It had rained that night. The thick stench of hot, wet pavement stung Rorschach's nostrils as he skulked about his usual streets. It was June, one of his least favorite months. Children were everywhere during the day, loud and excited about getting out of school for the summer, and it was far too warm and sticky. Definitely one of his least favorite months. So on this particular night he was in a particularly bad mood. Even so he made his nightly patrol, keeping watch for those not even the police could touch. It was his life, his duty to protect the scraps of innocence left in this city and slaughter the monsters that harmed them.
.
As Rorschach approached a narrow alleyway between a tailor and a deli, some rattling in the metal trash cans caught his attention. He stepped into the shadows of the alley cautiously, his right hand reaching for the can and his left curling into a tight fist. He tilted his head in curiosity as one of the cans continued to jolt and shudder. Quickly he hopped around it to face whoever (or whatever) was making the sound. To his discontent it was only a thin, ruffled tuxedo cat. The cat stared up at him with wide yellow eyes but did not make any attempts to retreat.
"Go on," Rorschach grunted to the cat, "Run away." The cat stayed put, dipping its symmetrically patterned face lower to the ground. It gave a soft, single meow that almost sounded questioning. Why wasn't it running away and waiting for him to leave? Rorschach then noticed what was in the trash can. A perfectly fresh round of ham had been thrown out form the deli, probably from falling on the floor or something stupid like that. The cat meowed once more and lifted a small white paw. On an impulse, Rorschach took the ham out of the can and dropped it in front of the cat. It jumped back at the suddenness of the action but gratefully began tearing into the meat. Rorschach grumbled to himself at the cat's method. It was not often to find a feral cat smart enough to actually ask a human to get food that was out of reach. But he did not have the time to ponder this as not a block away a woman screamed for help. Abandoning all thoughts of the cat, Rorschach sprinted to the source of the sound. A thirty-something woman was being violently thrown to the ground by a teenage boy with a black hooded sweatshirt. He was holding onto her purse but paused as he looked down at her, possibly contemplating more violence. Rorschach did not give him the opportunity to attempt it. He grasped the boy's head from behind and easily snapped his neck. He fell to the ground, dead. The woman cried and whimpered miserably, making a pathetic attempt to back away from her vulnerable position on the pavement. Rorschach calmly dug his hands into his pockets and glanced at her.
"Safe now," he rasped, "You can go." But then a blunt force struck him from his right side, knocking him off his feet. The kid had had a partner in crime, hidden form view until now. The second boy did not give Rorschach a chance to stand. He repeatedly kicked at his sides and occasionally his jaw. Rorschach, now incredibly annoyed, grabbed hold of the kid's leg and yanked him down.
"Go!" he snarled at the woman. She grabbed her purse and took off running in the opposite direction. Standing, Rorschach placed one well-aimed stomp on the boy's nose and he moved no more. Blood pooled from the wound rapidly. If he was still alive he wouldn't be much longer. Winded, Rorschach hobbled to the end of the street where the shadows would conceal him. He was almost certain he had broken ribs and a badly bruised and nearly dislocated jaw. He slumped into a sitting position, clutching his side. Catch breath, he thought, then move. He sat for quite a few minutes, the pain restricting his lungs from expanding fully. Suddenly he heard a soft meow near his ankles. The cat from before had followed him and now it was watching him curiously, its yellow eyes round and its white-tipped tail upright and quivering.
"What?" he grunted at the cat. It murred and rubbed the length of its body against his leg. It walked up to his torso and sat on its haunches, purring. He was about to push it away and kick it until it scampered off but then something about its markings caught his eye. It was purely black and white, no grey, and its patches of white were perfectly symmetrical. This was a stray, a wandering, unwanted runt of a cat that most people kicked around and called an ugly piece of vermin. But these people didn't see the striking details of the black and white, the intelligence of using a larger creature to get its food. No, the cat was far from ugly. To Rorschach at least it was...
"Beautiful..."
.
A/N: Argh, why do I lie to myself and stay up all night typing? Anyway I got really weird inspiration for this. I was brushing cat hair off my Rorschach shirt. No lie. So yeah, it's pretty crappy and not entirely in character but hell, I needed to write something. I have really bad pre-convention stress and I need to let it out. I've tried creating Pokemon abominations, making sure absolutely everything is ready for AnimeNEXT this weekend, and listening to music that I adore but nothing has worked. Until I started writing this. Why didn't I think of writing out stress before? *sigh* I'm an idiot.