Request:
So let me have some feverish hurt/comfort. Maybe it's Rorschach, and Dan has to drag him off the street and put him to bed. Maybe Ror shows up for a night of patrol and finds Dan sweaty and shivering. Whichever, I want chicken soup for the slashy soul. Please oblige me, kind anon.
Delivery:
It was a freak winter, winds sweeping in from the frozen north with howling gales and savage blizzards. New York was being inundated with nightly drifts of fresh snow dumped successively upon one-another. For the first few days the scurrying of people going about their filthy lives had chewed the fresh white blankets apart like rats in a linen closet, clearing their runs and leaving the dirty, brown slush to accumulate in gutters and drains. However, little by little the snow became more resistant to the jostling of humanity and gradually the unstoppable force of raw, natural power took the upper hand. Many alleyways had become impassable, clogged with walls of brittle ice that wrapped around buildings, strained roofs and burst water pipes.
Walter had no money to spare for heating. He had battled through the blizzards to the Garment District every morning until his workplace closed due to the disruption, lack of custom and the laziness of his co-workers, leaving him marooned in the damp, frigid hollow of his rented cesspit. Rorschach's nightly forays into the bitter night had yielded him nothing except a wet uniform that he couldn't get dry.
It stacked up. The rotting, loose window frame that let through a rattling draft. The cold, bare floor. His thin, lumpy mattress, compressed and hardened with age. His few, tattered blankets. No heating. Barely any food at all, let alone anything warm. His reckless efforts to continue patrolling. It amounted to something beyond the capacity of his weak, human flesh. It was getting the better of him.
Every scrap of dry fabric Walter owned, plus some carpet off-cuts and the more liberal newspapers of his collection had been incorporated into a rat's nest pile on his bed. Buried at the centre of it, wheezing unsteadily, was the wasting, shivering husk of the Terror of the Underworld. He felt sure that this was serious, that he was very sick, even though he was struggling to think coherently. It should have been frightening; being rendered so utterly incapable of anything more than sweating and shivering in a dazed, feverish heap, but it didn't. His survival instincts seemed to have deserted him along with his strength. He could grasp that this was important, and that this could possibly kill him, but it had snuck up on him so slowly and gradually that it was hard to establish a sense of urgency.
Despite the frayed and woolly strings of thought tangled in his head, the discomfort of his flesh was very stark and real. The chest pains were the worst; each breath hurt like his lungs were full of fish-hooks, snaring and pulling at his tender inner workings with each delicate inhalation. Although the rough, grating pain in his joints was equally harsh, that could be lessened to a distant, dull ache if he just lay very still. It hurt less if he just carried on laying there, dedicating himself to taking short, shallow little breaths and not moving. It hurt less, but some corner of his mind refused to let go of a glimmer of what felt like truth; if he just lay here hiding from the pain, death would claim him.
He had spent his entire life dodging the threat of becoming a statistic. How many children died every year through neglect and violence from their parents? Walter could remember his young life, lived like a cockroach going to ground by day and venturing out silently in the dead of night to pick through her leftovers. Cowering and hiding when she came to dig him out, levering him from his pit for her own sick amusement and need for attention. How many orphans with violent track records made it anywhere in the world, fighting enemies at every corner with no-one at their back?
A gentle, warm feeling unlike the feverish flash-fires of sickness touched him at that thought. He wasn't completely alone any more, not since he had found a partner in Nite Owl. There was deep, honest trust there, of the kind Walter had only encountered in books and previously regarded as purely fictional. It had taken years to evolve to its current status, but after hundreds of nights spent fighting side-by-side, guarding each-others backs, he had begun to accept it. It was hard to swallow, he had never felt so... so... he had never trusted anyone like this in his life. Nobody else had ever made such an effort with him. Indifference of him or against him yes, but Daniel worked with him in a way that struck Walter to the core. They saved one another from serious injury, pooled their resources, collaborated... became something that was greater than the sum of its parts.
The more he thought about Daniel and his friendly hand-shakes, comfortable company, honest brown eyes, warm smiles, generous offerings of coffee and sugar-cubes, the harder it became to think about anything else. Daniel had broken men's arms and legs to keep them from landing blows on him. His partner was a kind, forgiving man, who would forgo his soft, liberal sentimentalities to the point of snapping bones to save Walter's hide.
Daniel would help him, he was sure of it. Out of pity, the need to prove charitability or pure, plain empathy, he didn't know, but Daniel would help him. He would help him without question or hesitation. If he dragged his ailing carcass through the snow and up the steps to the well-kept, freshly painted door of Daniel's clean brownstone, he wouldn't even have to beg. There would just be concerned lines in his partner's forehead, worried words and hot, sugary coffee. Soft, gentle, lenient Daniel would welcome him with proverbial open arms.
It was painful to accept that Daniel was so addicted to leaving himself wide-open to attack. If anyone ever discovered the identity of the gentle man beneath Nite Owl's tough armour, Daniel would be slaughtered effortlessly. It had horrified Rorschach that night when his partner had removed his goggles and pushed back his cowl, introduced himself and offered a firm hand. Daniel willingly disclosed his identity, imparting information regardless of the fact that nobody can be trusted under torture. That Rorschach already knew Nite Owl's identity was only proof of how poorly Daniel concealed himself behind his cheap locks and flimsy defences.
It was pointless even considering it. In his current state he was only a liability. He couldn't run along rooftops or slip unseen through alleyways because of the sickness and the snow. If he tried to cross the distance to Daniel's house in his mask on the streets, any cop or one of hundreds of thugs with axes to grind would be able to catch him and kill him. If his identity was compromised, he would lead any observer right to Daniel's door. The distance was too great and he was far too weak.
Unless he took the sewerage system. Two blocks down there was an access hatch that was probably clear from snow, and there was a maintenance tunnel that crossed over from that line to the system which could be used to access the disused subway tunnel and thus, the Owl's Nest. There were a lot of ladders to be negotiated on that route, but at least it was dark, sheltered and probably warmer than the streets.
Walter shouldered himself up onto his hands and knees when the deeper breath he took during the move snagged in his chest. He coughed and hacked up thick, slimy clots of putrid phlegm and his lungs bubbled and wheezed. His joints creaked and his muscles burned. The distance to his front door seemed far, and Daniel's house was an eternity away, but he was going to try. He was already dressed in as many of his clothes as he could layer on top of one another, and after fumbling with his shoes he set about gathering the things he couldn't leave behind. His mask, the journal, the grappling gun, the few crumpled notes that summed up his entire fortune. They were the things that if left behind, would be stolen before long. He tucked them into the inner pockets of his trench, pulled the silk scarf tighter and higher and set his damp fedora on his head. He stopped for a rest before he opened the door to catch his breath, waiting for the pain and the dizziness to subside.
He stepped out, shaky and weak, but gripped with a single-minded determination to find Daniel.