Summary: Rorschach is a creepy stalker, again.
Type: Captcha prompt: 'a stalking'.
Rating/Warnings: T.
Characters/Pairings: Rorschach, Dan.
and you won't even notice
.
The raisin bran is exactly where he remembers it being; almost a decade on, and Daniel hasn't so much as changed the organization of his pantry.
[Probably hasn't changed the routes he takes, to the library, to the store, to the diner, to Mason's garage. Hasn't changed his lock company, either.]
The coffee pot is a new model but it would take a man of far lower intelligence to be unable to decipher its use; a pot is percolating, burbling and popping loudly in the quiet brownstone, within minutes.
[It won't wake him up. He sleeps so soundly these days; you know, because you've stood and watched him a lot over the last few years, testing his instincts, gauging how long it will be before he falls victim to a burglar or an old grudge. It worries you when you're willing to admit to it.]
Cereal, milk, a rattle in the drawer for a spoon, and Rorschach sits at the table, crunching on the flakes and slurping his coffee and thinking about how he could be turning out the drawers down here, going through the shelves. Setting explosives. Loading a gun.
.
He stands over Daniel, disappointed as always. It's less the shape his old partner's allowed himself to fall into - that can be fixed, with motivation – and more the complacency of the spirit that allows a man to sleep on while hands that have broken necks and strangled the life out of bodies hang over him.
Could have a knife against your throat, he thinks, watching the shallow rise and fall of breath. A gun at your temple, fingers around your windpipe, all before you would wake up. Could kill you right now. Anyone could.
Three days ago, a false closet wall had slid back, revealing a costume hanging like a shed skin, like the shell of the hero who'd been scraped off the sidewalk the night before. Comedian, his brain had supplied and then, immediately, mask killer. A moment after that, framed photograph in hand, Wonder how good Daniel's locks are, these days.
Not very good, as it turns out.
He wakes Daniel up. The sight of him, vulnerable, laid back in bed and waiting for the hands to descend, like a man already dead and given up – it's too much to bear.
["Who next? Veidt? Juspeczyk? Me?"
"You?"]
He'll tell himself later that Daniel is a failure, that his condition is his own fault, that he chose to go soft, leave himself open to attack. Then he will feel the heavy weight of the cologne bottle in his pocket, the scent of the man lingering around him with every step, like old times, like good times, and concede that he's still worried.
His shoes will take a good wearing over the next few days, the sign in his hands blistering him where his hands grip it too tightly. Daniel may not like being followed – may not like his inferior locks broken or the feel of eyes on the back of his neck or a second rhythm of breath falling across his while he sleeps, shadow lurking over him in the dark, but he's forfeited his say in the matter.
It's for his own good.
.
(c) ricebol 2009