1. Coffee Cup
It began with his regular: a large non-fat latte with caramel drizzle and an extra shot of the good stuff. Rorschach knew it was a regular because this was far from the first time he'd stood outside this café, waiting for Daniel to squeeze out the door with his bag half over one shoulder and another bag—Scone? Muffin? Croissant?—placed delicately between his teeth. As Rorschach waited he edged away from all those with music blasting around their ears. He switched his sign from left to right. He thought.
Why non-fat? With caramel oozing on top, why bother? What was the point when his night job burned more calories than any over-priced drink could compete with? It didn't make sense. After all, Daniel wasn't fat. Rorschach had seen fat. His landlady was fat. The men sitting greedy in leather chairs and suits Rorschach had tailored himself—they were fat.
(Daniel was… good.)
Why a latte? Why two sleeves over the cup—were they really that hot? Rorschach wouldn't know. He'd never tried one. Daniel had offered once, after a night of patrol proved painfully uneventful, he'd ditched his suit in Archie, pulling on a pair of worn corduroys, parked a block away from the late-night shop and asked, "Do you want anything?"
Rorschach had said no.
Just as he grunted 'no' now, at the employee sticking her head out the door: pink hair and words like 'loitering' spewing from her lips. Rorschach moved on. A minute later Daniel came shambling out again, two-sleeved coffee cup in hand and a bag between his lips. Rorschach thought from the tint that it might contain blueberry-something.
He followed him, six steps behind, indulging in a sick fantasy that only raised more questions. What if Daniel turned around? What if he saw him—really saw him like he hadn't the hundreds of times they'd done this before? What if he were to ask here and now, "Do you want some?"
Rorschach didn't know what his answer would be.
Instead, Daniel finished his latte in a long drought outside the public library. He tossed the cup into the nearby trash—the actual can, not the pile accumulating to his left—and seconds later Rorschach was fishing it out.
The cup was no longer warm, it did nothing to ease the ache in his fingers, and there was a bit of pizza sauce smeared across its side. Rorschach despised pizza. Nevertheless, he pocketed the cup with fastidious care.
For the next month Rorschach mixed his black paint in Daniel's cup, recoating his sign every few days. Sometimes he wondered what this connection he'd created meant. Daniel's cup helping to reiterate that the end is nigh. It was his own end perhaps, an end that had nothing to do with the larger, more objective scheme of it all.
More often, Rorschach simply thought about Daniel—where his palm was (where his lips were). He brushed his knuckles against the rim as he painted, looking for a warmth that had long dissipated.
2. Umbrella
Daniel left it outside a drugstore, leaning precariously against a collection of rather crude graffiti. No doubt he'd deemed it too wet to drag into the (relatively) clean store, and a full load of toiletries insured that his hands forgot all about it coming out. Daniel absently pulled his hood over his head and shuffled out into the rain.
Rorschach was left staring at the umbrella.
There was a surreal moment when he saw himself bundling it up and running after his partner; giving it back. It wouldn't have to be Rorschach, of course. Even Walter was capable of such an act. And yet…
Rorschach did snatch the umbrella, but he tucked it under his arm instead. It knocked awkwardly against the handle of his sign whenever he hunched his shoulders too low.
Two weeks passed. Rorschach never opened it, not even when the downpour turned to sleet and he remembered, as he did every winter, that his coat lacked a hood (popped collar it was then). Instead he carried the umbrella during the day and stored it in his apartment at night. When it became clear that his landlady was snooping once again, he moved the umbrella to an abandoned dumpster four streets down. When it became clear that the dumpster was no longer abandoned—one woman, her infant dead a week, using the umbrella as a cradle, singing to the corpse—Rorschach moved it periodically to spots along their patrol route.
At the very end of those two weeks, right when it was just hitting midnight, he and Nite Owl encountered too many men with too few weapons. Rorschach thus did what could only be obvious under the circumstances: he snatched the umbrella from its latest hiding place and set to work.
He breathed again three minutes later.
There was an ache in his left knee and a tear in his trench; surely a vicious cut if he hadn't been wearing so many layers. What drew Rorschach's eye though was the umbrella. It dripped with an impressive amount of blood and there was a sizable chunk of hair adhered to the handle. He peeled is off distastefully, watching it flutter to the cobblestone. Rorschach unwrapped the white scarf from his neck and set to soaking up the blood.
"Hey, man. What are you doing?"
Nite Owl laughed. It was the breathy, high-pitched laugh he adopted after they'd fought and won and he'd enjoyed every wonderful, violent moment of it. He wandered forward and the part of Rorschach not focused on the umbrella unclenched when he found Nite Owl's gait to be steady.
"Are you cleaning that?" A laugh again. Entirely different. "Ror, why in the world are you—is that my umbrella?"
Of course Nite Owl (Daniel) would recognize it. It was a distinctive shade of blue after all, with white stretchers covering the sea like sandy paths back to shore. Nite Owl's hand rose, only to pause when Rorschach continued to scrub at the umbrella with passionate, jerky movements. It was only when his scarf was irrevocably stained that he snapped out his arm.
"Here," he grunted.
Nite Owl took it, slowly, leaving a massive space between his hand and Rorschach's.
"What?" He laughed a third time. The worst. "I lost this ages ago and it… it's just here? Waiting to save our asses?"
Rorschach shrugged and turned away. It was only when he was halfway back down the alleyway that he answered with a firm, "Yes."
And after a moment he heard the clunk of Nite Owl's boots, following him. They traipsed back to the ship in silence and the entire time Rorschach tossed mental coins about which was worse - having Nite Owl question him further, or the fact that he'd given up with barely a question at all.
It was Daniel who made the coffee when they were back in the air. With his cowl pushed back, Rorschach could see how he still smiled, even with the umbrella pressed between his knees.
Not that it mattered by then.
3. Footprints
When the snow hit there was a lull in the people surrounding Rorschach. They took refuge in homes and stores and public transportation. Few chose the route he cherished - keeping to the streets each night and each day.
Daniel was one of the few.
The storm wasn't enough to cripple the city, but it did wound it. Rorschach had seen one bum and one child that morning when he came upon Daniel's house, the kitchen lights snapping off one by one. Moments later Daniel emerged, still stomping in an attempt to get his boot on correctly, his gloved hands already cupped around his mouth. When he lowered them Ror could see that Daniel's face was alight, welcoming the cold walk with a joy verging on the unnatural. He tread down the steps and lifted his head to the sky, whistling a jaunty holiday tune that Rorschach may have once recognized. He didn't recognize it now.
(Later, when he heard the same jingle through a department store's windows, Rorschach would not think of food or cheer or fat men distributing labor-induced gifts. 'Home,' if it still had a meaning, was something else entirely).
((Someone.))
Rorschach watched as Daniel took to the streets once more, his partner cautious in his steps, his partner's partner keeping to the back, fearful that the deserted path and the crunch of snow would give him away. As they moved Rorschach ducked his head - to hide, to think - and he found Daniel's footprints lying before him. They stretched out like beauty across a canvas.
At least, Rorschach thought they were beautiful. The prints were in many ways like his mask, bits of black from the bottom of Daniel's boots smearing out over an expanse of white; the rotten snow from passing cars mixing to add other, dark splashes. Rorschach interpreted what might have been inkblots even as his own feet changed their gait. He matched his steps to Daniel's larger prints almost - but not quite - unconsciously. Each time he walked where Daniel walked, there was a loosening in Rorschach's shoulders. He held his sign higher.
There came a time though, two blocks from the library, when another encroached on their patrol. Rorschach made to step and found another print blocking his way, overlapping Daniel's with sickening finality.
Had anyone been close enough to hear, they would have heard a sickening growl.
The prints were muddled after that and it occurred to Rorschach, after ten more minutes in this cold, that they were also dangerous. Perhaps that encroacher had been an unintended ally. Perhaps not. The point was that anyone could follow Daniel's prints like this. Rorschach was living, walking proof.
He marred the path then. With each step Daniel took Rorschach was a few behind, dragging his leaking shoes through the snow until every print obliterated in a shower of white. He kept it up all the way to the library and he repeated the process all the way home, even with the sky long dark and visibility gone. Still.
No one would follow his partner home.
No one but him.
4. PEZ Dispenser
"Here," Daniel said and tossed something Rorschach's way.
That was a testament, right there, to what Daniel termed 'friendship' and what Rorschach refused to name. Another fighter lobbying something fast and hard at his chest... and all Rorschach did was catch it. No ducking to role or to break Daniel's nose. No bloodshed. A catch. Rorschach processed this revelation, perhaps stunned, and thus did not immediately see what he had caught. Not that Daniel could tell where his eyes were behind the mask. (Not that Rorschach was even sure of that anymore).
He felt it first. Through the glove and the callouses built up around his palm. It was long and hard and felt good in Rorschach's hand.
Beneath the mask he blushed. He wasn't entirely sure why.
"It's a PEZ dispenser," Daniel said, somehow making that sound both obvious and essential (and disappointing). "That little girl gave it to me."
'That little girl' was an eight-year-old blonde Daniel had saved from a Knot-top. Rorschach had not been there, they'd split for no more than twenty minutes, but he knew for a fact that Daniel had dispensed with justice, then comfort, and finally ended his solitary patrol by gaining a reward for his deeds. No one had ever given Rorschach anything, beyond a punch or the rare, relief-induced supplication at his feet. He wondered if Daniel realized this. If he was giving Rorschach what he had been given as a sign of apology; of pity.
Rorschach's knuckles creaked along the plastic. He was one more squeeze away from breaking it, when:
"You can put your sugar cubes in there," Daniel said. He passed Rorschach, oblivious, one hand landing on his shoulder to burn a hole through the trench. "Maybe that'll teach you some self control with those things."
Rorschach pocketed the dispenser.
They arrived back at the nest and as always Daniel invited him up. (As sometimes) Rorschach accepted. They moved through the kitchen in a remarkable parody of domesticity, Daniel making coffee, Rorschach claiming the sugar as his own. He sat at the table and methodically pulled the cubes out of the jar. He unwrapped each. He crushed them in his fist - as he'd wanted to do with the dispenser - and sprinkled the white powder into the compartment. It quickly filled but then Daniel was there, producing a baggie for Rorschach to save the rest in.
"Just refill it," he said shaking his head. But there was a smile lurking there.
It was only when Rorschach had crushed every piece and Daniel had stollen some for his drink that Rorschach actually looked at the dispenser. It was brown, cheap, with an owl's head acting as the stopper.
"... Owl," he said and Daniel laughed.
"Yeah, man. She didn't just give it to me randomly. I mean, she probably would have even if it wasn't an owl, you know kids, but, well, it was. Cool, huh?"
Rorschach didn't know kids or cool. He did recognize the taste of sugar though, and now his body was craving it.
"You need a place to crash tonight?" Daniel's hand was once again on his shoulder.
"No," Rorschach said, escaping the burn. "Fine."
He left, quickly, and as he did he tilted the dispenser back like a shot. His bleeding lips covered the underside of the owl's head, tracing there a moment, hesitating. Then it was gone. The owl fell back and sweetness rushed through Rorschach's body.
5. Pen
On an otherwise dreary day Rorschach saw it sticking out of Daniel's belt loop, of all the ridiculous, impractical places. Suddenly, it was no longer their normal lead and follow.
Rorschach got closer.
It was simple in every respect. His shoes - owned for ten years now? Twelve? - were worn so soft they made no noise, not even on the grainy sidewalks littered with stones. The rest of him knew what to do from training. Walter may have been skittish and slow, but Rorschach knew how to get up behind a man, take what he needed before they even knew he was asking - be it mobility or life, whichever. It was like that then. Out under an emerging sun, Rorschach moved behind Daniel with a confidence he almost felt guilty for. He slammed into his partner's back with equal strength.
"Hey!"
Daniel was good. Of course he was. Even taken off balance he took control of his legs, skidding and twisting and torquing his body back towards his opponent. It was an excellent reaction time. Something to be proud of - if it wasn't a necessity. Briefly, Rorschach wished he could bring it up in nine hours time; meet in the kitchen and bumble his way through words that resembled praise. But of course that was an impossibility.
Nearly as impossible as Daniel reacting fast enough to keep up with Rorschach. It was simple physics. Daniel had more mass to deal with and Walter and Rorschach both had spent their lives perfecting their speed. The only reason Daniel saw as much as he did was because Rorschach was distracted by the pressure: the warmth of Daniel's coat pressed against his own.
"Sorry," he muttered, deliberately raising the pitch of his voice. By then Rorschach had his face turned away, his shoulders hunched in a parody of a fighter's body. He also had a pen hidden against his palm, already slipping into his pocket.
He left Daniel standing, befuddled or angry, he couldn't say. Rorschach couldn't risk looking back to see.
Three blocks later and the pen was once more in hand, twist-turning between his fingers. It was a good pen. Like Daniel. A pen that spoke of character. Rorschach took one look at the nib and knew it wasn't something he was meant to write with. He kept it in the pocket of his trench instead.
(And yet... there were a few nights so long and treacherous that Rorschach found his fingers grasping for the pen without his permission. Twice he pressed it to the pages of his journal. Once he actually wrote. If it was a name it was torn away - cast to the wind lest it cause either of them harm).
The here. The now. Rorschach was seated in Daniel's kitchen, but he said nothing about reflexes. He kept quiet and fiddled with something in his pocket.
Daniel spoke instead.
"-and you know, I think I got pick-pocketed today." He shook his head, pouring more coffee even as Rorschach went still. "It's this guy I've seen around, a bum I presume. Anyway, he bumped into me and I checked my wallet and everything... but the weird thing is, only my pen was missing. You know the Parker Sonnet? I don't think I dropped it- ah hell." Daniel shrugged suddenly, puffing happily behind his glasses. "If he did take it, let the guy have it. Might actually get more use out of it than me. Did I tell you I basically scrapped all of Chapter Three?..."
Daniel prattled on. Rorschach, of course, listened. But while he did so, he also couldn't help but wonder.
What else could he take? What else could he take that Daniel would smile and nod and say - unimaginably - yes?
6. Her
There were times when Rorschach wasn't the only one in Daniel's orbit.
Others came and went, some bright some dim, passing him with various repercussions. There was the newsman who laughed each time they met, laying his own hand over Daniel's bruised knuckles in a gesture too intimate. There was the child, androgynous, who sometimes tugged at the baggy fabric around Daniel's knees, to small to reach any higher. He was given a sweet and Rorschach wondered if he looked anything like that, begging for sugar. There was the man who sold Daniel sticks of gum, the one-time neighbor who'd taken up gardening, the policeman who tipped his hat like he knew, somehow, wat Daniel had done for the streets. There were others. Too many and not enough.
And there was the woman.
She wasn't one who'd passed them before-an anomaly in both of their lives. A jog to catch the light and Daniel looking to the sky had resulted in a collision. It was in many respects alike to the one Rorschach had orchestrated: an unwieldy elbow, twisted legs, the brief, terrifying loss of balance. Her groceries tumbled to the ground in a spray that made Rorschach bare his teeth. It looked so deliberate... and he knew it wasn't. That just made it worse.
Five minutes Rorschach stood at the nearest trashcan, sentinel-like, hardly bothering to hide. For once Daniel's gaze didn't turn his way. He was busy brushing gravel from the sides of an abused tomato. He dusted lettuce and tried valiantly to peer into the egg carton with hope. One had survived and Daniel had a moment of relief before the woman snatched it up, gave a giggle that was carried to Rorschach by the breeze, and smashed that final egg with a careless indifference. Maybe she wanted uniformity. Maybe she just wanted to make Daniel laugh. If that was the witch's aim, she succeeded.
The ritual went on too long - shaking dented cans and stroking loafs of bread back to life.
Their movements grew too close together and then Daniel was touching her, a soft trace of the wrist here, a subtle bump of the knees there. By the time they rose again they were side by side and eye to eye, turning to make their way in the same direction.
Rorschach followed.
Of course they returned to Daniel's apartment, even though the entire way Rorschach hoped for another turn, for his partner to lead all three of them down a route unfamiliar. Instead, two of the three mounted the steps. Minutes later Rorschach saw Daniel's silhouette against the kitchen window, his dark shape lifting a finger and making its way down to the basement. Of course.
Rorschach didn't need to look to know what would be there. A note, scrawled in Daniel's hand, excusing himself from patrol that night-asking for pardon. The bit of legal notepad would be tucked beneath a light stone that sat near the tunnel's entrance, the bright yellow of the paper a honing beacon for Rorschach's eyes. Maybe there would be a lie. Perhaps Daniel would claim a sickness (though Rorschach wasn't entirely sure what he'd do it that was the case. His partner was, indeed, quite sick). Or maybe he'd tell the truth, which would be a far worse thing to read. Rorschach decided against both possibilities entirely.
He took the risk. Slipping down while he knew Daniel was otherwise occupied, Rorschach claimed the note as his own while wearing Walter's face. There was a weak moment of hesitation before he burned the paper with his last match, unread.
Two nights later, Rorschach came back through Daniel's door.
They didn't discuss it. There was nothing to indicate an encounter, good for bad. Rorschach knew that Daniel had had trouble with women in the past (had thought horrible, evil things about why) but there was no discernible clue as to this woman's outcome.
Except for the fears, and they couldn't be trusted. Rorschach refused to buy into the simple had Daniel picked up vanilla-scented hand lotion? Why was he doing laundry today?
7. Change
There was another time when Rorschach took Daniel's coffee cup.
Fishing it from the trash, ignoring the lip of the cup this time, Rorschach had sat down on the nearest curb with an exhaustion he normally only felt in the mind. Beyond him Daniel continued his errands route, but for once Rorschach was not inclined to follow. Today was apparently a day for sitting, for clutching a cup and seeping up its residual warmth.
There was, of course, a point when curiosity - or something stronger - took hold, and Rorschach watched as his own hands popped the cup's top. He had no desire to throw it away so he tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket, hoping softly that the plastic wouldn't bend. The next half hour was spent staring at Daniel's dregs, wondering if he deserved a taste.
He didn't, but once again Rorschach's hands moved on their own accord. One cradled the cup while the other hesitantly dipped inside, sweeping the walls before his grimy nail dove into the remaining pool. Rorschach reemerged with a coated appendage and, glancing to make sure no one else could see, thrust it into his mouth with a violence that contradicted the taste.
Not coffee. Rorschach's eyes went wide. Chocolate. Hot chocolate, a commercialized version of what Daniel sometimes made on snowy nights post-patrol. He claimed he'd never been overly fond of the drink, but that he'd make it for his five-year-old partner. Yet here Rorschach possessed a proof claiming otherwise-ordered with intention, drank nearly to the last drop.
Daniel was a liar.
(Rorschach was glad).
And it was that with his filthy finger still stuffed between his cheeks, his mouth obscenely puckered, and the open cup listing over his knees, Rorschach heard an unfamiliar clank and felt an unknown vibration.
Change.
It jangled into his (not his) cup, colored silver with a smattering of copper. An offering or a bribe? Rorschach was convinced of the second until he looked up and saw Daniel, smiling and passing, looking for all the world like this was a normal occurrence between them. Maybe it was.
Rorschach didn't say anything. Daniel's smile grew. Did anything need to be said? They simply passed one another, eyes locked, thinking different but equally powerful thoughts.
When Rorschach finally looked down he found Daniel's own name, a scrawl on the cup, facing towards him and only him. What would have happened if Daniel had seen? What if Rorschach decided to speak? Now, still? Call his name to call him back?
But Daniel was already too far away.
Rorschach bought candy with the change instead, rolling it beneath his tongue, imagining that it tasted of hot chocolate.
(?) Mask
There was a time, on a patrol like any other, where Rorschach followed two steps behind Daniel - walking in a tandem that only he knew.
It was a time when the streets were quiet, when Daniel had his mouth free to drink from a cup, when they passed a dumpster where once an umbrella had hidden. Here, they paused.
In the time of this pause Rorschach bent and reclaimed Walter's clothes from the shadows, confidently but with a shake to his hands. He rose and allowed his partner to see him shed, strip, bare himself - replace the white of his mask with the dark green of his jacket. When he turned, Daniel's shoulders were no higher nor stiff than they'd always been.
"Can I walk you home, Ror?"
So Daniel followed Rorschach. Just a few steps behind.