Title:
Dichtomy
Pairings : Nite Owl II / Rorschach, Silk Spectre II/ Nite
owl
Time period : 1985
Warnings : None, really. Excessive
use of sentence fragments.
Summary : Short looks into Rorschach's
relationships with Daniel and Laurel.
He was not a small wounded animal. He did not seek nor need redemption. He was redemption. Was justice. Black and white was very beautiful. Simple; clean. Like his fist hitting the face of a criminal.
Whores solicit him. Seem to want to touch him; do not want Walter; want imagined money of greasy, dirty, prophet of doom. He does not want Walter; he is Rorschach. He is not weak. He is moral absolution.
This
is what he tells himself when he breaks into the house of his only
friend:
he is feral. Will not love, submit to touch from
being fed, given shelter. Nite Owl II has much to answer for,
for abandoning pact. For abandoning HIM.
Rorschach has never given up on Nite Owl. He waits. Walter waits as well. Waits for the day when he can sleep on Daniel's couch without dreaming. Without finding his face shoved into a pillow that smells of his friend and his hands sticky and shoved down into his own pants upon waking. First, stopped sleeping with pillows. Then stopped sleeping on couch. He only slept in the tunnel downstairs now. Walter was grateful he was no longer a teenager, no longer in his twenties; dreams had become infrequent. It was exceedingly rare that he ever woke up aching, yearning for something he couldn't, wouldn't, put a name to.
Increased level of violence lately had them both worried about their old partner. Mask-killer even more so. Lately, Laurel has been around. The looks she gives Rorschach are hateful. The looks he gives her are indifferent. She is domesticated; needy. Animal who played at being feral, but was never without home, without warmth. Without the loving strokes of an owner, or a readily accessible feeling of belonging.
How simple it is to be woman, he thinks. Look pretty, clean, and everyone wants to take you home. Is prized pet ever sad? Go from one cage to another, one man to another. How appropriate that she ends up in the owl's nest, where she can play at spreading wings.
He could not blame her for being born with advantages. What he dreamt about was immoral; taint on his soul. Was better this way, even if whole world went to hell. He was already there.