Design
"To plan and fashion artistically or skillfully."
"What are these?" Rorschach asked, holding up a few sheets of paper. Dan looked up, wiping some sweat from his brow. He hated cleaning out his basement, but every few months, it was a necessary thing. He had the awful tendency to hoard things, regardless of their value or age. It was lucky enough that Rorschach had agreed to lend a helping hand, albeit a minor one. Any help, he had assured his partner, was appreciated.
Dan moved closer, taking the papers and studying them closely. "I don't know, man. Don't remember these…" Suddenly, it clicked. Rorschach tilted his head slightly, and he chuckled as he handed them back. "They're blueprints. My first designs for Archie." Oh, he remembered them well – he had only needed to glance before he could remember every little detail. Originally, his metal friend was to have a rectangular shape, sort of like a floating box. He had even drawn out a floor plan, complete with a private bathroom, single-person cockpit with a lot of fancier gadgets, and even video cameras rigged to the hull. Couldn't remember why he'd thought of those.
Rorschach inspected the plans, snorting slightly as he examined one of the… sillier ideas. "Ridiculous," he grumbled, setting a page aside. "Didn't have much of an imagination at the time. Or too much of one." Dan shrugged, grinned sheepishly.
"I didn't have you around, I suppose." The light, friendly sarcasm was lost somewhere between Dan's mouth and Rorschach's mask, so Dan contented himself with shifting boxes around the basement so he could feel like he was doing something productive. "I started planning him long before I even dreamed of being Nite Owl… I've always wanted to fly." His partner grunted.
"Buy plane ticket. That's the sensible way to fly."
"I thought you didn't trust planes. Besides, you like Archie, don't you?" Rorschach was silent for a moment, and Dan wondered if he ever got airsick. Maybe it wasn't about distrusting flying at all; maybe it was just that he got a little nauseous at high altitudes. He never had before, of course, but he couldn't really expect Rorschach to turn to him and say, "Feeling a little ill. Go down a bit, would you?" Which made the whole bathroom thing sound like a good idea all over again. Having your own private toilet in your own private airship made a lot of sense, especially since bathroom breaks in convenience stores and other locations happened to be incredibly awkward. He would never forget the night he regretted so terribly drinking that much water in so little time, and had to stop in an alley to relieve himself. Rorschach, he thought somewhat fondly, had been absolutely disgusted and did not bother to show up at his house for at least two days.
Good times.
"Like Archie fine." Rorschach's gruff voice effectively sliced through Dan's thoughts, the words making him swell a bit with pride. Even a little bit of praise was enough. "Just saying – you've always had your head in the clouds. It's where you belong."
"Um… thanks?" Rorschach grunted, shuffling through the other blueprints briefly and setting them down with the rest. Dan saw his "gaze" flicker between the designs and the garbage pile, and held out his hand quickly. "You… you can put those back in their box. I'd like to keep them." If he didn't know his partner better, Dan would have said that he saw his mouth quirk up a bit beneath the mask. It might have been his imagination, but Rorschach's voice was riddled with sarcasm.
"Planning another? Feathered design worth another look." He shuddered – what an abomination that had been. Honestly, an owl-shaped ship, wings and all? Complete with real down and everything? How stupid could one man get? Besides, where would he ever have gotten all the feathers? How would they stay on?
"No, one Archie is enough to handle." Rorschach nodded, laying the designs back where he had found them and turning to the ship. He stared for a while, as though inspecting it, and after a moment, he made a gruff humming noise. One of approval?
"Like Archie fine," he repeated, and went back to rummaging through boxes. Dan squirmed for a moment, unused to all this… appreciation. God, Rorschach must have been in a good mood – in the years they had worked together, he had never been anywhere near this cheerful. "Changed many elements of original outlines," he said a little tentatively, burrowing as far into the jumbled mess as he could. Dan set down a box of failed gadgets he hadn't the heart to get rid of. With Rorschach's help, he was sure such sentiments would not stop him this time.
"A lot of them were impractical." There was a pause. Neither of them touched a single object, frozen in time, until his partner cleared his throat slightly.
"…Equipped for one man." Dan chuckled, grinned, but both died when Rorschach looked up at him as if he'd kicked a kitten. He always seemed to think that even the littlest expression of humor was directed at him, mocking cruelly. There was no way to take that laughter back, so he rubbed a hand through his hair and sighed.
"Yeah, that was one of the impractical ones. At the time, I assumed I would be the only one who wanted to soar above the city, free as a bird. That was before –" he almost said, "before we were partners," but quickly recovered with a light cough. "That was before Nite Owl." Rorschach nodded, understood, and Dan wondered if there was a 'before Rorschach' – but that was silly, absurd, because this man was nothing but Rorschach. He couldn't deny his curiosity, but that was not a subject to be breached; especially not now, when they were so comfortable in something as ordinary as cleaning out a basement. Suddenly dissatisfied with the situation, Dan kicked the gadget box back under a table.
"You're keeping that?" Rorschach asked.
"Nope. I think I'm done for now. I'll take everything out to the dump later, but right now…" His stomach grumbled, and he latched upon the idea. "Let's eat something. I've got plenty." Rorschach's mask puffed out a bit around where lips would be, and Dan wondered if he was sighing.
"Should be going home."
"Aw, come on. We'll eat, and you can take the guest bedroom. It's the least I can do, since you helped me out." He clasped Rorschach's shoulder, squeezing hard enough to relay that he would not take no for an answer. His partner seemed to struggle briefly, so close to saying no, but under his hand, Dan felt him practically wilt in defeat.
"Couch is fine. Beans are fine, also, or eggs. Don't need much." Dan smiled and let go, cheerfully leading the way up his stairs.
"I've got beans."
AN: I wish they were this good of friends the whole time. Figured we needed a break from morose blabbity-blah and threw in a bit of friendly banter. I really can't imagine Rorschach doing something so trivial as cleaning out someone's basement, but hey, it's Dan. If he tried hard enough, I'm pretty sure Dan could wheedle him into almost anything. I also like the idea of Dan leaving old Archie sketches lying around. I would totally go out into New York City to fight crime in a giant, feathery bird box. Yep. Totally.
One other chapter is complete, but I'm reviewing it to see if there's anything I might fix first. I'm not sure if I like how it turned out. It will probably be up by Sunday, at the latest.