You knocked it out of me.”
When Rorschach didn’t move, he scooted over and pulled him close. His partner shivered under his arms, and Nite Owl saw teeth biting into his bottom lip. More obvious evidence of his arousal dug into Nite Owl’s leg, moving in the rhythmic tortured nudges of someone trying very hard not to move at all. It was a relief, oddly, that he wasn’t the only one dangling over the abyss. That this wasn’t some obscure form of punishment, keying him up and then smugly abandoning him.
Nite Owl slid his hands underneath Rorschach’s suit jacket and pulled the shirttails out his trousers, wanting to touch that pale skin again, but his partner stiffened and started to pull away.
“Okay, it’s okay,” Nite Owl soothed, holding him firmly. “Clothes stay.”
He ducked to bury his nose in the loosened scarf, smelling sweat and arousal. He whispered, “What do you want?”
A long minute passed while Rorschach hunched his shoulders. Finally he shrugged. “This,” he muttered, hands moving restlessly along Nite Owl’s sides.
He picked a hell of a time to go sub-verbal on the specifics of fornication, Nite Owl groaned, but purely internally.
“Do you want me to suck you off?” he offered hesitantly.
Nite Owl felt the flush that spread under his ungloved hand through two layers of clothing. Rorschach shook his head.
Nite Owl waited for another response while outside entire species evolved and went extinct. Losing patience, he started again, “You want…?”
Rorschach pushed him flat and hovered over his face for a moment. Nite Owl tried not to look terrified. He seemed to come to a decision and dropped back between Nite Owl’s spread legs, fumbling with his utility belt.
After a few heartbeats, he grunted, “How do you…?”
“There’s a clasp, under the crescent. Right there.”
Then his erection was gloriously free of confinement, bobbing alone for a long moment before his partner encased it in a tentative leather fist. Rorschach lowered himself until he lay nearly flat, elbows digging into Nite Owl’s thighs.
A warm mouth slipped over the head of his cock, freezing when he moaned.
“No, s’good,” he mumbled urgently. “S’a happy noise.”
It moved carefully down his length until lips met fist, then lowered the fist a finger at a time. With one finger left, Nite Owl’s cock bumped into the back of his throat and was quickly removed. He added his middle finger back to his grip and nodded to himself, before trying again. Slowly, down and back up, teeth dragging, then once again with more confidence. Rorschach’s spare hand moved awkwardly from thigh to hip before settling on his stomach. Daniel was observing again, feeling like a science experiment, picturing Rorschach with a clipboard and a long white labcoat.
Shit, he thought giddily, Now I’m gonna get wood every time I go to the doctor.
He tried to reach behind Rorschach’s head to guide his strokes, but the other man only shook his head and stopped until the hands were removed. Nite Owl grabbed a double fistful of his own cloak instead. Fine, I can work with this. This is fine. Oh God, I can work with this…
Rorschach shifted back up to his knees, and Nite Owl heard the pop of a button and the soft zhuzh of a zipper sliding down. His partner’s entire body began to rock with the movements of his head.
Daniel thought of Rorschach’s kissing and decided to try an experiment of his own. He raised and lowered his hips, just slightly, in the rhythm he needed. Rorschach picked it up after a few strokes, and the two of them rocked together. Nite Owl wished now for his goggles, to see more than a vague, shifting pattern. To see what those lips looked like stretched around his cock.
So close…
Rorschach froze abruptly, whimpered, and nearly clenched his teeth. Nite Owl jumped at the sudden pressure on his oversensitive skin, but Rorschach seemed to catch himself just in time and start pulling away.
Throwing caution to the wind, Nite Owl grabbed Rorschach’s head and pumped hard into his mouth, once, twice… He meant to warn him, but all that came out was a panicked squeak.
“Hnnk!,” Rorschach coughed and compulsively swallowed, wiping his mouth with the less soiled glove. He rested his forehead on Nite Owl’s thigh, gasping for breath, tolerating the hand that loosely cupped his jaw.
Later, as they faced opposite walls and pulled their armor back in place, Nite Owl wondered if they should talk, and knew they wouldn’t. The door handle rattled before he could decide what to do about that.
Rorschach clamped his hat back on his head and turned eagerly toward the noise. Rumpled, sweaty, clothes lined with grime from the floor, he looked more like himself. Nite Owl caught his gaze and nodded. They both stepped back into the shadows.
The first man entered carrying an ordinary shopping bag, looking over his shoulder.
“Look,” he said in the tone of voice usually reserved for: I swear to god, I’ll turn this car around, “I know we’re gonna take a bath on it, but no one here will buy it. Rocky can dump it in Baltimore, and, any problems, they’ll never trace it back to us.”
“No one’s got to know - ” one of his compatriots began, breaking off as Rorschach kicked the door shut behind the three of them.
“Too late,” he growled, almost happily, and the first man dropped the bag.
“Oh Jesus…”
* * *
They didn’t want for the police to arrive this time, heading instead toward the dock where Archie was hidden. The smell of the Hudson was strong.
Rorschach consulted his battered A-Z map. “As I suspected - the drop point isn’t far from here. Five minutes away, tops.”
Nite Owl grunted.
“Could scout it out tonight,” Rorschach offered. “Choose our vantage point. Block any inconvenient exits.”
Nite Owl saw the logic of that plan, but Daniel was creeping to the fore under the hood. Daniel wanted breakfast, aspirin, and sleep, and then maybe a year or two to review the night. “I doubt that Rocky will even show up, once he hears what happened to his friends.”
But Rorschach practically thrummed with energy. “Maybe he’ll sleep all day like some people, and miss the news.”
Was Rorschach actually teasing him?
“Sure, pal. Let go get ‘em.”
Author: MustInvestigate
Disclaimer: I only own action figures
Rating: eventually NC-17
Character(s)/Pairing: NiteOwl/Rorschach
Warning: Graphic m/m sexual activity
Summary: Hrm...I wanted to get Rorschach naked. So I packed every possible cliché around that idea and called it a story.
Rorschach paced the length of the cramped storage room with such ferocity that, when he abruptly stopped and perched silently among the boxes near the door, Nite Owl felt compelled to take over. He watched his own footprints appear in the centimetres of dust that covered every surface and restrained the urge to point out, again, that the only tracks in sight were their own. Discounting the trails left by generations of mice and even less appealing vermin, of course.
“Should have let me break his finger,” his partner muttered. It was maybe the third sentence he’d offered since Nite Owl had come downstairs to found him sitting on Archimedes’s roof, impatient to be off. And the first two weren’t particularly edifying, just: Last of the batch will be moving tonight. Not much time to find out where, and who.
“If he heard the wrong rumor, breaking bones wasn’t going to get us the right tip.”
“He lied. Should have been sure.”
“The guy was swallowing his tongue when you were only talking. He’d have given you his mother wrapped in a shiny bow to get your hands off him. The tip was good, or he just thought it was good.”
Splotches near the jawline moved. He muttered, “Weak, Daniel.”
Nite Owl stiffened, feeling his hands curl into fists of their own volition. Daniel might be weak. Unlike the rest of the masks, he didn’t even have a day job to keep up with, using the time to build and perfect gadgets - essential equipment he was then pathetic enough to give away to people who already stripped his cupboards bare. Sure, Daniel was too soft. He’d concede that.
But it was Nite Owl who fought the great underbelly of the city at Rorschach’s side, and if anyone would understand that, it was Mr No Real Name himself.
Which was why he knew it was a trap. In the absence of expressions - though the movements of his mask gave away more than he suspected Rorschach realised, to someone with time and a photographic memory - Nite Owl had been forced to become a fluent in the language of twitches. Even crouched off balance and looking away, the perfect target, Rorschach’s muscles were tense as piano wire and ready to spring.
And because Nite Owl really, really wanted to start that fight, he forced himself to relax and exhale slowly, staring at the empty street from a tear in the posters coating the window until he could hear again through the sound if his own heartbeat.
Rorschach snorted, dismissive or disappointed, and shifted to a more comfortable stance.
It was hard, waiting to ambush, and got worse as it became more obvious no one was coming. Nerves drew tighter and tighter until he felt like an over-wound watch, chafing at the snail’s passage of ordinary time. He’d slept poorly and too long and suspected the tickle in his throat from the lingering arctic chill in the bedroom would bloom into a miserable summer cold by morning. A friendly bout of mutual ass-kicking would be just what the doctor ordered, and maybe even good training for them both, but Rorschach never fought unless he meant to turn his opponent into an unconscious, handcuffed lump. It would be good to blow away the tension that had settled between them, but Note Owl knew that actually laying his hands on his partner would be the beginning of the end no matter who won.
Nite Owl was fairly sure that would be him, in any case, because Rorschach had been completely off his game tonight. In between bars, they’d chanced on a mugging. Three boys - one of the Queens Greaser crews, with oiled hair and pegged jeans, far from home territory - on a middle-aged man. One young man dug through a wallet while the other two kicked their semi-conscious victim, cheering each other on.
They moved with their usual efficiency, at first - Nite Owl grabbed the closer assailant and flung him into the opposite wall, then checked out their victim. He knew without looking that Rorschach had incapacitated the banker of the group - perhaps by a flying kick to the knee or something equally breakable - and used his body as a battering ram against the second attacker, who would just be realising their recreation had come to an abrupt end. It was one of Rorschach’s signature moves.
“Sir, can you hear me?” The pulse was strong, if erratic. A shallow cut bled into the man’s eye. He blinked and tried to shake his head.
“Try to stay still, sir. You may have internal injuries.” Nite Owl ran his hands along the man’s sides, grateful when there was no wince to indicate broken ribs. “Police and emergency medical assistance will be here with you soon.”
Nite Owl ducked as someone cursed and threw a punch near his head. He looked over to see the second assailant still on his feet, bleeding from the mouth, just as he leapt into the three-week pile of garbage that surrounded the trash cans next to him and waded through to the other side.
When is the goddam mayor going to get this trash strike fixed? Daniel grumbled from the recesses of Nite Owl’s subconscious. He watched, amazed, as his indomitable partner paused, swayed, then detoured around the pile, breaking into a sprint five paces behind the teen. The two disappeared around a dark corner.
“I’ll be right back,” he told the man, who was struggling to his feet despite Nite Owl’s instructions, and followed, rounding the corner just in time to see the mugger taken down with a flying tackle.
Rorschach straddled his chest as the boy flailed, trying to throw him off, and punched him twice. Limp body over his shoulder, he returned to the scene of the crime in the posture Nite Owl associated with extreme embarrassment. The victim had already staggered out to the main street, and was yelling about ninja assassins to a pair of startled beat cops.
“That’s our cue,” Nite Owl remarked sourly, but Rorschach had already dumped the boy with his mates and stalked off in the direction of Happy Harry’s.
Nite Owl would have thought nothing of that hesitation, if it hadn’t been combined with a much surlier than usual disposition and…the other thing.
The thing which was Rorschach touching himself.
Not sexually, no. Not really. And he didn’t seem aware he was doing it until he’d catch himself, stiffen, and drop his hand, glancing sideways at Nite Owl to see if he’d noticed.
He was doing it again, in fact. Nite Owl watched the reflection in the streaky glass tug off one glove and run a finger between his neck and scarf, absently caressing the material. Nite Owl stared at the sliver of skin this revealed.
All fucking night, he’s at this, he groaned internally.
First, he’d just pushed the trench aside to adjust his suit jacket, fingers slipping almost accidentally between two buttons to run along the ribbed vest underneath. Later, it was the sleeves. They needed to be tugged down, then pushed up on his forearms, then pulled back down again. Gloves off each time, fingers trailing around a strong wrist, then gloves forced back on with rough, embarrassed haste. But the absolute worst had been leaving Harry’s, when Rorschach had actually undone his trench, unbuttoned the suit jacket, and slowly, luxuriously, tucked in the shirt flaps that had come loose when he’d slammed their informant into the bar.
Nite Owl both blessed and cursed the stiff armor protecting his crotch.
Marsha’s towel trick hadn’t worked so well. Maybe it was different when you were undressing yourself, but when stripping another person, you were working blind and ended up with hands in…places. He’d managed to unbutton and unzip every fastener with only minor groping, but actually getting tight clothing off someone who kept struggling toward semiconsciousness just enough to roll exactly the wrong way was another matter. Gritty skin and hard muscles moved under his hands.
When they first started working together, Nite Owl had been as curious as anyone else. There was a person under that mask, and it could be anyone. It was a source of deep annoyance that his partner never reciprocated once Nite Owl was comfortable enough to ease back into Daniel in front of him, to give him fundamentally unfettered access to his home. Eventually, though, he got used to it. Unlike the Comedian, who never missed a chance to attempt ‘Twenty Questions’ with Rorschach (thus far only managing to establish that he was not female, paying for the intel with a fractured nose), Daniel stopped wondering what was behind the splotches. His partner was a suit, mask, fedora, and general air of disgruntlement. The chin and lips that occasionally appeared were alien elements and disappeared as soon as the mask came back down.
Daniel suddenly added arms like a stevedore and a stomach that could crack walnuts to that general picture and found himself effortlessly imagining the rest of what lay barely hidden. Rorschach twitched under his hands and muttered nonsensical phrases, head dropping back. Daniel’s body, sure it had correctly sussed the situation, centralised every drop of blood below the waist.
Daniel wondered if a man could actually pass out from this temporary blood loss and forced several deep breaths into his lungs, insisting to himself that the situation was no sexier than a frat boy chancing on a passed-out girl at a mixer. He beat up guys like that and left them for the police to scrape off the sidewalk.
Rorschach groaned, the noise a mix of annoyance and confusion, “Dan’l…?”
Daniel’s cock throbbed. He was almost certain the eyes were opening under that mask.
It didn’t occur to him that his partner’s clothes were probably adequately loosened, and he noticed the sweat now beading on the flushed neck in a purely non-medical manner. He had a mission, dammit (get those clothes in the washing machine pronto - no, wait, keep partner from dying of dehydration!) and he would complete it.
Daniel whipped the sheet back and stripped him, top and bottom, in two efficient moves, pausing only to think, Christ, definitely a redhead, before covering him again. He flipped the sheet up over his head as if Rorschach were a bird that would obediently fall asleep when covered and waited for the outraged howl.
Instead, the sheets rustled and ejected a freckled forearm, which flopped over the covered head and was still.
Daniel gathered up the clothing and buried his nose in it as he left, the stink of the fabric almost enough to subdue his erection.
When he had the house to himself again, Daniel lay in the same place (after a bewildered, unsuccessful search for the sheets) and tried to nod off. He built half a forlorn fantasy that he’d already met his partner’s secret identity on some long-ago night, given the name David and been told an equally fake name over a perfunctory and untouched drink, until hands moved under the bar in an easily decoded sequence and they stood as one and walked separately together somewhere moderately more private… But reality intruded too sharply. He just couldn’t see Rorschach in one of those places, even in a daydream. And none of those five or six men had been ginger, or more freckle than skin.
Rorschach froze, right on schedule, and tightened his scarf. The sliver of skin disappeared, but not the memory of temptation. He forced his hand back into the glove and tilted his head fractionally in Nite Owl’s direction.
Nite Owl looked away, the picture of nonchalance, and knew once again that he could have pointed and laughed with more subtlety. In the back of his head, Daniel felt somehow ashamed that anyone would find fresh clothing such a distracting novelty, especially his partner.
“We should go. Repeat inquiries.”
“It’s 3 am, Rorschach. The bars are closed, and I’m not up for any civilian B&E tonight.”
Rorschach kicked a box in frustration and faced the wall, arms folded tightly.
“What do you think is in here, anyway?” Note Owl offered as a distraction. “It’s obvious no one’s even looked at them in ages. I wonder what stock the fella couldn’t unload when he went bust?”
Rorschach shrugged.
Nite Owl ripped open the nearest box, raising a cloud of greasy dust, and laughed. “Hey Rorschach, look at these!”
He tore into the plastic bag inside and grabbed a handful of chattering teeth. They spilled to the floor with a clatter. Rorschach tilted his head and nudged one with his toe.
“What are these even for?”
“This must have been a novelty shop. You know, tourist junk, gag gifts, that kind of thing.” He ripped open another box and found squeaking rubber spiders. “I loved this stuff as a kid.”
Rorschach grunted and kicked the chattering teeth into a pile.
Nite Owl dug further and found salt and pepper sets in the shape of breasts, a box of ‘World’s Greatest Lover’ mugs, and a handful of pens. He flipped one upside-down and laughed.
“I even had one of these,” he said, tossing it to across the room. Rorschach tilted the pen, watched the ink flow away to remove the bathing beauty’s swimsuit, and grunted. He dropped and ground it under his shoe like a cigarette butt.
Nite Owl popped open one of the larger boxes along the wall, raising his eyebrows when it proved to contain inflatable…sheep? He read the name on the boxes (“The Famous ‘I-Love-Ewe’!”) and decided against sharing the joke.
“You try one,” he said instead, hiding a smile as Rorschach sighed tolerantly and looked at the boxes surrounding him. We might make it to dawn without killing each other yet.
The smile faded abruptly as he removed another lid to reveal a selection of flavoured lubricant and realised exactly what kind of novelty store it had been.
“You know, what, never mind. We shouldn’t even be - ” he began, but Rorschach had already picked up a large box and opened it the expedient way, by turning it upside-down. Double-headed dildos almost the size of baseball bats rained down around his feet.
Nite Owl really, really tried to choke down the horrified laughter, but succeeded only in adding hiccups to the mix.
Rorschach tackled him to the floor and straddled his chest, knocking the wind out of him. For one terrifying moment, his lungs struggled to prioritise a hiccup against a desperate gasp for air and failed to achieve either, but a glimpse of his partner’s roiling mask scared the hiccups away for good. He thought of the mugger earlier and flinched, expecting the same blows.
“Look,” Nite Owl squeaked, gasping in another short, painful breath. “Sorry. I didn’t. Know.”
The blotches shifted from something like a moth to something like a bull’s skull. He was breathing hard through his nose and growling with every exhale, clearly beyond his comparatively conversational rants on the city’s degenerate perverts.
“And I’m sorry. About touching. Your stuff. It clearly dis. Turbed your. Your groove. If you will. And I’ll. Never - ”
Rorschach wrenched his mask up to his nose and came down for the kill, horns becoming wings.
It was the worst kiss that ever made him instantly hard.
It missed his mouth completely, for a start. How much can he really see through that thing? the small and clearly insane voice of Daniel wondered from well underneath Nite Owl’s overwhelming terror. Teeth scraped along his chin before rough lips found his and settled heavily, unmoving.
Nite Owl tried to breathe through his nose, smelling sandalwood and, for some reason, industrial-grade pineapple.
Rorschach pulled back, tilted his head to the familiar ‘formulating plan B’ angle, then grabbed a double handful of Nite Owl’s cape and yanked him upward. Teeth settled in his bottom lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.
Nite Owl groaned, only half in pain, and managed to get one glove off by trapping his hand under his back and yanking it away. Rorschach shifted easily with the movement. He slid his bare hand under Rorschach’s scarf and dragged his fingernails along that tormenting stretch of skin below the mask, still waiting for the inevitable punch.
When a few more seconds passed, he sprang to take advantage of this brief, mad window of opportunity and got his other arm around Rorschach’s waist, under the trench, pulling him closer. Rorschach released his lip, which flopped back against his teeth with a small, undignified plop. He pressed forward, capturing those lips with his own, and felt a high, sharp cheekbone brush against his face. More information for his mental picture - there was at least one cheek under the mask.
Kissing Rorschach was a new experience. Nite Owl was lost in the feel of skin and the bead of sweat that dropped from the crumpled edge of the mask to his neck, but Daniel watched and analysed. Whatever Nite Owl did, Rorschach imitated a moment later, clumsier and with more teeth. Nite Owl ducked to kiss the skin beneath the mask at his jaw, feeling the pulse fluttering at his lips. Rorschach nudged Nite Owl’s chin out of the way and nipped along his exposed neck.
I’ll be in turtlenecks all week, Nite Owl thought, and didn’t care one bit. He pushed the hood from his head, taking the goggles with it, and the room plunged into shadow. He reached carefully forward, picturing the familiar chin, the chipped teeth that had never suffered braces, and rested his fingertips on the twitching skin.
He pushed a little further, running his tongue across the rough lips and between to the suddenly clenched teeth, wondering if this liberty would shatter the spell that let them lay together on a filthy floor necking like kids. But Rorschach, after a long pause, reflected this too, lips opening fractionally under Nite Owl’s. Nite Owl pressed his advantage, tongue darting inside to taste the back of Rorschach’s teeth.
Rorschach made strangled noises deep in his throat, like a heartbroken boy trying not to sob.
When Nite Owl pulled away to breathe, Rorschach kissed the corner of his mouth, almost gently. Nite Owl hadn’t been so close to coming in his pants from heavy petting since Daniel was a teenager. He winced to think of cleaning that mess out of the interlinked armor.
He let his head drop to the floor and pushed lightly on Rorschach’s shoulders. Rorschach jumped at the touch and scrambled backwards, stumbling over Nite Owl’s feet. He focused on unsexy thoughts - stripping and rebuilding Archie’s engine, UN debate transcripts, Aunt Mabel playing tennis - until the moment passed.
There was something sticky under his shoulder and spreading. Nite Owl touched it with his gloved hand and realised they’d shattered a bottle of lubrication - pineapple flavour. It gave Nite Owl wonderful ideas, or tried to; his mind balked at believing he was that lucky.
Rorschach crouched nearby, leaning on his hands like a sprinter waiting for the pistol’s crack. It was a new addition to Nite Owl’s nonverbal Rorschach dictionary, not keeping perfectly still so much as simultaneously running out the door and drawing closer.
“C’mere,” Nite Owl said. “Just needed to catch my breath. You knocked it out of me.”
When Rorschach didn’t move, he scooted over and pulled him close. His partner shivered under his arms, and Nite Owl saw teeth biting into his bottom lip. More obvious evidence of his arousal dug into Nite Owl’s leg, moving in the rhythmic tortured nudges of someone trying very hard not to move at all. It was a relief, oddly, that he wasn’t the only one dangling over the abyss. That this wasn’t some obscure form of punishment, keying him up and then smugly abandoning him.
Nite Owl slid his hands underneath Rorschach’s suit jacket and pulled the shirttails out his trousers, wanting to touch that pale skin again, but his partner stiffened and started to pull away.
“Okay, it’s okay,” Nite Owl soothed, holding him firmly. “Clothes stay.”
He ducked to bury his nose in the loosened scarf, smelling sweat and arousal. He whispered, “What do you want?”
A long minute passed while Rorschach hunched his shoulders. Finally he shrugged. “This,” he muttered, hands moving restlessly along Nite Owl’s sides.
He picked a hell of a time to go sub-verbal on the specifics of fornication, Nite Owl groaned, but purely internally.
“Do you want me to suck you off?” he offered hesitantly.
Nite Owl felt the flush that spread under his ungloved hand through two layers of clothing. Rorschach shook his head.
Nite Owl waited for another response while outside entire species evolved and went extinct. Losing patience, he started again, “You want…?”
Rorschach pushed him flat and hovered over his face for a moment. Nite Owl tried not to look terrified. He seemed to come to a decision and dropped back between Nite Owl’s spread legs, fumbling with his utility belt.
After a few heartbeats, he grunted, “How do you…?”
“There’s a clasp, under the crescent. Right there.”
Then his erection was gloriously free of confinement, bobbing alone for a long moment before his partner encased it in a tentative leather fist. Rorschach lowered himself until he lay nearly flat, elbows digging into Nite Owl’s thighs.
A warm mouth slipped over the head of his cock, freezing when he moaned.
“No, s’good,” he mumbled urgently. “S’a happy noise.”
It moved carefully down his length until lips met fist, then lowered the fist a finger at a time. With one finger left, Nite Owl’s cock bumped into the back of his throat and was quickly removed. He added his middle finger back to his grip and nodded to himself, before trying again. Slowly, down and back up, teeth dragging, then once again with more confidence. Rorschach’s spare hand moved awkwardly from thigh to hip before settling on his stomach. Daniel was observing again, feeling like a science experiment, picturing Rorschach with a clipboard and a long white labcoat.
Shit, he thought giddily, Now I’m gonna get wood every time I go to the doctor.
He tried to reach behind Rorschach’s head to guide his strokes, but the other man only shook his head and stopped until the hands were removed. Nite Owl grabbed a double fistful of his own cloak instead. Fine, I can work with this. This is fine. Oh God, I can work with this…
Rorschach shifted back up to his knees, and Nite Owl heard the pop of a button and the soft zhuzh of a zipper sliding down. His partner’s entire body began to rock with the movements of his head.
Daniel thought of Rorschach’s kissing and decided to try an experiment of his own. He raised and lowered his hips, just slightly, in the rhythm he needed. Rorschach picked it up after a few strokes, and the two of them rocked together. Nite Owl wished now for his goggles, to see more than a vague, shifting pattern. To see what those lips looked like stretched around his cock.
So close…
Rorschach froze abruptly, whimpered, and nearly clenched his teeth. Nite Owl jumped at the sudden pressure on his oversensitive skin, but Rorschach seemed to catch himself just in time and start pulling away.
Throwing caution to the wind, Nite Owl grabbed Rorschach’s head and pumped hard into his mouth, once, twice… He meant to warn him, but all that came out was a panicked squeak.
“Hnnk!,” Rorschach coughed and compulsively swallowed, wiping his mouth with the less soiled glove. He rested his forehead on Nite Owl’s thigh, gasping for breath, tolerating the hand that loosely cupped his jaw.
Later, as they faced opposite walls and pulled their armor back in place, Nite Owl wondered if they should talk, and knew they wouldn’t. The door handle rattled before he could decide what to do about that.
Rorschach clamped his hat back on his head and turned eagerly toward the noise. Rumpled, sweaty, clothes lined with grime from the floor, he looked more like himself. Nite Owl caught his gaze and nodded. They both stepped back into the shadows.
The first man entered carrying an ordinary shopping bag, looking over his shoulder.
“Look,” he said in the tone of voice usually reserved for: I swear to god, I’ll turn this car around, “I know we’re gonna take a bath on it, but no one here will buy it. Rocky can dump it in Baltimore, and, any problems, they’ll never trace it back to us.”
“No one’s got to know - ” one of his compatriots began, breaking off as Rorschach kicked the door shut behind the three of them.
“Too late,” he growled, almost happily, and the first man dropped the bag.
“Oh Jesus…”
* * *
They didn’t want for the police to arrive this time, heading instead toward the dock where Archie was hidden. The smell of the Hudson was strong.
Rorschach consulted his battered A-Z map. “As I suspected - the drop point isn’t far from here. Five minutes away, tops.”
Nite Owl grunted.
“Could scout it out tonight,” Rorschach offered. “Choose our vantage point. Block any inconvenient exits.”
Nite Owl saw the logic of that plan, but Daniel was creeping to the fore under the hood. Daniel wanted breakfast, aspirin, and sleep, and then maybe a year or two to review the night. “I doubt that Rocky will even show up, once he hears what happened to his friends.”
But Rorschach practically thrummed with energy. “Maybe he’ll sleep all day like some people, and miss the news.”
Was Rorschach actually teasing him?
“Sure, pal. Let go get ‘em.”