Individual drops were launching themselves at the bedroom window, creating tiny rivers as they collided and split again, forming pools on the pane. Daniel watches them, as the heavy torrential rain consistently beats a rhythm, one that had played into his dream so that now, awake, he felt the sound had been with him always. He'd woken suddenly, as if some loud catastrophe had occurred beside his head. Turning over he notices a light escaping under his door. He knew immediately what had awoken him. It had been little over a year now that he had been working with Rorschach. The man had been, at first, un agreeable and at times alarming in his quest to eradicate crime. The partnership had been successful though and Daniel had become accustomed to the occasional erratic behavior. Accepting that he now could not go back to sleep -but not admitting that he found it disconcerting that he could have missed Rorschach's 'visit'- he rises from the bed and enters into a scene more comfortable than anything else since his incarnation as the second NiteOwl four years ago.
Rorschach often appeared in his house, his kitchen. As he leans into the bench Daniel mulls over the ritual in his head. Barge in, pick a can, make stunted conversation, leave. If he was honest with himself, he liked the random midnight visits. Of course, there was a comfort in the façade of annoyance. The familiarity he had with Rorschach -the understanding that Daniel's home was merely a pit stop- was fragile. If Daniel was to mention Rorschach's comings and going –to put a name to it- Rorschach would hesitate and take off. If Daniel would stop lying to himself for one moment, he could admit that Rorschach's retreat would bother him greatly.
"Someone buy you flowers, Dan?" head tilted at the vase on the table. He was scraping at the can now, tilting the spoon and dragging a metallic chime in rhythm to the downpour outside. Daniel shifted and crossed his arms, deciding if he should rise to the bait, if in fact it was bait. Rorschach's curiosity, anger, melancholy, was always delivered in the same gruff tones. Had the mask been firmly in place, the comment would have remained ambiguous. But Daniel could see the tell tale twitch of a repressed smirk as Rorschach placed the spoon on the table.
"Does it matter?" he replied, immediately regretting the defensive tone in his voice "I'm young, I play records, go to picture shows, crime fighters can't be everything. I have a social life…" don't, don't, but he couldn't stop; there was anger in his voice now. "At least I'm balanced". Rorschach's head turned sharply, body stiff. He sounded bitter, softly saying "that's what it is now, I'm unbalanced?"
"No, I didn't mean you- I, just," Daniel traced his fingers through his hair. He didn't need this right now. He should be sleeping; he shouldn't be in the kitchen trying to avoid a confrontation with Rorschach. He barely knew where the conversation was going and he couldn't see a way out that would end with a goodnight's sleep, he couldn't see the situation becoming less uncomfortable.
"It's different, okay? You don't need people Rorschach; you're you every hour of the day. But I have to hang up my costume, go back to being Dan Dreiberg and do what everybody else does." He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "I don't even know why we're having this conversation just because I bought some goddamn flowers!" his hands placed on either side of the bench, eyes closed, he could hear the sound of rain hitting the window behind him, the slide of a wooden chair as Rorschach left the table. The empty can was placed beside him and Daniel opened his eyes to Rorschach, mask in place, standing before him. The symmetrical shapes were still and somehow mournful.
"I don't need people?"
Rorschach's hand was in the motion of placing the can back on the bench, his arm reaching past Daniel's. Too close, too close. He didn't know what was happening anymore. He had expected the other man to leave, dissolve into the waiting dark outside. So why could he now smell dampened clothes? He could feel the electricity, the nervous tension caused from having another body merely a breath away from his own. Rorschach's hand now moved to grip the corner of the bench, bracing himself. His posture suggested tension and Daniel felt his own muscles ache and tense at the man's form, so hunched, a condensed form of pure rage.
"I don't need people?" the anguish behind these words was breaking Daniel apart. He could see it now as Rorschach refused to look at him, still unbearably close. Beneath the mask was the subtle impression of lips and Daniel feels himself physically straighten within the confined space.
"I don't… need… people… I don't …need people…. I…I" the whispers creep into Daniels ear before clouding the glass behind him.
"Look at me"
The movement is slow, like the first drop to fall from a darkened cloud. Like rain shattering on impact, Rorschach meets his eyes and Daniel feels a weight in the base of throat, a constriction that hurts so far inside, his soul seems to rip at the seems.
His hands feel too light, quivering, as he brings them slowly to the now rippling mask of black and white.
His thumbs hook beneath the start of the fabric, and linger, before lifting up, to rest the curled material on the bridge of Rorschach's nose.
One hand reaches further behind, to hold Rorschach's head in place, his thumb resting in the hollow behind his ear.
He only needs to lean slightly forward, and he searches Rorschach's 'face' as he places his lips on the unshaven chin before him. The ink betrays nothing so he cannot tell if Rorschach's eyes are opened, or closed in silent prayer like Daniels.
There is no response from Rorschach, so Daniel continues upwards, capturing a lower lip between his mouth, and still nothing. He pushes forward, so gently, fearful that at any moment the confrontation that was supposed to take place before will be born in the form of Rorschach's hand ripping through his chest. The idea disturbs Daniel, but seems fitting and -with that image fading- he prizes the motionless mouth open, moving to hold Rorschach's face now in two hands.
The reaction is not what Daniel expects. Rejection, yes. Aggressively carnal eagerness, hopefully. But this was not what Daniel anticipates. Rorschach's response is awkward, unsure. At first, he is fighting Daniel's invasion, not in a fight for dominance, but a self-conscious hesitance. Daniel realizes, in both amazement and shock, that he may be the first person to ever touch the man before him, sexually or even platonically.
Daniel wants to believe he doesn't mind, but questions start to form over how a man of late 20's could be so isolated, so denied. Before his thoughts can lead further, Rorschach seems to have gone beyond tolerating and slight response, and Daniel feels a weight against him as they lean into the counter. Rorschach is clinging to Daniels shoulder blades and Daniel finds one of his legs is slightly lifted and curling behind Rorschach's as the partially masked man pushes forward more. They are both left curved; the pouring rain accompanied now by the sound of heavy breaths and slight noises as they adjust to blend even closer together.
Daniel traces a never ending pattern down Rorschach's jaw, around his neck, resting in and then annihilating the hollow in the join of his neck and shoulder. The pulse beneath his tongue is reminding him that it is real as Rorschach fumbles with his hands, unsure of what to do but desperate to do something.
There is a slight hesitation, before their hips begin to move randomly. Daniel moves a hand to brace behind him as he leans forward once again, his fingers slipping and falling onto the empty can.
In a hurried movement, his finger is cut on the jagged edge and he gasps, louder than the rain, louder their sounds or Rorschach's indecision.
Rorschach stiffens, halts, and before Daniel can even realize, he has left.
Staring at the door left open, he is filled with a hollow sensation before an acute pain in his finger reminds him of where he is. Holding his hand over the sink, Daniel watches a solitary drop of blood slide down the metal bowl, colliding with nothing, while his hurried, irregular breaths obscure the window.