Giving Up The Ghost, a watchmen fanfic

Title: Giving Up The Ghost
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, manner, or form, own the Watchmen or the characters said comic/ film adaption contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Alan Moore and I do believe DC. No copyright infringement is intended.
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters: Nite Owl II, Rorschach
Continuity: Comic, Dan's retirement
Warnings: Language
Summary: Sometimes the best you can offer the world is just knowing when to give in.
Author's Note: I'll just leave this here, then. Hard criticism encouraged, approved, and adored.

Admittedly, he had expected a more… well, explosive reaction.

Any reaction at all, actually, would have been nice. Anything but this oddly unsurprised silence, and the slight nod that followed it. Perhaps an argument. They could exchange increasingly heated words, work themselves up from there to fists, could scream at each other like starving alley cats. Maybe that would be enough; they would go their separate ways, nursing hurt pride and more besides, and cut it all off, clean and quick. Or maybe he could have convinced Rorschach to follow him home, and they could have awkwardly shared a tense kitchen table, and quietly make their apologies – well, more likely Dan making his apologies and Rorschach… staring at him from across the table. Or just nodding and walking out. Hell. He didn't know what to think anymore.

Still, it would have been better than this stifling hush, where implications bloomed and died in the space of breaths.

Maybe Rorschach could have convinced him to hold on.

Instead, the quiet between them dragged on, Archie's mechanical hums and clicks counting out the seconds, and Dan's words hung uncontested in the air.

"So, uh. So I guess this is it, then? I mean, with the Keene act and all, we can't really, I couldn't just, well, it's out of my hands really," Dan, desperate for some validation, clutched the steering wheel with both hands, looked straight ahead, the city spread out before them, below them. So peaceful from above, just points of light and the outlines of giants. "I guess we don't have any choice at all."

On the periphery of his vision, Rorschach nodded again, otherwise unmoving.

It was too much.

"Good God, can you at least say something?"

Tick, offered Archie.

Tick.

Rorschach shrugged. "Nothing to say."

Tick.

This was stupid. He should have just said it from the offset, when Rorschach had appeared at the door to his basement, like a clockwork man, like some sort of machine. He had been prepared, then, still in his regular clothes, Nite Owl costume hung innocently on the rack. But instead, he had coughed politely, had scurried upstairs to get changed, had ducked into Archie with an almost comical sense of relief. And it had gone like any other night, really. Quiet. Mostly uneventful. Until, of course, he had broken the status quo, had blurted out a half-garbled version of what he had meant, and blew it all to hell.

If something had happened, if something could have distracted him for a moment or maybe he could have, could have been…

"It might be better this way. We're getting off lucky. Just, just look at what happened to the Minutemen."

Tick.

"We have an out, now. Normal lives. It's for the best, for everybody. We. We're not exactly popular, right now."

Tick.

"Daniel."

It was kind of pathetic the way his heart skipped.

"Yeah?"

Tick.

"Drop me here."

"It's uh. It's no trouble, I can still take you all the way back to my place."

"No. Here fine."

Tick.

"Listen. I, uh. If you need to. If. Uh. We can't do this. The police will, will be going after us if we keep it up. It's just not worth it. There's not enough of us to, well." Dan licked his lips, drifting as slowly as he could toward the street level. Not enough time, anymore, he could feel it closing in around him, thick and palpable, and, damn it all, he wished he had never put the suit back on. "And the police don't— they don't like you already—"

"Don't need to like it."

"Rorschach. We can't. We have an out, now." Almost at the safe height to land. Rorschach had already undone his seatbelt, still staring out ahead, watching his city welcome him home. Home to side streets and alleys and garbage and people who had never really needed them at all.

"Don't need one."

"You don't have to— here, let me just take you home, we can talk—"

"Here, Daniel."

Dammit, dammit all— "I can't do this anymore. I just can't."

Rorschach stood, shrugged again, walked to the hatch.

"If you…" Dan trailed off, uncertain of how he should frame what he meant. He was tripping all over himself, stumbling about like a blind man through his words and intentions. "You don't have to."

At last, at long last, Rorschach turned his head, gaze unreadable as his inkblot face, but more than enough to make his point for him. The silence stretched, grew, and at last snapped; there was nothing else for it. Dan hit the button for the hatch, the pneumatic hiss a little too final for his liking. He should have just flown straight home. Should've just spilled his guts at the stairs. Should've kept his mouth shut.

Stupid.

He lifted up his goggles to rub at the corners of his eyes, trying to forestall the looming stress migraine by force of will alone. This wasn't half as clean as he'd hoped it would be. "I guess I'll see you around, then?" he said ruefully, turning about in his seat to offer an apologetic smile.

He should have known it was too late.

He knew it was too late.

Stiffly, he turned back to the window, hit the hatch button. The silence stretched, grew, and died again, until it was just Archie, just his breathing, just his fingers creaking as they tightened a stranglehold on the wheel.

"Hell."