Interpreter

"One who interprets, explains, or expounds."

Dan couldn't help but wriggle a little on top of the toilet lid. This was a very uncomfortable situation: sitting half-naked in his bathroom, waiting for Rorschach to come at him with a needle and hydrogen peroxide was not tops on his list of favorite-things-to-do/places-to-be. From the corner of his eye, he watched his partner bustle around, digging through a first aid kit with a sewing needle clenched in his teeth. He had been nothing but gentle this entire time, careful not to aggravate the cut in Dan's left shoulder, so maybe "coming at him" wasn't exactly the best terminology, but damned if he didn't hate the idea of having his skin sewn up anywhere other than a hospital. Especially if the 'other-than-the-hospital' was his smelly, anti-hygienic friend.

Finally, Rorschach pulled a roll of bandages and cotton balls out of the kit, setting them on the counter. He pulled off his gloves, trench coat, suit jacket and hat already abandoned in the kitchen. "Stupid," he said with a sigh, rolling up his sleeves. "You should be more careful."

"I know," Dan sighed, and went to shrug. Rorschach laid a hand on his shoulder briefly, flinching away again once he'd made his point. His fingers were cold, and red hair and freckles dusted his arm all the way up into his sleeves. Red. Somehow, it suited him. "Thanks for doing this." Even if he'd rather be in a hospital.

"You're hurt," he said, running his hands under the faucet. Blood dripped from his fingers and puddle down the drain. Some of it wasn't Dan's, but he ignored that. "Don't want it infected."

When his hands were (relatively) clean, Rorschach took a cotton ball and unscrewed the cap on the peroxide. "Are you sure you can do this?" Dan asked, anxiously eyeing the cotton ball he was dabbing in the peroxide. He grunted, presumably a yes, and reached for Dan's shoulder. As the cotton ball grew nearer and nearer, slowed to the pace of a snail in the face of his terror, Dan thought of a million reasons why he should get up and run right now, one being that he didn't think Rorschach really had any business patching him up (hospital), another was that the upper half of his suit was draped over his knees and that sure didn't look ridiculous, and another was that a grunt didn't just mean yes, regardless of how well he knew his friend –

"Yes," he said, as though reading his thoughts, and Dan's skin caught on fire. He hissed, flinching away from the burn. Rorschach grabbed him again, holding him still. "Stop squirming, Daniel." His words were more garbled than usual with the needle between his teeth.

"Sorry," he said, feeling the sting in his eyes and watching his vision go fuzzy behind tears. "It just… ah… hurts."

"I know," Rorschach replied, but he didn't stop swabbing at the cut. After a moment, the ache faded away, and Dan took the momentary lull of pain and the deft circular motion of his partner's hand to let his thoughts wander. It was his fault, honestly; he'd been stupid enough to assume that the kid was down for the count, that he wouldn't get up again, but he wasn't, and he did, that time with a knife. He'd gotten a good slash in, and barely grazed his back before Rorschach had leapt onto his shoulders and drove him firmly into the ground. Then it was, "Watch your step, Daniel," and, "Don't move, Daniel," and then (most embarrassing of all), "Costume off, Daniel."

Granted, he'd let him keep the lower half of it on (he really didn't think Rorschach would be any more comfortable with that than he would), and he was really quite clinical about the whole thing. He'd directed his gaze everywhere but Dan's awkward exposure (so far as he guessed, anyway, since it was hard to know exactly where Rorschach was looking) and immediately checked to make sure the wounds weren't critical.

They weren't. But the one on his shoulder would need stitches, which accounted for the needle in Rorschach's mouth, which made Dan a lot more nervous than it should have.

"Still hurts?"

The grizzled voice snapped him out of his thoughts, making him jump a bit. The peroxide-doused cotton dug a little more firmly into his shoulder – he flinched, and Rorschach mumbled apologetically before taking it away to pour on a new one.

"Not anymore," Dan said, and Rorschach nodded once. They looked at each other, or Dan at least watched his mask move. When his partner's mouth twitched, he looked down at his shoulder. Blood still dribbled steadily, but now it bubbled a bit on its way down. Rorschach set down the cotton ball he'd just prepared, looked down at the counter in thought… and picked up thread instead.

Oh, Jesus.

"I'm saving the wound on your back for later."

Oh, Jesus.

"Should sew this up first." In a split second, the second it took for Rorschach to take the needle out of his mouth, Dan ceased to be Nite Owl, even a fraction of Nite Owl – instead, he was fully Dan Dreiberg, wearing a silly costume at four in the morning, sitting in his bathroom, about to be sewn up by a maniac and completely terrified of that goddamn needle. Before his partner quite reached his shoulder, the sinister instrument gleaming in his hand, Dan tried his best to leap up and scurry away without much conflict.

"Maybe I should just go to the hospital after all," he stammered. "I don't want to make you do it, really, it's no problem, I'll just go…" And then that hand was back on his shoulder, freezing cold fingers and the firmest grip he'd ever felt from hands so small, and he could almost feel eyes boring into his.

"Sit."

He sat.

"You're being ridiculous. Be still." But it was so hard to be still, he mentally whined, it wasn't in him to sit still when someone was threatening him with a potentially dangerous object. Rorschach looped the thread through the needle, and Dan felt the seconds stretch into hours again, cursing having ever bought that do-it-yourself suture kit.

"I'm sorry," Dan stuttered, tensing his legs to get up again. "I just can't –"

"This will hurt."

It did.

Dan gritted his teeth, trying his best not to imagine the needle popping in and out of his skin. He'd forgotten how goddamn bad it felt to be patched up like this without anesthesia, or at least a few drinks. Rorschach's teeth were clenched, too, but Dan assumed that was out of concentration and not pain. There was a firmness in his jaw, sheer determination on what he could see of his face, but his grip on Dan's shoulder was gentle, as though afraid of breaking him if he held on too tightly. He was brisk, too – even though he couldn't (wouldn't) watch his skin being sewn together again, from the way Rorschach's arm moved back and forth he could tell he knew what he was doing.

It really didn't surprise him much. There was so much about the man that he didn't know and would never ask. He didn't know his real name, he didn't know where he lived, or how he paid for anything; he didn't know if he had any hobbies outside of dressing up and fighting crime, or if he had anyone that loved him, somewhere, and was waiting for him to come home. For some reason, he doubted that last one, and it put a little crack in his heart to realize that more than likely, justice was all Rorschach had, justice… and him. Nite-Owl. Daniel. He had Dan.

Huh.

Truth be told, he still really wished he'd just gone to a hospital, but if anyone else had to patch him up… he was glad it was his partner.

Rorschach grunted. "Thank you."

"What?" Dan blinked, and realized he'd been staring. Clearing his throat, he glanced to his left (no, no, no, not there!) and looked away just as quickly to his right. "For what?" he asked, hoping that his cheeks only felt hot and weren't actually bright red. He hated how easily he blushed.

"For what you said."

For what he said? He hadn't said anything, not for the last few minutes, and… oh. If anyone else had to patch him up… seriously?

"I said that out loud?" Rorschach hummed, pulled a little too sharply on his shoulder and made him wince. God, he just wanted this to be over… he'd said that out loud, how ridiculous of him, Rorschach probably thought he was just some sappy loser, unable to keep from vomiting his feelings every time they hit him hard enough… "I, uh… sorry."

"No need."

They were quiet again for a time, one of them busy while the other mentally prayed the burning in his cheeks would just go away. After several throat clearings, the silence was just awkward enough that Dan absolutely had to say something. "Uh… you're pretty good at this. Where'd you learn?"

Rorschach stayed quiet a moment longer, seeming to weigh his answer carefully. "Had to learn. Difficult to explain rips in costume, so I learned to fix them myself." Instinctively, Dan scanned his suit, searching for any obvious lines or tears – there weren't any. He'd seen those pants ripped many a time, by weapon or by silly mistake, and he knew those weren't new pants (they smelled faintly of sewer, even days after the last time they'd been down there)… he was good. He wondered if the scar on his shoulder would be any less noticeable. "Stitched myself up a few times, too." Even though his shoulder ached, he still felt ridiculous, and the potential awkwardness of this entire situation was still heavy in the air, Dan couldn't help but give him the biggest smile possible.

"Then I'm really glad you're the one doing this."

They didn't talk the rest of the time Rorschach worked, only nodding in satisfaction at a job well done when they looked in the mirror at the final product. Putting the needle back where it belonged, Rorschach gave Dan a brief lecture on not aggravating his shoulder as he cleaned the cut on his back. He agreed, watching his partner bandage a small part of his upper torso and his shoulder. Once he'd finished, and they'd put the first aid kit back under the sink, Dan changed into his pajama pants before heading down to the kitchen, where Rorschach sat at the table patiently with two bowls of cereal.

Even after they finished breakfast and he meandered into the living room, Rorschach followed close at his heels. He sat with Dan quietly while he drank a beer and flipped through a book, and when Dan asked about it, he said he wanted to make sure the stitches didn't rip open again. He'd leave, once he was sure Dan wouldn't accidentally kill himself in his absence.

Dan didn't really believe him, so when Rorschach fell asleep on the couch during the early morning news, he didn't wake him.

AN: Belphegor and I actually had pretty much the same idea – I was tired of stories where Rorschach gets his butt handed to him and Dan patches him up. Not to say that those stories are all bad (I actually really like some of them), there's just… a lot of them. I figured Rorsch patching Dan up would be a nice change of scenery. Belphegor happened to finish hers first/do a better job of the matter (go read it!), and by the time I figured out what I wanted to do with the idea, there are a lot more Rorschach-fixes-Dan stories and now I feel less cool. :)

In this chapter, the perspective was really important. I thought about doing it from Rorschach's point of view at first, since I really should work with him more (although he gets the last chapter, which is ridiculously long and should be good enough for him), but it would have been a completely different story… and I wanted it third person. There are still some similarities between my first-person and my third-person styles in this, which I did on purpose since we're a little more connected to Dan's thoughts/feelings and not floating around in the air above their heads. And… yeah. That's it, I think. Thanks for reading, by the way!