Author's Note
Hello everyone. Not the first time writing about them, first time posting it, though.
This is about snow, closeness and hot, steaming cups of chocolate. And child abuse, too.
Fluff 'cause I need it, snow 'cause I love it (the season, for once, feels like the right one).
Be warned, there's this kind of crude realism going on here and there. If you don't want to read it, then don't read it. Just advising. And, of course, if you want to read, you'll find Dan and Ror together like slashy, good, old times (of what, no one really knows).
By the way, help yourselves.
p.s. fixed mistakes. Bad ones. Unacceptable. Sorry.
Snow
The first time Walter consciously pays closer attention to the snow, he's six and his mother has just repeatedly slapped him in the face. He's terrified and he's crying but she won't care because she's seriously drunk and wasted (he is too young to understand, but he will re-see the scene countless time years later and he won't have doubts about it).
Inside their lurid greenish and filthy flat, a naked man shouts her to come back to him, calling her a dumb whore and telling her he won't freeze his ass for that horrid, little bastard. She laughs like the lurid slut she is and Walter cries louder as the door slams shut in front of his freckled nose. He stays outside for more than an hour freezing in the merciless winter cold of the slums. He hears grunts, moans and obscure vulgarities coming from the inside of his house. He doesn't understand and still the door will remain closed and his pleas unanswered until the man inside will have finally fallen silent.
Walter vaguely looks at the sky, hoping to hear someone saying that there has been an despicable mistake and other grown-ups are going to pick him up very soon, in spite of that thing named mother he has. He's almost frozen to the core while he catches himself thinking about his missing father. He knows he's a war hero and by any minutes he's going to be saved. Besides…Daddy, daddy, you're in late, aren't you?
And he doesn't come and Walter greatly yearn to sleep, even though the rough concrete is ice-covered and he cannot identify this strange, unknown darkness surrounding him.
In that precise moment, heavy snowflakes start falling all around him and he his temporary amazed by that white, dancing magic. Yet he shakes heavily and his teeth rattle while he tries to ignore the cold, his little hands holding tightly onto his boney shoulders. When the man comes out of his house, he kicks him to the ground and calls him whoreson. Walter ignores the meaning but it can't be a compliment. His nose is almost broken – it hurts – and he's bleeding all over but still he smiles when the revolting man steps on the street and miserably slips on it. Thanks to the snow.
A kind old lady next door comes and picks him up from the floor when he is already closing his unfocused eyes on the blazed, quite night sky. She takes him inside the house again, and in the distance – he doesn't feel his body anymore – he catches words of someone yelling (whore, son, enough, dying). He then barely recognizes the human half-naked and bloody shape on the sagged couch. He blinks several time until the messy and uncovered figure becomes his mother, money of her last client scattered all over the floor.
After this, only a blurred vision in motion, and the old lady has carried him inside her own place, unidentified smells fill his nostrils, unfamiliar warmness coming from nowhere. For the first time in his life Walter needs are tended in the form of a hot, long and soapy bath, a thick woolen blanket, a hot cup of curiously spiced cocoa and a huge piece of chocolate cake. He smiles at the old kind lady and he doesn't know why but he also starts crying. He feels sugary happy, his bliss as insubstantial and fatal as the plumes of smoke rising from his hot beverage. As he watches the snow outside the fuzzy window, he enjoys some swing music the old lady selects between the radio stations. He knows something great has occurred to him and he won't ignore it: he'll always love snow.
Sadly, hours later, in the very middle of his deep sleep, his mother comes to drag him again in his hell and the old lady won't help him again. Walter ignores what happened, but on the next days he sees the lady walking by the street and she smiles at him. She hastens her pace, though, and her round, rubicund face seems beaten and injured.
The next winter the lady mysteriously disappears and Walter becomes acquainted with the concept of death. He spends days lulling himself in a lifeless greyness he barely notices and, at that point, even the terrible facts he witnesses daily become part of a dull, undistinguishable ensemble.
Nonetheless, he will remember her. He will remember the snow.
[§]
Several years later, scars, words, nightmares and identities piled on in many more layers, Walter is somehow gone, and in his place Roscharch stands in a dark alley, in fact not very far from his first, hated house. He breathes hard - hands still clenched in the aftermath of the battle and a couple of bloody-beaten dealers at his feet. Suddenly, beyond the brim of his fedora, he catches little icy flakes waltzing joyfully. Soon the night becomes gently motionless and taciturn. Roscharch now sees why, early that evening, the sky has started casting a strangely clear light, glowing uncharacteristically above chipped, reddish bricks and sad rooftops.
It's the first snow of the year. As usual, under dirty deposits of clothes and obscure, radical thoughts, a tiny sparkle flickers as if trying to ignite into a roaring fire a huge and wet pile of wood. It doesn't work, obviously, but the innocence and the vacuity of the memory still lingers somewhere inside him and he temporary forgets to smother the faulty Walterness trembling beneath his strong muscles and steely sinews.
That's because now as before, this little white miracle reminds him, somehow, of something cozy and deliberately sweet, even if being so oxymoronically cold and indifferent.
- It's ok, buddy, let's clean here and then let's fetch something hot. - says suddenly the comfy voice of his trustworthy partner, good, soft Nite Owl...
Rorschach hurrms something assertive and follows him, trying to let the feeble, indulging sensation of his memories shed away in the nothingness of the night.
His will falters, however, due to the over-friendly and clumsy presence of Nite Owl, now gaining again Daniel easy features in the lemonish light of his appallingly-perfect kitchen. The man smiles and looks outside the unspoiled window-glass, the streetlamp casting magical hollows in orange circles, the snow filling the silent night with joyful and white dots.
- Wow!- smiles Daniel again, the soft brown of his eyes enlightened by a child-like whim. - It's been so long since I sat watching it!-
Grinning like a child who's just been told Santa exists, Daniel fixes some hot cocoa while whistling mindlessly something horribly very close to Christmas Carols. Rorschach doesn't even move: he can't tell why (or at least, for once he wouldn't care to investigate further) but he's not going away. He's lost for words but he won't flee away from the scary coziness of this moment. After all, outside there's snow.
- What about some chocolate cake, buddy? Hollis gave it to me two days ago but it's still edible. And rather good.-
And Roscharch doesn't reply, because Daniel need not explanations: he's already taken the dessert and he's mindlessly serving it in two portions. His slice is almost twice Daniel's one, and he doesn't know if this is hypocritical pity or reserved, warmhearted kindness.
When Daniel hands him his chocolate, he holds onto his silly owl-decorated mug, sipping it a bit and thinking about addictive substances and their energetic perks. Besides, his thoughts roam foggily to a certain old lady he perfectly recalls, even after all this time. Behind his inked face, his eyes are at once wide with surprise. The taste of the cocoa is that taste, the one he thought he forgot. It's mint-flavored and has some silly white frosting on the top. He now realizes he never really remembered it up until this precise moment.
His hand clutches on the mug and Daniel seems unaware of the shakes he tries to conceal. He tilts his head a little and drink again. It's so sweet it should be declared illegal. It's so sweet it shouldn't bring sourness to his mind.
[§]
The beverage is delicious and its scent is enticing. Rorschach distantly perceives Daniel marveling about cocoa's many possible flavors but his mind is now far away.
He can clearly remember the delicious sip he took nearly fifteen years ago, when he was still the weak, boyish shadow of himself. He used to be the precious laughing stock of some filthy dogs of the neighborhood, a premature gang of boys with rotten teeth, rusty knives and a predilection for forlorn teens like himself.
It happened a lot of years before discovering his own strength and training his compact muscles with gymnastics. They used to wait for him on the corners of the streets to beat the hell out of him. He hated their sweaty hands, their dumb grins and their distant offences - whoreson, little ugly red shit – but he never replied, mainly because deep inside he could tell they were right. He was a little ugly red shit, a missed abortion, like his so-called lovely mother used to remember him since he had memory of being alive. The abhorrent boys, moreover, always took their time with him, beating him, clobbering him with bats and, sometimes, tiding him up, too. Very tightly, (just to be sure of the results) to a pole or a hydrant. This took place when they were especially bored and alone, the half-naked and ugly girls they were always with nowhere to be seen. At this point, Walter always looked firmly at the pavement and patiently waited for them to finish because it was too much to even think of paying attention. Each time they stripped him off naked, exposed him and forced his mouth with their horrible, hard erections, slapping his face, calling him their slutty faggot, shoving their sickening, insane urges against his pale and defenceless body. I'll never be like them, he thought every time, shocked and frozen, I'll never be an animal. Be calm, be still, it's ending soon. But, the truth is, each time it felt more painful and more wrong, hideous and filthy. They were stinky and repellant, ugly bodies and morbid hands, and he hated the primitiveness of their panting voices. The sound of their immorality invariably beckoned their rising and exploding pleasure, white, blistering marks of semen ghosting all over him like indelible sin. Then, incapable of holding back his deep disgust, he regularly retched and they took their final, utmost pleasure, in smashing his face against his own vomit, laughing in high screeches just like a maniple of nasty hyenas. Oh, yes, how he hated them. So much that, years later, as soon as he got acquainted with his many vigilante new talents, he personally broke all their bones in little, tiny, fragile pieces. But back then, this was still an unforeseen future and the silent Walter felt the creeps running under his skin whenever he saw them around.
That time, however, snow was falling again and he was feeling vaguely light (not happy, for he never knew anything about happiness). He didn't see them coming, he was distracted and caught in the surprisingly childish act of caressing an icy glob of snow outside an unknown doorstep. Suddenly they were near, and soon greeted him with firm slaps and nasty shoves...but before they could go on, little Walter saw a shadow looming over them. A masked man, indeed, - a real hero, as he would have recalled later - rescuing him. The gang fled away in a sudden rush and the man smiled at him. He patted is dirty clothes, cleaned off his muddy face and asked him if everything was ok. When Walter answered he was alone, the masked vigilante escorted him in a bigger, safer street. Here, he gave him some coins and told him to go to a vendor and help himself with hot cocoa. It was the winter season after all.
Even now, in the cocooned, tidy kitchen, he recalls the triumphant taste of that cheap hot chocolate cup (although not mint-flavored), sipped alone under the lonely beauty of the frosty white sky, thinking about the gang and wondering about the strong, uncanny hero who saved him.
[§]
Later in the night, Daniel has showered and then, as casually as possible, has offered him to use the same luxury. He shouldn't let himself go in such an indulgent pleasure, he shouldn't accept the offer and he should go outside and start patrolling again altogether. He should forget this sweet, sticky sickness climbing heavily on his chest, creeping in his innermost resolutions with immense, derailed sadness. Why does his body feel so heavy? When have his limbs stopped being comfortable with the rest of the world? What is this warmth? Is it possible he's by now so used to be uncomfortable, cold and watchful that this balminess is almost painful?
Yet, there he is, face abandoned on the side of the pristine basin and discarded clothes left in Daniel's careful hands - a handful of new, fresh ones waiting for him. He meticulously rinses his body, hoping all the dirt the criminals have left on him can be scrubbed away. The compact foam on his hands dirties and then turns gradually white and it's comforting enough to make him think some of his own depravities will be also undoubtedly washed away.
Outside the snow is piling up with alarming speed but, for once, Rorschach won't fear the ruthless wind and the shallow gaze of corrupted humanity. Unexpectedly, under Daniel's shower there's only a shy, wordless boy who remembers violence and perdition like a distant dreadful nightmare, as steamy water runs on his cold-boned shoulders and his skin reddens, clashing horribly with his ruffled, curly hair.
- Rorschach, are you OK?- Daniel knocks gently, letting him know he lost the track of time.
- It's fine.- He grunts and stops the running water. He wasted precious minutes indulging into this pleasure and he feels guilty. And a little alarmed about contamination, too, because last time he checked, Daniel's pipes were not different from the one of his neighbourhood. He hurries up and gets dressed, not giving himself enough time to properly dry his skin. Enough with comforts.
When he goes downstairs, hHe's not used to the soap-scented cloud following him around but the variation is not entirely unpleasant. Just another weakness, a feathery sign of Daniel's rooting presence in his life. He still doesn't know what to do with this new, terrible pleasantness, he doesn't know what unidentified needs it will bring, and though being mostly sure about his partner trust, he decides to keep his face on. Removing it has never been an option in the first place. Half-way up, though. For once the right place for his black-and-whiteness is somewhere in the middle.
-Tthere's too much snow outside. You can stay here for tonight, buddy, the couch is yours, you know…- Daniel says, nervously ruffling his own hair.
Rorschach should decline, knows that Daniel has offered only because he expects him to go away as soon as his clothes are ready. But his bones feel relaxed, weary and hurt, the broken boy saved by the masked hero now unexpectedly really near to the surface of his consciousness.
Under his latex face his eyes close and sudden strands of red colour his ears and his cheekbones. He feels stupid and frail - ridiculous, - melting away like hopeless wax near the dancing flames of the candlelight. He should tell Daniel this is enough, he should punch him hard because he's not weak, oh no, not at all, and he shouldn't be handled with such a kind care. Unforgivable.
Too bad, he slowly nods, faintly answering to his friend.
Daniels is clearly taken aback by the rarity of the occurrence but holds his smile openly, feigning a self-confidence he hasn't got:
- Oh, what the hell, you'll need a warmer blanket then!- he exclaims and he jumps upstairs, coming after a while with a very thick, battered quilt.
- Here it is. A bit old but very useful.-
Rorschach sits on the couch and Daniel awkwardly hands him the quilt, babbling again about being well-covered when outside there's this ill weather. Lights are soon off and Daniel bids him goodnight.
- Daniel.- Rorschach calls, his neglected voice low and coarse.
The man, his (only)friend, stands still on the first rung of the staircase; in the dark his silhouette doesn't turn back to the couch.
- Yes?-
- Don't go. Stay.-
Silence. Something languid – terribly, terribly wrong – is vibrating in Rorschach's chest, and he'd like to disappear in a silent puff of the air. He has talked without processing the thought, he has talked listening to the lost echo of Walter's battered memories. Snow does not lie, Walter says, its safe, safe, safe…for once…let it go.
The soft rustle of the quilt moving snaps him back to the present and his brain connects back to the sound of Daniel, who has just come back without even speaking. For once, he's the one lost for words.
There are things he has not taken into account. The electrical sensation, for instance, of Daniel's hand which has reached out and touched his bare forearm under the quilt. Or the fact that he jolts at this contact…but the hand soothes him, caressing his skin lightly, while a clatter on the floor hints him his friend's just got ridden of his glasses.
- Hey…- Daniel says, after a while, getting nearer, and Rorschach(-Walter) isn't entirely sure why he feels hotness all over his body, building up and stirring him up from inside his belly.
Daniel sighs, near his ear, and Rorschach trembles again, horrified, shattered, unable to move when the other ties him up in a unfathomable embrace.
- You're...- Daniel begins and doesn't finish, nudging his jaw with his cold nose. His scent engulfs the air around them and Rorschach is suddenly breathless. He sits still and his body stays motionless, but his mouths exhales an uncertain breath, tongue licking his thin, parted and cold-ruined lips.
Because body knows even before acting. It expects something, it has already figured out the ghost of a touch, a flashy yearn, the denied flicker of a sensation…
Sluttylittlefaggot! – his mind says with his mother scratchy and spiteful voice.
He recoils and pushes his friend away, dismayed by his faltering will, the debauchery right here in the palm of his hand, only waiting to be grabbed.
He has promised, long time ago. He doesn't want…he won't be like them!
This is Daniel, he thinks, he can't be filthy, he can't be outrageous.
But you are, hisses the voice, and it's icy, harsh, peremptory.
Rorschach grabs his head and curls in a solid ball of denial.
Why?, he flinches at the memory of those evil boys cruelly pawing his body.
- Hey…it's me…it's only me. Don't worry…- whispers Daniel sweet and concerned, and Rorschach looks at him, looks at the familiar shadowed features he knows by heart, cut by the soft milky glow coming from the windows.
Daniel is beautiful, all tender lines, kind hands, and sturdy, strong shapes.
The boys of his memories are vividly ugly and horrid. This man, though, is gentle and handsome and this sole, unique thought makes his guts burn and churn savagely, following a pull he recognizes very well in spite of its strangeness.
Daniel is now weakly smiling at him, an untold question lingering in his eyes. He doesn't know, he cannot know, how could he possibly imagine the weight of the shadows now fiercely hunting him?
Even so, Rorschach leans in and grabs his friend's hand again, bumpily, and though being suroprised, his partner responds fondly intertwining their fingers.
Rorschach shakes in his goose bumps but stirs onwards, almost mechanically, and meet Daniel at midair, canting his head a little. He haven't got a clue about what he's doing but he can quite tell his instinct is covering for him.
The touch is brief, a ghostly stroke, scraped lips on fuller ones, but the sensation is heavenly, possibly the most intense thing Rorschach has ever experienced. It's a firm ray of light, a sudden, unexpected wrinkle of beauty in the ugly tides of his life.
Also a weakness, maybe, a momentary lapse of reason…but indeed a divine one.
This is why people sin, he supposes, this is why he cannot manage to tear himself apart from Daniel.
Brief, dry kisses after the first contact, and a confuse fumbling of hands follows, both of them surprisingly bold, touching planes of smooth muscles and hot, tender skin under clothes. In the tender warmness of the thick blanket, gasping and panting, the two men lay down on the couch and Rorschach's mind is too blank to realize he's the one holding on more tightly, sucking scent on Daniel's neck and letting him explore virgin patches of his pale, inner tights flesh. No one has ever touched him like this. He jumps at the intimacy, moans and bites on Daniel's shoulder, catching his own faulty hands in the act of caressing Daniel in the most embarrassing manner he could think of, wantonly making their way through a worn-out pair of slacks and underwear. Daniel approves his impudence in a rather unmistakable sequence of moans and pants, smile creeping foolishly on his lips, while bending to kiss him again, this time hotly, thoroughly.
They separate and breathe and, even being behind his ink-blotted face, Rorschach diverts his gaze, gasping, flushed and aroused. His friend's face is surprisingly close to his nose when he opens his eyes again. Daniel is looking at his face, wondering maybe something about Walter's eyes under it, but he doesn't let his obvious curiosity speak. He lets his hips talk, instead, rubbing them against Rorschach very slowly and immediately releasing the demanding, exquisite fever itching in their guts.
While wordlessly covering each other's mouth, they frantically begin shoving and thrusting, hugging and clenching, desperation rooted in each and every of their moves and constant surprise in their uninterrupted, mutual caresses.
Twitching, stiff flesh finally releases its fervent desire and pitilessly spills it out of their uncoordinated, squirming bodies.
It's hot, it's something like a pattern of sparkling spikes behind his eyes. They stay hugged while their individual existences disappear in the seas of pleasure.
Rorschach's conscience slowly drifts away and then comes back, crushed, pulsing in a jumbled and Morse Code-like signal. He turns on his back and Daniel automatically glues with his chest to his skin, his gentle mouth repeatedly kissing him on his shoulder.
Rorschach is overwhelmed, transfixed, teleported in a dimension the existence of which he has religiously denied to himself until now. He's not able to figure something out, now, in the radiant aftermath of his first willingly shared orgasm, but he knows this clashes horribly with his lifelong beliefs. He should feel regretful, he should wait and hope for the holy punishment of justice over his head, fixing his sins and weaknesses with atonement.
But when he looks away and sees the tender glow coming from the outside, he remember his first snow.
He shudders, thinking of the coldness, the violence, the multiple ways he's been abused, violated, brought to the hem of madness…and maybe he's fallen inside it, already, and maybe he has just pulled Daniel with him, too.
Maybe, - but it's not a clear thought, more of a shiny hint – he has already had enough punishment and, at least for once, he can feel himself safe in someone other's arm.
Meanwhile, the snow has ceased his charming plummeting and the temperature has abruptly dropped down, wrapping the entire city in a glacial, resting silence.
[§]
***the end
"I have… seen things you people wouldn't believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like…tears… in… rain. Time… to die…"
Ok, this came totally unwanted an rather unexpected.
I said silly, diabetic fluff and with silly, diabetic fluff in mind I started writing, ending up with a sad-memories, kind-of-hurt/comfort scenario and…I don't really know. Also, didn't mean to porn the atmosphere, I think I just couldn't leave them without relief, - - - how could I?
Thanks for your kind reading.
Stay tuned.
Yuki