Top Notes: These are all small ficlets written for various AU-mashup prompts. They are standalone but benefit from knowledge of the AUs they involve. Basically, utter and complete crack. Have fun.
Disclaimer: Don't own Watchmen. Seriously.

Summary: Canon Dan and Ror stumble over zombie!Ror in the street.
AUs: Canon, Zombieverse,
Rating/Warnings: K+, general nonsense, applied phlebotinum.
Characters/Pairings: Dan, Rorschach, zombie!hoboschach.

synchronicity

.

"Unbelievable," Dan says, keeping a careful watch on the crowd they're moving through, wary and edgy and on the lookout for too-pale faces, too-pale hands. They've seen a few of them already, have no idea how dangerous they really are; it's hard information to wheedle out of people who've been living with the situation for months, who don't get why you don't know, don't understand. "Bad enough Jon managed to screw up like this, but to land us in the middle of a late night horror movie..."

Next to him, Rorschach just grunts noncommittally, hands fisted in his pockets, trying not to notice the strangely wide berth the crowd is giving him.

"Almost makes me want to, uh. Check on myself. Ourselves. Make sure we got through it." It's a morbid thought, but the idea of living other lives naturally carries with it the fact of facing other dangers, and for some reason he just feels like he needs to know and...

Another noise, this one vaguely annoyed. "Sentimental, Daniel. Useless information. Not staying here."

Dan glances down. "You're telling me it wouldn't bother you if you found out-"

"No," comes the short and certain reply.

Dan bites back a response; the conversation lapses to silence, both too far on guard to justify small talk, on too much of a time constraint to waste it on philosophical ramblings. It's a solid five minutes of uneventful walking before Dan's sliding dodge of an errant pedestrian lands him right next to one of the - what are they even called? He's sure 'zombie' is probably inaccurate and offensive but it's the only word his mind can cough up, faced with the reality: ghastly and hollow-faced and eyes burning like cinders and he's so small, that's why Dan hadn't seen him in time, a half-head below the rest of the crowd-

Small and fierce and looking straight at him.

He's forced down the shudder and shouldered past before he can catch the recognition in the look, and that's just as well. Has a second to think (Hang on, I know him, I've seen him outside my place before-), to consider the implications of that sort of synchronicity, before a chill creeps its way, all cold fingers and roiling gooseflesh, down the back of his neck. It's another half-second before he realizes that he's walking alone.

When he turns back, Rorschach is two feet from the man, staring him down from the expressionless depths of the mask, blots swimming furiously. The corpse shifts his sign over his shoulder and stares straight back, firelit eyes jumping with a strange mixture of hostility and confusion that reminds Dan, synaesthetically enough, of the low and dangerous sound of Rorschach's voice on the rare occasions that Dan manages to completely throw him off his guard.

There's a long stretch of stillness, the crowd breaking around them to reform on the other side; Dan's twitching to end this bizarre showdown, visions of every horrible zombie movie he's ever seen floating through his brain, and he really doesn't want to have to drag a mangled and screaming vigilante the rest of the way, through populated streets and without any time to stop for first aid and...

"Rorschach?" he finally asks; they both turn in response, but Dan is so very much not processing that right now. He makes a gesture with one glove, a vague summons. "Come on man, we have to keep moving if we're gonna get back."

Rorschach just mumbles something incoherent, shoving his fists harder into his pockets; turns and follows. He doesn't say another word the entire way, no matter how cleverly and insistently Dan tries to engage him, something unsettling and strange clinging to him that hadn't been there before.

In ten years, watching his friend's mugshots flash across the television screen, Dan will understand - but for now, they have a trans-temporal spacetime anomaly to catch.

.

(c) ricebol 2009