Watchmen fic: Last Days of an Unreal City, chapter 12 - World Saved and World Doomed
Title: Last Days of an Unreal City - Chapter 12 - World Saved and World Doomed
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: R, for sex.
Word count (this section): 5653
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to runriggers for the beta!
Chapter Index.
===
Daniel sat on the bench, and waited for Laurie to return.
It would have been pointless if he'd tried to do anything else. He knew that he wouldn't be able to focus. A feeling of nervous expectation burrowed its way through his guts. He sat there and twiddled his thumbs.
Rorschach remained with him for a while, but eventually got bored and wandered away.
Daniel crossed his arms and closed his eyes. As he was sitting still, he was able to appreciate just how tired he was; his ribs still hurt, his eyes ached, his arm throbbed. The discomfort of his black eye was almost an afterthought. He felt as if he was developing a cold. He briefly worried about his health, then felt like a bit of a hypochondriac, then worried about Rorschach's health, instead.
Thinking about such things made him wonder how the people in the hospitals were coping. It was reasonable to assume that there would be a shortage of medical personnel. He thought of the Veidt Building's resident doctor, Adrian's 'health advisor'; he wanted to condemn her for remaining inside the safety of the building when her skills were badly needed outside, but reminded himself that he was doing exactly the same thing.
He worried about that, too.
He worried about his insufficient grief.
Rorschach returned to him after an hour or so, and seemed quietly perplexed by the fact that Daniel hadn't moved.
"Intend to sit there and stagnate all day?" Rorschach asked.
"Maybe."
Rorschach leaned against the wall, and dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. "Miss Juspeczyk is still in her meeting with Veidt. They're in one of the basement's boardrooms. The door is guarded."
"You went snooping after her?" Daniel didn't feel too surprised.
"Blatantly obvious that she's hiding something," Rorschach said, pale and miserable. "You're blinded by sentiment."
"Yeah, well - if she wants me to know what's going on with her, she'll tell me when she's ready."
"Why do you believe that?"
"Because I'm enough of a schmuck to trust her, I guess." Daniel offered a thin smile, and it was enough to make Rorschach glance away.
"Juspeczyk could be concealing something that's important to national security," Rorschach stated.
Daniel shrugged. "Well, what would you have me do? Break her fingers?" He stood up from the bench, and took a few tentative paces to work the cramp out of his legs. He'd sat there long enough. "... Hell, I might as well go back to work. I'm getting a numb ass." He had to keep himself occupied, otherwise it would only be a matter of time before he'd start thinking about Hollis, and Brooklyn, and the silence in the streets. He couldn't afford to do that.
"Will remain in the basement," said Rorschach, simply.
"Alright - you know where to find me." Daniel hesitated, then gave Rorschach a rather pointed look. "If you see Laurie before I do, tell her where I am."
Rorschach didn't nod. He seemed unwilling to let Daniel have the last word: "You're too trusting."
"Yeah, well - there are worse things to be," Daniel said, but not unkindly. He walked away, aware, as ever, of Rorschach's eyes on his back.
===
Rorschach did, in fact, see Laurie before Daniel.
He caught her just after she left the room where she'd been speaking with Veidt. She was alone, unattended by an escort. Rorschach observed her until he was reasonably confident that Veidt wasn't about to follow. When he deemed it safe, he he approached her; their eyes met briefly, and then they both looked away out of mutual antipathy.
Rorschach didn't consciously intend to agitate her (and, no doubt, she didn't consciously intend to agitate him), but they still both ended up mirroring each other's body language: square shoulders, raised chin, blank expression. Laurie paused, and put her hands on her hips. Rorschach fought the reflex to cross his arms. The hostility was like a feedback loop.
There was a long silence as they both just eyed each other. Laurie was the one who eventually yielded and spoke first. "What?"
"A word with you," he said.
She frowned, as if she was trying to place his voice. Despite her faults, he did not think she was a stupid woman - in his estimation, she was shrewd, if not particularly intelligent. She scrutinized him in a manner that he did not like.
"Oh," she said, and waited for him to elaborate.
"Best that we talk somewhere more private," Rorschach suggested.
Laurie appeared to consider it, then said, "No." She resumed walking.
Rorschach just stood there for a moment, staring, then caught up with her. He matched her pace, and hoped that he looked more dignified than he felt.
"Let me guess," she said. "You want to talk to me about Jon. You're going to try to blame me for his disappearance and then make it out as if the attack was somehow my fault, right?" She wore her guilt like a lead shroud. "I've heard it before. I'm not interested. I know how I must look to you."
"Don't wish to upset you," Rorschach said, smoothly, "but it's obvious that the circumstances surrounding Manhattan's exile were suspicious."
Laurie stopped, and Rorschach caught something in her expression, a brief flicker of misery, a splinter of grief in her eyes. He saw that the events of the past few days had failed to harden her, and that was her detriment.
Then she said, "You looked taller when you wore a hat."
He disliked her intensely.
"I'm being civil with you out of courtesy to Daniel Dreiberg," Rorschach replied. "Only want to know the truth. That's all."
She gave him a sad, tired look, then moved closer to the wall of the corridor; Rorschach saw her cast a subtle glance in the direction of the nearest camera. It wasn't a coincidence that she kept her back to it. She was a woman who was used to being observed.
"Jesus, I'm doing more harm than good by talking about this, but... Jon knows that the cancer thing was a set-up, okay? He doesn't care." The words escaped her in a rush; she immediately pursed her lips, too late. The truth always tended to find a way out.
"How..." he began.
She interrupted him. "He doesn't experience time like we do. He's... What's the word? Precognitive. You can't get much past a guy who can see the future." She must have read the cynicism in his expression, because she added, "C'mon, with all the crazy shit he's capable of, do you really find it that hard to believe?"
Rorschach was unaccustomed to being interrupted. He wasn't thrown off-guard, as such, but he did feel a sudden spike of anger. "Then why didn't he..."
"Just because he knows something, it doesn't mean he'll act on it." Laurie's voice became more subdued; "I'm past the point of trying to figure him out, alright? Sometimes, even he gets confused."
"You expect me to believe this unconditionally."
"Believe what you want," said Laurie; she didn't sound angry, just defeated. There were heavy shadows under her eyes, and he suspected that her mind was addled from exhaustion. He noted that she wasn't so pretty anymore.
He studied her face. "So. You're implying that he knows who was responsible for his defamation?"
Laurie said nothing, but her expression confirmed his suspicions.
"Give me their names," he ordered.
She gave him a look of pity. "What could you do, if you knew?"
"You know what I'd do."
Laurie shook her head. "You think that would help anybody, at this point?"
"That's irrelevant," said Rorschach. "Who are you trying to protect?"
Her mouth twisted into a humorless smile. "You. I'm trying to protect you."
Despite the heaviness in his limbs, he was still fast enough to grab her shoulders and slam her against the wall. She gave no reaction beyond a small wince of pain. It was only when she opened her eyes and stared at him that he realized what he was doing, although he didn't let her go. He was aware, on some level, that he wasn't thinking clearly. The anger was like a garotte around his brain; the fever was eating away at him. It was fortunate that they were the only people in the corridor, although he was conscious of the unblinking gaze of the security camera on his back.
He made himself think of a cool expanse of white, and it calmed him.
"Not interested in mind games," he said.
She made no effort to push him away, and her tone was too glib. "Are you threatening me?"
He made himself turn around and walk away from her.
===
Some time in the evening, when Daniel had finished fixing windows on the upper floors, he descended the lobby's escalators to find Laurie sitting on the edge of one of the ornamental pools. He assumed that she was waiting for him, a reversal of their previous positions. There was a bottle on the floor by her feet.
When she saw him, she picked up the bottle and lifted it as if making a toast. "Hey. One of Veidt's guys told me that you were probably somewhere up here."
He noted how she used the name 'Veidt', not 'Adrian'.
He also noted that she was slightly drunk.
Her face had a flush to it, and there was an artificial cheer to the way that she gestured to him to come closer. She seemed younger again; the alcohol had washed away some of the bitterness, giving him a vague glimpse of the outgoing, rather brassy woman who had once set fire to his basement, made fun of his hair, tried to jump his bones on the living room couch, and made love to him in the owlship.
Daniel felt as if he was looking at two versions of her, co-existing simultaneously: the Laurie from the past, and the Laurie from the present. She was familiar but different. It was disconcerting.
"Laurie?" he said, and sat down next to her. There was something in her eyes that made his stomach start to knot. "What's wrong?"
Laurie shrugged, as if to say, what isn't? "I need to talk to someone who isn't... I need to talk to someone." She paused, and took a deep breath. "Just sit with me for a while, alright?"
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
She lifted a hand to his face and stroked his cheek, then paused, and carefully lowered her hand again. "I wish I'd never met Jon," she said out of nowhere, then shook her head. "...Sorry. You probably don't need to hear about my relationship woes right now. I'm just really, really sorry, that's all."
"What's happened to you?"
"I'm not handling any of this very well, I guess." She forced out a brief chuckle. "And, y'know, having to act as a mediator between Jon and Veidt and other people - that'd be enough to make anyone go a little crazy, right?"
"You want to discuss it?"
"Yeah. No. Shit, I don't know. I'm just glad you're okay. It's good that you're here; you're safer in the Veidt Building than you'd be anywhere else, believe me. You don't want to go out there. Sometimes it looks safe, but it's really not." She reached into her coat pocket and took out a cigarette lighter, palming the object in her free hand as if it was a worry stone.
Daniel sat there and regarded her silently for a moment, then put his arms around her and drew her closer. She pressed her face against his shoulder, leaning against him.
"Jon says that working with Veidt is the best option," she mumbled against his shirt. "For everything. Jon knows how things will turn out, Dan."
"What else does Jon know?" Daniel asked, quietly.
"Too much. He, uh, tells me all sorts of things. I mean, they tried to recreate the Gila Flats Incident. The government did. So did the Russians. Jon told me about that. The test could only be done on humans. They'd only test it on people who had, uh, the right sort of mentality. The Right Stuff, y'know? Jesus Christ, they still managed to find applicants. There were some really strange reports. No successes. But people still... see things, sometimes," she said and sat back slightly, so that she could offer him a weak smile. " See? That's exactly the sort of shit that I'd really be better off not knowing about."
She was ranting slightly. Daniel drew her back to the topic at hand: "Do you know what's going to happen with the war?"
"Well..." Laurie scrunched up her nose, considering. "The good news is, Veidt is going to make everything better. The bad news is, Veidt is going to make everything better."
Great, she's the goddamn Delphic Sibyl, Daniel thought. "I'm not following you."
She took a long pull of the bottle - Daniel noticed that it was Scotch, and absently wondered where she'd got it from - then shrugged. "Not only is the human race going to survive, but it's going to be stronger for it."
Daniel looked up at the shuttered windows, picturing the grey skies beyond them. "C'mon, Laurie, that's... I mean, I'm not sure that I can believe that."
"I'm not saying that there won't be death. Jon showed me. Sometimes you have to destroy things in order to rebuild them." She paused, then added, "Like the Fall of Constantinople," and rolled her eyes.
It was then that Daniel suddenly decided that he did not like where the conversation was heading. The part of his brain that was still stubbornly, incorrigibly Nite Owl began to piece things together, until Daniel forced it to stop. Some things, like the sun, could not be looked at straight-on.
Some things were just too crazy to be credible.
Laurie must have noticed something in his expression, because she offered him the Scotch.
"How did you get a black eye?" she asked. The change in subject almost made him laugh, but the coward in him was grateful for it.
Daniel focused on the smoky taste of the alcohol, and made himself talk as if nothing was wrong. "Disagreement with a fiery-tempered redhead."
She hesitated, as if she was considering her words very carefully, then said, "Christ, Dan - why do you put up with the hateful little creep?"
"I don't know. He's smart and he's tough and he's reliable, under all the grime and the bad blood. And I used to be kinda awed by how stoic and, uh, efficient he was. I'm not going to defend his flaws, and I doubt that he'd defend mine."
Laurie regarded him speculatively.
"He's a lot better looking with the mask on though, huh?" she said.
Daniel just stared back at her.
She shrugged at him, as if to say, what? It's not like you've never said anything cruel about Rorschach before.
Daniel forgave her, even though he felt that he'd earned the right to make disparaging remarks about the guy, whereas she hadn't. "I figured you'd recognise him," he said. "What was it that tipped you off, specifically?"
"C'mon, Dan. No-one else talks like he does, even when he's trying to make his voice sound normal." Laurie's tone was wry. "What's the deal with you two, anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"He kept staring at me," Laurie replied. "Like Janey Slater used to stare at me."
Daniel took a moment to figure it out. "...Oh."
She shrugged again. "I always wondered. And whenever I considered the fact that you might be screwing, I felt really guilty, because it felt as if it would cheapen it, you know?"
When he saw the faint smile that she had, he realised that he'd been holding his breath. He relaxed slightly. "You think screwing cheapens things?"
"No, not really. That's how I used to feel, though. I was a kid, and it was the sixties. You know what stuff was like back then. Hell, I bet that most girls my age never would've imagined two men doing stuff together, but Mom was always kind of... educational." She eyed him. "You weren't screwing, were you?"
"Heh, I, er... No." Daniel was still too embarrassed to admit exactly how he got his black eye. "You know how conservative he is."
Laurie snorted. "Like that matters. What the hell is his deal, anyway?"
"I don't know. I don't think he knows what his deal is, either. Although, it'd be kind of a cliche, wouldn't it? The staunch right-wing guy who's a closet homosexual, or... Whatever." Daniel glanced at Laurie out the corner of his eye.
She glanced back at him, sizing him up. "You're a 'Whatever', right?"
"I guess. Although it was usually simpler to just date women." Not happier, not easier. Just simpler. "Not that I was, uh, some great Lothario with the ladies or anything, because I was always so busy with crimefighting, but... Maybe that doesn't make me a real..." Say it. "Y'know, a real bisexual." The word still felt too awkward for his mouth, as if it didn't really belong to him. He reminded himself that he was an adult, and it was perfectly alright for adults to discuss such things, in an adult sort of way.
She peered at him. "So, what, you're a fake bisexual? How do you know when you're a real bisexual, anyway? Do you get a little certificate?" She took the Scotch bottle back out of his hands. "God, I sound like my mother. Listen to us - it's the end of the world, and we're talking about sex. That either makes us really self-absorbed, or just human."
"We could talk about politics," Daniel suggested. We could talk about the attack. We could talk about death.
Laurie grimaced.
They fell into a comfortable silence. In the semi-darkness of the Veidt Building's lobby, he could almost believe that they were the last people on Earth - the thought was both indulgent and discomfiting. Daniel was suddenly glad that he wasn't alone. He covered Laurie's hand with his.
She looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, Dan."
"Stop saying that," he told her, gently.
Laurie frowned, and some of the old bitterness colored her expression again. "I can't leave Jon again. Not now. He's too vital to rebuilding things. I need to get him to cooperate. I'm the only person he really listens to."
Daniel found that he wasn't really surprised. "It's okay," he said, for her sake. He felt little more than a sense of quiet resignation, although he was aware that he'd probably be more upset about it at some point in the far future, once his mind had finished processing the various other things that had happened over the past few days. He didn't have much regret left to spare.
Laurie kept her gaze on the floor, and said nothing.
He managed a smile that probably wasn't very convincing. "Y'know, if the world's most powerful man does what you ask him to, then I guess that makes you the world's most powerful woman, huh?"
This made her glance up briefly, at least. "Yeah, great - I'm powerful because of my boyfriend." She pointed her fingers like a pistol, and aimed them at her head. "You've come a long way, baby."
It seemed inevitable that their conversation would return to the subject of Jon Osterman, so Daniel took a deep breath, and made himself ask, "What was the deal with Jon and Nova Express? The whole cancer smear campaign thing?"
"I don't want to talk about that. What's done is done," Laurie said quietly, and Daniel had to remind himself, if she wanted you to know, she'd tell you. Her gaze was distant, Cassandra-like. "I'll have to leave again tomorrow. We probably won't see each other again for a while."
"Oh."
"So," she said, with a sudden brittle cheer. "Is there anything I can do for you, before I go?"
Daniel could think of a few suggestions, but none of them were very gentlemanly - or feasible, for that matter. "You could try to get Veidt's people to give Rorschach's grappling gun back," he said, only half-sarcastic. "Who knows - Rorschach might even say thank you for it."
"Alright." Laurie offered him a slight grin that seemed to be genuine. "Y'know, you're a sweetie, Dan, but your taste in guys is kinda questionable."
"That's funny, he said exactly the same about my taste in women."
"And what would he know about girls, huh?" Laurie smirked, then looked Daniel up and down - the gesture was a little too ladylike to qualify as a leer. "...We would have made a good couple."
"Yeah."
She offered him the Scotch again. "Well, if we can't screw, at least we can drink."
===
At some point in the middle of the night, Rorschach was woken up by the sound of Daniel tripping over his own bed.
Rorschach ignored Daniel, and tried to sleep.
Sleeping was difficult. It had always been difficult. Sleeping was something that he was forced to do when his body and mind gave out, although a part of him - a sensible part, perhaps - would remain alert, so that he was always a heartbeat away from consciousness. He disliked the vulnerability. When he slept, he was no longer Rorschach. He made a point of forgetting his dreams.
But sleep still eluded him. Time passed, as inevitable as the movement of a glacier.
He fidgeted, careful to keep his face from touching the dry cotton of the pillow. Burns weren't like lacerations or broken bones: he found that burns were harder to ignore. The discomfort was a constant seething, the sort of pain that insinuated its way into everything, making disassociation difficult. It was annoying, but he could tolerate it. He could tolerate a lot, when he had to. Most people could. Humanity's mindless resilience was often underestimated.
The burns were just more injuries, and he didn't mind injuries so much. You usually knew where you stood with an injury: there were often clear lines of cause and effect. Physical discomfort was predictable. There were worse things. Granted, the recovery periods seemed to take longer as he grew older, but that was a simple fact of life - if anything, he was mildly perplexed by the fact that he was still around. Given his line of work, the prospect of old age had never been cause for concern.
He willed himself to remain still and keep his eyes closed, but lacked the patience. His eyes opened of their own accord. As his vision began to adjust to the darkness, he noted the details of the room that he could perceive; Daniel was a lumpy outline in the bed opposite. Rorschach wondered what the time was, although he knew better than to look at his watch: being aware of the slow passage of the seconds rarely helped.
Rorschach regarded Daniel. He could make out that Daniel had his back to him. Initially, Rorschach thought he was asleep.
Then he realized that he wasn't.
Rorschach studied him.
He recognised the way that Daniel's shoulders were hunched, the change in the rise and fall of his breathing, the barely-perceptible movement of his arm.
As a teenager, he had slept in a shared dormitory with other youths, and he was aware that there were certain things that people, other people, did. They did such things because they were desperate and lonely and lacking. The vice was a hollow comfort, but sometimes hollow comforts were the only ones available. (He'd convinced himself that the disgust outweighed the relief. He avoided it, except when he couldn't.)
Ridiculously, his next thought was that Daniel was doing it on purpose, to spite him. Then he reminded himself that Daniel must have assumed he was still asleep, although that did nothing to mitigate Rorschach's feeling of invasion. He tried to be lenient, even though leniency had never come easily to him: he acknowledged that the Veidt Building didn't allow for much privacy, and that their room was probably as private as it got. Then he changed his mind again and decided that, yes, Daniel was definitely doing it out of vindictiveness, a basic lack of human respect. Then he realized how absurd he was being, and that made it all the worse.
He wondered what Daniel was thinking about.
He hated Daniel for making him witness this moment of weakness, then hated himself for not turning away in disgust. Hate was easy and familiar. Unfortunately, hate was insufficient. He bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself, although he was already in pain, and it was doing very little to stop his body from reacting.
"Daniel," he said. His voice sounded too loud.
Daniel froze. Slowly, he sat upright, and zipped up his fly as discreetly as possible.
An enormous silence stretched out between them.
"Jesus, I wasn't... I didn't think..." Daniel began, but stopped there, offering no excuses. He sounded sad and lost and ashamed. "Sorry."
Sleep was most certainly out of the question, so Rorschach sat up, allowing him to study Daniel's face through the gloom. Daniel remained perfectly still and watched him carefully, as if anticipating reprisal. Rorschach tried to muster some contempt.
The situation felt as if it was unfair on the both of them.
"Pathetic," Rorschach said, quietly.
Perhaps Dan agreed, because he apparently lacked the spirit to argue. He stood up, keeping the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a ridiculous cape, and took a step towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Rorschach asked.
Daniel seemed to struggle for an answer. "I feel really messed up right now."
Hate and anger were obviously inadequate, so Rorschach abandoned them and settled with tired resignation. "Stay," he said. It came out sounding like the sort of command that you would give to a dog, which wasn't his intention.
Daniel stopped, and sat back down on his bed, opposite. He propped his elbows on his knees and looked down at his hands. Rorschach refused to think about what those hands had been doing just a moment ago.
Rorschach tried to think of something else to say. Talking to Daniel was always either very easy, or very difficult.
"Pathetic," Rorschach repeated, and wasn't sure which of them he was referring to.
"Yeah, well," murmured Daniel.
Rorschach wanted to tell Daniel to stop looking so miserable, because it bothered him. It bothered him far more than the prospect of moral weakness, much to his chagrin. His feelings were not ones that he had chosen.
"Sorry I hit you," he said, apropos of nothing.
Daniel glanced up, to stare at him. "Huh?"
Rorschach tried to elaborate: "The eye."
"Oh."
Then he wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but he had his hands on Daniel's shoulders, as if his body was a step ahead of the conscious part of his brain that was still trying desperately to be Rorschach. He almost kissed him, then remembered that his mouth tasted as if something had died in it and, more importantly, that kissing Daniel would be morally wrong, then he sat there and felt idiotic until it occurred to him that he should tell Daniel to pull himself together. He started to say that.
Daniel kissed him anyway. Their teeth banged together. Daniel tasted of alcohol. Rorschach quickly pulled back.
"What?" said Daniel.
Rorschach searched for a reason to stop things. "Is this because you were rejected by Juspeczyk?"
"I wasn't rejected by her," Daniel said. The sentence seemed like a half-truth, and Rorschach knew better than to believe it. Still, Daniel looked dejected; there was a shade of that old post-retirement loneliness, so wretched that it was almost repellent. "But, god, if you think that I'm... I mean..."
"Not sure what to think."
Daniel sighed, and leaned forwards, resting his forehead against Rorschach's. "Don't you ever get tired of hating everyone and everything?" he murmured.
Rorschach couldn't reply.
"Life's too short," said Daniel, then pulled down on Rorschach's collar to expose the base of his throat; he kissed him there, as if to appease him.
Daniel's breath was warm against Rorschach's skin, and it was the sort of warmth that felt right; it wasn't the heat of fever or furnaces. It was like the warmth of morphine. Rorschach felt the world untethering itself. There were two voices at the back of his mind, one saying this is false and it won't last, the other saying you're going to have to live with it.
"What do you want me to do?" Daniel asked, suddenly nervous.
It was the last question that he wanted to hear. The opiate feeling of security faded, and was replaced by something colder, nastier, and far less strange.
There was a horrible moment where they stared at each other, deadlocked, both expecting the other one to be proactive. Then Daniel said, "Well, screw it," and began to unfasten Rorschach's pants.
Rorschach let him, and looked up at the ceiling; he told himself that he didn't believe in God, although he was still unable to dismiss the belief that he was being observed and judged. In some ways, the feeling of condemnation felt right; it felt correct. If his guilt had been absent, he would have missed it. It was strange: as much as he tried to convince himself that what they were doing was immoral, it still wasn't enough to deter him from doing it. Guilt, like hate, was also insufficient. He wondered what was left for him, if guilt and propriety were no longer enough: there was a horrible sense of defeat.
He gripped the edges of the bed as he felt Daniel's hand reach between his legs - Daniel's palms were rough, which came as an odd sort of relief, because there was something honest about discomfort. He closed his eyes.
"I haven't done this in ages," Daniel said apologetically, and Rorschach would have told him to shut up if he hadn't been biting his tongue. He heard Daniel move slightly, changing position, then felt cold air on exposed flesh. He tried to disconnect his mind from it; part of him wished that he was somewhere else, while another part of him wanted to remain present. The duality was disconcerting, although dichotomy should have been something that he was familiar with.
Then he felt Daniel's mouth in a place where Daniel's mouth really shouldn't have been, and thinking became difficult. He was suddenly unable to remember what pain had ever felt like; he was suddenly unable to remember much at all. He was aware of curling his fingers in Daniel's hair, making Daniel flinch. The only emotion that really persisted was the guilt: even at that moment, he still enjoyed hurting Daniel in some small way. He wasn't sure if it was because he believed that Daniel deserved it, for doing this to him, or if it was something else.
Something in him - blind instinct, perhaps - was trying to compel him to stop analyzing things, to give up and simply yield to sensation, but things were never allowed to be that easy. Even as his mind felt as if it was burning itself out, going blank like an over-exposed photograph, like an excess of lightness, he still tried to hold on to his sense of reason, to a reality and a rationality that were probably obsolete. In the end, though, the only real thing that he could focus on was the feeling of Daniel's head under his hand, and the awful trust that it necessitated.
His hips bucked of their own accord, and the climax was like a reflex, as if his body found such things almost natural.
He felt Daniel swallow, and the lust subsided. It was followed by revulsion. When Daniel drew back and let him go, Rorschach didn't look down, or dare touch himself. The world seemed softer around the edges, although he could still imagine how he must have looked.
Daniel remained on his knees, head bowed, one hand between his own legs as he dealt with himself; he made quiet, soft sounds that Rorschach seemed to feel deep inside his chest. Rorschach spared him a quick glance, then decided to avoid watching him, because the situation was confusing enough already. The vulnerability of the other man made him uncomfortable. Out the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of how Daniel shuddered; he saw the expression of almost-pain that crossed his face. It made Rorschach feel as if he'd stolen something from Daniel, something that he didn't necessarily want.
Then reality settled in again. Daniel took a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket and cleaned himself off.
"You alright?" said Daniel, quietly.
Rorschach nodded. He concentrated on fastening his pants again, as his hands seemed to belong to someone else. He absently bit the inside of his cheek, forcing his mind to focus, dispelling the illusion of a softer world.
Daniel looked and gave him the sort of cautious, earnest smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but actually made everything worse. The smile was both harmless and repulsive; like a featherless bird. You're aware of how fragile it is, while at the same time wanting to stomp on it, Rorschach thought, feeling stupid.
He made a point of briefly meeting Daniel's eyes, just to show that he was fine.
"So, what now?" Daniel said, because it had to be asked, even if Rorschach didn't want to answer it.
Rorschach replied, "It's late. Should sleep."
To his irritation, Daniel obeyed without question. They went to their separate beds.
When Rorschach was sure that Daniel really was asleep, he sat up and decided to wait for morning. For the first time in years, he thought of his mother, and the taste of blood in his mouth made him nauseous.
===
Characters: Rorschach/Nite Owl II
Rating: R, for sex.
Word count (this section): 5653
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Alan Moore.
Summary: AU. The Cold War reaches its ultimate conclusion, and Rorschach and Daniel are among the survivors when the East Coast is attacked.
Many thanks to runriggers for the beta!
Chapter Index.
===
Daniel sat on the bench, and waited for Laurie to return.
It would have been pointless if he'd tried to do anything else. He knew that he wouldn't be able to focus. A feeling of nervous expectation burrowed its way through his guts. He sat there and twiddled his thumbs.
Rorschach remained with him for a while, but eventually got bored and wandered away.
Daniel crossed his arms and closed his eyes. As he was sitting still, he was able to appreciate just how tired he was; his ribs still hurt, his eyes ached, his arm throbbed. The discomfort of his black eye was almost an afterthought. He felt as if he was developing a cold. He briefly worried about his health, then felt like a bit of a hypochondriac, then worried about Rorschach's health, instead.
Thinking about such things made him wonder how the people in the hospitals were coping. It was reasonable to assume that there would be a shortage of medical personnel. He thought of the Veidt Building's resident doctor, Adrian's 'health advisor'; he wanted to condemn her for remaining inside the safety of the building when her skills were badly needed outside, but reminded himself that he was doing exactly the same thing.
He worried about that, too.
He worried about his insufficient grief.
Rorschach returned to him after an hour or so, and seemed quietly perplexed by the fact that Daniel hadn't moved.
"Intend to sit there and stagnate all day?" Rorschach asked.
"Maybe."
Rorschach leaned against the wall, and dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. "Miss Juspeczyk is still in her meeting with Veidt. They're in one of the basement's boardrooms. The door is guarded."
"You went snooping after her?" Daniel didn't feel too surprised.
"Blatantly obvious that she's hiding something," Rorschach said, pale and miserable. "You're blinded by sentiment."
"Yeah, well - if she wants me to know what's going on with her, she'll tell me when she's ready."
"Why do you believe that?"
"Because I'm enough of a schmuck to trust her, I guess." Daniel offered a thin smile, and it was enough to make Rorschach glance away.
"Juspeczyk could be concealing something that's important to national security," Rorschach stated.
Daniel shrugged. "Well, what would you have me do? Break her fingers?" He stood up from the bench, and took a few tentative paces to work the cramp out of his legs. He'd sat there long enough. "... Hell, I might as well go back to work. I'm getting a numb ass." He had to keep himself occupied, otherwise it would only be a matter of time before he'd start thinking about Hollis, and Brooklyn, and the silence in the streets. He couldn't afford to do that.
"Will remain in the basement," said Rorschach, simply.
"Alright - you know where to find me." Daniel hesitated, then gave Rorschach a rather pointed look. "If you see Laurie before I do, tell her where I am."
Rorschach didn't nod. He seemed unwilling to let Daniel have the last word: "You're too trusting."
"Yeah, well - there are worse things to be," Daniel said, but not unkindly. He walked away, aware, as ever, of Rorschach's eyes on his back.
===
Rorschach did, in fact, see Laurie before Daniel.
He caught her just after she left the room where she'd been speaking with Veidt. She was alone, unattended by an escort. Rorschach observed her until he was reasonably confident that Veidt wasn't about to follow. When he deemed it safe, he he approached her; their eyes met briefly, and then they both looked away out of mutual antipathy.
Rorschach didn't consciously intend to agitate her (and, no doubt, she didn't consciously intend to agitate him), but they still both ended up mirroring each other's body language: square shoulders, raised chin, blank expression. Laurie paused, and put her hands on her hips. Rorschach fought the reflex to cross his arms. The hostility was like a feedback loop.
There was a long silence as they both just eyed each other. Laurie was the one who eventually yielded and spoke first. "What?"
"A word with you," he said.
She frowned, as if she was trying to place his voice. Despite her faults, he did not think she was a stupid woman - in his estimation, she was shrewd, if not particularly intelligent. She scrutinized him in a manner that he did not like.
"Oh," she said, and waited for him to elaborate.
"Best that we talk somewhere more private," Rorschach suggested.
Laurie appeared to consider it, then said, "No." She resumed walking.
Rorschach just stood there for a moment, staring, then caught up with her. He matched her pace, and hoped that he looked more dignified than he felt.
"Let me guess," she said. "You want to talk to me about Jon. You're going to try to blame me for his disappearance and then make it out as if the attack was somehow my fault, right?" She wore her guilt like a lead shroud. "I've heard it before. I'm not interested. I know how I must look to you."
"Don't wish to upset you," Rorschach said, smoothly, "but it's obvious that the circumstances surrounding Manhattan's exile were suspicious."
Laurie stopped, and Rorschach caught something in her expression, a brief flicker of misery, a splinter of grief in her eyes. He saw that the events of the past few days had failed to harden her, and that was her detriment.
Then she said, "You looked taller when you wore a hat."
He disliked her intensely.
"I'm being civil with you out of courtesy to Daniel Dreiberg," Rorschach replied. "Only want to know the truth. That's all."
She gave him a sad, tired look, then moved closer to the wall of the corridor; Rorschach saw her cast a subtle glance in the direction of the nearest camera. It wasn't a coincidence that she kept her back to it. She was a woman who was used to being observed.
"Jesus, I'm doing more harm than good by talking about this, but... Jon knows that the cancer thing was a set-up, okay? He doesn't care." The words escaped her in a rush; she immediately pursed her lips, too late. The truth always tended to find a way out.
"How..." he began.
She interrupted him. "He doesn't experience time like we do. He's... What's the word? Precognitive. You can't get much past a guy who can see the future." She must have read the cynicism in his expression, because she added, "C'mon, with all the crazy shit he's capable of, do you really find it that hard to believe?"
Rorschach was unaccustomed to being interrupted. He wasn't thrown off-guard, as such, but he did feel a sudden spike of anger. "Then why didn't he..."
"Just because he knows something, it doesn't mean he'll act on it." Laurie's voice became more subdued; "I'm past the point of trying to figure him out, alright? Sometimes, even he gets confused."
"You expect me to believe this unconditionally."
"Believe what you want," said Laurie; she didn't sound angry, just defeated. There were heavy shadows under her eyes, and he suspected that her mind was addled from exhaustion. He noted that she wasn't so pretty anymore.
He studied her face. "So. You're implying that he knows who was responsible for his defamation?"
Laurie said nothing, but her expression confirmed his suspicions.
"Give me their names," he ordered.
She gave him a look of pity. "What could you do, if you knew?"
"You know what I'd do."
Laurie shook her head. "You think that would help anybody, at this point?"
"That's irrelevant," said Rorschach. "Who are you trying to protect?"
Her mouth twisted into a humorless smile. "You. I'm trying to protect you."
Despite the heaviness in his limbs, he was still fast enough to grab her shoulders and slam her against the wall. She gave no reaction beyond a small wince of pain. It was only when she opened her eyes and stared at him that he realized what he was doing, although he didn't let her go. He was aware, on some level, that he wasn't thinking clearly. The anger was like a garotte around his brain; the fever was eating away at him. It was fortunate that they were the only people in the corridor, although he was conscious of the unblinking gaze of the security camera on his back.
He made himself think of a cool expanse of white, and it calmed him.
"Not interested in mind games," he said.
She made no effort to push him away, and her tone was too glib. "Are you threatening me?"
He made himself turn around and walk away from her.
===
Some time in the evening, when Daniel had finished fixing windows on the upper floors, he descended the lobby's escalators to find Laurie sitting on the edge of one of the ornamental pools. He assumed that she was waiting for him, a reversal of their previous positions. There was a bottle on the floor by her feet.
When she saw him, she picked up the bottle and lifted it as if making a toast. "Hey. One of Veidt's guys told me that you were probably somewhere up here."
He noted how she used the name 'Veidt', not 'Adrian'.
He also noted that she was slightly drunk.
Her face had a flush to it, and there was an artificial cheer to the way that she gestured to him to come closer. She seemed younger again; the alcohol had washed away some of the bitterness, giving him a vague glimpse of the outgoing, rather brassy woman who had once set fire to his basement, made fun of his hair, tried to jump his bones on the living room couch, and made love to him in the owlship.
Daniel felt as if he was looking at two versions of her, co-existing simultaneously: the Laurie from the past, and the Laurie from the present. She was familiar but different. It was disconcerting.
"Laurie?" he said, and sat down next to her. There was something in her eyes that made his stomach start to knot. "What's wrong?"
Laurie shrugged, as if to say, what isn't? "I need to talk to someone who isn't... I need to talk to someone." She paused, and took a deep breath. "Just sit with me for a while, alright?"
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
She lifted a hand to his face and stroked his cheek, then paused, and carefully lowered her hand again. "I wish I'd never met Jon," she said out of nowhere, then shook her head. "...Sorry. You probably don't need to hear about my relationship woes right now. I'm just really, really sorry, that's all."
"What's happened to you?"
"I'm not handling any of this very well, I guess." She forced out a brief chuckle. "And, y'know, having to act as a mediator between Jon and Veidt and other people - that'd be enough to make anyone go a little crazy, right?"
"You want to discuss it?"
"Yeah. No. Shit, I don't know. I'm just glad you're okay. It's good that you're here; you're safer in the Veidt Building than you'd be anywhere else, believe me. You don't want to go out there. Sometimes it looks safe, but it's really not." She reached into her coat pocket and took out a cigarette lighter, palming the object in her free hand as if it was a worry stone.
Daniel sat there and regarded her silently for a moment, then put his arms around her and drew her closer. She pressed her face against his shoulder, leaning against him.
"Jon says that working with Veidt is the best option," she mumbled against his shirt. "For everything. Jon knows how things will turn out, Dan."
"What else does Jon know?" Daniel asked, quietly.
"Too much. He, uh, tells me all sorts of things. I mean, they tried to recreate the Gila Flats Incident. The government did. So did the Russians. Jon told me about that. The test could only be done on humans. They'd only test it on people who had, uh, the right sort of mentality. The Right Stuff, y'know? Jesus Christ, they still managed to find applicants. There were some really strange reports. No successes. But people still... see things, sometimes," she said and sat back slightly, so that she could offer him a weak smile. " See? That's exactly the sort of shit that I'd really be better off not knowing about."
She was ranting slightly. Daniel drew her back to the topic at hand: "Do you know what's going to happen with the war?"
"Well..." Laurie scrunched up her nose, considering. "The good news is, Veidt is going to make everything better. The bad news is, Veidt is going to make everything better."
Great, she's the goddamn Delphic Sibyl, Daniel thought. "I'm not following you."
She took a long pull of the bottle - Daniel noticed that it was Scotch, and absently wondered where she'd got it from - then shrugged. "Not only is the human race going to survive, but it's going to be stronger for it."
Daniel looked up at the shuttered windows, picturing the grey skies beyond them. "C'mon, Laurie, that's... I mean, I'm not sure that I can believe that."
"I'm not saying that there won't be death. Jon showed me. Sometimes you have to destroy things in order to rebuild them." She paused, then added, "Like the Fall of Constantinople," and rolled her eyes.
It was then that Daniel suddenly decided that he did not like where the conversation was heading. The part of his brain that was still stubbornly, incorrigibly Nite Owl began to piece things together, until Daniel forced it to stop. Some things, like the sun, could not be looked at straight-on.
Some things were just too crazy to be credible.
Laurie must have noticed something in his expression, because she offered him the Scotch.
"How did you get a black eye?" she asked. The change in subject almost made him laugh, but the coward in him was grateful for it.
Daniel focused on the smoky taste of the alcohol, and made himself talk as if nothing was wrong. "Disagreement with a fiery-tempered redhead."
She hesitated, as if she was considering her words very carefully, then said, "Christ, Dan - why do you put up with the hateful little creep?"
"I don't know. He's smart and he's tough and he's reliable, under all the grime and the bad blood. And I used to be kinda awed by how stoic and, uh, efficient he was. I'm not going to defend his flaws, and I doubt that he'd defend mine."
Laurie regarded him speculatively.
"He's a lot better looking with the mask on though, huh?" she said.
Daniel just stared back at her.
She shrugged at him, as if to say, what? It's not like you've never said anything cruel about Rorschach before.
Daniel forgave her, even though he felt that he'd earned the right to make disparaging remarks about the guy, whereas she hadn't. "I figured you'd recognise him," he said. "What was it that tipped you off, specifically?"
"C'mon, Dan. No-one else talks like he does, even when he's trying to make his voice sound normal." Laurie's tone was wry. "What's the deal with you two, anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"He kept staring at me," Laurie replied. "Like Janey Slater used to stare at me."
Daniel took a moment to figure it out. "...Oh."
She shrugged again. "I always wondered. And whenever I considered the fact that you might be screwing, I felt really guilty, because it felt as if it would cheapen it, you know?"
When he saw the faint smile that she had, he realised that he'd been holding his breath. He relaxed slightly. "You think screwing cheapens things?"
"No, not really. That's how I used to feel, though. I was a kid, and it was the sixties. You know what stuff was like back then. Hell, I bet that most girls my age never would've imagined two men doing stuff together, but Mom was always kind of... educational." She eyed him. "You weren't screwing, were you?"
"Heh, I, er... No." Daniel was still too embarrassed to admit exactly how he got his black eye. "You know how conservative he is."
Laurie snorted. "Like that matters. What the hell is his deal, anyway?"
"I don't know. I don't think he knows what his deal is, either. Although, it'd be kind of a cliche, wouldn't it? The staunch right-wing guy who's a closet homosexual, or... Whatever." Daniel glanced at Laurie out the corner of his eye.
She glanced back at him, sizing him up. "You're a 'Whatever', right?"
"I guess. Although it was usually simpler to just date women." Not happier, not easier. Just simpler. "Not that I was, uh, some great Lothario with the ladies or anything, because I was always so busy with crimefighting, but... Maybe that doesn't make me a real..." Say it. "Y'know, a real bisexual." The word still felt too awkward for his mouth, as if it didn't really belong to him. He reminded himself that he was an adult, and it was perfectly alright for adults to discuss such things, in an adult sort of way.
She peered at him. "So, what, you're a fake bisexual? How do you know when you're a real bisexual, anyway? Do you get a little certificate?" She took the Scotch bottle back out of his hands. "God, I sound like my mother. Listen to us - it's the end of the world, and we're talking about sex. That either makes us really self-absorbed, or just human."
"We could talk about politics," Daniel suggested. We could talk about the attack. We could talk about death.
Laurie grimaced.
They fell into a comfortable silence. In the semi-darkness of the Veidt Building's lobby, he could almost believe that they were the last people on Earth - the thought was both indulgent and discomfiting. Daniel was suddenly glad that he wasn't alone. He covered Laurie's hand with his.
She looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, Dan."
"Stop saying that," he told her, gently.
Laurie frowned, and some of the old bitterness colored her expression again. "I can't leave Jon again. Not now. He's too vital to rebuilding things. I need to get him to cooperate. I'm the only person he really listens to."
Daniel found that he wasn't really surprised. "It's okay," he said, for her sake. He felt little more than a sense of quiet resignation, although he was aware that he'd probably be more upset about it at some point in the far future, once his mind had finished processing the various other things that had happened over the past few days. He didn't have much regret left to spare.
Laurie kept her gaze on the floor, and said nothing.
He managed a smile that probably wasn't very convincing. "Y'know, if the world's most powerful man does what you ask him to, then I guess that makes you the world's most powerful woman, huh?"
This made her glance up briefly, at least. "Yeah, great - I'm powerful because of my boyfriend." She pointed her fingers like a pistol, and aimed them at her head. "You've come a long way, baby."
It seemed inevitable that their conversation would return to the subject of Jon Osterman, so Daniel took a deep breath, and made himself ask, "What was the deal with Jon and Nova Express? The whole cancer smear campaign thing?"
"I don't want to talk about that. What's done is done," Laurie said quietly, and Daniel had to remind himself, if she wanted you to know, she'd tell you. Her gaze was distant, Cassandra-like. "I'll have to leave again tomorrow. We probably won't see each other again for a while."
"Oh."
"So," she said, with a sudden brittle cheer. "Is there anything I can do for you, before I go?"
Daniel could think of a few suggestions, but none of them were very gentlemanly - or feasible, for that matter. "You could try to get Veidt's people to give Rorschach's grappling gun back," he said, only half-sarcastic. "Who knows - Rorschach might even say thank you for it."
"Alright." Laurie offered him a slight grin that seemed to be genuine. "Y'know, you're a sweetie, Dan, but your taste in guys is kinda questionable."
"That's funny, he said exactly the same about my taste in women."
"And what would he know about girls, huh?" Laurie smirked, then looked Daniel up and down - the gesture was a little too ladylike to qualify as a leer. "...We would have made a good couple."
"Yeah."
She offered him the Scotch again. "Well, if we can't screw, at least we can drink."
===
At some point in the middle of the night, Rorschach was woken up by the sound of Daniel tripping over his own bed.
Rorschach ignored Daniel, and tried to sleep.
Sleeping was difficult. It had always been difficult. Sleeping was something that he was forced to do when his body and mind gave out, although a part of him - a sensible part, perhaps - would remain alert, so that he was always a heartbeat away from consciousness. He disliked the vulnerability. When he slept, he was no longer Rorschach. He made a point of forgetting his dreams.
But sleep still eluded him. Time passed, as inevitable as the movement of a glacier.
He fidgeted, careful to keep his face from touching the dry cotton of the pillow. Burns weren't like lacerations or broken bones: he found that burns were harder to ignore. The discomfort was a constant seething, the sort of pain that insinuated its way into everything, making disassociation difficult. It was annoying, but he could tolerate it. He could tolerate a lot, when he had to. Most people could. Humanity's mindless resilience was often underestimated.
The burns were just more injuries, and he didn't mind injuries so much. You usually knew where you stood with an injury: there were often clear lines of cause and effect. Physical discomfort was predictable. There were worse things. Granted, the recovery periods seemed to take longer as he grew older, but that was a simple fact of life - if anything, he was mildly perplexed by the fact that he was still around. Given his line of work, the prospect of old age had never been cause for concern.
He willed himself to remain still and keep his eyes closed, but lacked the patience. His eyes opened of their own accord. As his vision began to adjust to the darkness, he noted the details of the room that he could perceive; Daniel was a lumpy outline in the bed opposite. Rorschach wondered what the time was, although he knew better than to look at his watch: being aware of the slow passage of the seconds rarely helped.
Rorschach regarded Daniel. He could make out that Daniel had his back to him. Initially, Rorschach thought he was asleep.
Then he realized that he wasn't.
Rorschach studied him.
He recognised the way that Daniel's shoulders were hunched, the change in the rise and fall of his breathing, the barely-perceptible movement of his arm.
As a teenager, he had slept in a shared dormitory with other youths, and he was aware that there were certain things that people, other people, did. They did such things because they were desperate and lonely and lacking. The vice was a hollow comfort, but sometimes hollow comforts were the only ones available. (He'd convinced himself that the disgust outweighed the relief. He avoided it, except when he couldn't.)
Ridiculously, his next thought was that Daniel was doing it on purpose, to spite him. Then he reminded himself that Daniel must have assumed he was still asleep, although that did nothing to mitigate Rorschach's feeling of invasion. He tried to be lenient, even though leniency had never come easily to him: he acknowledged that the Veidt Building didn't allow for much privacy, and that their room was probably as private as it got. Then he changed his mind again and decided that, yes, Daniel was definitely doing it out of vindictiveness, a basic lack of human respect. Then he realized how absurd he was being, and that made it all the worse.
He wondered what Daniel was thinking about.
He hated Daniel for making him witness this moment of weakness, then hated himself for not turning away in disgust. Hate was easy and familiar. Unfortunately, hate was insufficient. He bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself, although he was already in pain, and it was doing very little to stop his body from reacting.
"Daniel," he said. His voice sounded too loud.
Daniel froze. Slowly, he sat upright, and zipped up his fly as discreetly as possible.
An enormous silence stretched out between them.
"Jesus, I wasn't... I didn't think..." Daniel began, but stopped there, offering no excuses. He sounded sad and lost and ashamed. "Sorry."
Sleep was most certainly out of the question, so Rorschach sat up, allowing him to study Daniel's face through the gloom. Daniel remained perfectly still and watched him carefully, as if anticipating reprisal. Rorschach tried to muster some contempt.
The situation felt as if it was unfair on the both of them.
"Pathetic," Rorschach said, quietly.
Perhaps Dan agreed, because he apparently lacked the spirit to argue. He stood up, keeping the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a ridiculous cape, and took a step towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Rorschach asked.
Daniel seemed to struggle for an answer. "I feel really messed up right now."
Hate and anger were obviously inadequate, so Rorschach abandoned them and settled with tired resignation. "Stay," he said. It came out sounding like the sort of command that you would give to a dog, which wasn't his intention.
Daniel stopped, and sat back down on his bed, opposite. He propped his elbows on his knees and looked down at his hands. Rorschach refused to think about what those hands had been doing just a moment ago.
Rorschach tried to think of something else to say. Talking to Daniel was always either very easy, or very difficult.
"Pathetic," Rorschach repeated, and wasn't sure which of them he was referring to.
"Yeah, well," murmured Daniel.
Rorschach wanted to tell Daniel to stop looking so miserable, because it bothered him. It bothered him far more than the prospect of moral weakness, much to his chagrin. His feelings were not ones that he had chosen.
"Sorry I hit you," he said, apropos of nothing.
Daniel glanced up, to stare at him. "Huh?"
Rorschach tried to elaborate: "The eye."
"Oh."
Then he wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but he had his hands on Daniel's shoulders, as if his body was a step ahead of the conscious part of his brain that was still trying desperately to be Rorschach. He almost kissed him, then remembered that his mouth tasted as if something had died in it and, more importantly, that kissing Daniel would be morally wrong, then he sat there and felt idiotic until it occurred to him that he should tell Daniel to pull himself together. He started to say that.
Daniel kissed him anyway. Their teeth banged together. Daniel tasted of alcohol. Rorschach quickly pulled back.
"What?" said Daniel.
Rorschach searched for a reason to stop things. "Is this because you were rejected by Juspeczyk?"
"I wasn't rejected by her," Daniel said. The sentence seemed like a half-truth, and Rorschach knew better than to believe it. Still, Daniel looked dejected; there was a shade of that old post-retirement loneliness, so wretched that it was almost repellent. "But, god, if you think that I'm... I mean..."
"Not sure what to think."
Daniel sighed, and leaned forwards, resting his forehead against Rorschach's. "Don't you ever get tired of hating everyone and everything?" he murmured.
Rorschach couldn't reply.
"Life's too short," said Daniel, then pulled down on Rorschach's collar to expose the base of his throat; he kissed him there, as if to appease him.
Daniel's breath was warm against Rorschach's skin, and it was the sort of warmth that felt right; it wasn't the heat of fever or furnaces. It was like the warmth of morphine. Rorschach felt the world untethering itself. There were two voices at the back of his mind, one saying this is false and it won't last, the other saying you're going to have to live with it.
"What do you want me to do?" Daniel asked, suddenly nervous.
It was the last question that he wanted to hear. The opiate feeling of security faded, and was replaced by something colder, nastier, and far less strange.
There was a horrible moment where they stared at each other, deadlocked, both expecting the other one to be proactive. Then Daniel said, "Well, screw it," and began to unfasten Rorschach's pants.
Rorschach let him, and looked up at the ceiling; he told himself that he didn't believe in God, although he was still unable to dismiss the belief that he was being observed and judged. In some ways, the feeling of condemnation felt right; it felt correct. If his guilt had been absent, he would have missed it. It was strange: as much as he tried to convince himself that what they were doing was immoral, it still wasn't enough to deter him from doing it. Guilt, like hate, was also insufficient. He wondered what was left for him, if guilt and propriety were no longer enough: there was a horrible sense of defeat.
He gripped the edges of the bed as he felt Daniel's hand reach between his legs - Daniel's palms were rough, which came as an odd sort of relief, because there was something honest about discomfort. He closed his eyes.
"I haven't done this in ages," Daniel said apologetically, and Rorschach would have told him to shut up if he hadn't been biting his tongue. He heard Daniel move slightly, changing position, then felt cold air on exposed flesh. He tried to disconnect his mind from it; part of him wished that he was somewhere else, while another part of him wanted to remain present. The duality was disconcerting, although dichotomy should have been something that he was familiar with.
Then he felt Daniel's mouth in a place where Daniel's mouth really shouldn't have been, and thinking became difficult. He was suddenly unable to remember what pain had ever felt like; he was suddenly unable to remember much at all. He was aware of curling his fingers in Daniel's hair, making Daniel flinch. The only emotion that really persisted was the guilt: even at that moment, he still enjoyed hurting Daniel in some small way. He wasn't sure if it was because he believed that Daniel deserved it, for doing this to him, or if it was something else.
Something in him - blind instinct, perhaps - was trying to compel him to stop analyzing things, to give up and simply yield to sensation, but things were never allowed to be that easy. Even as his mind felt as if it was burning itself out, going blank like an over-exposed photograph, like an excess of lightness, he still tried to hold on to his sense of reason, to a reality and a rationality that were probably obsolete. In the end, though, the only real thing that he could focus on was the feeling of Daniel's head under his hand, and the awful trust that it necessitated.
His hips bucked of their own accord, and the climax was like a reflex, as if his body found such things almost natural.
He felt Daniel swallow, and the lust subsided. It was followed by revulsion. When Daniel drew back and let him go, Rorschach didn't look down, or dare touch himself. The world seemed softer around the edges, although he could still imagine how he must have looked.
Daniel remained on his knees, head bowed, one hand between his own legs as he dealt with himself; he made quiet, soft sounds that Rorschach seemed to feel deep inside his chest. Rorschach spared him a quick glance, then decided to avoid watching him, because the situation was confusing enough already. The vulnerability of the other man made him uncomfortable. Out the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of how Daniel shuddered; he saw the expression of almost-pain that crossed his face. It made Rorschach feel as if he'd stolen something from Daniel, something that he didn't necessarily want.
Then reality settled in again. Daniel took a grubby handkerchief out of his pocket and cleaned himself off.
"You alright?" said Daniel, quietly.
Rorschach nodded. He concentrated on fastening his pants again, as his hands seemed to belong to someone else. He absently bit the inside of his cheek, forcing his mind to focus, dispelling the illusion of a softer world.
Daniel looked and gave him the sort of cautious, earnest smile that was probably meant to be reassuring, but actually made everything worse. The smile was both harmless and repulsive; like a featherless bird. You're aware of how fragile it is, while at the same time wanting to stomp on it, Rorschach thought, feeling stupid.
He made a point of briefly meeting Daniel's eyes, just to show that he was fine.
"So, what now?" Daniel said, because it had to be asked, even if Rorschach didn't want to answer it.
Rorschach replied, "It's late. Should sleep."
To his irritation, Daniel obeyed without question. They went to their separate beds.
When Rorschach was sure that Daniel really was asleep, he sat up and decided to wait for morning. For the first time in years, he thought of his mother, and the taste of blood in his mouth made him nauseous.
===