Story 2: Fade
Genre: Angst (there really is no better way to put it.)
Characters: Rorschach with a bit of implied Dan Dreiberg
Universe and time period: Comic-verse, 1980, I imagine this set in the same universe as my other fanfics: "Who We are Beneath the Masks" and "The Price of Guilt" but there is really nothing to say it has to be.
Warnings: None, other than that this one is really sad.
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Fade
Rain falls softly on black asphalt in New York City, slicking the polluted surface until it shines. There is blood mixing with the rainwater, running slowly down the cracks in the pitted surface, but in the unforgiving darkness, illuminated only by cold blue street lamps and the florescent bulbs from nearby warehouses, the fluid looks black, not red. Ink.
The blood is flowing gently from the broken skull of a dead man. His head cracked when it hit the pavement; his brain hemorrhaged. He was nineteen years old. He was also a first time rapist. His mother will cry for weeks when she finds out he is dead. She will never know of the sin her son committed to bring his fate upon him, and she will go to her grave thinking her child was an innocent man. If the young rapist's killer knew this he would likely consider it all the better reason for murdering the man instead of leaving him for the police.
Kneeling over the corpse, ink watches ink for a long while before the killer stands. As he does he feels stress in his left knee; the bones are grinding there more than they should. He pauses briefly to massage the sore joint. The ally is silent other than the ghostly whisper of the rain, and he knows he is entirely alone. Were there even the vaguest sign of life he would not have dared touch his aching knee. He would have shrugged it off and left the scene straight-backed and impervious. But he is alone and it is past midnight now, making it the twenty first of March, 1980. So fitting this pain would bother him today.
His thoughts linger on this as he leaves the body in the rain. He does not often measure time, nor does he care that years cut deep lines around his mouth, or that they make his hallow eye sockets deepen, or his teeth fall out. That is not his face real face. His real face is beautiful and vacant. It means something different to everyone, and at the same time it means nothing at all. The years do not change this.
It is not only his knee that bothers him as he slinks silently through the fog, creeping like cats do when they move like liquid seeping into dark spaces. There is more than one old complaint gnawing at him tonight. The voice of another dead man echoes like a dull throbbing headache in his brain. He killed this one five years ago, and though every other cadaver since has been silent in the wake of its demise, this one alone speaks to him on occasion.
Four decades feel heavier than he imagined they could as he traces familiar paths through the city. He is almost mindless now, a wind-up man following a set course, one he has walked countless times. The ghost is nagging harder now, and he can no longer ignore it as he hangs a left towards the better end of town. His knee hurts enough now that he thinks in may be eliciting a visible limp. He straightens and steps hard on his left leg. He will offer up no weakness tonight, but even though he manages to hide every trace of the pain it makes his mind wander to dark places.
Four decades. Will I see five?, he wonders. The soreness in his knee tells him that the body he is borrowing will not meet demands in ten years. He allows himself a sigh that warms the latex covering his dry lips. On this day, marking his fortieth year in existence, he makes a wish for himself. He wishes that he will find a moment when he can step into the shadow with out complaint and leave the world with honor; that he will not fall victim to decay; that he will exit willfully when he is ready. The thought of death is all consuming yet strangely comforting in its certainty.
He turns the corner and steps onto a familiar street. The sidewalks here are clean. There are small trees every few feet, and the buildings are charming four story brownstones with decorative wrought iron doors. He halts before a particular house and stands with a sudden unease at the bottom of the stone stoop. There really is no reason he should haunt these steps again. He is bearing no important news, and he has nothing of value to offer the man that lives here. He looks down at himself and for the first time in years he is aware that he smells foul; that he reeks of blood and rottenness and human negligence. If he had a legitimate reason to be here he would not care that he is filthy; he would smash the lock and enter, but there is no real rationale to why he is at this door tonight, only the pain of four lamentable decades, an arthritic knee, and ghost that will not be silent.
It isn't enough. It never is, and although he has haunted this stoop so many nights before, it is only on this one that he is aware of how time slips by with every vigilant drop of rain when he turns from his brother's door and fades away into the fog.