Author's notes: OMG guys. 100 reviews. 100 REVIEWS. What is this I don't even. :D Thank you very much for all your responses and support!
Okay, so serious business time. This is Roche case fallout, happening about a couple hours after he burns down Grice's house and goes insane. This was originally 3rd POV Dan, but I thought that this would be a good opportunity to explore part of Rorschach's mutilated psyche at this point. I referred heavily to the GN and Rorschach's account of the case (even though he's not exactly Mr. Reliable Narrator…). So I think I made a pretty good balance of things, let me know what you think!
Warnings: Some morbidity and creepiness.
If I owned this, this would never have happened to the poor guy, let me tell you…
25. Shattered
His mouth was full of ash and the smell-taste of burnt skin weighed heavily on his face and his sole comfort was the familiarity of bloodshed that shrouded him like a mantle, cooling on his skin-his costume-his skin-he wasn't sure anymore but the uncertainty was vague and would pass in favor of the sharp convictions with which he would watch the world burn.
And everything was screaming.
Everything was screaming and it always had been and now he finally knew why. The knowledge vindicated him, freed him from the useless trappings of what passive intellects call humanity, which is nothing more than ash raining down from the godless heavens and the screams of the guilty in the night and the baptismal scorching of blood. He no longer needed those gilded chains that held him back and fed his illusions.
Whatever illusions he'd had, they had shattered like ice.
The shrieks would not abate and he knew that was his punishment, penance for his failure and he would be forever haunted by the souls of those he had failed.
And his city is dying.
He already knew that. Before he truly existed, he'd believed that the city could be saved by the efforts of good men, but there were no good men anymore, just men who may be less complacent and weak and corrupted than the rest of the decaying, reeking populace who wallowed in their dripping, rancid existence, tainting whatever white spots of innocence that was left on the world. And filth needed to burn. This he knew with the same conviction he'd had before a smoldering building, filth and perverse limbless torsos all burning and sizzling with the crackle of human fat and vice. Before this spectacle of final justice, he'd known that the darkness was infinite and we were alone in our shared oblivion. Ash was still heavy on his tongue and he allowed it to remind him of his greatest failure and his greatest epiphany. His eyes were still full of animal blood, crimson vision casting away any familiarity the dripping tunnel may have held for him as he walked towards the lighted end and the imagery may have had some significance for him, once. But that was before he truly existed. Before he'd seen the truth.
He had come for Her file. He needed it. They needed it. The voices screamed and shrieked in his mind and their wails drove him on because maybe if She had Her history back, She at least would have some peace in the oblivion which She'd been cast into by his own crushing failure and he didn't deserve any comfort, but She did and he was bound to serve Her in repayment for his blunders. Gloves violet-crimson clutched the manilla folder tightly and he was distantly satisfied that they were not shaking. They always screamed louder when he showed weakness. He'd only known them for a matter of hours, but he knew that the dead would tolerate no weakness from him. It was weakness that had reduced them to screaming condemnations in the back of his head and he had no right to show that kind of frailty again. But oh, if they could just stop for a few moments, just a few moments so that he could not remember for just a few moments but they still screamed and screamed and-
"Rorschach?"
Why was it so quiet?
He looked up slowly, suddenly afraid to see whose voice it was who had quieted the screaming accusations (they never left, never again, but they were quiet, barely there) and made the red behind his eyes wash away because suddenly things were almost familiar and he was sure he knew that voice from somewhere and-
Oh.
The man at the top of the stairs, backlit by fluorescent light had brown eyes and an open face creased with concern and he'd seen that man before, where had he seen that man before?
"Are you okay, buddy?" The man asked again, taking a cautious step down the stairs, eyes widening as he took in the sight and Rorschach wondered what had startled him so much. When the man spoke up again, he sounded breathless and confused, "Rorschach… what happened?"
Daniel.
The idea of lurching forward and collapsing at the feet of this kind eyed man who he knew as Daniel suddenly seemed incredibly appealing to a part of him that should not be there anymore. This false-Rorschach voice wanted to tell him everything, to sob and weep and beg Daniel to make the pain go away. And that was unacceptable.
Instead, he raised the manilla folder so that Daniel could see it, "Won't need this anymore. Case closed." His throat was hoarse and constricted and he wanted to lift up the skin of his face for a moment so he could breathe but for some reason, he didn't want Daniel to see the smoke and ash that would surely billow out of his mouth of he did. Daniel's eyes were wide and his forehead was crinkled in confusion and fear and Rorschach wished he wouldn't do that because the expression was so unfamiliar, it made it that much harder to figure out where he'd seen him before. Instead, Daniel walked over to him and set a hand on Rorschach's shoulder. Peering into his face, he asked, voice soft and gentle, "You okay?"
The silence in his head was deafening and all at once, he wanted- no, needed- those voices to come back. To scream his faults back at him and give him that purpose that anchored him to reality because without them, it would be all too easy to start screaming himself, just to fill the gaping, aching silence that made him feel lost and alone and cold, so, so cold.
Growling against the aching pain, Rorschach jerked away from the hand, immeasurably heavy with kindness and gentleness he didn't want or deserve. Daniel looked as though he had been slapped and then Rorschach remembered.
Daniel was his partner. Daniel was his friend. Daniel was trustworthy and kind and Rorschach had been wrong before, there was at least one good man in this rotting city that writhed in its self-made bonds of vice and corruption and that man was looking at him, down in the darkness of a tunnel and he looked awfully out of place there, in the dripping shadows that welcomed Rorschach like family and-
Daniel wouldn't understand.
Just as the thought hit him, the aches he'd been denying and the wails behind his eyes became that much stronger, just within his earshot. This man, who would be a refuge from the ever-present dead, would never understand him. And suddenly, Rorschach understood why Daniel looked so afraid. Daniel was afraid of him and even as he was pleading with him, urging him to do unthinkable things like "talk to me" and "come upstairs and let's work this out", the fear in his eyes betrayed him. He couldn't tell Daniel, couldn't weigh him down and sully him with the knowledge that had opened Rorschach himself to the howls of the dead. But more than that, Daniel wouldn't understand and in that, Rorschach knew that he was alone. And despite being solitary by nature, the word "alone" never tasted so bitter. He turned without reply and began walking back down the tunnel, angry and disgusted with himself for trusting such a naïve, foolish man who would never see the truth, who was as blind and weak as the rest of the populace and would one day fall among them, and live in the pale, squirming nest of indulgence and sloth. Like maggots.
He was glad Daniel made no move to follow him, just stood there, confused and hurt written on his face. He was even more relieved when the screaming began to echo in his ears again. It made him feel less alone.
He had no more use for the living. The dead made good company.
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A/N: *passes out * Well, that was depressing to write. Tell me what you thought about this one, I'm curious to see if I was able to communicate all I wanted to in this one. Also: I just want to share this because I am a weird dork, but I totally posted this in the weird in-between time at daylight savings time where you live the same hour twice (2am) because 1. this is the time that Rorschach died, kinda. I read this weird little thing that talked about because Antarctica is in some weird little thing with the time zones or something (god, it's late) and that it's ambiguous whether or not he died on the 31st (All Hallow's Eve) or the 1st (All Souls Day) and I feel like this was done on purpose. tl;dr: I am a pretentious asshole. :3