Summary: Lost in the dark and general confusion.
AUs: Poor Hand verse, Zombieverse.
Rating/Warnings: K+, no warnings.
Characters/Pairings: Dan, Z!Rorschach.

mismatched

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He doesn't mean to lose his partner in the spiraling maze of the city – it's a maze he knows, has navigated hand-to-the-wall for years now, and it should be a simple thing to just keep up. But he's tired; tired, and overwhelmed with a sudden swell of sympathy for Rorschach, who's had to manage a day job and crimefighting in balance for years and years. Here he is, three days into and would you like naan with that? and he's already dragging, feet heavy on the asphalt.

It's not just the job. It's the weight of everything – the loss of his life as he knew it, the shock of discovering he'd been had, the pressure of trying to fix it and then, on top of it all, whatever this idiotic thing between him and Rorschach is turning into.

So he stops, tries to catch his breath. One hand rests on the brickwork, and he closes his eyes behind the goggles, willing the dancing sparks there to disappear. Just a minute, just five minutes, just–

When he opens them again, Rorschach's in front of him, expectant and somehow more still than he's ever been.

"Christ," Dan mutters, a step back against the wall, one hand over his suddenly hammering heart. His nerves have been shot since the, well, the bug incident, and cannot handle surprises in their current state. "Trying to kill me?"

He can see the shadows pool where the mask furrows its brows. "Of course not. Concerned when we got separated. Thought you'd be glad to…" Rorschach trails off, cocking his head to one side. "Feeling all right, Daniel?"

"Yeah, sure, just. Things have been a little rough?" he says, with the tone of explaining something that shouldn't need to be explained. Surely Rorschach can understand why he'd be a little on edge, after this morning – even if he hadn't quite believed him about the bug, something had obviously been wrong.

Instead, Rorschach just steps further into his personal space than he should be comfortable with, what with the events of the last few days. Puts the back of his hand against Dan's exposed cheek, probably checking for fever, and hell, since when does the great untouchable bastard voluntarily initiate contact like this? Since when does he lean in so close?

"God, you're freezing," Dan says, the words tumbling out before he can catch them, shocked into bluntness by the way the leather's leaching the heat right out of his skin.

A long, considering look, inkblots swimming more slowly than they should be; then the hand is withdrawn. "Come on," Rorschach says, stepping back. Dan exhales sharply, in relief and something less tangible. "Not well. Going home."

It's a block or two before Dan realizes they're headed for his old address, not Rorschach's. He pulls up short. "Where are we going?"

"Said already," and annoyance is creeping into his tone. "Home. Owl's Nest."

"That's not… Rorschach. I lost the house, remember?" And this is so surreal, and maybe he is sick and delirious or maybe Rorschach is. "I've been staying with you?"

This time the icy hands don't stop at skin; they shove his goggles up onto his head and lift his eyelids and a swarm of inkblots regard him, narrowing into his eyes. Checking for concussion, his brain supplies, and for just a second he thinks that maybe, oh god, maybe this has all been a dream, maybe he hasn't lost his home and his life and he hasn't been changing clothes in an alleyway and making absurd advances on his partner and being molested by insects and–

Then Rorschach glances around to see if he has cover, lifts his mask up over his brow to give him clearer vision because dark irises and pupils are hard to tell apart at night and how does he even see through the mask anyway–

And Dan finds himself regarded by flaming eyes in a corpse's face, brows pinched in incongruous concern, stinking of rot and blood, and he isn't even sure, later, how long or how far he runs.

.

In the alley, Rorschach sighs, and puts his mask back down – thinks of wings and owls and rats and bugs, and serial killers and cattlehands and cybernetic constructions, of data shifting across a faceplate and the sound of wolves.

It's nearly 3 AM, and his own Daniel is apparently still missing. It's going to be a long night.

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(c) ricebol 2009