N is Nowhere Man-- The Beatles

Fandom: Watchmen

Pairing: None, just Rorschach introspection.

Rant Space: this is another one of those that gave me trouble… darn it. Stupid attempt at finding N songs that works. Also, Rorschach is my favorite character, and I'm going by the comic-verse. Also, if you haven't read it/watched the movie, there are spoilers for the whole thing.

The. Whole. Thing.

This is also the first one of my challenges to use some of the actual lyrics in the story.

And my first attempt at writing any of the Watchmen characters. Alan Moore, please don't shoot me. Though I might deserve it…

--

Journal Entry number 274:

It's warm out. Not like you can enjoy it with the stench it's dragging up.

Like mother nature's revenge for throwing our filth everywhere.

People forget in winter, summer's different.

I stared out a window for a few hours, without my face on, wondering how long it'd take for the poisonous rays from the sun to sink into my bones and kill me.

Probably not short enough. Or long enough. Or anything.

I hate the sun. It's always irritated me that the world can look so damn happy while its creatures crawl around like ants trying to overthrow one another and kill for the highest position.

A beautiful day as people have their backs stabbed staring up at the deceptive sun.

Bah.

I wait for night and go out then window, not wanting to confront my landlady. She's a filthy woman really, but that's not the reason.

Rent's due. She bugs the hell out of everyone three weeks in advance.

I don't have time. I skip her entirely like she's some kind of puddle of human waste I'm jumping over and move on.

Despite the setting sun the air is still warm, still reeks of fecal matter and rotting garbage but cool air is slowly blowing the stench away and the moon makes her big entrance just as I reach my hiding place.

I slip into my gear, not even looking around myself as I do. No one comes down here, they don't dare.

Monsters lurk in this abandoned alley, and even adults know what that means.

I smile softly to myself and pull my face down over my head, breathing in the familiar scent.

These were easy times, no one didn't know my name and though the villains pussied their way out of facing me, there's still plenty of scum in the world to take care of.

Plenty to do, plenty to avenge.

In my crusade, I knew I'd never rest until death. And in some ways that was assuring, in others, it meant I'd leave this all behind with no one to take care of it.

I briefly considered the idea of a successor before but there were none worth the effort to talk to, nobody cared about the world anymore, only when it got truly dangerous and threatened them did they rise up in arms.

Disgusting.

Blind, self-centered, disgusting people.

I walk the back ways, the hidden streets only the low-lives used, the low-lives and me.

The way it should be.

Some Beatles song plays too loudly from a boom box around the corner, obviously breaking noise pollution laws, and I ignore it in favor of the mugging I could see ahead of me.

No law was petty though, I'd break the toy when I was finished with the scum.

There was a sort of ranking to this.

I took care of the mugger, the woman not doing anything but simply fleeing with a look of what was a mix of fear and thanks.

I was used to it, the sharp apathy to my actions.

It didn't bother me anymore.

I rinsed my hands in water falling from a rain gutter and followed the sound of music to the boom box.

'…a real Nowhere Man, sitting in his Nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody…'

I kept to the shadows, coming up on the knot top gang member sitting there; smoking what I could tell already wasn't a cigarette. Or even Marijuana.

'…he's as blind as he can be, just sees what he wants to see. Nowhere man can you see me at all?'

I walk right up to him.

"Crack. Illegal." I state and slap the pipe from his hand.

"Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he cursed and I punched him in the throat. Apparently this guy didn't know how to keep quiet at all.

"Breaking noise ordinance." I declare and slam a foot down on the stereo. It gives out a last garbled verse and fell silent.

The gang member recovers quicker than I expect and pulls a knife.

Trifles.

I get it away from him in one quick move and slam it down into his thigh.

"You get a warning." I stated mercifully as the gang banger flopped over into the oily puddle on the ground. He's cursing every word in the book as I walk away.

Slow times, easy times.

I really wish something would happen. Something big.

Something worth going out on.

After a few blocks I started humming the song. That Beatles tune stuck in my head.

"Nowhere man, don't worry, take your time, don't hurry. With it all, until somebody else lends you a hand." I hummed near tunelessly.

I never claimed to be musically inclined.

Good song though.

And I made my regular route through the underbelly of the city, recalling a quote by someone saying that cities were like whores.

They are. Beautiful afar and disgusting and rotten up close.

For some reason the fact that I thought that made me angry.

I wasn't merciful on the next guy.

End.

Well?

Do you like it? I mean, I like Rorschach, but I'm not sure if I wrote his personality right… I think he was too coherent and understandable.

Oh well, lemme know if you like it and I might eventually write more Watchman fic… though I dunno.