Hard as Silk Part 2: Rorschach
Title: Hard as Silk Part 2: Rorschach
Author: quietprofanity
Fandom: Watchmen
Pairings: Silk Spectre II/Ozymandias, Silk Spectre II/Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre II/Rorschach, Silk Spectre II/The Comedian (future part), Silk Spectre II/Nite Owl II (future part)
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and are used for non-profit purposes. Any real people in the story are used for literary purposes and and their representation should not be treated as truth.
Warnings: Explicit f/m sex. Attempted rape. Dubious consent.
Summary: A counter-offer from Adrian Veidt leads to a series of uncomfortable events for Laurie.
Alternate Summary: Laurie has sex with almost everyone.
Acknowledgments: Thank you, sandoz_iscariot for your awesome beta powers.
~*~*~
Laurie didn’t tell Jon.
When she got back to their empty hotel room, she took the most thorough shower of her life, scrubbing everywhere from the inside of her sex to underneath her fingernails. The hotel soap was disgusting - it smelled like licorice and made her skin dry and rubbery - but she wanted to be certain he wouldn’t know. Laurie still wasn’t sure how Jon’s powers worked. Hell, sometimes she thought he wasn’t very sure. The closest approximation she ever came was a short documentary she’d seen earlier that year. It filmed a man and a woman lying on a blanket in increments from billions of light years away to the molecules in the man’s skin. If Jon could see to that extent … Laurie didn’t want to know what he could find on her.
Laurie sat in one of the stiff upholstered chairs, a lit cigarette in hand, as she waited for Jon to return. She tried to read a magazine but she couldn’t concentrate on any of the articles. Her mind interrupted itself with thoughts of Adrian. Anger tore through her one minute and arousal the next, both undercut with shame at how stupid she’d been.
She’d just lit her fourth cigarette when Jon returned in a flash of light. She put it out and leaped up to meet him.
“Laurie?” he asked, his wispy, otherworldly voice vibrating throughout her body. “Is something wrong?”
She wanted to say no, but couldn’t bear to do so. She kissed him instead, pushing inside to meet his tongue, which vibrated with energy and never failed to make every hair of her body stand on end.
They were soon on the bed, Laurie’s clothes dissolved off her before she hit the covers. Jon wrapped his arms around her, and Laurie felt like she was 16 again.
It occurred to Laurie later, as Jon’s mouth kissed a trail along her thigh, that she still had a good case to be mad at him if he set her up. She hissed as Jon’s tongue pushed against her clitoris. On the other hand, she remembered Jon’s surprise at her reaction when he came in, and Laurie liked to believe there were some things Jon still didn’t know, that there were some things Jon never knew, and above all, that he was ruled by genuine passion like everyone else, and not just following some unseen script.
Despite the shame she felt, despite how when she closed her eyes she sometimes saw Adrian and flinched, it didn’t take long for her to be ready. She climbed on top of Jon and let her hands roam over him. As they made love, she basked in the harsh light of his body and felt cleansed, like she could wipe away that hour and be innocent again.
Jon came first, his moans sending soft vibrations throughout the room, his skin glowing a shade brighter as he reached climax. The sight of it was often enough to make her come immediately after. This time, it only took a few more hard thrusts against him and she was finished.
They lay together, their limbs intertwined, for what Laurie knew would be their last time together in a warm bed for quite awhile. Jon bent over and kissed her forehead.
“What happened with Adrian?” he asked.
Her heart skipped a beat, and Laurie tried not to show any surprise as she wondered if Jon could hear that. She coughed to clear her throat.
“Nothing,” she said. “He said it would be a risk to his reputation.”
It wasn’t a lie, she thought. Not really.
“I see,” Jon said after a pause. “That’s unfortunate.”
A moment later he closed his eyes. He wasn’t asleep - just silently waiting for her to fall asleep and wake up in the morning. Laurie was stunned. Jon didn’t know. She got away with it. He couldn’t know, could he? Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her. Otherwise he would have just told her what she would say. Unless this was all part of his script … unless he really knew … yet didn’t know … unless he would soon find out.
Laurie closed her eyes. She tried her best to sleep, wrapped safe in the arms of the most powerful man in the world, feeling like a whore.
~*~*~
At first, the situation wasn’t so bad.
The group - it felt wrong to call them the “Crimebusters” - met the next day at Captain Metropolis’ old place. It was empty now. Nelson Gardner had created a trust to turn his home into a museum for masked adventurers, but legal problems with his estate, Hollis and her mother’s preoccupation with other projects and the lack of cooperation from some of the former Minutemen’s relatives (Silhouette’s sister in particular refused to release anything from Ursula’s crimefighting days) meant the plan and the building itself had fallen into decay.
Dan smiled when she and Jon walked in the doors, fresh from teleporting (and Laurie throwing up) just outside. Blake was already there, smoking his cigar with his back against the wall. Rorschach sat on a dusty table, a hard hunk of bread cupped in his hands. He raised his head to look up at them briefly, and then turned back to the bread, tearing it in half.
“Didn’t work, huh?” Blake asked.
Laurie flinched as all the eyes in the room turned to her. Jon put a hand on her shoulder, and for the first time ever, it didn’t bring her any comfort.
“No,” she said. “He … He said he’s not willing to come out of retirement and risk his reputation if things go badly.”
Only Dan’s mouth curled downward in disappointment. He said something sympathetic, but Laurie’s eyes couldn’t help but stray to the other two. Blake looked at her with suspicion at first, but after their eyes met, he shrugged and turned away. Rorschach continued to stare - she could feel it even through his unsettling mask. His face was still turned to her as he reached into his trenchcoat, pulled out a pat of butter and spread it on the bread. She finally turned her own eyes away, shuddering in disgust, as he pulled up his mask and began to chew with loud smacking noises.
Dan coughed, “Well, um … I’ve been watching the news and, unfortunately, we’re going to be on our own when the strike officially starts in three hours. I don’t know if you guys have been following, but Abe Beame sent a request to the state police for back-up and, well, they said no.”
Laurie groaned, “Serve and protect, indeed. Don’t tell me they’re striking, too.”
“They ain’t, but only because their contracts ain’t being renewed at the same time,” Blake said. “I saw the department head on TV, he says not helping is a symbol of solidarity, as if we were going to go up to the Catskills and arrest some pot-smoking hippies.”
“What does the mayor think of all this?” Jon asked.
“Beame?” Dan shook his head. “He’s staying neutral. He wants the police to return to work, but he won’t condemn us, either.”
Rorschach gulped and said, “Of course he won’t. Jewish. Zionist bankers profit from destruction caused by rioting. Funnels money back to Soviet allies in Israel.”
Laurie couldn’t believe her ears, “What?”
Dan groaned and turned away from Rorschach, “Some anti-Semitic New Frontiersman bullshit. Just ignore him.”
“Blinded by own affiliations, Daniel,” Rorschach insisted, some crumbs spitting out of his mouth. “Serial killer you caught earlier this year was one of them, caused similar panic during the blackout.”
Blake took his cigar out of his mouth and laughed. “Yeah, you’d like to believe the world is that simple, wouldn’t you, Inky?”
“Hurm.” Rorschach stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth and pulled his mask down over his chin. “Know much of the chaos of this world.”
Laurie wanted to say something, didn’t like how everyone was leaving what he said as if it was okay for him to hold those opinions, but Dan seemed to have already moved on.
“We’re wasting time with this,” Dan said. “I think the idea for Dr. Manhattan to do surveillance on the city is a good one. Actually, we might need it early. There’ve been traffic problems near the Lincoln Tunnel from a lot of residents leaving the city. I think I’m going to take the Owlship around there, make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“What about the rest of us?” Laurie asked. “Have there been any reports of riots?”
“Not yet, but it is still too early,” Dan said. “They say some picket lines are going to be going up after the sun rises. Until then, I think Dr. Manhattan should do general patrol and maybe everybody else can take some of the rougher neighborhoods. Rorschach, can you take care of the Lower East Side?”
Rorschach made a noise that Laurie guessed was assent.
“I’ll take Harlem,” Blake said.
“What about me?” Laurie asked.
“Why don’t you see what’s going on in Hell’s Kitchen?” Dan asked.
“Okay,” she said. She was confident, but thought perhaps that confidence was misplaced. She’d been patrolling D.C. for years and now she was being thrown into a neighborhood she knew nothing about in a time of chaos. This probably was not an optimal plan.
“We’ll start patrols in about an hour. I know we’ve got some time, but I’d like for it to overlap, make sure nothing bad happens in the transition.” Dan pulled a device out of one of his pockets that Laurie assumed controlled the Owlship. “I’d suggest you guys go rest and get food or whatever if you haven’t already. I’m going to start off toward the river.”
Laurie could never eat before patrol, although she did step outside for a cigarette. She could have been like Blake and just smoked inside, but she wanted to be alone for a bit. Jon seemed to understand, nodded as she reached for her coat and pointed to a pocket within them. She walked outside.
It was nighttime. Soon the omnipresent street lamps of the city would make it so there would seem to be no difference between night and day, but aside from the dim lights from the windows and the burning tip of her cigarette, the grounds of Nelson’s estate had no light. She could slip away here, she thought, be a true spectre and hide her secrets among the once cultivated but now-overgrown trees. She shook her head. What had gotten into her? One fuck-up wasn’t going to turn her coward. She had lots more to give, didn’t she?
The door behind her opened and she groaned. “Blake, I -” She turned around to see Rorschach standing in back of her. “Oh … hi.”
“Hurm,” he responded. “You mind?”
Yes, she thought. “No,” she said. She held out her cigarette. “Want one?”
Rorschach shook his head. He stood next to her, saying nothing, his breaths coming out in quiet hums. Laurie shuddered and took a drag on her cigarette, hoping she could mentally will him to go away.
“You’re hiding something,” he said suddenly.
Laurie started, and then frowned when she saw that shifting mask turned to her. She thought the blots looked like a woman on top of a sprawled-out man, but she attributed that to a trick of the darkness.
“Bad temper. Easily insulted,” Rorschach said. “Would consider Veidt’s refusal a personal snub and be indignant. Something else happened.”
Laurie tried to keep her body from tensing, her face from scowling, at his words. “Adrian said ‘no.’ I’m not lying about that.”
“Never said you were lying,” Rorschach said. “Said you were hiding.”
His bullshit reminded her of Adrian’s stupid rhetorical question and she couldn’t keep the scowl off her face. “Look just … Just fuck off, okay? We’ve met twice before. You don’t exactly know me.”
“Know when people are hiding,” Rorschach insisted. He turned away. “And you don’t hide much. Will be watching you.”
Laurie was about to spit something out at that insult when a bright light shone down upon them. The two of them looked up to see the Owlship flying overhead.
Rorschach made a disgusted noise, and then went back inside the building. Laurie took another drag and tried not to be nervous.
~*~*~
The job was taking some time to get used to. New York City was taller, dirtier and louder than D.C. This made some things difficult. She never used much equipment, although this wasn’t by choice. Her mother said weapons didn’t work for the Silk Spectre’s image despite Laurie’s requests to learn how to shoot guns. Tired of walking around in heels, Laurie had once tried driving a motorcycle, but after a couple of parking tickets (apparently you couldn’t abandon it on the streets of the Mall to foot-chase after a purse-snatcher) and a nasty crash that broke her ribs and gave her a minor concussion, she gave up on that. Mostly, Laurie stuck to multiple bits of rope that she tied around her shoulders and used to tie up bad guys for the police, but she couldn’t exactly use those that night.
So she kept to the alleys, an old trick of hers. The element of surprise usually gave her the time to disarm any criminal, whether he had a baseball bat or a glock. She knew this couldn’t last forever. She’d followed the stories of the looting during the blackout this summer - both she and her mother had wanted to know if “Uncle” Hollis was doing all right during it after all - and expected something like the utter chaos of that time. Laurie knew at one point she was going to have to jump into one of those frays, especially if the protests got out of hand.
But if the chaos was coming, it was early, yet. Most people were smart enough not to make themselves victims. Many businesses and apartment buildings were closed with the windows shuttered. She saw one man pounding on the door of his apartment building, begging to be let in, saying that he didn’t know about their curfew. He was out there for fifteen minutes before someone came.
That’s not to say the streets were empty, but those who walked them had guilty or wary faces. Once, while Laurie was coming out of an alleyway, she accidentally kicked a garbage can and a woman on the street whirled in her direction, brandishing a can of mace even though the woman probably couldn’t see Laurie.
Others saw the strike as an opportunistic venture. During her patrol down 8th Avenue, some of the prostitutes reminded passersby of the strike, told them they could do it now without fear of getting caught. Laurie had no love for prostitution, saw it as degrading and those who practiced it as victims, but she decided not to stop them. There were more important things to fix.
Not that she didn’t have work to do on 8th Avenue. The Westies were big in the entire area, and while she had to deal with the occasional thief, most of the night was spent keeping them from assaulting any of the people with whom they did “business.” She caught a mobster attacking a prostitute, demanding the pay her pimp wouldn’t give him. Laurie broke the mobster’s arm, then his leg. She hated doing it, but with nobody to take him to a jail cell she didn’t have much of a choice. Still, she decided to call the paramedics the next time she found a phone. If the police won’t come, maybe they would. It was more than the bastard deserved, but she had principles.
When she turned to leave, the prostitute, who she then noticed had long, brown hair, ran up to her. The woman’s grasped onto her arm, her dirty hands and long, red fingernails digging into the fabric of Laurie’s blouse.
“Are you … are you her?” the woman asked. “Are you the real one?”
“Um … yeah.”
“Oh, wow!” she said. “Wow. I’ve got to thank you.”
Laurie gave her the standard smile she gave to everyone she saved. “It’s no trouble. Just be more careful next time.”
“Yeah, but … damn. I mean, I play you all the time,” the woman said.
Laurie blinked. “What?
“I look kind of like you, see? And my customers … they want me to dress up in that costume,” the woman reached down to pet the material above her thigh, an expression of amazement on her face. “Then they usually want me to get tied up while they pretend to be supervillains and stuff. They say some nasty things sometimes … and sometimes they like to hit me. But … girl, it makes me a lot of money.”
Laurie muttered a “thank you” and walked away, feeling disturbed. Yet as she continued on her way, the image of her on top of Adrian Veidt appeared in her head, and Laurie wondered if she had any right to feel that way.
~*~*~
She’d been on the streets for six hours without any rest. That was how she excused what happened later.
It wasn’t the Westies this time. Just three large thugs picking on an old man. She’d thought she’d taken down the first one when she’d burst out of the darkness, bringing her fists down on his head. It gave her time to fight off the next one. She kicked him in the face with enough force to knock him against the nearby alley wall before the last man attacked. She was ready, but so was the first man. He was up, had got her by an arm before she realized it. Before she could turn to attack him back the last man had her other arm.
They knocked her head against the brick as she was pushed against the wall. The old man was already running away, and Laurie couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t hurt the second man as well as she thought, either, because he got up. He rubbed his face, his mouth turned up in a leer.
“Silk Spectre.” His voice sent a jolt of fear down Laurie’s spine. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. The way he looked at her told Laurie he wasn’t going to use it to cut her throat.
The image of her mother pressed to the floor under the Comedian’s body flashed through Laurie’s mind, followed by an image of that woman tied up and wearing her clothes. Wait, she ordered herself. Don’t panic. Whatever you do, Laurie, don’t panic.
“I wonder what a superheroine’s cunt tastes like,” he sneered, his compatriots laughing as he did so.
Laurie glared back at him, which only made him laugh more. He got very close, close enough that she could smell the chewing tobacco on his breath. He looked down to unbuckle his belt.
Laurie struck. She knocked her head hard against his, sending him tumbling back and causing him to release his knife. Then she twisted her arms out of the other two’s holds. This time, she didn’t make any mistakes. She grabbed one of them and brought his head down upon her knee so hard she could feel his nose break. She kicked the next one in the groin, poked him in the eyes and gave him a scratch across the face. The one with the knife she punched repeatedly in the face and chest. He put up a fight, and once his hands even clasped onto the yellow silk of her outfit for a moment, but eventually until he went down. After his head hit the concrete, she ground her heel into his groin.
For the first few minutes after the fight, Laurie couldn’t hear or feel anything but her own labored breathing. When she walked away she realized one of her heels had come loose in the fray, and her yellow shirt had a large rip down the center. She snapped the skullbone chocker off her neck in an attempt to breathe easier.
“You’re okay,” she whispered to herself. “You’re okay. No big deal.”
Laurie walked down into an alley and felt the beginnings of tears sting her eyes. No. No, this was stupid. She handled it. She wasn’t in danger. She’d been in far worse situations than that.
But that wasn’t really what she was upset about, was it?
Laurie leaned against the alleyway and slid down until she was sitting on the concrete. She rubbed her eyes as she cried, her choker still clutched in her hand. Fuck, she thought to herself, repeated the word in her head like a mantra. Fucking Veidt. Sure, he didn’t want to humiliate her. Sure, he hoped she could understand. Fucker. She snorted back a gob of snot, wiped whatever was left on her wrist.
She felt the world go dark, like it was folding in on itself, then come into light again. She stumbled off the dusty table and vomited on the floor before she realized she was back in Gardner’s old home, before she looked up and saw inkblots staring down at her.
Laurie couldn’t read any expression on Rorschach’s shifting face, but he walked backward in shock, making a noise that sounds like disgust, and that told her enough. She stumbled to her feet, intending to slug him, but Dan ran to her side.
“Laurie, what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she spat. She could feel Dan’s presence beside her, but her eyes were locked on Rorschach. She snapped the choker back around her sweaty neck, and the clasp tangled in her hair once before she got it right. She tried to pull the rip in her shirt together as if it would save some her dignity. “I had a bad fight. It happens to everyone.”
“Well, you look shaken up. Do you need …?”
“No. She looked around the room and saw Jon standing behind her. He just looked back at her, his expression impossible to read. “Jon, why are we here?”
“Little is going on that needs immediate attention,” Jon said. In another flash of light Blake appeared. “I thought it was a good time to reconvene. Do you require me to fix your clothes?”
The question was like flipping a switch. Her response came out in a scream: “Fix my clothes?” She stomped over to him on shaky heels. “Do you know what happened to me? Do you know what I’ve been through?”
“Laurie, please calm down,” Jon said, his voice still maddeningly calm.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “I’m sure whatever’s bothering you we can fix.”
Laurie ignored him. “What do you know?” she screeched in Jon’s face. “Tell me what you know. Do you know what I just went through? Do you know what happened the other night? Tell me!”
“Did I come in at a bad time?” Blake asked.
“No,” Jon said. “I brought you here precisely when you were supposed to come.”
“What does that even mean?” Laurie asked. “I mean what the fuck? You’ve determined that the universe has some grand plan to have him here?” She pointed to Blake.
“Laurie, can we talk about this in private?”
“Well, I don’t know, Jon. Do we talk about this in private?” Laurie asked.
“Okay, look,” Dan said. “We’ve all had a rough night. Maybe if we all just took a break and …”
Blake laughed, interrupting Dan. “Jesus, we’re the only ones keeping New York from chaos and our fearless leader suggests a time out.”
At this point, she was too angry to speak. She wanted to be out of the room. She wanted to be back in D.C. She wanted to go back in time and erase what she did and every stupid thing Jon said.
“Hurm.” Rorschach walked out from the corner where he was sulking and over to Laurie. “Confirms suspicions. Silk Spectre is hiding something about conversation with Veidt.”
“Rorschach, leave her alone.”
Rorschach snarled at Dan. “She must have secrets, Nite Owl. Hysterical reactions indicative of guilty conscience.”
She reacted before she thought about what she was doing. Rorschach fell back onto a nearby chair as her fist slammed into his face.
Blake exploded in laughter as Rorschach got up. Laurie could hear Jon calling her name. Rorschach lunged at her and bounced back against a shield Jon put up before he could reach her, falling onto the floor. Blake laughed even harder.
“I suggest you not do that again,” Jon said to Rorschach. Only the barest hint of anger could be heard in his voice, but Laurie was glad he seemed to care about something for once.
Blake sighed as he let out his last laugh. “That was great, kid. Really great. Doesn’t help your case at all, but that was hilarious to watch.”
Dan helped Rorschach off the floor, and Rorschach repaid him by yanking his arm away as soon as he was up. He turned his face to Laurie and she thought she saw the brief outline of a devil’s head before it turned back into indecipherable black blobs.
“Going out,” Rorschach spat and turned toward the door. “Someone needs to watch this city.”
“Hey, wait!” Dan tried to grab his arm again, but Rorschach just walked faster. “Rorschach, don’t leave like this. If you need to talk, I …”
Rorschach growled and spun around to look at Dan. “Don’t want to talk. Told you many times before, Daniel. Stop asking.”
The door slammed behind him. Now who’s being hysterical? Laurie thought.
Blake sighed and got up, lighting a new cigar as he did so. “Well, that was a nice little break. Thanks for the entertainment, kid, but you might want to pick better times to fight with your boyfriend.”
“I -” Laurie started to say, but Blake was out the door before she could finish. Her righteous anger faded away into a sort of tiredness.
Dan didn’t seem to know what to say or do, either. He stood staring at the doorway, and then scratched the back of his cowl.
“Nite Owl,” Jon said. “Can we have a few minutes alone?”
“Huh?” Dan said in a way that sounded to Laurie like he was coming out of a trance. “Yeah, sure, I just …” he sighed. “I know he’ll be back, but … I don’t know. I don’t understand it.”
Seeing Dan like this, Laurie felt guilty. She hated the creepy little bastard, but she hadn’t wanted him to leave, especially at a time like this.
“Maybe … maybe I should try to follow him and apologize,” she said. “I … I might have overreacted.”
Dan sighed. “I’m not sure if he would listen by this point.”
“I’d advise against it,” Jon said, reappearing at her side and making her flinch. “You seem shaken up.”
“I’m fine,” Laurie lied. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Can you just fix my outfit? I’ll try to be as fast as possible.”
“It … Whatever you’re doing will take awhile,” Jon held out his hand and she could feel the loose heel reattach itself to her shoe, could feel the pieces of her silk blouse move as the fibers joined together again. This time she could feel the sadness of his voice and wanted to forgive him everything, wanted to stay and confess and work toward rebuilding their relationship.
But Jon said she would leave, and so she did.
~*~*~
Rorschach was far easier to find than she expected.
Whoever stole from the electronics store was sloppy. He had smashed in the storefront window, and Laurie followed the shattered glass and blood to find Rorschach behind the building, stuffing a screaming, crying man into a metal garbage can.
“My hands!” he cried out. “You broke my hands, you fucking psycho!”
Rorschach pushed the lid down on the garbage can and kicked hard against the metal, which made the man scream again.
“Jesus Christ!” Laurie said.
Rorschach looked up at her, and she could see his body go tense. He turned the garbage can on its side and gave it a hard kick, sending it rolling away from them. The man inside screamed again as it hit the side of the nearest building. He scrambled out soon after, running away from both of them.
Laurie wanted to yell at him for what he’d done, but she remembered the Westie whose limbs she’d broken and decided she really couldn’t hold the moral high ground with this one. What sort of new world were they living in, anyway?
“Silk Spectre,” Rorschach muttered. “See you’ve cleaned up a bit.”
Laurie glared. That slimy son of a … “You know, I came to apologize, but you’re making me wonder why I bothered.”
Oh good, that was getting things off on the right foot.
“Needn’t have.” Rorschach adjusted his gloves. “Would have preferred information to useless social niceties.”
Laurie gave an exasperated sigh. “You’re still going on about that? Look Rorschach, nothing happened with Adrian that has any bearing on the police strike or Zionist conspiracy plot or whatever other weird bullshit you’ve got in your brain. Okay? So why don’t we just put in a new start and get back to work together?”
“Hurm. Yes,” Rorschach said. “Assessment of my political views surely conducive to new start of trust and understanding.”
Laurie decided she liked Rorschach better when he was terrorizing petty thieves than when he decided to make jokes. “Look who’s talking. You don’t even have expressions and I can feel you glaring at me whenever I enter a room.”
Rorschach made a low growl in the back of his throat. “Anyone would glare given your behavior lately.”
“That’s not what this is about, though, is it?” Laurie stepped close to him, so close her face was just an inch away. She realized, with surprise, that she was taller than him. Something about his manner usually made him seem bigger.
“If you just mistrusted me you wouldn’t make all those comments about the way I dress.”
Rorschach looked away from her. “Merely think costume choice is … inappropriate.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Inappropriate. You know, I think it’s more than that. I know about that rag you read … what was it? The New Frontiersman? I know what they say about women. I know what they think about women like me.” A flicker of excitement ran through her, as she spoke, something that exulted at the idea of making him understand. The feeling was strong and seemed to tap into something … No, no, not that. She tried to put the thought out of her head … and yet.
Rorschach’s voice was low. “Don’t know me, either, Silk Spectre.”
“Oh really? I don’t think you’re that hard to figure out. I think I know what scares you.”
Rorschach and she faced each other, and the thought of what she wanted to do burned itself into her brain. It was wrong. It was gross. But Laurie thought of that woman she’d saved earlier that night, tied up and dressed in her clothes. She thought about the glinting edge of the thug’s switchblade knife. High with feelings of rage, shame and a sick sort of lust she didn’t quite understand, Laurie gripped Rorschach’s wrists and pressed his hands to her breasts.
A horrified cry muffled its way through Rorschach’s mask. He pushed Laurie away and she fell backward onto the ground.
Rorschach stared down at her, no longer looking small as he glowered over her. “Disgusting.”
Laurie groaned and stood up, her body shaking with anger yet tense with something she didn’t like to admit. God, why the hell did she make him touch her? What the hell was she thinking? She thought again about Adrian, about how he made her so hot and eager and damn it, though, that was only once. She shouldn’t want this …
Laurie lunged for Rorschach. He raised his hands to meet her, but the two of them still toppled back to the ground. She moved her legs so she was straddling him as she lay on top of him. The smell of him hit her nostrils and, oh God, he reeked like a fucking sewer. Yet she thought of the way he looked at her back at their headquarters, how he reeled back in disgust because her outfit was ripped and damn it, he had no right to do that.
Rorschach squirmed against her, and even though he was covered in layers of clothing, Laurie delighted in the feel of his body. “Get off me!”
“Oh no,” Laurie said, her voice coming out huskier than she expected. She couldn’t deny her own arousal, now. She reached for Rorschach’s scarf, began pulling it loose. “No, I think you need to be taught a lesson.”
Rorschach growled and grabbed onto her wrists, squeezing them hard enough to hurt. A sick fear grew in Laurie’s stomach as she realized how strong his grip was, as she realized it wouldn’t take much for him to just snap them.
“Don’t want you. Don’t want your filthy …” he choked on his last word.
“My what?” Laurie challenged. “What word do you use for it? Pussy? Cunt?”
Rorschach made a disgusted noise and threw her hands away, turned his face from her. “Filthy mouth, too.”
Laurie smirked and yanked off the rest of his scarf, “That’s not what I want from you, anyway.”
Rorschach looked back at her. “What?”
An idea had implanted itself into her head, something that she knew she would find repulsive if her nipples weren’t already so hard she knew Rorschach could see them through her flimsy costume. She had a suspicion that what he had done to her wrists was less an effort to get her to stop than a show of strength. Small as he was, she already knew a myriad of ways she could throw someone off her if she was in Rorschach’s position. Laurie wanted to test her theory.
She leaned down to meet Rorschach’s face, whispered in his right ear. “I want you on your stomach. I want to see what you feel like inside.”
Rorschach pushed her away so she was sitting back up on him, although it didn’t escape Laurie’s attention how his fingers still gripped onto her shoulders.
“Disgusting,” he growled. “Unnatural, feminist-inspired perversion.”
Laurie shifted against him. She could barely feel anything, but Rorschach moaned in such a way she could tell how he really felt.
“You seem to want it,” she said. She stood up, no longer holding onto Rorschach but not moving from where he lay between her legs. “You really want to know what I did with Adrian? Turn around and maybe I’ll tell you.”
Rorschach propped himself up on his elbows, his hat knocked onto the ground. “I … You … No. You’re wrong. Don’t want it. Past it. No longer … no longer him. Died. Died in the flames and yet …” He turned so he was on all fours, made like he was going to crawl away, but looked back instead. “Temptress! Whore!”
With those words Laurie threw herself on top of him, straddling him near his buttocks. She grabbed onto his wrists, and then held them in one hand as she tied them together with his scarf. Laurie pressed her body against him, then remembered something that had happened earlier that day. She rummaged through the pockets of his trenchcoat.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Seeing if you have any leftovers … ah, here we go.” Her fingers wrapped around a pat of butter. “I didn’t want to use just spit if I could help it.” She ripped off the paper and rubbed it along the middle and ring fingers of her left hand.
“What?” Rorschach’s body tensed as Laurie reached with her right hand underneath him, her body still pressed against him as she pushed him up so he was crouching on his knees, his shoulders against the ground. She loosened his belt. “Harlot. Slut.”
“Oh yeah?” Laurie pulled his pants down, pushed the flaps of his trenchcoat up near his waist, exposing his ass. It wasn’t much to look at, pale with several curly, light hairs along the crack. She pushed her right hand against the back of his neck as she rubbed her left hand along it. Slowly, almost gingerly, she pushed her middle finger inside, making him cry out. “You want to say that again?”
Rorschach squirmed underneath her right hand, letting out small noises of humiliated hurt as she pushed her finger further inside. He keened as she pulled it out, then pushed in again. As she did it again, his cries turned angry. “Urrgh. Yes. Slut. Filthy whore.”
Laurie pushed it in harder, started moving it back and forth until she was outright fucking him. He was incredibly tight. It was sometimes hard to push her fingers back in after she pulled them out.
“Relax,” Laurie whispered to him. “If you relax a bit, it won’t hurt so much.”
Rorschach moaned, muttered another curse under his breath, but as Laurie continued she could feel him get looser. She could barely believe what she was doing. Rorschach was a smelly little worm, but seeing him crouched under her, seeing him tied up and hearing him moan unwillingly as she finger-fucked him … oh God, she could feel how wet she was getting. Jon was up for a lot of things, had let her do this to him a few times, but doing it like this … sticking it to a man who held her in contempt, showing him his place …
What right had he to call her a whore? What right had any of them to judge her, to think they could tie her up and fuck her, to think they could take her by force, to use her and lie to her for their own selfish ends? They did it to her mother, but they wouldn’t do it to her.
Laurie didn’t want Rorschach to fuck her, didn’t want this racist little man’s cock inside her, but her sex was calling out for some sort of friction. Rorschach was loose enough now that she was able to push a second finger inside him, a slow process that set off another stream of curses. He cried again as she started to move faster.
“Hate you,” Rorschach whispered. “Disgusting, filthy woman.”
His words made Laurie shudder. She’d show him. She moved her right hand away from his neck and pushed his pants further down his legs. “Move your right leg back,” she commanded.
“No.”
“Do it.”
Rorschach growled but then obeyed, moving his leg so it was at an incline. She positioned herself so that her sex - now wet through her spandex outfit - could rut against it as she finger-fucked him. It wasn’t optimal, but the barest amount of friction was enough for her rather desperate needs.
Rorschach shuddered violently. “Sick,” he breathed. “Deviant. Wrong …" he cried out as Laurie pressed inside.
Laurie moaned as she rutted against him, so hot and slick, pushing against him in time with the movement her fingers. She pulled her fingers out, making Rorschach whimper. She leaned forward so that she was crouching over him, then reached underneath him to find his cock.
Rorschach chest heaved. “No. I … I can’t.”
“Is that really what you want?” Laurie asked as she delicately stroked his cock, circling the head, running her fingers through the hairs at the base. “Tell me ‘no’ again.”
Rorschach tried to speak, but whatever he said seemed to get choked. He squirmed underneath her, rubbing his cock against her palm. She almost wanted him to tell her he wanted it, to make him beg, but she didn’t think she could push that far. There was a reason why she never tried to take off his mask.
She gripped his cock and began to stroke. He was already slick both with precome and the last remnants of the butter she’d used. Although she guessed this felt better for him than what she had done to his ass, he whimpered and cried even more as she jacked him off. Sometimes he muttered to himself. Once she even thought he said the word, “mother.”
God, he was fucked up. Then again, Laurie thought as she thrust her pussy against his leg, she wasn’t exactly feeling all right herself, lately.
Rorschach’s moans became suddenly louder and he came, crying out something that Laurie thought sounded vaguely like her name. Laurie came almost immediately after, quickly and quietly and more from the excitement than any physical pleasure. She could have come again, knew if she’d pushed him on his back and demanded he fuck her she wouldn’t have lasted long, but she knew how far she could get with this, and, despite everything, still found him revolting.
She almost didn’t want to untie him, was briefly afraid of what he would do if she set him free, but as he lay on the ground, exhausted and disheveled, she figured he wasn’t in much of a position to do anything.
Laurie’s suspicion was right. After she untied him, Rorschach just lay there. She lay next to him, both of them listening to the sound of the other’s breathing. It took a few minutes before Rorschach stood up and fixed his clothing. She sat up and looked at him, and as he wrapped the scarf around his neck she wished she could see his real face.
Rorschach seemed to catch her staring at him. Her body tensed as he looked back at her.
“Tell anyone about this … try this again …”
Rorschach’s voice wavered so much Laurie couldn’t tell if he meant it as a warning or a plea. “Not happening,” she said.
Rorschach made a noise that sounded like agreement. He put his hat back on his head and turned to leave.
Laurie pushed herself up onto her feet. “Hey …”
Rorschach looked back. Laurie almost wanted to apologize, but she knew she couldn’t say “sorry” for something like this.
So instead she said, “You said you wanted to know, so … Adrian said he would help us if I had sex with him. I did. And … yeah. You can see how well that worked.”
Laurie expected Rorschach to yell at her, to call her a whore again, and a part of her didn’t even mind.
When he did respond, his voice was only barely above a whisper. “Prostitution never a profitable profession, especially on the exchange of promises. Would suggest alternate methods in the future.”
As Rorschach walked away, Laurie thought maybe she did mind.
End Part Two.
Author: quietprofanity
Fandom: Watchmen
Pairings: Silk Spectre II/Ozymandias, Silk Spectre II/Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre II/Rorschach, Silk Spectre II/The Comedian (future part), Silk Spectre II/Nite Owl II (future part)
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and are used for non-profit purposes. Any real people in the story are used for literary purposes and and their representation should not be treated as truth.
Warnings: Explicit f/m sex. Attempted rape. Dubious consent.
Summary: A counter-offer from Adrian Veidt leads to a series of uncomfortable events for Laurie.
Alternate Summary: Laurie has sex with almost everyone.
Acknowledgments: Thank you, sandoz_iscariot for your awesome beta powers.
~*~*~
Laurie didn’t tell Jon.
When she got back to their empty hotel room, she took the most thorough shower of her life, scrubbing everywhere from the inside of her sex to underneath her fingernails. The hotel soap was disgusting - it smelled like licorice and made her skin dry and rubbery - but she wanted to be certain he wouldn’t know. Laurie still wasn’t sure how Jon’s powers worked. Hell, sometimes she thought he wasn’t very sure. The closest approximation she ever came was a short documentary she’d seen earlier that year. It filmed a man and a woman lying on a blanket in increments from billions of light years away to the molecules in the man’s skin. If Jon could see to that extent … Laurie didn’t want to know what he could find on her.
Laurie sat in one of the stiff upholstered chairs, a lit cigarette in hand, as she waited for Jon to return. She tried to read a magazine but she couldn’t concentrate on any of the articles. Her mind interrupted itself with thoughts of Adrian. Anger tore through her one minute and arousal the next, both undercut with shame at how stupid she’d been.
She’d just lit her fourth cigarette when Jon returned in a flash of light. She put it out and leaped up to meet him.
“Laurie?” he asked, his wispy, otherworldly voice vibrating throughout her body. “Is something wrong?”
She wanted to say no, but couldn’t bear to do so. She kissed him instead, pushing inside to meet his tongue, which vibrated with energy and never failed to make every hair of her body stand on end.
They were soon on the bed, Laurie’s clothes dissolved off her before she hit the covers. Jon wrapped his arms around her, and Laurie felt like she was 16 again.
It occurred to Laurie later, as Jon’s mouth kissed a trail along her thigh, that she still had a good case to be mad at him if he set her up. She hissed as Jon’s tongue pushed against her clitoris. On the other hand, she remembered Jon’s surprise at her reaction when he came in, and Laurie liked to believe there were some things Jon still didn’t know, that there were some things Jon never knew, and above all, that he was ruled by genuine passion like everyone else, and not just following some unseen script.
Despite the shame she felt, despite how when she closed her eyes she sometimes saw Adrian and flinched, it didn’t take long for her to be ready. She climbed on top of Jon and let her hands roam over him. As they made love, she basked in the harsh light of his body and felt cleansed, like she could wipe away that hour and be innocent again.
Jon came first, his moans sending soft vibrations throughout the room, his skin glowing a shade brighter as he reached climax. The sight of it was often enough to make her come immediately after. This time, it only took a few more hard thrusts against him and she was finished.
They lay together, their limbs intertwined, for what Laurie knew would be their last time together in a warm bed for quite awhile. Jon bent over and kissed her forehead.
“What happened with Adrian?” he asked.
Her heart skipped a beat, and Laurie tried not to show any surprise as she wondered if Jon could hear that. She coughed to clear her throat.
“Nothing,” she said. “He said it would be a risk to his reputation.”
It wasn’t a lie, she thought. Not really.
“I see,” Jon said after a pause. “That’s unfortunate.”
A moment later he closed his eyes. He wasn’t asleep - just silently waiting for her to fall asleep and wake up in the morning. Laurie was stunned. Jon didn’t know. She got away with it. He couldn’t know, could he? Otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her. Otherwise he would have just told her what she would say. Unless this was all part of his script … unless he really knew … yet didn’t know … unless he would soon find out.
Laurie closed her eyes. She tried her best to sleep, wrapped safe in the arms of the most powerful man in the world, feeling like a whore.
~*~*~
At first, the situation wasn’t so bad.
The group - it felt wrong to call them the “Crimebusters” - met the next day at Captain Metropolis’ old place. It was empty now. Nelson Gardner had created a trust to turn his home into a museum for masked adventurers, but legal problems with his estate, Hollis and her mother’s preoccupation with other projects and the lack of cooperation from some of the former Minutemen’s relatives (Silhouette’s sister in particular refused to release anything from Ursula’s crimefighting days) meant the plan and the building itself had fallen into decay.
Dan smiled when she and Jon walked in the doors, fresh from teleporting (and Laurie throwing up) just outside. Blake was already there, smoking his cigar with his back against the wall. Rorschach sat on a dusty table, a hard hunk of bread cupped in his hands. He raised his head to look up at them briefly, and then turned back to the bread, tearing it in half.
“Didn’t work, huh?” Blake asked.
Laurie flinched as all the eyes in the room turned to her. Jon put a hand on her shoulder, and for the first time ever, it didn’t bring her any comfort.
“No,” she said. “He … He said he’s not willing to come out of retirement and risk his reputation if things go badly.”
Only Dan’s mouth curled downward in disappointment. He said something sympathetic, but Laurie’s eyes couldn’t help but stray to the other two. Blake looked at her with suspicion at first, but after their eyes met, he shrugged and turned away. Rorschach continued to stare - she could feel it even through his unsettling mask. His face was still turned to her as he reached into his trenchcoat, pulled out a pat of butter and spread it on the bread. She finally turned her own eyes away, shuddering in disgust, as he pulled up his mask and began to chew with loud smacking noises.
Dan coughed, “Well, um … I’ve been watching the news and, unfortunately, we’re going to be on our own when the strike officially starts in three hours. I don’t know if you guys have been following, but Abe Beame sent a request to the state police for back-up and, well, they said no.”
Laurie groaned, “Serve and protect, indeed. Don’t tell me they’re striking, too.”
“They ain’t, but only because their contracts ain’t being renewed at the same time,” Blake said. “I saw the department head on TV, he says not helping is a symbol of solidarity, as if we were going to go up to the Catskills and arrest some pot-smoking hippies.”
“What does the mayor think of all this?” Jon asked.
“Beame?” Dan shook his head. “He’s staying neutral. He wants the police to return to work, but he won’t condemn us, either.”
Rorschach gulped and said, “Of course he won’t. Jewish. Zionist bankers profit from destruction caused by rioting. Funnels money back to Soviet allies in Israel.”
Laurie couldn’t believe her ears, “What?”
Dan groaned and turned away from Rorschach, “Some anti-Semitic New Frontiersman bullshit. Just ignore him.”
“Blinded by own affiliations, Daniel,” Rorschach insisted, some crumbs spitting out of his mouth. “Serial killer you caught earlier this year was one of them, caused similar panic during the blackout.”
Blake took his cigar out of his mouth and laughed. “Yeah, you’d like to believe the world is that simple, wouldn’t you, Inky?”
“Hurm.” Rorschach stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth and pulled his mask down over his chin. “Know much of the chaos of this world.”
Laurie wanted to say something, didn’t like how everyone was leaving what he said as if it was okay for him to hold those opinions, but Dan seemed to have already moved on.
“We’re wasting time with this,” Dan said. “I think the idea for Dr. Manhattan to do surveillance on the city is a good one. Actually, we might need it early. There’ve been traffic problems near the Lincoln Tunnel from a lot of residents leaving the city. I think I’m going to take the Owlship around there, make sure everything goes smoothly.”
“What about the rest of us?” Laurie asked. “Have there been any reports of riots?”
“Not yet, but it is still too early,” Dan said. “They say some picket lines are going to be going up after the sun rises. Until then, I think Dr. Manhattan should do general patrol and maybe everybody else can take some of the rougher neighborhoods. Rorschach, can you take care of the Lower East Side?”
Rorschach made a noise that Laurie guessed was assent.
“I’ll take Harlem,” Blake said.
“What about me?” Laurie asked.
“Why don’t you see what’s going on in Hell’s Kitchen?” Dan asked.
“Okay,” she said. She was confident, but thought perhaps that confidence was misplaced. She’d been patrolling D.C. for years and now she was being thrown into a neighborhood she knew nothing about in a time of chaos. This probably was not an optimal plan.
“We’ll start patrols in about an hour. I know we’ve got some time, but I’d like for it to overlap, make sure nothing bad happens in the transition.” Dan pulled a device out of one of his pockets that Laurie assumed controlled the Owlship. “I’d suggest you guys go rest and get food or whatever if you haven’t already. I’m going to start off toward the river.”
Laurie could never eat before patrol, although she did step outside for a cigarette. She could have been like Blake and just smoked inside, but she wanted to be alone for a bit. Jon seemed to understand, nodded as she reached for her coat and pointed to a pocket within them. She walked outside.
It was nighttime. Soon the omnipresent street lamps of the city would make it so there would seem to be no difference between night and day, but aside from the dim lights from the windows and the burning tip of her cigarette, the grounds of Nelson’s estate had no light. She could slip away here, she thought, be a true spectre and hide her secrets among the once cultivated but now-overgrown trees. She shook her head. What had gotten into her? One fuck-up wasn’t going to turn her coward. She had lots more to give, didn’t she?
The door behind her opened and she groaned. “Blake, I -” She turned around to see Rorschach standing in back of her. “Oh … hi.”
“Hurm,” he responded. “You mind?”
Yes, she thought. “No,” she said. She held out her cigarette. “Want one?”
Rorschach shook his head. He stood next to her, saying nothing, his breaths coming out in quiet hums. Laurie shuddered and took a drag on her cigarette, hoping she could mentally will him to go away.
“You’re hiding something,” he said suddenly.
Laurie started, and then frowned when she saw that shifting mask turned to her. She thought the blots looked like a woman on top of a sprawled-out man, but she attributed that to a trick of the darkness.
“Bad temper. Easily insulted,” Rorschach said. “Would consider Veidt’s refusal a personal snub and be indignant. Something else happened.”
Laurie tried to keep her body from tensing, her face from scowling, at his words. “Adrian said ‘no.’ I’m not lying about that.”
“Never said you were lying,” Rorschach said. “Said you were hiding.”
His bullshit reminded her of Adrian’s stupid rhetorical question and she couldn’t keep the scowl off her face. “Look just … Just fuck off, okay? We’ve met twice before. You don’t exactly know me.”
“Know when people are hiding,” Rorschach insisted. He turned away. “And you don’t hide much. Will be watching you.”
Laurie was about to spit something out at that insult when a bright light shone down upon them. The two of them looked up to see the Owlship flying overhead.
Rorschach made a disgusted noise, and then went back inside the building. Laurie took another drag and tried not to be nervous.
~*~*~
The job was taking some time to get used to. New York City was taller, dirtier and louder than D.C. This made some things difficult. She never used much equipment, although this wasn’t by choice. Her mother said weapons didn’t work for the Silk Spectre’s image despite Laurie’s requests to learn how to shoot guns. Tired of walking around in heels, Laurie had once tried driving a motorcycle, but after a couple of parking tickets (apparently you couldn’t abandon it on the streets of the Mall to foot-chase after a purse-snatcher) and a nasty crash that broke her ribs and gave her a minor concussion, she gave up on that. Mostly, Laurie stuck to multiple bits of rope that she tied around her shoulders and used to tie up bad guys for the police, but she couldn’t exactly use those that night.
So she kept to the alleys, an old trick of hers. The element of surprise usually gave her the time to disarm any criminal, whether he had a baseball bat or a glock. She knew this couldn’t last forever. She’d followed the stories of the looting during the blackout this summer - both she and her mother had wanted to know if “Uncle” Hollis was doing all right during it after all - and expected something like the utter chaos of that time. Laurie knew at one point she was going to have to jump into one of those frays, especially if the protests got out of hand.
But if the chaos was coming, it was early, yet. Most people were smart enough not to make themselves victims. Many businesses and apartment buildings were closed with the windows shuttered. She saw one man pounding on the door of his apartment building, begging to be let in, saying that he didn’t know about their curfew. He was out there for fifteen minutes before someone came.
That’s not to say the streets were empty, but those who walked them had guilty or wary faces. Once, while Laurie was coming out of an alleyway, she accidentally kicked a garbage can and a woman on the street whirled in her direction, brandishing a can of mace even though the woman probably couldn’t see Laurie.
Others saw the strike as an opportunistic venture. During her patrol down 8th Avenue, some of the prostitutes reminded passersby of the strike, told them they could do it now without fear of getting caught. Laurie had no love for prostitution, saw it as degrading and those who practiced it as victims, but she decided not to stop them. There were more important things to fix.
Not that she didn’t have work to do on 8th Avenue. The Westies were big in the entire area, and while she had to deal with the occasional thief, most of the night was spent keeping them from assaulting any of the people with whom they did “business.” She caught a mobster attacking a prostitute, demanding the pay her pimp wouldn’t give him. Laurie broke the mobster’s arm, then his leg. She hated doing it, but with nobody to take him to a jail cell she didn’t have much of a choice. Still, she decided to call the paramedics the next time she found a phone. If the police won’t come, maybe they would. It was more than the bastard deserved, but she had principles.
When she turned to leave, the prostitute, who she then noticed had long, brown hair, ran up to her. The woman’s grasped onto her arm, her dirty hands and long, red fingernails digging into the fabric of Laurie’s blouse.
“Are you … are you her?” the woman asked. “Are you the real one?”
“Um … yeah.”
“Oh, wow!” she said. “Wow. I’ve got to thank you.”
Laurie gave her the standard smile she gave to everyone she saved. “It’s no trouble. Just be more careful next time.”
“Yeah, but … damn. I mean, I play you all the time,” the woman said.
Laurie blinked. “What?
“I look kind of like you, see? And my customers … they want me to dress up in that costume,” the woman reached down to pet the material above her thigh, an expression of amazement on her face. “Then they usually want me to get tied up while they pretend to be supervillains and stuff. They say some nasty things sometimes … and sometimes they like to hit me. But … girl, it makes me a lot of money.”
Laurie muttered a “thank you” and walked away, feeling disturbed. Yet as she continued on her way, the image of her on top of Adrian Veidt appeared in her head, and Laurie wondered if she had any right to feel that way.
~*~*~
She’d been on the streets for six hours without any rest. That was how she excused what happened later.
It wasn’t the Westies this time. Just three large thugs picking on an old man. She’d thought she’d taken down the first one when she’d burst out of the darkness, bringing her fists down on his head. It gave her time to fight off the next one. She kicked him in the face with enough force to knock him against the nearby alley wall before the last man attacked. She was ready, but so was the first man. He was up, had got her by an arm before she realized it. Before she could turn to attack him back the last man had her other arm.
They knocked her head against the brick as she was pushed against the wall. The old man was already running away, and Laurie couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t hurt the second man as well as she thought, either, because he got up. He rubbed his face, his mouth turned up in a leer.
“Silk Spectre.” His voice sent a jolt of fear down Laurie’s spine. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. The way he looked at her told Laurie he wasn’t going to use it to cut her throat.
The image of her mother pressed to the floor under the Comedian’s body flashed through Laurie’s mind, followed by an image of that woman tied up and wearing her clothes. Wait, she ordered herself. Don’t panic. Whatever you do, Laurie, don’t panic.
“I wonder what a superheroine’s cunt tastes like,” he sneered, his compatriots laughing as he did so.
Laurie glared back at him, which only made him laugh more. He got very close, close enough that she could smell the chewing tobacco on his breath. He looked down to unbuckle his belt.
Laurie struck. She knocked her head hard against his, sending him tumbling back and causing him to release his knife. Then she twisted her arms out of the other two’s holds. This time, she didn’t make any mistakes. She grabbed one of them and brought his head down upon her knee so hard she could feel his nose break. She kicked the next one in the groin, poked him in the eyes and gave him a scratch across the face. The one with the knife she punched repeatedly in the face and chest. He put up a fight, and once his hands even clasped onto the yellow silk of her outfit for a moment, but eventually until he went down. After his head hit the concrete, she ground her heel into his groin.
For the first few minutes after the fight, Laurie couldn’t hear or feel anything but her own labored breathing. When she walked away she realized one of her heels had come loose in the fray, and her yellow shirt had a large rip down the center. She snapped the skullbone chocker off her neck in an attempt to breathe easier.
“You’re okay,” she whispered to herself. “You’re okay. No big deal.”
Laurie walked down into an alley and felt the beginnings of tears sting her eyes. No. No, this was stupid. She handled it. She wasn’t in danger. She’d been in far worse situations than that.
But that wasn’t really what she was upset about, was it?
Laurie leaned against the alleyway and slid down until she was sitting on the concrete. She rubbed her eyes as she cried, her choker still clutched in her hand. Fuck, she thought to herself, repeated the word in her head like a mantra. Fucking Veidt. Sure, he didn’t want to humiliate her. Sure, he hoped she could understand. Fucker. She snorted back a gob of snot, wiped whatever was left on her wrist.
She felt the world go dark, like it was folding in on itself, then come into light again. She stumbled off the dusty table and vomited on the floor before she realized she was back in Gardner’s old home, before she looked up and saw inkblots staring down at her.
Laurie couldn’t read any expression on Rorschach’s shifting face, but he walked backward in shock, making a noise that sounds like disgust, and that told her enough. She stumbled to her feet, intending to slug him, but Dan ran to her side.
“Laurie, what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she spat. She could feel Dan’s presence beside her, but her eyes were locked on Rorschach. She snapped the choker back around her sweaty neck, and the clasp tangled in her hair once before she got it right. She tried to pull the rip in her shirt together as if it would save some her dignity. “I had a bad fight. It happens to everyone.”
“Well, you look shaken up. Do you need …?”
“No. She looked around the room and saw Jon standing behind her. He just looked back at her, his expression impossible to read. “Jon, why are we here?”
“Little is going on that needs immediate attention,” Jon said. In another flash of light Blake appeared. “I thought it was a good time to reconvene. Do you require me to fix your clothes?”
The question was like flipping a switch. Her response came out in a scream: “Fix my clothes?” She stomped over to him on shaky heels. “Do you know what happened to me? Do you know what I’ve been through?”
“Laurie, please calm down,” Jon said, his voice still maddeningly calm.
“Yeah,” Dan said. “I’m sure whatever’s bothering you we can fix.”
Laurie ignored him. “What do you know?” she screeched in Jon’s face. “Tell me what you know. Do you know what I just went through? Do you know what happened the other night? Tell me!”
“Did I come in at a bad time?” Blake asked.
“No,” Jon said. “I brought you here precisely when you were supposed to come.”
“What does that even mean?” Laurie asked. “I mean what the fuck? You’ve determined that the universe has some grand plan to have him here?” She pointed to Blake.
“Laurie, can we talk about this in private?”
“Well, I don’t know, Jon. Do we talk about this in private?” Laurie asked.
“Okay, look,” Dan said. “We’ve all had a rough night. Maybe if we all just took a break and …”
Blake laughed, interrupting Dan. “Jesus, we’re the only ones keeping New York from chaos and our fearless leader suggests a time out.”
At this point, she was too angry to speak. She wanted to be out of the room. She wanted to be back in D.C. She wanted to go back in time and erase what she did and every stupid thing Jon said.
“Hurm.” Rorschach walked out from the corner where he was sulking and over to Laurie. “Confirms suspicions. Silk Spectre is hiding something about conversation with Veidt.”
“Rorschach, leave her alone.”
Rorschach snarled at Dan. “She must have secrets, Nite Owl. Hysterical reactions indicative of guilty conscience.”
She reacted before she thought about what she was doing. Rorschach fell back onto a nearby chair as her fist slammed into his face.
Blake exploded in laughter as Rorschach got up. Laurie could hear Jon calling her name. Rorschach lunged at her and bounced back against a shield Jon put up before he could reach her, falling onto the floor. Blake laughed even harder.
“I suggest you not do that again,” Jon said to Rorschach. Only the barest hint of anger could be heard in his voice, but Laurie was glad he seemed to care about something for once.
Blake sighed as he let out his last laugh. “That was great, kid. Really great. Doesn’t help your case at all, but that was hilarious to watch.”
Dan helped Rorschach off the floor, and Rorschach repaid him by yanking his arm away as soon as he was up. He turned his face to Laurie and she thought she saw the brief outline of a devil’s head before it turned back into indecipherable black blobs.
“Going out,” Rorschach spat and turned toward the door. “Someone needs to watch this city.”
“Hey, wait!” Dan tried to grab his arm again, but Rorschach just walked faster. “Rorschach, don’t leave like this. If you need to talk, I …”
Rorschach growled and spun around to look at Dan. “Don’t want to talk. Told you many times before, Daniel. Stop asking.”
The door slammed behind him. Now who’s being hysterical? Laurie thought.
Blake sighed and got up, lighting a new cigar as he did so. “Well, that was a nice little break. Thanks for the entertainment, kid, but you might want to pick better times to fight with your boyfriend.”
“I -” Laurie started to say, but Blake was out the door before she could finish. Her righteous anger faded away into a sort of tiredness.
Dan didn’t seem to know what to say or do, either. He stood staring at the doorway, and then scratched the back of his cowl.
“Nite Owl,” Jon said. “Can we have a few minutes alone?”
“Huh?” Dan said in a way that sounded to Laurie like he was coming out of a trance. “Yeah, sure, I just …” he sighed. “I know he’ll be back, but … I don’t know. I don’t understand it.”
Seeing Dan like this, Laurie felt guilty. She hated the creepy little bastard, but she hadn’t wanted him to leave, especially at a time like this.
“Maybe … maybe I should try to follow him and apologize,” she said. “I … I might have overreacted.”
Dan sighed. “I’m not sure if he would listen by this point.”
“I’d advise against it,” Jon said, reappearing at her side and making her flinch. “You seem shaken up.”
“I’m fine,” Laurie lied. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Can you just fix my outfit? I’ll try to be as fast as possible.”
“It … Whatever you’re doing will take awhile,” Jon held out his hand and she could feel the loose heel reattach itself to her shoe, could feel the pieces of her silk blouse move as the fibers joined together again. This time she could feel the sadness of his voice and wanted to forgive him everything, wanted to stay and confess and work toward rebuilding their relationship.
But Jon said she would leave, and so she did.
~*~*~
Rorschach was far easier to find than she expected.
Whoever stole from the electronics store was sloppy. He had smashed in the storefront window, and Laurie followed the shattered glass and blood to find Rorschach behind the building, stuffing a screaming, crying man into a metal garbage can.
“My hands!” he cried out. “You broke my hands, you fucking psycho!”
Rorschach pushed the lid down on the garbage can and kicked hard against the metal, which made the man scream again.
“Jesus Christ!” Laurie said.
Rorschach looked up at her, and she could see his body go tense. He turned the garbage can on its side and gave it a hard kick, sending it rolling away from them. The man inside screamed again as it hit the side of the nearest building. He scrambled out soon after, running away from both of them.
Laurie wanted to yell at him for what he’d done, but she remembered the Westie whose limbs she’d broken and decided she really couldn’t hold the moral high ground with this one. What sort of new world were they living in, anyway?
“Silk Spectre,” Rorschach muttered. “See you’ve cleaned up a bit.”
Laurie glared. That slimy son of a … “You know, I came to apologize, but you’re making me wonder why I bothered.”
Oh good, that was getting things off on the right foot.
“Needn’t have.” Rorschach adjusted his gloves. “Would have preferred information to useless social niceties.”
Laurie gave an exasperated sigh. “You’re still going on about that? Look Rorschach, nothing happened with Adrian that has any bearing on the police strike or Zionist conspiracy plot or whatever other weird bullshit you’ve got in your brain. Okay? So why don’t we just put in a new start and get back to work together?”
“Hurm. Yes,” Rorschach said. “Assessment of my political views surely conducive to new start of trust and understanding.”
Laurie decided she liked Rorschach better when he was terrorizing petty thieves than when he decided to make jokes. “Look who’s talking. You don’t even have expressions and I can feel you glaring at me whenever I enter a room.”
Rorschach made a low growl in the back of his throat. “Anyone would glare given your behavior lately.”
“That’s not what this is about, though, is it?” Laurie stepped close to him, so close her face was just an inch away. She realized, with surprise, that she was taller than him. Something about his manner usually made him seem bigger.
“If you just mistrusted me you wouldn’t make all those comments about the way I dress.”
Rorschach looked away from her. “Merely think costume choice is … inappropriate.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Inappropriate. You know, I think it’s more than that. I know about that rag you read … what was it? The New Frontiersman? I know what they say about women. I know what they think about women like me.” A flicker of excitement ran through her, as she spoke, something that exulted at the idea of making him understand. The feeling was strong and seemed to tap into something … No, no, not that. She tried to put the thought out of her head … and yet.
Rorschach’s voice was low. “Don’t know me, either, Silk Spectre.”
“Oh really? I don’t think you’re that hard to figure out. I think I know what scares you.”
Rorschach and she faced each other, and the thought of what she wanted to do burned itself into her brain. It was wrong. It was gross. But Laurie thought of that woman she’d saved earlier that night, tied up and dressed in her clothes. She thought about the glinting edge of the thug’s switchblade knife. High with feelings of rage, shame and a sick sort of lust she didn’t quite understand, Laurie gripped Rorschach’s wrists and pressed his hands to her breasts.
A horrified cry muffled its way through Rorschach’s mask. He pushed Laurie away and she fell backward onto the ground.
Rorschach stared down at her, no longer looking small as he glowered over her. “Disgusting.”
Laurie groaned and stood up, her body shaking with anger yet tense with something she didn’t like to admit. God, why the hell did she make him touch her? What the hell was she thinking? She thought again about Adrian, about how he made her so hot and eager and damn it, though, that was only once. She shouldn’t want this …
Laurie lunged for Rorschach. He raised his hands to meet her, but the two of them still toppled back to the ground. She moved her legs so she was straddling him as she lay on top of him. The smell of him hit her nostrils and, oh God, he reeked like a fucking sewer. Yet she thought of the way he looked at her back at their headquarters, how he reeled back in disgust because her outfit was ripped and damn it, he had no right to do that.
Rorschach squirmed against her, and even though he was covered in layers of clothing, Laurie delighted in the feel of his body. “Get off me!”
“Oh no,” Laurie said, her voice coming out huskier than she expected. She couldn’t deny her own arousal, now. She reached for Rorschach’s scarf, began pulling it loose. “No, I think you need to be taught a lesson.”
Rorschach growled and grabbed onto her wrists, squeezing them hard enough to hurt. A sick fear grew in Laurie’s stomach as she realized how strong his grip was, as she realized it wouldn’t take much for him to just snap them.
“Don’t want you. Don’t want your filthy …” he choked on his last word.
“My what?” Laurie challenged. “What word do you use for it? Pussy? Cunt?”
Rorschach made a disgusted noise and threw her hands away, turned his face from her. “Filthy mouth, too.”
Laurie smirked and yanked off the rest of his scarf, “That’s not what I want from you, anyway.”
Rorschach looked back at her. “What?”
An idea had implanted itself into her head, something that she knew she would find repulsive if her nipples weren’t already so hard she knew Rorschach could see them through her flimsy costume. She had a suspicion that what he had done to her wrists was less an effort to get her to stop than a show of strength. Small as he was, she already knew a myriad of ways she could throw someone off her if she was in Rorschach’s position. Laurie wanted to test her theory.
She leaned down to meet Rorschach’s face, whispered in his right ear. “I want you on your stomach. I want to see what you feel like inside.”
Rorschach pushed her away so she was sitting back up on him, although it didn’t escape Laurie’s attention how his fingers still gripped onto her shoulders.
“Disgusting,” he growled. “Unnatural, feminist-inspired perversion.”
Laurie shifted against him. She could barely feel anything, but Rorschach moaned in such a way she could tell how he really felt.
“You seem to want it,” she said. She stood up, no longer holding onto Rorschach but not moving from where he lay between her legs. “You really want to know what I did with Adrian? Turn around and maybe I’ll tell you.”
Rorschach propped himself up on his elbows, his hat knocked onto the ground. “I … You … No. You’re wrong. Don’t want it. Past it. No longer … no longer him. Died. Died in the flames and yet …” He turned so he was on all fours, made like he was going to crawl away, but looked back instead. “Temptress! Whore!”
With those words Laurie threw herself on top of him, straddling him near his buttocks. She grabbed onto his wrists, and then held them in one hand as she tied them together with his scarf. Laurie pressed her body against him, then remembered something that had happened earlier that day. She rummaged through the pockets of his trenchcoat.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Seeing if you have any leftovers … ah, here we go.” Her fingers wrapped around a pat of butter. “I didn’t want to use just spit if I could help it.” She ripped off the paper and rubbed it along the middle and ring fingers of her left hand.
“What?” Rorschach’s body tensed as Laurie reached with her right hand underneath him, her body still pressed against him as she pushed him up so he was crouching on his knees, his shoulders against the ground. She loosened his belt. “Harlot. Slut.”
“Oh yeah?” Laurie pulled his pants down, pushed the flaps of his trenchcoat up near his waist, exposing his ass. It wasn’t much to look at, pale with several curly, light hairs along the crack. She pushed her right hand against the back of his neck as she rubbed her left hand along it. Slowly, almost gingerly, she pushed her middle finger inside, making him cry out. “You want to say that again?”
Rorschach squirmed underneath her right hand, letting out small noises of humiliated hurt as she pushed her finger further inside. He keened as she pulled it out, then pushed in again. As she did it again, his cries turned angry. “Urrgh. Yes. Slut. Filthy whore.”
Laurie pushed it in harder, started moving it back and forth until she was outright fucking him. He was incredibly tight. It was sometimes hard to push her fingers back in after she pulled them out.
“Relax,” Laurie whispered to him. “If you relax a bit, it won’t hurt so much.”
Rorschach moaned, muttered another curse under his breath, but as Laurie continued she could feel him get looser. She could barely believe what she was doing. Rorschach was a smelly little worm, but seeing him crouched under her, seeing him tied up and hearing him moan unwillingly as she finger-fucked him … oh God, she could feel how wet she was getting. Jon was up for a lot of things, had let her do this to him a few times, but doing it like this … sticking it to a man who held her in contempt, showing him his place …
What right had he to call her a whore? What right had any of them to judge her, to think they could tie her up and fuck her, to think they could take her by force, to use her and lie to her for their own selfish ends? They did it to her mother, but they wouldn’t do it to her.
Laurie didn’t want Rorschach to fuck her, didn’t want this racist little man’s cock inside her, but her sex was calling out for some sort of friction. Rorschach was loose enough now that she was able to push a second finger inside him, a slow process that set off another stream of curses. He cried again as she started to move faster.
“Hate you,” Rorschach whispered. “Disgusting, filthy woman.”
His words made Laurie shudder. She’d show him. She moved her right hand away from his neck and pushed his pants further down his legs. “Move your right leg back,” she commanded.
“No.”
“Do it.”
Rorschach growled but then obeyed, moving his leg so it was at an incline. She positioned herself so that her sex - now wet through her spandex outfit - could rut against it as she finger-fucked him. It wasn’t optimal, but the barest amount of friction was enough for her rather desperate needs.
Rorschach shuddered violently. “Sick,” he breathed. “Deviant. Wrong …" he cried out as Laurie pressed inside.
Laurie moaned as she rutted against him, so hot and slick, pushing against him in time with the movement her fingers. She pulled her fingers out, making Rorschach whimper. She leaned forward so that she was crouching over him, then reached underneath him to find his cock.
Rorschach chest heaved. “No. I … I can’t.”
“Is that really what you want?” Laurie asked as she delicately stroked his cock, circling the head, running her fingers through the hairs at the base. “Tell me ‘no’ again.”
Rorschach tried to speak, but whatever he said seemed to get choked. He squirmed underneath her, rubbing his cock against her palm. She almost wanted him to tell her he wanted it, to make him beg, but she didn’t think she could push that far. There was a reason why she never tried to take off his mask.
She gripped his cock and began to stroke. He was already slick both with precome and the last remnants of the butter she’d used. Although she guessed this felt better for him than what she had done to his ass, he whimpered and cried even more as she jacked him off. Sometimes he muttered to himself. Once she even thought he said the word, “mother.”
God, he was fucked up. Then again, Laurie thought as she thrust her pussy against his leg, she wasn’t exactly feeling all right herself, lately.
Rorschach’s moans became suddenly louder and he came, crying out something that Laurie thought sounded vaguely like her name. Laurie came almost immediately after, quickly and quietly and more from the excitement than any physical pleasure. She could have come again, knew if she’d pushed him on his back and demanded he fuck her she wouldn’t have lasted long, but she knew how far she could get with this, and, despite everything, still found him revolting.
She almost didn’t want to untie him, was briefly afraid of what he would do if she set him free, but as he lay on the ground, exhausted and disheveled, she figured he wasn’t in much of a position to do anything.
Laurie’s suspicion was right. After she untied him, Rorschach just lay there. She lay next to him, both of them listening to the sound of the other’s breathing. It took a few minutes before Rorschach stood up and fixed his clothing. She sat up and looked at him, and as he wrapped the scarf around his neck she wished she could see his real face.
Rorschach seemed to catch her staring at him. Her body tensed as he looked back at her.
“Tell anyone about this … try this again …”
Rorschach’s voice wavered so much Laurie couldn’t tell if he meant it as a warning or a plea. “Not happening,” she said.
Rorschach made a noise that sounded like agreement. He put his hat back on his head and turned to leave.
Laurie pushed herself up onto her feet. “Hey …”
Rorschach looked back. Laurie almost wanted to apologize, but she knew she couldn’t say “sorry” for something like this.
So instead she said, “You said you wanted to know, so … Adrian said he would help us if I had sex with him. I did. And … yeah. You can see how well that worked.”
Laurie expected Rorschach to yell at her, to call her a whore again, and a part of her didn’t even mind.
When he did respond, his voice was only barely above a whisper. “Prostitution never a profitable profession, especially on the exchange of promises. Would suggest alternate methods in the future.”
As Rorschach walked away, Laurie thought maybe she did mind.
End Part Two.