[Fic] These Are Not the Only Masks We Wear | Watchmen, VeidtOwl. NC-17
Title: These Are Not the Only Masks We Wear
Author: muzivitch
Series: Watchmen
Pairing: Nite Owl II/Ozymandias
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2163 words
Note: Gift for marionetteblue3 from the wm_secretsanta challenge. I hope you like it! Takes place following the Crimebusters' meeting in 1970. Semi-dark, dubcon-ish.
Dan crossed his arms over his chest, his lips turned down in a serious frown and his eyes calm and sober as he listened to Ozymandias - to Adrian. He was eloquent, of course, sensible, brilliant, impassioned, and it was a good idea, but he could already tell it wouldn't fly. The Comedian was sneering, Rorschach was muttering, and Manhattan...well, it was hard to say if Manhattan ever had a real expression on his face, but there was something almost indulgent beyond that unnatural calm. It wouldn't pass, and he should be thinking about how he and Rorschach would proceed after this, to make things better.
He was thinking about bruises, hand-shaped bruises that were just starting to fade and cease to ache, and he was thinking about the narrow, elegant hands that had put them there.
He never really wanted it at first, he thought as his blue eyes focused on Ozymandias's leather-gloved, gesturing hands. When Ozymandias assisted Nite Owl on cases, and when it inevitably led to Dan being slammed hard against a wall and long fingers pulling down zippers and unsnapping fastenings, he didn't want it. But that always changed, when Adrian set his leather-covered hands over Dan's bare skin and slanted his mouth over his own. It was like a game now, a cat and mouse game almost like the one the Twilight Lady liked to play with him.
The difference, Dan thought, lifting his eyes to meet the other man's, hidden behind a black silk mask, is that when Ozymandias played, he always won. Ozymandias would win again soon, he realized, his gaze locking onto Adrian's. He might even win again tonight.
Dan felt his muscles tense at the thought - and to be honest, he wasn't sure if it was in apprehension or anticipation - and he licked his lips, only managing to hold Adrian's eyes a moment more before he turned away and glanced down at Rorschach. It might be that nothing would happen, he reasoned. Chaos was about to unfold, anyway; the Comedian was opening his mouth, and something bitter, cynical, and bound to enrage Rorschach was about to emerge. Ozymandias would be preoccupied with that, he'd be preoccupied with getting his partner out of there in one piece. There wouldn't be time for anything.
His eyes met Adrian's simmering, glittering green and he drew in a breath as heat curled down his spine. Yeah, he thought. Right.
The Comedian had almost single-handedly cleared out the meeting, Dan thought later. Manhattan had disappeared with the second Silk Spectre moments after the Comedian had stomped out, Rorschach had slipped off to investigate a burglary he'd gotten a tip about, and he was about to slip off himself, to take the opportunity that Ozymandias' distraction afforded him. But something stopped him, he wasn't sure what, and instead he halted just outside the meeting room in the dim, shadowy hallway, and leaned against the wall. He waited. He didn't have to wait very long.
Adrian didn't expect to see him there, Dan thought as Ozymandias stepped into the hallway. It was betrayed in the minute lifting of his eyebrows and the sharpening of his green eyes, followed moments later by the amused curve of his lips.
"Daniel," he murmured as he walked forward, each step quiet an deliberate. "I didn't expect you here." He'd seen Nite Owl step out after Rorschach, and had expected that the chase - and it was a chase, a vastly rewarding one, he thought - he'd expected it would have to resume another night. Daniel had slipped his net.
Except he hadn't, Adrian thought as he stopped mere inches in front of the other mask. That in itself was one of the most interesting moves Nite Owl had made to date.
"I know," Dan said quietly. He knew he looked apprehensive; Adrian always made him apprehensive, even on the nights that he didn't approach. But he didn't back off. He'd spent enough time on that, he thought.
He'd wondered, after the last few times, what Adrian's reaction would be if he pushed back instead of retreating, if Adrian would want him if he wasn't a challenge. He wanted to find out, and his eyes sharpened behind his mask as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Nice to see I'm not the only one who can be caught off guard," he said, and started to flush as he saw Adrian's lips curve into an amused smile.
"I would never accuse you of being unable to surprise me, Daniel," Adrian murmured, reaching out to to brush his fingertips along the skin left exposed by the Nite Owl costume. It was a gesture that might have seemed innocent, even affectionate to anyone who might see it, but it sent a shiver down Dan's spine that wasn't entirely desire. There was something clinical about Adrian, he thought; even like this. Maybe especially like this, he realized. Here, even more than in every other situation he'd ever found himself in with Ozymandias, there was calculation. Everything had been planned in advance, and he was just along for the ride.
Except that wasn't the way it was tonight. He'd surprised Adrian, and there wasn't a plan unless Adrian Veidt was given enough time to formulate one. Which he wouldn't do, he thought, his eyes narrowing into sapphire blue slits as he pushed his mask back and exposed his full face and the shock of wavy, dark hair. His chin tipped up, just enough to look Adrian in the eyes, and he reached up to yank away the half-mask that covered the other man's face. He didn't speak until he'd let it flutter silently to the floor.
"Well?" he said. There was a tightness to his jaw and his eyebrows disappeared under his too-long brown hair. "Aren't you going to do something, Ozymandias?"
Adrian's lips curved into a faint smile. Daniel Dreiberg was so complicated, he thought. He didn't want this, or told himself he didn't, and yet...they continued to end up here. Avoiding Adrian would be simple enough if Dan had wanted to, and he'd never really tried. And tonight he hadn't even tried to run away, when it would have been easy. When he had his partner as a ready made excuse.
And yet, Adrian thought as he took a half step forward, Dan was still claiming he didn't want this. It would be interesting to see when that final barrier would finally fall. "Of course, Daniel," he murmured, finally answering the other mask's demand. "It's simply that there are so many options."
Then he took the most obvious, and his lips sealed over Daniel's as his hands curled around his rib cage, and he pushed him against the wall - rough, hard, with enough force to bruise as his mouth covered the other man's. They didn't do gentility, and he didn't expect they would; it wasn't what this was about. This wasn't romance but a battle, a tug-of-war between two men who were strong enough to take on most people who came after them. He was the stronger, of course he was, and he knew Daniel knew it just as well as he did, but it never kept the other man from pushing back.
It might be the most attractive thing about him, Adrian thought as he scraped his teeth along Daniel's jaw and shifted against the hands already ripping his armor free. Dan wasn't even struggling against this anymore, Adrian realized, and hid a flashing smile against Daniel's throat. He didn't like it, but he wanted it, and he was taking it.
He sifted his fingers into Daniel's unruly hair and tightened them there, yanking his head back almost viciously. "I am going to fuck you," he purred directly into the other mask's ear. "Right here against this wall. It's what you want, isn't it, Daniel?" He waited a beat, and then smiled as Daniel remained silent. "Answer me, Daniel. It's what you want, isn't it?"
Dark, simmering blue met green, and Dan nodded once, and then spoke curtly. "Yes," he said. "It's what I want." He still didn't understand why he did, this much - he'd never been interested in men, only women, and he sure as hell wouldn't have expected Adrian Veidt to be the man who caught his attention - but he'd started to accept it. He couldn't help but accept it; it was inescapable.
Adrian's lips tipped up in a smile, and he divested Dan of the remains of his costume, letting it fall around his ankles before he spun the other man around and pressed him into the wall. His hand was curled tightly around the nape of Dan's neck - it was tight enough, Dan thought, that he'd be wearing a bruise there if Adrian didn't release him - and Ozymandias leaned forward to whisper again. "That's what I thought, Daniel," he murmured, and Dan closed his eyes as he heard the soft slap of Adrian's leather gloves hitting the ground, and the muted pop of the tube of oil opening.
He braced his hand against the wall and drew a deep breath that turned into a moan as Adrian's hand slid down his spine, and as one of his long fingers pressed inside. He couldn't stop himself from arching towards the touch, and he didn't try, pressing his hips against the invading fingers and shivering as they built the desire he'd been feeling all night higher and higher. "Adrian," he murmured, and squeezed his eyes even tighter shut at the quiet chuckle that single word earned him.
"Patience, Daniel," Adrian murmured, but there was a heat behind the sardonic words, and Dan knew it wouldn't be long.
It was only moments, torturous moments that had him moaning and writhing against Adrian Veidt's clever, teasing fingers, and then they were pulled away and replaced with the hotter, blunter pressure of Adrian's cock. He cried out at the pressure - it was still unfamilar, even after a half dozen times like this - and his hands fisted against the wall as the other mask thrust inside and seated himself completely before wrapping his hand around Dan's hip and beginning to move. The bruises hadn't faded from the last time, he thought distantly as he thrashed against Adrian, but there were going to be more of them after this. After tonight.
"God," he cried out as Adrian's hips bucked against his and he drove in deep and hard. "Jesus, Adrian, please." He needed more than this, he thought, as much as this was driving his desire higher, as much as it was sending pleasure running through his veins like liquid electricity...he needed more than this. "Touch me," he rasped out, and his eyes slitted open as he looked over his shoulder. "For fuck's sake, touch me."
There was a smirk, of course, but then Adrian's hand - slender and elegant and impossibly graceful when he'd gestured during his presentation - wrapped around his cock and tightened there as he began to work Dan in tandem with the rhythm he'd already begun. That was what it took, that was what he needed, and Dan tipped his head back, his lips parting on a wordless cry as he spilled into Adrian Veidt's pale hand and his mind faded into white.
He was only vaguely aware of the other man following him, moments later, collapsing against him in the dark hallway.
It was minutes before either mustered words, and of course it was Adrian who spoke first. His voice was clear and even, even cordial, and set Dan's teeth on edge the way nothing else could. "We should depart," he said. "Rorschach will come looking for you, will he not?"
Dan looked at Adrian over his shoulder, and lifted his hand to brush the sweat-darkened curls out of his eyes. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, he will. You're right, we should go."
They redressed in silence, sliding damp skin into leather and rubber, and it wasn't until he'd pulled his cowl over his hair and covered his eyes with his goggles that Dan spoke again. "I'm sorry about your map," he said. "I thought it was a good idea." And a necessary one, he thought, if they were to have any effect for good. Since the rest of them hadn't agreed...well, he wasn't sure what would happen. They weren't having enough of an impact as it was.
Adrian glanced up with a half-smile and shrugged his shoulders at the words. "Thank you, Daniel," he said. "But it clearly was not the right idea. I'll have to come up with another."
Dan opened his mouth to ask what that would be, and then snapped it closed again as Adrian turned with a swirl of magenta velvet. Ozymandias probably wouldn't share, anyway, he thought as he turned away himself and walked towards the exit.
He'd always been good at keeping his own counsel.
Author: muzivitch
Series: Watchmen
Pairing: Nite Owl II/Ozymandias
Rating: NC-17
Length: 2163 words
Note: Gift for marionetteblue3 from the wm_secretsanta challenge. I hope you like it! Takes place following the Crimebusters' meeting in 1970. Semi-dark, dubcon-ish.
Dan crossed his arms over his chest, his lips turned down in a serious frown and his eyes calm and sober as he listened to Ozymandias - to Adrian. He was eloquent, of course, sensible, brilliant, impassioned, and it was a good idea, but he could already tell it wouldn't fly. The Comedian was sneering, Rorschach was muttering, and Manhattan...well, it was hard to say if Manhattan ever had a real expression on his face, but there was something almost indulgent beyond that unnatural calm. It wouldn't pass, and he should be thinking about how he and Rorschach would proceed after this, to make things better.
He was thinking about bruises, hand-shaped bruises that were just starting to fade and cease to ache, and he was thinking about the narrow, elegant hands that had put them there.
He never really wanted it at first, he thought as his blue eyes focused on Ozymandias's leather-gloved, gesturing hands. When Ozymandias assisted Nite Owl on cases, and when it inevitably led to Dan being slammed hard against a wall and long fingers pulling down zippers and unsnapping fastenings, he didn't want it. But that always changed, when Adrian set his leather-covered hands over Dan's bare skin and slanted his mouth over his own. It was like a game now, a cat and mouse game almost like the one the Twilight Lady liked to play with him.
The difference, Dan thought, lifting his eyes to meet the other man's, hidden behind a black silk mask, is that when Ozymandias played, he always won. Ozymandias would win again soon, he realized, his gaze locking onto Adrian's. He might even win again tonight.
Dan felt his muscles tense at the thought - and to be honest, he wasn't sure if it was in apprehension or anticipation - and he licked his lips, only managing to hold Adrian's eyes a moment more before he turned away and glanced down at Rorschach. It might be that nothing would happen, he reasoned. Chaos was about to unfold, anyway; the Comedian was opening his mouth, and something bitter, cynical, and bound to enrage Rorschach was about to emerge. Ozymandias would be preoccupied with that, he'd be preoccupied with getting his partner out of there in one piece. There wouldn't be time for anything.
His eyes met Adrian's simmering, glittering green and he drew in a breath as heat curled down his spine. Yeah, he thought. Right.
The Comedian had almost single-handedly cleared out the meeting, Dan thought later. Manhattan had disappeared with the second Silk Spectre moments after the Comedian had stomped out, Rorschach had slipped off to investigate a burglary he'd gotten a tip about, and he was about to slip off himself, to take the opportunity that Ozymandias' distraction afforded him. But something stopped him, he wasn't sure what, and instead he halted just outside the meeting room in the dim, shadowy hallway, and leaned against the wall. He waited. He didn't have to wait very long.
Adrian didn't expect to see him there, Dan thought as Ozymandias stepped into the hallway. It was betrayed in the minute lifting of his eyebrows and the sharpening of his green eyes, followed moments later by the amused curve of his lips.
"Daniel," he murmured as he walked forward, each step quiet an deliberate. "I didn't expect you here." He'd seen Nite Owl step out after Rorschach, and had expected that the chase - and it was a chase, a vastly rewarding one, he thought - he'd expected it would have to resume another night. Daniel had slipped his net.
Except he hadn't, Adrian thought as he stopped mere inches in front of the other mask. That in itself was one of the most interesting moves Nite Owl had made to date.
"I know," Dan said quietly. He knew he looked apprehensive; Adrian always made him apprehensive, even on the nights that he didn't approach. But he didn't back off. He'd spent enough time on that, he thought.
He'd wondered, after the last few times, what Adrian's reaction would be if he pushed back instead of retreating, if Adrian would want him if he wasn't a challenge. He wanted to find out, and his eyes sharpened behind his mask as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Nice to see I'm not the only one who can be caught off guard," he said, and started to flush as he saw Adrian's lips curve into an amused smile.
"I would never accuse you of being unable to surprise me, Daniel," Adrian murmured, reaching out to to brush his fingertips along the skin left exposed by the Nite Owl costume. It was a gesture that might have seemed innocent, even affectionate to anyone who might see it, but it sent a shiver down Dan's spine that wasn't entirely desire. There was something clinical about Adrian, he thought; even like this. Maybe especially like this, he realized. Here, even more than in every other situation he'd ever found himself in with Ozymandias, there was calculation. Everything had been planned in advance, and he was just along for the ride.
Except that wasn't the way it was tonight. He'd surprised Adrian, and there wasn't a plan unless Adrian Veidt was given enough time to formulate one. Which he wouldn't do, he thought, his eyes narrowing into sapphire blue slits as he pushed his mask back and exposed his full face and the shock of wavy, dark hair. His chin tipped up, just enough to look Adrian in the eyes, and he reached up to yank away the half-mask that covered the other man's face. He didn't speak until he'd let it flutter silently to the floor.
"Well?" he said. There was a tightness to his jaw and his eyebrows disappeared under his too-long brown hair. "Aren't you going to do something, Ozymandias?"
Adrian's lips curved into a faint smile. Daniel Dreiberg was so complicated, he thought. He didn't want this, or told himself he didn't, and yet...they continued to end up here. Avoiding Adrian would be simple enough if Dan had wanted to, and he'd never really tried. And tonight he hadn't even tried to run away, when it would have been easy. When he had his partner as a ready made excuse.
And yet, Adrian thought as he took a half step forward, Dan was still claiming he didn't want this. It would be interesting to see when that final barrier would finally fall. "Of course, Daniel," he murmured, finally answering the other mask's demand. "It's simply that there are so many options."
Then he took the most obvious, and his lips sealed over Daniel's as his hands curled around his rib cage, and he pushed him against the wall - rough, hard, with enough force to bruise as his mouth covered the other man's. They didn't do gentility, and he didn't expect they would; it wasn't what this was about. This wasn't romance but a battle, a tug-of-war between two men who were strong enough to take on most people who came after them. He was the stronger, of course he was, and he knew Daniel knew it just as well as he did, but it never kept the other man from pushing back.
It might be the most attractive thing about him, Adrian thought as he scraped his teeth along Daniel's jaw and shifted against the hands already ripping his armor free. Dan wasn't even struggling against this anymore, Adrian realized, and hid a flashing smile against Daniel's throat. He didn't like it, but he wanted it, and he was taking it.
He sifted his fingers into Daniel's unruly hair and tightened them there, yanking his head back almost viciously. "I am going to fuck you," he purred directly into the other mask's ear. "Right here against this wall. It's what you want, isn't it, Daniel?" He waited a beat, and then smiled as Daniel remained silent. "Answer me, Daniel. It's what you want, isn't it?"
Dark, simmering blue met green, and Dan nodded once, and then spoke curtly. "Yes," he said. "It's what I want." He still didn't understand why he did, this much - he'd never been interested in men, only women, and he sure as hell wouldn't have expected Adrian Veidt to be the man who caught his attention - but he'd started to accept it. He couldn't help but accept it; it was inescapable.
Adrian's lips tipped up in a smile, and he divested Dan of the remains of his costume, letting it fall around his ankles before he spun the other man around and pressed him into the wall. His hand was curled tightly around the nape of Dan's neck - it was tight enough, Dan thought, that he'd be wearing a bruise there if Adrian didn't release him - and Ozymandias leaned forward to whisper again. "That's what I thought, Daniel," he murmured, and Dan closed his eyes as he heard the soft slap of Adrian's leather gloves hitting the ground, and the muted pop of the tube of oil opening.
He braced his hand against the wall and drew a deep breath that turned into a moan as Adrian's hand slid down his spine, and as one of his long fingers pressed inside. He couldn't stop himself from arching towards the touch, and he didn't try, pressing his hips against the invading fingers and shivering as they built the desire he'd been feeling all night higher and higher. "Adrian," he murmured, and squeezed his eyes even tighter shut at the quiet chuckle that single word earned him.
"Patience, Daniel," Adrian murmured, but there was a heat behind the sardonic words, and Dan knew it wouldn't be long.
It was only moments, torturous moments that had him moaning and writhing against Adrian Veidt's clever, teasing fingers, and then they were pulled away and replaced with the hotter, blunter pressure of Adrian's cock. He cried out at the pressure - it was still unfamilar, even after a half dozen times like this - and his hands fisted against the wall as the other mask thrust inside and seated himself completely before wrapping his hand around Dan's hip and beginning to move. The bruises hadn't faded from the last time, he thought distantly as he thrashed against Adrian, but there were going to be more of them after this. After tonight.
"God," he cried out as Adrian's hips bucked against his and he drove in deep and hard. "Jesus, Adrian, please." He needed more than this, he thought, as much as this was driving his desire higher, as much as it was sending pleasure running through his veins like liquid electricity...he needed more than this. "Touch me," he rasped out, and his eyes slitted open as he looked over his shoulder. "For fuck's sake, touch me."
There was a smirk, of course, but then Adrian's hand - slender and elegant and impossibly graceful when he'd gestured during his presentation - wrapped around his cock and tightened there as he began to work Dan in tandem with the rhythm he'd already begun. That was what it took, that was what he needed, and Dan tipped his head back, his lips parting on a wordless cry as he spilled into Adrian Veidt's pale hand and his mind faded into white.
He was only vaguely aware of the other man following him, moments later, collapsing against him in the dark hallway.
It was minutes before either mustered words, and of course it was Adrian who spoke first. His voice was clear and even, even cordial, and set Dan's teeth on edge the way nothing else could. "We should depart," he said. "Rorschach will come looking for you, will he not?"
Dan looked at Adrian over his shoulder, and lifted his hand to brush the sweat-darkened curls out of his eyes. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, he will. You're right, we should go."
They redressed in silence, sliding damp skin into leather and rubber, and it wasn't until he'd pulled his cowl over his hair and covered his eyes with his goggles that Dan spoke again. "I'm sorry about your map," he said. "I thought it was a good idea." And a necessary one, he thought, if they were to have any effect for good. Since the rest of them hadn't agreed...well, he wasn't sure what would happen. They weren't having enough of an impact as it was.
Adrian glanced up with a half-smile and shrugged his shoulders at the words. "Thank you, Daniel," he said. "But it clearly was not the right idea. I'll have to come up with another."
Dan opened his mouth to ask what that would be, and then snapped it closed again as Adrian turned with a swirl of magenta velvet. Ozymandias probably wouldn't share, anyway, he thought as he turned away himself and walked towards the exit.
He'd always been good at keeping his own counsel.