watchmen has taken over my brain. that's ok, but. i wasn't using it for anything.
Back by popular demand (from the voices in my head), my OT3 of doom AU. Those newcomers up back may need the context of the first bit life or its reverse, and the other bit three times Dan, Laurie and Rorschach need to hide can’t hurt, but I was never fussed on chronology.
Warning: if you need to be warned for sex, violence or spoilers, you might be in the wrong fandom. I hear avatar is nice this time of year. Oh, star trek has just got a very nice zachary quinto in.
Much love and respect to dytabytes and mildmannered for a protracted beta. I need people to tell me not to suck.
Also, I can’t work without music, so a round of cookies to orangesparks and fated_addiction for excellent mixes.
Last but not least, sultry siren snarkitysnarks. This one’s for you.
moral winter ~ a fugue in two parts
part one ~ in the city’s shadow
Dan has had plenty of girlfriends before.
Well, maybe not plenty, but enough.
And Laurie, though her only long-term relationship was a government-sanctioned reward to a superhuman, has experience.
She tells stories, when they’re alone, that make him blush, make him hot.
But Dan knows, has always known, really, that Rorschach has never been loved. Metaphorically or literally. It was there in the set of his shoulders and the limits of his language, Dan just never thought about it. He was good at what he did; he was brilliant on occasion. Rorschach was so good Dan never wondered about the life that could have produced such single-minded devotion to a cause.
He thinks about it now. He can see, and it breaks him, when Rorschach twitches away from a touch, or bites hard on Laurie’s shoulder, or looks down at him, eyes burning bright. This relationship, the sharing, it’s new to Dan, but it is a revelation to Rorschach.
He thought he would die.
(There are too many hands.)
He should be dead by now.
(He breathes in ice, and sweat, and sex.)
He is not dead.
(The snow looks exactly like sugar.)
Most of the way back to New York, Dan wasn’t thinking about what to do next. He was thinking something like “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I just had sex with Rorschach, I just had sex with Laurie, I’m alive, millions of people are dead but we’re alive, we’re alive, I’m alive.” Mostly, he was just hanging on to Laurie, hanging on to his sanity, trying not to laugh or cry hysterically.
About a month ago, the highlight of his week was getting drunk with Hollis.
Then Rorschach turned up in his kitchen.
Then Dan seriously started contemplating an imminent apocalypse.
Then he had sex with Laurie.
Then Hollis died violently.
Then Adrian turned out to be playing god with millions of lives.
Then Laurie punched Rorschach.
Then Laurie kissed Rorschach.
Then things got really crazy.
It wasn’t until Rorschach inexpertly landed that Dan’s brain kicks into gear.
“Right,” he pulls away from Laurie, still sleeping, murmuring on the floor. “We need clothes. And cash, and identities. We need to hide from Adrian, I’m not sure how long this mercy of his will last. We need,” Dan trails off because Rorschach is looking at him and Dan may never get used to him having eyes.
“Daniel?” Without the mask and hat, he seems naked. He stands, scarf hanging loose. Dan can see the dirt and bruises and dark bite marks blending into bright scars and freckles.
“What,” his fists curl and uncurl, gloves and bones creaking, “What are we?”
Dan doesn’t know. Not heroes. Not friends, or partners, or Minutemen. Not even Crimebusters.
“We,” Dan clears his throat, “are alive.”
Laurie sits up, suddenly, gasping. She looks around, wide-eyed, not seeing. Her hands skitter against the console as she stands, breathing hard. She staggers, just a little, still exhausted, and Dan steps forward but Rorschach has her elbow and shoulder. She stares, at both of them. She inhales, slowly.
“That happened? Didn’t it?” Dan glances at Rorschach, hands tight and face blank again, and nods. Laurie nods back, taking his hand in hers and sliding her arm about Rorschach’s waist.
“Good,” and her voice is the most solid, sure thing in the world.
That day, they really should have travelled as far as fast as possible, but the first thing they did was wash. Laurie, then Dan, then Rorschach on a two to one vote, showered in the cramped little cubicle, scrubbing at blood and sweat and grime and so much that would never come off. Then they ate, quietly, by candlelight. His ice cream is melting and there’s no way to cook, so it’s over-ripe fruit, stale bread and cold beans (it might have been funny if they didn’t taste so damn good). Then they slept, heavily, profoundly, side by side by side, together in the dark, in the bed Dan had kept to himself for years.
His mind. His mind is not his mind.
There are too many. (Too many people.)
His face.
They. She. She, and Daniel, too.
His face is gone.
He must take exercise.
Too many. (Too many minds.)
Dan wakes up at dawn, Laurie’s long soft hair trailing over his face. He rolls over and remembers half of New York is dead. It takes him some time to shake off the shock and realise Rorschach is gone. He climbs hastily out of bed, panicking, too have lost him, so soon after finally having him, after promising. Laurie wakes up, smiles at him for half a second before remembering too. The look in her eyes kills him all over again. Dan drops onto the bed, reaching out to her, “Where’s Rorschach?” she asks.
Dan stumbles down the stairs, buttoning his pants, stops, not knowing where to start, how to begin. He wishes very dearly to still be asleep when Rorschach walks in the front door. The apocalypse has come and he can still surprise Dan.
Rorschach stands, just inside the door, not moving, not breathing. That’s my shirt, Dan thinks inanely.
“Thought,” he chokes, “thought I could see it. Thought I could measure the,” his fist comes up to his face, as if to wipe away tears, but there is nothing there, “damage.”
He can hear Laurie, descending slowly. “But it’s like your eyes aren’t big enough.” Rorschach looks up at her voice. “Your mind can’t carry it all. All that,” she stands by Dan, pressing against him, out of words, out of energy.
“Death,” says Rorschach. “Thought I knew death. Thought I knew,” he covers his face with his hands and doesn’t pull away when Dan rests his forehead against the interlaced fingers, or when Laurie lays the side of her face on his curved shoulders. They are surrounding him, holding him up.
It is different to what happened before. (Different to anything, the disgusting
dreams, the nightmare.)
(There are too many.)
It’s slower, softer, and he panics. (Too many people.)
Daniel puts one hand over his heart and one at his waist.
(Too many people are dead.)
He could break Daniel’s wrist.
He shouldn’t break Daniel’s wrist.
She kisses his forehead and her fingernails cut into his skin.
Late in the day, soldiers come into the house. Dan’s a little fuzzy on reality right now, but Rorschach seems to be holding a whispered conversation with a fiercely gesticulating Laurie. He really isn’t sure why until he hears heavy (military) boots climbing the stairs. Dan, propelled by some reserve of emergency instinct, pushes both of them into the corner, between the door and the cupboard, and waits with them, counting his breaths. He can hear the men, only two, talking sombrely but not surreptitiously, wandering along the hall. One coughs and it’s muffled by something and Dan realises, then. They’re not looking for fugitives. They’re looking for bodies. The door swings open, bumping into Dan’s shoulder. His heart stops, he wants to reach for his belt, he wants to call up Archie, he notices that he’s naked. Then it’s all he can do to not laugh, laugh until he dies because Rorschach is naked, and so is Laurie, and they’re all playing a treacherous game of hide-and-seek in the nude.
The soldiers leave without checking behind the door. Laurie looks concerned by Dan’s frantic convulsions but Rorschach is getting dressed facing the wall, which only makes it funnier.
So they cut Laurie’s hair and put a hat on Rorschach and hope all the cops looking for them are dead. With a couple of grand in cash, Dan finds a place in Brooklyn where a woman had aborted her child in the living room. He has an elaborate back-story for all of them, but the landlord just wants to know if he’s willing to deal with the bloodstain himself. He decides not to enlighten Laurie, out locating food in the New York’s first snow. (It will gently blanket Times Square.) He tells Rorschach to find her and hides the unused crib first, crying all the time. He is dry-eyed and attacking the rusty splash with steel wool and bleach when they get back. They turned up with bottled water, bagged rice and some cans. Laurie now has a six-month supply of hair dye.
He is meant to find her.
He finds faces.
Blank and black.
He can only watch them, their empty eyes.
(Too many faces.)
That’s why he doesn’t hear her, see her until she’s right next to him, soft and hard
and calling him Rorschach.
He’s not entirely sure that he is Rorschach, because
Rorschach doesn’t have such thoughts. (Too many thoughts.)
He can see her words, hot in the cold night air.
“Three, please.”
(There is ice in her hair, like sugar.)
part two ~ at the hue of the skies
Warning: if you need to be warned for sex, violence or spoilers, you might be in the wrong fandom. I hear avatar is nice this time of year. Oh, star trek has just got a very nice zachary quinto in.
Much love and respect to dytabytes and mildmannered for a protracted beta. I need people to tell me not to suck.
Also, I can’t work without music, so a round of cookies to orangesparks and fated_addiction for excellent mixes.
Last but not least, sultry siren snarkitysnarks. This one’s for you.
moral winter ~ a fugue in two parts
part one ~ in the city’s shadow
Dan has had plenty of girlfriends before.
Well, maybe not plenty, but enough.
And Laurie, though her only long-term relationship was a government-sanctioned reward to a superhuman, has experience.
She tells stories, when they’re alone, that make him blush, make him hot.
But Dan knows, has always known, really, that Rorschach has never been loved. Metaphorically or literally. It was there in the set of his shoulders and the limits of his language, Dan just never thought about it. He was good at what he did; he was brilliant on occasion. Rorschach was so good Dan never wondered about the life that could have produced such single-minded devotion to a cause.
He thinks about it now. He can see, and it breaks him, when Rorschach twitches away from a touch, or bites hard on Laurie’s shoulder, or looks down at him, eyes burning bright. This relationship, the sharing, it’s new to Dan, but it is a revelation to Rorschach.
He thought he would die.
(There are too many hands.)
He should be dead by now.
(He breathes in ice, and sweat, and sex.)
He is not dead.
(The snow looks exactly like sugar.)
Most of the way back to New York, Dan wasn’t thinking about what to do next. He was thinking something like “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I just had sex with Rorschach, I just had sex with Laurie, I’m alive, millions of people are dead but we’re alive, we’re alive, I’m alive.” Mostly, he was just hanging on to Laurie, hanging on to his sanity, trying not to laugh or cry hysterically.
About a month ago, the highlight of his week was getting drunk with Hollis.
Then Rorschach turned up in his kitchen.
Then Dan seriously started contemplating an imminent apocalypse.
Then he had sex with Laurie.
Then Hollis died violently.
Then Adrian turned out to be playing god with millions of lives.
Then Laurie punched Rorschach.
Then Laurie kissed Rorschach.
Then things got really crazy.
It wasn’t until Rorschach inexpertly landed that Dan’s brain kicks into gear.
“Right,” he pulls away from Laurie, still sleeping, murmuring on the floor. “We need clothes. And cash, and identities. We need to hide from Adrian, I’m not sure how long this mercy of his will last. We need,” Dan trails off because Rorschach is looking at him and Dan may never get used to him having eyes.
“Daniel?” Without the mask and hat, he seems naked. He stands, scarf hanging loose. Dan can see the dirt and bruises and dark bite marks blending into bright scars and freckles.
“What,” his fists curl and uncurl, gloves and bones creaking, “What are we?”
Dan doesn’t know. Not heroes. Not friends, or partners, or Minutemen. Not even Crimebusters.
“We,” Dan clears his throat, “are alive.”
Laurie sits up, suddenly, gasping. She looks around, wide-eyed, not seeing. Her hands skitter against the console as she stands, breathing hard. She staggers, just a little, still exhausted, and Dan steps forward but Rorschach has her elbow and shoulder. She stares, at both of them. She inhales, slowly.
“That happened? Didn’t it?” Dan glances at Rorschach, hands tight and face blank again, and nods. Laurie nods back, taking his hand in hers and sliding her arm about Rorschach’s waist.
“Good,” and her voice is the most solid, sure thing in the world.
That day, they really should have travelled as far as fast as possible, but the first thing they did was wash. Laurie, then Dan, then Rorschach on a two to one vote, showered in the cramped little cubicle, scrubbing at blood and sweat and grime and so much that would never come off. Then they ate, quietly, by candlelight. His ice cream is melting and there’s no way to cook, so it’s over-ripe fruit, stale bread and cold beans (it might have been funny if they didn’t taste so damn good). Then they slept, heavily, profoundly, side by side by side, together in the dark, in the bed Dan had kept to himself for years.
His mind. His mind is not his mind.
There are too many. (Too many people.)
His face.
They. She. She, and Daniel, too.
His face is gone.
He must take exercise.
Too many. (Too many minds.)
Dan wakes up at dawn, Laurie’s long soft hair trailing over his face. He rolls over and remembers half of New York is dead. It takes him some time to shake off the shock and realise Rorschach is gone. He climbs hastily out of bed, panicking, too have lost him, so soon after finally having him, after promising. Laurie wakes up, smiles at him for half a second before remembering too. The look in her eyes kills him all over again. Dan drops onto the bed, reaching out to her, “Where’s Rorschach?” she asks.
Dan stumbles down the stairs, buttoning his pants, stops, not knowing where to start, how to begin. He wishes very dearly to still be asleep when Rorschach walks in the front door. The apocalypse has come and he can still surprise Dan.
Rorschach stands, just inside the door, not moving, not breathing. That’s my shirt, Dan thinks inanely.
“Thought,” he chokes, “thought I could see it. Thought I could measure the,” his fist comes up to his face, as if to wipe away tears, but there is nothing there, “damage.”
He can hear Laurie, descending slowly. “But it’s like your eyes aren’t big enough.” Rorschach looks up at her voice. “Your mind can’t carry it all. All that,” she stands by Dan, pressing against him, out of words, out of energy.
“Death,” says Rorschach. “Thought I knew death. Thought I knew,” he covers his face with his hands and doesn’t pull away when Dan rests his forehead against the interlaced fingers, or when Laurie lays the side of her face on his curved shoulders. They are surrounding him, holding him up.
It is different to what happened before. (Different to anything, the disgusting
dreams, the nightmare.)
(There are too many.)
It’s slower, softer, and he panics. (Too many people.)
Daniel puts one hand over his heart and one at his waist.
(Too many people are dead.)
He could break Daniel’s wrist.
He shouldn’t break Daniel’s wrist.
She kisses his forehead and her fingernails cut into his skin.
Late in the day, soldiers come into the house. Dan’s a little fuzzy on reality right now, but Rorschach seems to be holding a whispered conversation with a fiercely gesticulating Laurie. He really isn’t sure why until he hears heavy (military) boots climbing the stairs. Dan, propelled by some reserve of emergency instinct, pushes both of them into the corner, between the door and the cupboard, and waits with them, counting his breaths. He can hear the men, only two, talking sombrely but not surreptitiously, wandering along the hall. One coughs and it’s muffled by something and Dan realises, then. They’re not looking for fugitives. They’re looking for bodies. The door swings open, bumping into Dan’s shoulder. His heart stops, he wants to reach for his belt, he wants to call up Archie, he notices that he’s naked. Then it’s all he can do to not laugh, laugh until he dies because Rorschach is naked, and so is Laurie, and they’re all playing a treacherous game of hide-and-seek in the nude.
The soldiers leave without checking behind the door. Laurie looks concerned by Dan’s frantic convulsions but Rorschach is getting dressed facing the wall, which only makes it funnier.
So they cut Laurie’s hair and put a hat on Rorschach and hope all the cops looking for them are dead. With a couple of grand in cash, Dan finds a place in Brooklyn where a woman had aborted her child in the living room. He has an elaborate back-story for all of them, but the landlord just wants to know if he’s willing to deal with the bloodstain himself. He decides not to enlighten Laurie, out locating food in the New York’s first snow. (It will gently blanket Times Square.) He tells Rorschach to find her and hides the unused crib first, crying all the time. He is dry-eyed and attacking the rusty splash with steel wool and bleach when they get back. They turned up with bottled water, bagged rice and some cans. Laurie now has a six-month supply of hair dye.
He is meant to find her.
He finds faces.
Blank and black.
He can only watch them, their empty eyes.
(Too many faces.)
That’s why he doesn’t hear her, see her until she’s right next to him, soft and hard
and calling him Rorschach.
He’s not entirely sure that he is Rorschach, because
Rorschach doesn’t have such thoughts. (Too many thoughts.)
He can see her words, hot in the cold night air.
“Three, please.”
(There is ice in her hair, like sugar.)
part two ~ at the hue of the skies