Disclaimer: I own nothing. Seriously. It's the property of DC comics, and WB and of course Alan Moore and… I am small and insignificant.
Warning: AU? Like big time? Idea from a prompt at the Watchmen Kink meme over on the LJ.
He stares at the file box placed in his arms. It's quite ordinary looking, a little bit dusty and tattered from nearly ten years in some storage room…
On the side of the box, neatly written in bold black ink is the name: Kovacs, W. J.
"It would be best if you destroyed the contents of that box, when the two of you return home."
He blinks, staring at Rorscha--- no, Walter, you have to call him Walter now --- Walter's shrink. Dr. Long is probably about ten years older than them, heavy set, but with a jovial face for a man in the grim occupation of institutional psychiatrist.
He takes a peek into the box and sees a glimmer of black on white, and quickly shuts the box again. Dr. Long nods.
"Shouldn't he have to--- you know--- face it? Throw it away himself? Wouldn't it be more meaningful that way?"
"Walter is not like an alcoholic, while he is now capable of functioning normally in society now, he is still very ill. He needs to be kept away from the… temptations of the past."
"Oh." He shifts uncomfortably, eyes straying back to the box in his arms and the contents inside.
"How did you say you knew Walter, again," Dr. Long asks pointedly, eyes narrowing.
"We--- we were friends --- went to the same gym, neighbors…" He coughs. He's nervous and he really doesn't have to be, because the papers are all signed and Walter is going to be coming home with him today, whether Dr. Long likes it or not… after all, the man's only here as a formality, as Rorscha-Walter's first shrink, before he made a name for himself studying Ror—Walter's illness.
The loud clank and groan of the heavy iron door that separates them from the patients ends their conversation.
Standing between a grim looking nurse and a burly orderly stands a… quite ordinary man, his head ducked. He's short, with a wild thatch of orange-red hair, and… freckles?
"You'll remember to take your medication, won't you Walter," The nurse asks sternly, giving him a sharp look.
Walter nods.
"It's important that you take your medication, Walter," Dr. Long insists, "You don't want another relapse."
Walter's head lifts, revealing dull brown eyes that glance at him only for a moment before sliding over to Dr. Long.
"No," His guts freeze for an instant as he watches the orderly, the nurse, Dr. Long all tense, ready to haul Walter back to his court-appointed tomb. Walter licks his lips and swallows, "I will take my medication," Walter drones, and the relief in the room is palpable.
The nurse steps up to him, handing him a large bottle of pills.
"He's to take these, every day. It'll be very bad if he doesn't."
He glances at the label: Lithium… Christ…
"Are you ready to go, Walter," He asks, shifting the box over onto one hip, smiling with brightness that this crowded little visiting room won't allow him to feel.
"Enn--- Yes--- I am ---ready to go."
"Let's go."
He leads Rorschach out to where the cab is waiting them, idling nervously outside the city's psychiatric institute as if could catch insanity by simply breathing the air too long.
The box he places in the trunk, before getting into the cab alongside Walter.
"I didn't think you'd recognize me…," He says as the silence between them is only filled with the sound of the cabbie's music.
"Always recognize you, Daniel," Walter grunts, shooting a dirty look at the cabbie after squinting to read his identification and glaring out at the window.
"Things change a lot in ten years…"
"Some things stay the same…" Walter mumbles, his eyes drifting shut as he slumps against the window.
Even in sleep, the harshness of Walter's features remain. He's paler than he expected and thinner than he remembered, undoubtedly a side effect of institution living. Of course he hardly ever saw the man without his bulky leather trench coat back in those days... a trench that's probably gone stiff with age and lack of wear trapped in the cardboard box in the trunk.
He shakes Walter's shoulder as the cab stops in front of his stoop some time later, watching Walter struggle and blink myopically as he rouses. He pays the cabbie and retrieves the box.
There are no photographers or reporters outside, thank god, he hadn't known what to expect, honestly…. After all it wasn't everyday that the infamous vigilante Rorschach was released into the public after ten years in a state mental hospital… but the world had pretty much forgotten about masks and vigilantes since the Keene Act. In the light of impending nuclear holocaust, one man who disappeared from the public eye ten years ago didn't seem so important.
"Home, sweet home…" He mumbles, setting the box down on the ground as he fumbles for his keys. Walter leans against the door jamb, looking about the neighborhood curiously. Rorschach would've had kicked the door in by now… but those days were gone and they were better off without them…
The following is a clipping from the editorial section of The Nova Express June 22nd, 1975:
RORSCHACH UNMASKED!
By Doug Roth
Last night, just before this paper went to press, the vigilante known as "Rorschach" was discovered at the scene of arson and apprehended. Neighbors claim to have heard screaming coming from building, which had begun to fade into mere echoes when the police and fire department arrived on the scene. While it is unknown at the time of printing whether or not there was anyone within the building, in consideration of Rorschach's violent tendencies, renown even amongst masks, I find the idea that someone wasn't in that building preposterous. This is what happens when we let people run around and dispense their own justice, especially those with mask fetishes.
Ozymandias, now known to be Adrian Veidt, set the appropriate example for his fellow masks by coming out of the figurative closet and revealing his true identity. These other "superheroes", if you can call them that, masquerading as dispensers of justice are cowards, misfits who couldn't pass muster in one of the many legitimate outlets for their pathological need for "justice" as they call it.
At least with police we know that they've passed some sort of psychological profile, unlike some of the psychopaths playing dress up. With the police they have overseers but who watches the Watchmen?