oomm: After the Fact

[lockedupwithme]

In the bar, under a table, Rorschach sits crying.

He landed ungracefully on the floor probably twenty minutes ago, and couldn't make himself get up. Or put his mask back on. Or stop crying once it had started properly.

Rorschach cries, the facade of Walter pressed into his true face, because the world is wrong and there's nothing he can do

Comments

[nooooooaaauugh]

Perhaps what hurts more than just seeing Rorschach sitting there, crying (people stare but they don't stop) is knowing that he, Dan Dreiberg, accepted all of it. He could have done something, anything, but he accepted it.

Compromised.

(that's always been the difference between you and me)

He knows he'll never un-see it. From the moment he watched Rorschach walk out of the facility, from the moment he stepped out onto the snow, he knew what was going to happen, and it twisted up his insides like a meat grinder. (He thought, perhaps, one thing he had appreciated about that inkblot mask was that he had never actually been able to see the tears.)

The cold had barely even registered. How could it?

(they'd been friends)

And punching Veidt - he didn't know what he'd expected. He knew what he'd wanted - for Veidt to retaliate, for Veidt to kill him --

(you quitSo when he sees Rorschach under the table, everything catches in his throat

[lockedupwithme]

Kovacs is dead--died years ago--but Rorschach can't stop crying. Such weakness.

(does he deserve it, after all those years?)

He doesn't look up. He can't bring himself to. On some level it's reassuring that his face serves as a barrier even when he isn't wearing it.

(on some level, it just isn't fair.)

[nooooooaaauugh]

Dan's hands are balled into fists on his knees, and for a moment, all he can do is watch.

And he doesn't really know what he's trying to accomplish, but, reaching out, he places one hand a little awkwardly on Rorschach's shoulder.

[lockedupwithme]

There is a violent hitch, because he's so used to refusing touch (he hates being touched), but he allows it.

Is it more humiliating to tremble when he knows Dan can feel it? Maybe. He won't dwell on that thought.