Disclaimer: I don't own the Watchmen or any of its characters. Wishful thinking aside.

Warnings: This is a story that connects to the movie-verse version Watchmen. It is meant to mesh into the time frame of this fandom somewhere before the Keene Act came into law (Cannon 1977). All that I am aware of canon-wise is the events of the movie, thus this fiction revolves around my own interpretations of the movie (not the graphic novel). This is a Rorschach fic, with Nite Owl II/Rorschach slash. Light slash, adult situations, adult language. Not your cup of tea? I suggest you pass it by. Still with me? Fabulous!

Authors Note #1: Please read and review. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism. This is my first Watchmen story so I am especially looking for constructive feedback.

The Definition of Humanity

He had seen a poster once during a midnight investigation into a suspicious clinic on 32nd and Baron. It had been a high glossed picture, shined richly with an elaborate finish and an expensive, baroque style frame that claimed to hold the definition of the term 'humanity.'

But in reality, when one looked beyond all the nonessential trivialities and sickeningly colourful filler, it was merely a list taken from the Oxford & Collings English Dictionary Edition that sought to define the term. The artist had simply moulded the definition into a symmetrical mess of artistically crafted word clouds, superimposed over the original art of the piece.

It read: "Humanity /hju:'maeniti/ noun (plural -ies) * The human race, human beings collectively. * The quality of being human. * Kindness or mercy. * Humaneness, kindliness, kind-heartedness, consideration, charitableness, open heartedness, warm-heartedness, good will, benevolence, compassion, mercifulness, mercy, benignity, tenderness, warmth, beneficence, tact, tactfulness, generosity, unselfishness, magnanimity, understanding, sympathy, sensitivity."

He had paused to stare, mouth working incredulously as his stomach rolled, mind abound with mocking cynicism that only got louder the longer he read. They were empty words, false truths and lies. It was simply an artistically deferent piece put up to toe the party line, to create false assumptions and present a veneer of trust and respectability towards the unsuspecting public.

And like cattle being brushed and fed the day before they were led to the slaughter, the public remained complacent and oblivious, content in their self made ignorance.

But not him. He had given up on that definition of humanity a long time ago. If he had ever truly believed it at all.. Because he knew the truth. He knew what lay beyond it, hiding just below the surface of those empty, faceless words. The fetid, maggot infested flesh of moral decay and social corruption.

The only truth to be found admist the boundaries of that sickeningly gilded frame was the faded, phantom-like image of his own face reflecting back at him through the shining glass pane. The ink blots shifting, turning frenetic and violent as the smiling, over painted whore with the plastic smile stared coyly from just below the blurb of words, her arms tight around the shoulders of a smiling boy that sported the same pale complexion and rich blond hair. While in the background, the suit wearing patriarch looked on, complacent adoration plastered clear across his flawless face as he looked down at them. His persona alluding to the usual facets that have come to define the modern day trope of masculinity, that of power, wealth, stability and unending promise.

Lies. Deceits. All of it. He knew that truth better then most.

Life had taught him that people were either inherently sinful or inherently ignorant. There was little middle ground. No second chances or shades of grey. It was simply how the world worked. And how people were.. So perhaps that in itself was part of the reason why that from the very start, he didn't know quite what to make of Nite Owl.

He had heard there was a new Watchman on the streets. A man who had taken up the mantle of the original and had already managed to make quite a name for himself, both in the professional and criminal circuits. And from the beginning he realized that this man was not like others, with their fancy costumes, capers and lofty ideals. For once it seemed as though this was someone truly worthy of the title.

It had taken him far longer to track the man then he was used to and he soon figured out why. When a few weeks into the hunt he came upon the man himself, fighting his way alone through a particularly large mob of Top Knots, trying to reach the shining, metal plated ship that was hovering quietly at the opposing end of the narrow, urban corridor. No wonder..

From his vantage point it was clear that this had been a trap. With the thugs having likely lured the man into an alleyway somewhere close by, and then besieged him from all sides. Dishonest and ignoble. As if there had ever been any doubt of that. Internally, even then he had been impressed. A lesser player would have been nothing more then a severely beaten gutter stain by now. Leaking their life's blood out into the already overflowing, and unsympathetic city gutters. But instead, despite being alone and severely outnumbered the man was somehow still holding his own.

He had been intrigued despite himself. Keen eyes taking in the way the man dealt out a running kick, his strong arms wrapping around a light pole as the movement took down two Top Knots at the same time. The pair going down with a sodden smack as rain slicked leather jackets met abruptly with the unforgiving pavement. The man's hits were solid, if not slightly inexperienced. Speaking more of soft heartedness then the vicious retribution that his own particular brand of punishment generally exemplified.

Normally he would have viewed that as a weakness, something that could be exploited or hinder one in the pursuit of justice. But it was strangely fascinating to see the contrast even as the cloaked man took down the closest perpetrator with a forceful snap of his wrist, sending the thug cart wheeling overtop an overflowing dumpster with barely a pause. As this time, in the place of naivety and weakness he saw potential. Raw, untouched potential.

He remembered the smell the most keenly; the sensation of the moment. The night was ripe with treachery and fear, the scent rising like the stink of the city muck and rotting filth that lined virtually every back alley of their cities disillusioned streets. He cocked his head as took it all in, the wind rippling along the surface of his overcoat, teasing the strands of his ivory scarf in much the same way as it curled along the edges of the man's cape as he fought below. His movements causing the thick material to surge and quiver like the outstretched wing of a bird. This he understood. The night was connecting them. Though not just through their chosen profession or affluent designs, but through this moment, and this moment alone. And when he was faced with the starkness of that truth, there was only one other concept that was abundantly clear. And that was the fact that as good as this fighter was, the man wasn't invincible. He was tiring, out numbered, and already bleeding through his Kevlar from where at least one blow had landed home. He wouldn't last much longer.

In retrospect, he realized sometime later that he hadn't even thought twice about it when he had dropped down from the closest fire escape. From one moment to the next his awareness had simply shifted from the thin, rooftop gravel at his feet, to the sound of his worn boot soles as they slammed down along the edges of a muck encrusted pothole right in the middle of the fray. And with barely a pause, barely even a ripple, he caught the man's eye. Gazing directly at the cloaked man through the inscrutable fabric of his face before whirling away, adding his own fists to the contest. They had fought back to back until the only thing he could hear echoing through the abandoned alleyway around them was the splintering crack of bones breaking, the cries of their attackers, and the exhausted, but newly invigorated breathing of the man fighting beside him.

..That had been the first time he had ever fought together with another…Retrospectively, it probably should have unnerved him more then it had at the time.

But even that wasn't enough to explain the fact that he didn't know why in those first few weeks, that he found himself waiting until the man left home to slip through a carelessly unlocked window. Ghosting silently through the man's empty home, where each floor was all but alive with the man's enthusiastic and enigmatic presence as he pawed through the man's unopened mail.

It had been there that he discovered that the man's name was Daniel..

Daniel was a strong name, pure. It was a name that spoke of moral character and, authoritarian justice. Righteous strength tempered with the hewn softness of easy affection and innate kindness. In Hebrew, the name is most often translated into meaning 'judge', a name that was indeed quite fitting when one took in the unique nature of their line of work. Deep in his gut he knew it wasn't a coincidence. Such foolishness only held bearing on the weak-willed and feeble minded. But fate, perhaps, was another matter entirely.

However, that by itself did not excuse the fact that he could detect no lies, deceits, nor even anything remotely nefarious lurking underneath Daniel's ready, open smile. Something in itself he came to realize that man gifted over far too easily. Undeservingly. It was as if the man didn't fear the hurt..the vulnerability, and the ever widening chasm of confusion and regret that inevitably follows in its wake. Though perhaps most of all, he didn't understand that ease, that indomitable good nature that Daniel seemed to produce in spades..

His discomfort with this unforeseen circumstance had only grown in the days since that first meeting, especially after his weeks of furtive, careful investigation brought forth absolutely nothing. No vices, or questionable past, no criminal history, or false intentions. He didn't understand it. This..Daniel..didn't fit with what he knew was true about the inherent nature of mankind. Of people. From the unwashed, wilfully ignorant masses right down to the weak, unsuspecting individual.

He must have missed something..But deep down, he knew he hadn't..

And soon, despite his intentions, chance meetings on the sin strewn back alleys became more frequent, deliberate. He wasn't sure which of them was to blame. And before he realized it, like a worm to an apple, wriggling from the surface to the very core, it had become almost habitual..routine. Like an addiction.

..A vice..

He came head on with that reality the night he slipped up through the tunnels and into the Brownstone, intending to inform Daniel of a new lead down at the city docks. Information he had gleaned in regards to the case they were both currently working, only to find a dark and empty house, with no hint or reasoning for the man's absence. Incensed in a way he couldn't entirely explain he set out alone, and on foot, his worn boot soles making unneeded noise as he stalked down the murky backstreets, as if even his footsteps were dead set on putting a voice to his confused displeasure. Somewhat predictably, his growing unease, frustration, and unexplainable irritation effected both his concentration and his performance that night. Shaking him soundly from the cool, collected persona he had adopted for the first time since the darkness and the dogs, and he ended up limping away from the last fight with a gash on his left leg that needed ten stitches, and a badly dislocated shoulder.

It was a lesson he wasn't soon to forget.

And for a long time afterwards, every night he would open his mouth, intending to end it. And every night Nite Owl would push back his cowl, skin vibrant and flushed with victory once they were in the safety of the Owl Ship, and predictably the words would curl up and die before they could reach his lips. Slicking back down his throat in a reeking, matted clot of confusion, indecision, and barely understood frustration.

He didn't understand it.

The first time Nite Owl called him 'partner' he had fled, ghosting out of the Brownstone and into the obscurity of the city streets as if he had never been there at all. It wasn't hard to imagine..He didn't belong in Daniel's home, and he knew it. He had disappeared for over three weeks, ignoring the barely formed whispers of worry that followed. Meaningless platitudes had flowed like toxin laden waters, streaming through the Watchmen community only a few days into his absence, hastened no doubt by Daniel's incessant inclination towards worrying.

Childish gossip. No one really cared.

But like a moth drawn willingly to the flame, he realized that he couldn't stay away. Not anymore. And he had cursed himself vehemently even as he had taken his frustrations on Daniel's front lock the night he returned. Deadlock and all. That had been the first time he had broken into Daniel's house that way, pointedly ignoring the cracked living room window that stood only a few meters right. And he suspected, even at the time, that it wouldn't be the last.

Daniel seemed to have that affect on him..

But it had been there that Daniel had surprised him yet again, because instead of the anger and righteous indignation that the action deserved, the man had only looked relieved and undeniably pleased when he had discovered him sulking in the unlit shadows of his kitchen. His mask partially rolled up to reveal the stark angles of his chin and the hard slash of his thin, split lips as he crunched on pilfered sugar cubes. Feigning ignorance and cool headedness in the face of the insurmountable weight of his own failings.

..His own profligacy..

Because the only thing he had learned in those three weeks he had spent away, purposely loosing himself admist the vast urban metropolis he had sworn to protect, neck deep in villainy, corruption, and perversion, was that he couldn't stay away. Not from Daniel. He wasn't sure what about that was worse. The fact that somewhere along the line he had fallen, or that in the end, even if he could crawl out of this self made pit of aberration and sin, he was suddenly unsure if he actually wanted too.

He was wrong inside. Wicked, debauched, weak…cursed. And worse still, his failings had not yet come to an end..

Because even then he had been too caught up in his own censure, viciously berating himself for his inability to break free from the predilection he had been struck with since the first moment he had met eyes with the man, the flash of goggles under the blinding glare of the flickering urban lights as his boots met pavement, to realize that Daniel had stopped dead at the door to the kitchen, fingers falling nerveless from the light switch as he openly stared. And like a double take, he watched as warmth flooded across the man's face, spreading from neck to cheek like a blush, as his face took on an expression that looked akin to a child who had just received a most precious gift.

He didn't understand why until he lifted a hand to wipe his mouth, crooked fingers dusting errant granules of sugar from his lips when his unsuspecting fingers met rough stubble. It took all his will power not to finch and turn a shade that would have rivalled the flaming neon of his hair. It had been the first time he had ever revealed a part of himself in the man's presence. In anyone's presence. It had been foolish. Needless..thoughtless and utterly excruciating...

He wondered if that was what trust felt like…

It hadn't taken long to get used to the way that Daniel felt the incessant need to make meaningless, idle chatter on patrol. And as the night worn on, it was almost always the same. It would start with those easy smiles, even the occasional grin, all mixed together with flashes of straight white teeth and plush, pink lips. And then, soon afterwards the words would begin… in abundance..

He had never met anyone quite like Daniel.

The subject never seemed to matter, with the topics ranging from the previous nights success, incoherent babble on the Owl ship's systems, or even his latest research paper on the Ornithological lecture circuit. And by proxy he learned things that he privately thought he had no practical business ever knowing. For instance, after what he gathered had been a particularly frustrating guest lecture at the local university, he had been privy to a seemingly endless rant about the correlation between the dull, off white color of Owl plumage, and it's benefits regarding to a sort of natural, genetically constructed camouflage. Especially useful, according to Daniel, when the predator was roosting.

It took awhile but he eventually began to understand and even appreciate his partner's fascination with the winged hunters. They were natural born predators. Silent, swift, and sure. Only doing what came natural, never questioning, never doubting. Perfect. The correlation certainly didn't escape him…

But it was on the nights where the man grew abruptly silent, refusing to indulge his pointed questions or near silent shifts in the co-pilot seat, that he realized that somewhere along the line he had come to despise the silence. Because with Daniel it always meant bad things. Daniel wasn't meant to be silent.

Nearly half a year into their unconventional partnership, confusion and self loathing had been prominent after the events that had followed a long night tracking down a missing child. She had been abandoned in the industrial section of the city by her drug addicted babysitter. The young woman too high on crack and god only knows what else to realize that dragging a sleepy, curly headed toddler to a rendezvous with her dealer was a bad call. And predictably, while she was busy getting her fix; the tot had wandered away, lost in the maze of rickety wharf side boardwalks and dingy back alleys.

It was pouring rain and close to two in the morning by the time they finally found her, having somehow wriggled her way halfway down an exposed sewer pipe that was partially protected from the elements. Smart girl. Once they had coaxed the babe out, Daniel had wrapped her in his cloak, saying nothing of the fierce bite of the wind, nor the stinging rain until they had seen her safely back into the arms of her sobbing parents. But unlike the child who had come out remarkably unscathed from her lengthy ordeal, somewhere during their night of searching through the damp causeways and partially submerging moorings, Daniel had caught a cold. A particular nasty one.

He had been quietly appalled the following night after patrol when he had followed the man upstairs, swayed for once by the offer of coffee and heated up leftovers, when he watched as the man flipped on the coffee maker before opening the cupboard above the sink and taking down a bottle of cough syrup.

He had felt his spine stiffen, feeling each vertebra tense in quick succession as he stared down at that small, innoxious looking bottle. Cloying thickness rose in his throat as Daniel coughed, the sound muffled underneath the thickness of his gauntlet as the man chattered on about the nights events. But he heard none of it. His eyes stuck on the bottle Daniel still held in his palm, unconsciously threading the cap through his thick fingers as he perused the instruction label.

Distrust rose like bile in the back of his throat as he watched. 'Corporate profiteering. Possibly laced with addictive properties.' His mind had supplied. It had been a theory he had been working on for quite some time. After all, corporations were only out for one of two things. Money and profit. Certainly not customer safety or satisfaction.

He waited until the man had retreated to the bathroom to change, deep hacking coughs racking his broad frame as he went, before he unobtrusively poured the whole bottle down the kitchen sink. Pointedly running the tap as the fragrant, chemically rich scent rose harshly in his senses. He fancied that even the smells alone stood out, like a prelude to a coming danger.

..He didn't understand the emotion behind the action, so he bit it back, gnawing on his lower lip beneath the protection of his face until he tasted smelted copper. It was safer that way..

Daniel had yelled at him until he started coughing so hard that he had to thump the man on the back in an effort to settle him. It had meant two extra days of patrolling the streets alone, but each night when he had slunk up from the tunnels and into the Brownstone he had been privately appeased to find neither fresh bottles nor even pills. Only strong smelling tea, hot water bottles, and moments of slightly inaudible conversation as the man pressed him for the details of his patrols in between sniffles and bouts of mild fever.

He had thought that was the end of it, that it had been a fluke, or a half formed spectre of his slightly deranged subconscious. But in reality it only got worse from there. And he was forced to meet the issue head on only a few months later.

It happened at a growingly infrequent Watchman meeting; the first one in over three months where every member had seen fit to grace the group with their presence. Sloppy, disrespectful children. Ozymandias had only been halfway through his report, detailing the enterprises of the last month of patrolling when he noticed it.

Silke Spectre was glaring sullenly at Doctor Manhattan; pointedly placing herself as far across the room from the glowing blue man as she could possibility get, obviously in the throws of some meaningless lovers quarrel. Indeed, she was practically spitting, her long, flowing dark hair rippling in the bright overhead lights as she bounced impatiently on her heels, eyes flickering across the room towards the Doctor every few moments, as if fully expecting something to happen. Manhattan however, did nothing. Simply blinking those inhuman, glowing blue eyes from across the room, his gaze mournful, yet chillingly empty as Ozymandias finished his report.

The Comedian had only leered.

He had barely taken notice of the others frivolities until somewhere along the line, he realized that the woman had begun to edge closer to where both Daniel and himself were standing, leaning against the wall side by side in their usual companionable silence. It didn't take her long to get situated. And before he could rightly process the extent of her intentions, she was already pressing indecently close to Nite Owl's side, flipping her long, silk brown hair in Daniel's direction with clear, nefarious intent. Her eyelashes fluttering in false welcome as she fixed him with a coy smile.

Her intent all by oozing from her sin riddled skin.

Daniel had only smiled his expression understandably benign as he sent her an encouraging look through his goggles. Looking remarkable nonplussed when she twirled a glossy thatch of hair around her index finger in response, clearly unaware of her filthy impulsions as he turned his attention back to Ozymandias at the front of the room.

That was when it happened. The feelings. The very moment when something buried deep inside his gut smouldered abruptly back to life. Snarling and spitting like the freshly turned embers of a barely banked blaze. Heated and powerful. And in spite of himself, his leather gloves had creaked threateningly, clenching his fists behind his back until his very fingers ached. She had no right. Daniel was not hers.

Adulterous whore.

He had propelled Daniel outside the moment Ozymandias wrapped up the meeting, baring his teeth under his face in vindictive triumph as her tartish face subsided into irritated frowns and a noticeably childish pout. Slut.

He hadn't been able to hold back his furious growl, almost overcome by a complex, cacophonous mass of a thousand different emotions he neither knew, nor could begin to understand. It was all there, broiling..just under the surface. And even as he kept his hands pressed into the small of the man's back, not letting up until they were only a few scant steps from the roof ladder that would lead them up to where they had secured the Owl ship, he imagined he could actually feel the erosion of his long coveted self control as it dissolved like sugar to water with each age long second his hand remained.

It was like salt being rubbed into an open wound, a paper cut that refused to close, the acidic sting of unforgiving alcohol dosed across a neat line of homemade stitches. Barely there..and steadily failing.

..Fraying. Like the mooring line of a life preserver left to drift in the vast, encompassing dark.. Rising over him like the cresting ocean waves, left buoyed and barely afloat admist a manic sea of insurmountable, instinctual fear.

Daniel, of course, had remained entirely oblivious, only blinking back bemusedly from behind the dark sheen of his goggles. Seemingly unperturbed by the over aggressive manhandling as he nudged him towards the ladder with the butt of his shoulder, watching out of the corner of his eye as Silke Spectre huffed in bad temper behind them, tapping her heels for a long beat before whirling around in cloud of streaming hair and that unique, whispering creak of latex on latex before disappearing down the street, swaying towards the underground with a pointed lilt of her hips. He had stewed in silence for the rest of patrol, staunchly ignoring the confused looks that Nite Owl had periodically sent his way, too caught up in his own internal concerns and private moral battles to pay his partner any mind.

He was no more prepared when the first winging cords of the crescendo struck, crashing down to earth like the first lancet of lightening admist Springs first storm. He hadn't anticipated this, neither of them had. He hadn't wanted this. Not this...

It wasn't what they were used to, nor what experience had taught them to expect. And in that way it was an inescapably careless mistake, a mistake that he inevitably paid for. Because when it came, ithit hard, so riddled through with that staggeringly unique brand of expeditious brutality that he didn't even have a chance to react.

There was nothing. No reasoning or even logic behind it. Just the pain, the shock, and that momentary burst of sudden, bone numbing clarity that always seems to hit the second before the divine epiphany.

Because he hadn't even seen the gun.

A/N: Please let me know what you think, and indeed if I should continue? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love!