Rorschach/Nite Owl 15
>>29164

>>53306
This horrifies me to no end.

>>53168
so, so, so hot

context:
http://etherati.livejournal.com/27745.html
http://etherati.livejournal.com/41915.html

>>53595
Lio's art and Etherati's fics: 2 great tastes that taste great together.

thread-starter forgot link:

https://plus4chan.org/boards/coq/res/29164.html - #15

>>56582
That is too adorable, shit.

>>57026
This makes me so happy. So happy.

>>56802
This... Just actually made me like him.

>>57026

Your Rorschach is SO. HOT.

Also their size differences are more apparent in this pic, I love that.

Some lulzy porn for you, coq. Part 1.

*

Rorschach's journal he thinks, though he's nowhere near his journal; he doesn't know where it is, exactly, but his coat's gone missing too and it's possible they've run off together. February... something. Sometime in February. Partner is a filthy, filthy liar.

There's a clock chiming somewhere in the other room, and it seems appropriate to roll his head against the chairback, let it loll loosely in his filthy liar of a partner's direction. "...whassat?" he asks, and it's nice and sharp and invective, like always.

No, it isn't. Damn it.

"Your inkblots look weird upside down," Daniel says from the kitchen doorway, and he's going to start giggling any second because that's what horrible filthy liars do when their plans pan out. There has to have been a plan here, a conspiracy. He's not sure how many empty bottles are strewn around the table past Daniel's elbow, but he can see an awful lot of green glass through the blur.

Green's supposed to be Coke, right. American, upstanding. Wholesome. Not debilitating, horrible, warm, fuzzy–

"...look weird anyway," Rorschach says, and he's not sure if he means himself or Daniel. Probably both. He hears a thwup from below him as his hat falls off, hits the carpet.

That's unacceptable.

He scrambles, rolling around in the chair and leaning forward over the back to try to grab it back up and the whole room is swimming now, spinning out lazily. He makes one desperate grab but the floor keeps ducking out of his reach, taking the hat with it.

I appear, the journal entry continues, to have shit for depth perception. Also Daniel's fault.

Daniel's laughing. Filthy, filthy liar, with his filthy beer and filthy assurances that 'just one won't hurt anything' and filthy hands and–

Wait. Why are hands on him, why is he being touched?

"Off," he says, twisting sharply against the contact. "Gedoff."

"Whoa," Daniel's saying, and he's upside down again and Daniel is holding him up, holding him back. The chairsprings sproing threateningly and he finally feels the way he's slipping from the back, toppling.

"Whoa, hold still," Daniel repeats, and starts trying to haul him upright. "This isn't exactly how I hoped our first drunken grope would go either," and now he does dissolve into giggles.

Partner, Rorschach thinks as the carpet swims and out of focus, as hands bury in his shirtcloth and pull up against all the lovely gravity, is apparently as depraved as feared. The thought doesn't come with as much panic as he figures it should.

Finally righted again, hands in places they never should be but if Daniel lets go in the next two seconds... maybe five seconds, he can't remember the exact rule right now... they can just play it off as a joke and move on.

Daniel doesn't let go. He just stands there, grinning stupidly.

Also, apparently an idiot.

"Off," he tries once more, tugging, but he's backed against the arm of the chair and that's a problem somehow.

Daniel grins, still stupidly, still a filthy liar and his hands are still–

Rorschach yelps.

Still on his ass. 'Still' seems like the wrong word there. That's not where they were a second ago.

"God damn," Daniel mumbles, leaning in to lick the side of his face. It's wet and disgusting. "Fuck, Rorschach."

"Drunk," he says feebly.

Daniel laughs, and Rorschach can feel it rumble under his lips. He doesn't know how that's possible, because he's not kissing Daniel's throat. He's not.

He's not.

"You or me?" Daniel asks, still a stupid filthy idiot liar with such nice hands, god damn indeed.

Rorschach mrffls something into his throat that might be 'both', and then they both fall over the arm of the chair and land, elbows and knees and hands all pinned, in the seat.

Daniel squirms and grins and gets as far as getting one hand into his pants before he passes out, dead weight.

Rorschach beats the back of his head against the other arm rest, hard enough to make him even dizzier than he already is.

Alcohol, he thinks, and even his mental voice is slurred, but it's also bright with frustration, is not nearly the facilitator of depravity I had judged it to be.

Very inconvenient.

*

Dan wakes up when the morning sun turns its glaring six-thousand degrees of raw nuclear fusion on his particular living room window, and by god it feels exactly like what it is today, no gentle tendrils of golden light or pink-orange haze. It feels like someone's switched a spotlight on pointed at his face.

"Ghhhfrrbl," he says, intelligently.

Something nearby still smells like beer; a spill on his clothes, or on the cushion he's sprawled on–

He's not sprawled on a cushion. For one thing, cushions don't have bony knees and elbows. For another, cushions most definitely do not have warm, terrifying places for his hand to become lodged in.

Is this his fault? He can barely breathe, right on the edge of panic. Did he do this?

No, idiot. Rorschach forced your hand down... and then, what, convinced you to pass out on top of him? Genius.

A deep snore resonates up through his ribs and through his skull; there's a scratching of stubble along his cheekbone, a wet spot where he's sure the corner of his mouth is pressed into a puddle of drool. He doesn't dare move his head, his weight. He doesn't dare move his hand, good god.

Okay, he thinks, mental checklist. Clothes? Check. No one asphyxiated or throwing up or bleeding? Check. The no bleeding bit is encouraging; coupled with the fact that – if he's totally blunt with himself here – his hand isn't particularly sticky or crusty, means that things must not have gone all that far.

Fuck, it doesn't matter. He still has his hand down Rorschach's goddamn pants and he's going to goddamn wake up any minute, and to make matters worse, the morning's left him half-hard in what's left of Dan's grip.

Of course, Dan's hard too, right up against Rorschach's thigh, unmistakable. In other, more southerly news, his left leg has fallen completely asleep where it's pinched against the armrest. It swings like a dead piece of meat.

Don't think about dead pieces of meat, he chides. Focus on how to avoid becoming one.

A hitch in the snoring and he freezes, terrified. Then it smoothes out again.

Dan tries so, so carefully, to lift his hand up and away without upsetting too much else. He's almost got it when he misjudges the angle, accidentally makes more contact than he means to and is treated to the rare sight of Rorschach moaning low under his breath and shifting up into his hand, a long slow grind against his palm and there's no longer anything halfway about the situation.

It's such a rare sight, in fact, that it's only ever been observed in unconscious specimens, which Rorschach is not likely to be for much longer.

"Fuck," Dan mutters. "Goddamn beer."

He tries to shift away again but again Rorschach shifts to follow him, hips lifting away from the cushions – then he freezes, too, and Dan can only imagine the wide disks of horror his eyes must be under all that shifting ink.

He lifts his head. Tries not to imagine why his hand might be feeling a little wet, just there between two fingers. "Uhm," he says. "Hey."

Rorschach stares, unmoving, still frozen into some kind of reverse bridge under Dan's weight.

"I was, uh." Dan tries to shift, himself; that damn lead weight of a leg is a serious hindrance. "I was thinking of making pancakes, are pancakes okay?"

Oh, that's really fucking smooth, with his hand still down the bastard's pants.

Rorschach moves his head like he's going to look down. Changes his mind and looks over Dan's shoulder again, at the blankness of the ceiling.

"...pancakes would be... acceptable," Rorschach finally says, voice thin and a little too high.

"Okay, uh," Dan says. Wiggles his hand, and winces. "I kind of. Need that back, then? To make the pancakes." He laughs, short and sharp. "They don't flip themselves, you know?"

A second's confused hesitation, then the body under him relaxes back to the cushion, allowing him to finally slip his hand free. That's only the first part of the puzzle though, and if Rorschach accidentally jabs Dan with more than just his knobby elbows as they work to untangle themselves, well, Dan's not exactly that cautious in return.

"Ow," Dan says, slipping down the back of the cushion, one arm wrenched over and under Rorschach's middle. "Can you just..."

A grunt, and it doesn't sound that innocent anymore. "Trying," he says, pulling at where his leg is locked under one of Dan's.

Dan groans unhappily, his entire dead sleeping leg now caught under Rorschach's bony ass and the nerves starting to come back to life to find that new source of torture. "Jesus, this shouldn't be physically possible."

Fifteen minutes later, they finally manage to sort out which limbs belong to whom well enough to put each set in its proper corner of the chair, and Dan's about to say something about pancakes, put this all behind them with the usual mantra of ignore, ignore, ignore when he notices that Rorschach's still tenting his pinstripes. His own jeans are far tighter than they should be in that vicinity, too.

It's not that he had expected it to go away, really – it's just that it's so ridiculously plain, so laughably obvious in the face of all this carefully detached denial that he, well, laughs.

"Have a headache," Rorschach complains, and he sounds miserable. His fly's only half done-up, and if Dan looks closely–

Dan doesn't look closely.

"Go take a shower," he says, still laughing. "And take care of that while you're in there." He points at where Rorschach's pointing, which is also roughly in his own direction.

Rorschach glares at him, or rather, the inkblots glare. They look scandalized. They really did look ridiculous upside down.

"What?" Dan asks. "Don't start, and anyway, it's good for hangovers."

Now the inkblots are saying 'Bullshit', but Rorschach still stands, stiffly, and makes his slow and careful way up the stairs.

Dan waits for the sound of the pipes in the wall, then groans and doubles over on himself, rocking around the rock-hard ache between his legs as if that will somehow make it go away, make his mouth taste less like grimy latex, make all the empty glass bottles on the kitchen table vanish into thin air.

*

He can feel his body's betrayal in every painful step he takes up the staircase, can feel the blood pounding through every vessel and the way it makes the inside of his skull throb and ache and it isn't just his skull doing that really. But he's not about to start limping now.

He'll start limping once he's upstairs, and out of sight.

His partner, he realizes – though he no longer pretends to be talking to his journal – is a sadistic tease. It isn't any of his own doing that he's in this situation, after all, and if Daniel had just stayed awake long enough to take care of this last ni–

No. If Daniel had not done what he'd done last night. That's it.

He dumps his beer-smelling clothes outside the door, leaves the laundering responsibility squarely on his partner. At nine AM and hungover, blame is easy to place.

The shower faucet sputters to life under his hands; he's just going to stand in the spray, let it wash the cotton out of his mouth and brain and joints, that's all. It hasn't been four days since his last shower yet so there's no need to bother with soap and he's certainly not going to–

Something, he realizes as he clambers in and snaps the curtain shut, smells amazing. Amazing enough to interrupt him mid-self-righteous-vow, and he goes searching, nose in the lead. Eventually finds a bottle in the corner and upends it into his hand to get a better whiff.

And of course it is soap, but it's also Daniel's soap, and it smells like Daniel often does when he showers right before patrol, hair still stuck in damp whorls before he pulls the cowl up over it. How he smelled when his hands moved to–

Damn it.

A little soap won't hurt, he decides, and squirts half the bottle into his hand.

A few minutes later, covered head to toe in far too much foam like a bad coin-op laundry machine spewing detergent, he catches himself at the other thing he swore he wouldn't do. He hadn't actually noticed the way his hand had slid a soapslicked trail down his stomach, over the arch of his jutting hipbone and around the still-hard source of all his problems. He hadn't even felt himself start to stroke, languid and slow through the soap, like it was second nature instead of a practical and just barely acceptable emergency measure, and how is Daniel rubbing off on him so badly?

Rubbing off on him, and Rorschach almost laughs because it's a good joke, but then it makes him think of hands and mouths and the hot, taut length of bodies and disgusting wet tongues on his face, slavering drooly perversions. Then it's not such a good joke anymore, because it's over already, cock spasming in his hand and spurting against the tile of the shower wall.

Well, he thinks, head spinning and his insides gutted and empty and aching with a warm pleasantness. The hangover only makes it worse somehow, including the pleasantness. That's done with, at least.

However. After a few moments with his forehead against the wall – not the same wall, that would be disgusting – he realizes that his headache has not abated as promised, and Daniel is clearly still a filthy liar.

And liars should be punished. He eyes the evidence of his weakness, coagulating there on the shower wall, and finds room for just a little petty vindictiveness: Daniel had been insistent that he do this, and not even for good reason, so Daniel can deal with the mess.

The shower stream rinses away the rest of the soap, and then he gets out, trailing a defiant puddle across the bathroom floor. His clothes are gone, as expected. There's nothing to replace them, which is less expected.

He stands there, dripping and dripping.

He thinks about stains and industrial-grade shower solvent and immediate, divine retribution.

"DANIEL!" he shouts, and pounds on the inside of the door, loud enough to be heard anywhere in the house, including the basement and the roof. "NEED CLOTHING!"

Nothing.

"NOT FUNNY!" he adds, and he flatters himself that it comes off as a particularly effective threat.

Silence again, then a rattling in the floorboards he knows is the sound of the basement steps, or more specifically, the sound of someone pounding up them.

It'll be a minute, and all the shouting has made his headache worse, pounding pounding pounding so Rorschach takes the chance to root through Daniel's medicine cabinet. When he finds the bottle marked aspirin he shakes two out onto his hand and swallows them dry, without bothering to notice that they're somewhat the wrong shape and size for aspirin. Wrong color, too.

"Here," Daniel says finally, cracking the door open and thrusting a handful of clothes through and just what is wrong with his mental state this morning that he keeps choosing these kinds of descriptions? 'Thrusting'?

It only makes matters worse that Daniel's voice sounds flushed and high, like Rorschach's shouting had interrupted him in–

Don't think about it, he advises grimly.

Problem is resolved. Eat breakfast and execute escape maneuver and leave well enough alone.

But god, his hands had been so nice. Warm and broad fingers curling, digging into his–

Rorschach shakes the dress shirt and khakis open, seeking distraction. Clears his throat. "Wrong size, too big."

>>57258 Part 2
*
"I know, put them on anyway," Daniel says, then makes a little noise, low and tight and desperate, at the implication that Rorschach is less than a foot away in a state requiring him to put something on at all. It's a very 'put the damn clothes on before I do something stupid' kind of noise, and he probably thinks it was quiet enough to not be heard.

Rorschach grins a little, and it's possible he's still a bit drunk. He feels a little giddy, a little oxygen deprived. "Problem, Daniel?" he asks.

Silence for a moment.

"God," Daniel says from the other side of the door, thumping his head into it a few times for good measure. "I'm just – I'm just gonna go make pancakes."

*

Meanwhile, back in the normal world, where people behave like civilized partners and clean each other's beer-stained laundry rather than decorating their shower walls, Dan is stewing on the living room couch. He has his own concerns, and is sticky with sweat and spilled imbibance himself, but he knows his hot water heater – knows that if he tries to double-team it with the downstairs shower, he's going to have a freezing sodden vigilante on his hands in very short order.

So, the aforementioned laundry.

The staircase is a trial in his condition, but the clothes are heaped outside the bathroom door, which is good. He won't have to try to sneak in and out unseen, which is probably a useless proposition anyway. Won't have to be in there, for even a second, in the close heat of steam and with a prickling awareness of his partner's proximity. Of what he's likely doing–

"Damn it," Dan says, leaning against the doorframe with the clothes balled under one arm, letting his other hand stray. It presses heavily over the tightness in his jeans, palm rocking over the seam. He listens to the water and imagines things that he shouldn't: Rorschach standing in the bright white of his bathroom, stripping down with all his usual practical efficiency. In the shower, wet and shining, losing himself in his own touch and Dan knows that would never happen but jesus, what an image. His hand moves faster, presses harder.

Rorschach's face when Dan steps in behind him, unannounced, and slides a hand around to help out.

"Ahh," Dan says, slumping a little against the doorframe.

Rorschach punching him in the face, kicking him right through the curtain. Proceeding to pull down the curtain rod and beat him senseless with it.

Because, of course, it wouldn't be a proper masochistic Rorschach fantasy if it didn't end in a mood-killing violent outburst. God damn it.

Dan sighs, lifts his hand away, and shuffles down the stairs with the bundle of clothes held protectively in front of himself before Rorschach can burst through the bathroom door and make the last part – and only the last part, unfairly enough – a reality.

*

The laundry room is cold.

It's in the basement, so this makes sense. The laundry room being in the basement makes little sense on its own, right there off the room containing his costume and ship and array of secret crimefighting equipment, but that's where the hookups had been and he's never been one to fight fate. Another set of stairs, another miniature agony, though this time he'd at least had the laundry basket to rut shamelessly against as he made the careful descent.

Dan balls up the items of clothing, one by one, tossing them into the washing machine. He's checking each tag, because it would be just like Rorschach to wear something fussy that needs dry cleaning and then get it filthy on the street every night, wear it until it was more crusted stench than fabric. The last item is a scraggly old sleeveless undershirt, grey and thin with overwashing, though obviously not lately. The smell hits him like a fist to the gut, and the pulsing heat he's been fighting hard to ignore for the last few minutes intensifies.

That's pretty fucked up. The thing smells like six unwashed monkeys in a bag.

He looks at the laundry machine, the shining pristine dials set and ready to go. Listens to the rattling in the pipes, tries to estimate how long it'll be before Rorschach finishes in the shower.

Fuck it, he finally thinks, reaching to unbutton and unzip his jeans, and he's harder than he realized, swollen deep red and leaving a trail of wetness over the denim as he pulls himself free. The relief is indescribable. About to wash the damn thing anyway.

It doesn't take much – maybe a dozen quick jerks into the soiled fabric, soft around him with wear, and a completely unexpected moment of fantasy(Post-beatdown, Rorschach looking down at him, naked and triumphant with the curtain rod still in his hand and a look on his face like he's just gotten another idea of what to do with it) – and Dan might gasp or swear or say Rorschach's name or just mutter no no no that doesn't go there and then it's over, leaving him shaking against the front of the washing machine.

He peels the fabric away, sticky. His head is still faintly spinning, and he has no idea where the hell that bit of imagery had come from, because really curtain rods do not go there, at least not comfortably, but one thought is making it through: laundry is now very much a necessity.

Dan pulls himself up, shoves the wifebeater through the hatch. Shuts the lid. Aims, a little dizzily, for the start button.

Nothing happens.

He presses it again. Still nothing.

He stares at it, for a very long time. The endorphins evaporate away; he thinks of the more likely outcome of all of his fantasies and starts pressing the button over and over again, speed picking up as his panic does. "Oh fuck, oh shit," he mumbles, now just about pounding at it.

Still: nothing.

And he's just starting to work out contingencies for this – 'you've just jerked off into your partner's clothes and the washing machine isn't working' is not exactly a scenario he has a prepared plan B for – when there's a pounding from upstairs, a screaming, something about clothes and it not being funny.

It kind of is, but only in that way in which it is completely not.

Dan hares up the stairs, stopping only in his closet for the first clean articles of clothing he can lay hands on before delivering them to his partner. Rorschach is angry(as usual) and apparently naked(not so usual) and their hands just barely touch as he passes the bundle through the crack in the door, and it's horrifying what these things are doing to him.

One beer, he'd said. It won't hurt anything.

He beats his head on the door, barely aware of what's coming out of his mouth.

*

Downstairs, he's already mixing pancake batter when Rorschach pads into sight, half-masked and barefoot and swimming in Dan's clothes, sleeves and pantlegs both rolled up and belt cinched tight to keep the pants from falling off of him.

Dan bites his lip, hard.

The table creaks when Rorschach uses it to bear some of his weight, sitting down. It didn't used to creak. Just what the hell did they do in here last night, between the first beer and the last?

"I, uh," Dan starts, then stops. Starts over. "Washing machine's busted, man. We'll have to hit a coin-op."

"...inconvenient, but acceptable."

"Also, I can't find your undershirt," he continues, just diving right the hell in. Why not? "I guess it's lost, I don't know."

Yeah, 'lost' is a good alternate description for 'pushed down the back of the washing machine with two old magazines, a paper towel tube and a pair of jeans shoved down on top of it.'

Rorschach stares at him through the mask. It can smell when you're lying, Dan thinks giddily.

"One of history's mysteries," Dan says, deadpan, pouring batter onto a pan with a sharp hissing pop.

*

Daniel's lying; Rorschach can smell it. What he can't figure out is why Daniel would be lying about losing his undershirt. He has six more at home, all neatly wadded into balls and shoved into various drawers and piles. It doesn't really matter, but it bothers him that Daniel's lying. Again.

Of course, the people who make aspirin seem to be lying about the headache as well, which is still pounding away, pain pulsing behind his eyes. If anything, it's getting worse. Perhaps it isn't a normal headache and he should be more forgiving of Daniel for his false prescription.

No. No compromising, not where that level of debasement is concerned.

So, he's going to be angry. Any minute now. Any seco–

There really is something hypnotic and enticing in the way Daniel's working the spoon around the batter bowl, scraping the last of it out onto the pan, long careful swipes that speak of a methodical and sensual grasp on his own faculties. It's a shame he doesn't bring such precision to bear on the streets, but he's obviously capable of it.

It makes him wonder what else his partner is capable of, in a vague and surface-level way that dips and skims the surface of inappropriateness, when Daniel shakes the last bit of batter off the spoon and licks the clinging remainder off, obscene red tongue working over the woodgrain, coming away covered with sticky whiteness–

A rush of dizziness, forcing Rorschach to grip the edge of the table. Something isn't right here, beyond his usual catalogue of depravities. He's gotten used to the thoughts that assail him mercilessly whenever he watches Daniel for more than a few minutes in a row, but this is starting to feel familiar and he thought he'd taken care of that already. He risks a glance down the front of the table.

Oh. Oh, that isn't good.

His thoughts scatter. Unintended side effect of the alcohol? The result of a depraved mind finally catching up to itself? Retribution for degrading Daniel's home, Daniel who has always been a good partner, who was only trying to help him relax last night, who only ever has good intentions?

Who is reaching over him to slide three pancakes onto his plate, and they're even blueberry, a lush indulgence he doesn't deserve. Rorschach scrambles to hunch over himself, to shift a leg and conceal the evidence.

He's not fast enough. "What's... what's wrong, did you hurt yourself?"

"No."

"Are you sure, you look–"

"No," he hisses, and there's a heat in his face that must be showing past the bottom edges of the mask. Both of his hands are on the table now, steadying, and he musters what self-control he can to release one white-knuckled grip, reach for the syrup.

Daniel wordlessly hands him a fork when he's done with the jar. "You know," he says, and his face is curled into a smirk that Rorschach would love to punch right off of it. "I did tell you to take care of that."

"Did," Rorschach growls around a mouthful of blueberry deliciousness, defensive pride spurring the response before his brain catches up. He could have not admitted to it, pretended to have been stoic in the face of his body's evil, and Daniel would never have known. The flush in his face spreads down to his neck. "...doesn't seem to have helped."

A frown now. Much better. "You were only in there thirty minutes ago. Is that, uh, normal for you?"

Rorschach chokes on his pancakes. There'd been something far too hopeful in his tone. "Not having this conversation, Daniel," he coughs, when he's recovered enough to do so.

But the wheels are clearly already turning, and Daniel's face looks like guilt and horror and just a little morbid amusement. "Oh, damn," he says. "You were complaining about a headache, weren't you?"

"Didn't help that, either," Rorschach growls, disconsolate.

"Okay, but," and Daniel hesitates, like he just doesn't want to ask. "Did you... I don't know, take anything for it?"

"Athprrn." Talking around food is hard enough normally; it's even harder when he's stuffing his face to avoid having to talk.

Dan sinks into the opposite chair. "I don't... oh, hell, man. I don't have any aspirin right now, those were... something else."

Rorschach swallows. Tries to ignore the way the motion makes him think of throats and mouths and most certainly ignores the answering throb from down below. He disciplines his voice into something Serious. "What were they?" he asks, slow and vaguely threatening.

Daniel mumbles something incomprehensible into his hands.

Rorschach stares, blots serving in place of his eyes to pin Daniel to to spot. "What? Couldn't hear you."

"I said," Daniel says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, "They were ED medication, I have problems sometimes, with, uh..."

Rorschach isn't stupid, he knows acronyms. Has seen Daniel on patrol more than once, inordinately frustrated about something he refused to speak about, just a simmering disquiet that made him hit harder, shake punks for information with less regard for their comfort. He'd always seen it as an improvement.

"Didn't have any trouble last night," Rorschach finally manages.

Daniel laughs, self-derisive. "No. No I didn't. What can I say, you were hot as hell."

"Believe the phenomenon is known as 'beer goggles'."

"Hah," Daniel says. "I don't know, you're still..."

Another life- and sanity-threatening stare, a promise to do something so horrible to him that neither sense nor reality will matter, if Daniel finishes that sentence. For some reason, a curtain pole comes to mind.

Daniel shuts up, and Rorschach goes back to his pancakes.

A few minutes pass in the uncomfortable not-quite-silence of Rorschach's open-mouthed chewing.

"Uhm," Dan says, fingers drumming on the table top. "You do realize that we need to take care of that somehow, right?"

Rorschach snorts, spears a rogue blueberry. "Have already sunk to depravity once today. No plans to do it again. Can go away on its own."

"Yeah, uh, it's not going to. That's kind of the point, that stuff makes sure it doesn't go away on its own."

"Wait long enough, it will."

"No," Dan says, shaking his head. "Trust me here buddy, It really, really won't."

Rorschach hesitates over the plate; there's only one piece left, and then he'll be out of distractions. Worse, he'll be expected to get up, carry the plate to the sink.

It's unimportant. Daniel already knows his situation and if he can't endure the discomfort of it then he had no right making fun of Daniel for wincing the last time he'd had to pluck broken glass from the man's face. He forks the last piece. "Doesn't matter," he says, adding 'talks with his mouth full' to the repertoire. "Not doing that again."

Rorschach gets up, carefully; walks to the sink, carefully, and drops the plate in with a clatter.

He's not expecting to find himself pinned against the cabinets when he turns back around, Daniel's hands on the counter to either side, the heat of his presence close, a trap that promises ease of release but a trap all the same. Rorschach doesn't move a muscle.

Daniel leans in to whisper against the curve of his jaw, too practical to be a seduction but it still makes him whimper low in his throat: "Well, what if I did it for you? Would that be okay?"

Rorschach swallows and swallows, but there is nothing in his mouth and no distractions left.

*

>>57259 Part 3
*
Rorschach looks terrified suddenly, like a rabbit about to go to ground, and that's without even the benefit of being able to see his eyes. It's entirely possible that Dan miscalculated exactly how strong to come on, here.

"Hey," he says, pulling back a little to look Rorschach square in the blots. "Okay, that probably came off a little creepy, sorry."

The jawline under the mask works soundlessly for a second, then manages, "Daniel."

"Yeah?"

"Creepy because you're whispering. Don't."

Dan laughs, and they're still too close, sharing too much space, but he thinks it's all right or, at least, he isn't registering any warning signs. "Okay, sorry. Look," he says, leaning in again to press his lips to where mask and skin join up, and there's no verbal reaction, just the bastard child of one of his usual non-words and a moan. That's very encouraging. "If I put my hand in your pants again, will you hit me?"

"Hnh. Possibly."

"Can I get some odds?" Dan asks, taking his own chances to reach down and cup his palm over the problem, not to squeeze or grind against it but just to provide a friction point.

Rorschach takes it, biting down against his own voice as he pushes against Dan's hand. The meds must have done a serious number on his sensitivity for him to be losing control this easily, and he's harder against Dan's palm than Dan's ever been himself. He winces in sympathy.

"...thirty percent in favor," Rorschach manages after a moment, just barely. "Dropping steadily."

"Let me know when they get past fifteen." Dan noses under the shirt collar, bites down on the crook of his neck, and Rorschach actually whimpers. That's one for the books.

Dan grins around the pale skin, giving it a good hard suck (showing off, some part of his mind says, but there are better ways to do that) before moving back up to slip his tongue just under the edge of the mask. And god, it tastes awful, plastic and sweat and grime, but he's rewarded with a thin whine.

"...think you're all right," Rorschach says, high and tight.

Dan doesn't hesitate; just bites down again and unbuttons Rorschach's borrowed pants, runs the zipper carefully, fishes in and frees him from the cage of khaki cotton.

Just like that.

It's ridiculous, he thinks, standing there with this hard hot weight in his hand, jumping in his grip, and Rorschach's head rolled back towards the window over the sink.

The window that is currently wide open, displaying a view of 96-year-old Ms. Dudley out getting her mail in bathrobe and slippers.

"Shit," Dan mutters, and reaches around the both of them awkwardly to yank on the cord that shutters the blinds. The cord catches his watch, tangles around his wrist.

"What?" Rorschach sounds irritated, impatient.

"Nothing, nothing." Dan shakes his arm, trying to free it. "Just relax, okay?"

"Would if you stopped playing with the drapery and paid attention."

"Shit," Dan repeats, laughing. He finally gets it, the cord falling away to clatter against the window frame. "Are you actually telling me to hurry up and engage you in 'depraved homosexual practices' already? That's surreal, man."

And really, it does seem like there should be more to this moment – the untouchable Terror of the Underworld, standing in the kitchen with his cock out – but the earth keeps spinning and Dan doesn't hear any locusts swarming through the walls. Rorschach is grumbling vaguely and indistinctly about corruption by association and that more than anything proves that reality as he knows it goes on.

Good enough, he thinks, dropping to his knees to do for his friend what a friend oft must do. Well, it's probably not as common a request as 'help me move', but an infinitely more enjoyable one, and he steadies Rorschach's hips against the silverware drawer; laves his tongue up along the straining hot length.

Rorschach whimpers again, hands clutching hard into Dan's shoulders. It suddenly feels like he might fall over.

Dan licks his lips, looks up, incredulous. "What, I've barely even started."

"Don't..." An indecipherable noise. "Don't do this very often."

A wicked grin spreads over Dan's face before he can think better of it, before the memory of exactly what devastation Rorschach is capable of stays his big stupid mouth. "Very often? Don't do this–" he asks, mouth closing around the head – and holy shit is Rorschach responsive, whining high in his throat, hips surging forward against Dan's grip – then pulling back with a wet pop. "Very often?"

"At all," Rorschach pants out, too honest for his own good. "Ever."

"That's what I thought. Which," he adds, "is a real shame."

"Haven't... ahn," he grunts, in time with a straining and shallow thrust. "Haven't wallowed in decadence, spent daylight hours in dens of bacchanal perversion getting baser needs attended to by–"

"You make it sound like we're playing with whips and handcuffs, here," Dan says, pulling back to just mouth at the tip and give himself room to speak. He actually tastes clean down here, wonder of wonders, obviously due to the modern marvel of jerking off in the shower. "Which, I mean, I wouldn't mind anyway, but how a man gets through life without a single blowjob, I don't even understa–"

Then he's cut off by a groan, a sharp shudder, and he’s blind in one eye suddenly because his glasses are covered in white and Rorschach must have pulled back and away when it hit and damn it, he's barely even started. But before he can even find any annoyance, Dan's laughing, doing his best to prop up the suddenly boneless body leaned over him.

A curious sound from above that turns distressed when Dan grins up at him, and he must look an awful sight.

"Hey," Dan says, shrugging. "At least I wear glasses. Shot in the eye stings like hell, seriously."

And he lets that one hang, leaves Rorschach to chew on the question of just how he knows that. He's about to move on, make a snarky comment about hairtriggers and the benefits of practice when he notices all at once that the cock bumping his chin is still hard, is showing no signs of going flaccid.

"Sorry, sorry," Rorschach's still blathering, barely coherent, and there are any number of things he could be apologizing for; he's probably thinking of the mess, but eating Dan's dick pills like candy springs to his mind.

Dan leans back on his heels, nudges the glasses down his nose so that he can see again. Eyes the red, still-swollen head like a nemesis, like a challenge. Above him, Rorschach's eyes are pinched closed, and he is lax, all his weight propped on Dan's shoulders.

"So, ah," Dan says, faking casual. "How many of those pills did you take?"

Rorschach blinks down at him, bleary. "...two. I think."

A careful silence, broken only by ragged breath and the hum of the refrigerator.

"Well, shit," Dan says, resigned. "We may have a problem here."
*

"Said this would take care of it!" He's shouting and maybe there's no call for it, but he's shaking with rage (and only rage, nothing else) and he can't help it.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know you took two, jesus."

"THOUGHT THEY WERE ASPIRIN!"

Daniel's at the sink, washing his glasses off in a loud stream of water, and he winces at the shout. "Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry, I should have warned you ahead of..."

Then he blinks. "Wait a minute, you never use painkillers."

Silence. Rorschach stands, feeling the icebox hum and rumble at his back.

"I've seen you break bones and refuse painkillers. You never–"

"Don't usually debase myself in your shower, either," Rorschach growls, hoping he sounds furious and righteous and not like he wants to turn around and hump the refrigerator door. It's a near thing, he can tell, made worse by the way he's still hanging out of his pants. "Or kitchen. Been an unusual morning."

Daniel puts his glasses back on; thankfully he's thought to cup some water onto his cheek, too. Rorschach doesn't think he'd be able to resist leaning up and running his tongue along those lines of he were still covered in–

He shudders, hard. He doesn't know where these disgusting thoughts are coming from.

"One beer," Rorschach says, sarcastic, dropping his eyes to the floor. He can feel the ink of his mask swirling, like blood under the skin. "You said. One beer won't hurt anything. Won't cause any problems, you said."

"You had more than one. Anyway, this isn't the beer's fault, it's more like some kind of... I don't know, a cosmic comedy of errors."

"Not very comedic."

"Or very cosmic, I know."

A hand clamps onto his shoulder then, and he forces himself to look up, to meet Daniel's eyes. It's through this show of courage that he misses it entirely when the other hand takes hold of him, casually stroking him up and down, and Rorschach gasps, jumps a little.

"Way I see it," Daniel says, and he's using his no-nonsense voice, which is very close to his Nite Owl voice but without some of the cheesy dramatics and booming 'halt, evildoer!' righteousness. "We have two choices here. I can stand here and jack you off in the kitchen over and over again, which seems a little... transactional, if you ask me."

Whores, Rorschach thinks, kneejerk. Both of you.

"Or," he says, voice softening, "We can go upstairs and do this right. Keep a little dignity."

"Third choice." Rorschach rocks up into Daniel's grip, belying his own protest. "Can stop engaging in useless hedonism and allow problem to... nnrg," he interrupts himself, and if he knows that it translates to 'that, do that again', at least Daniel doesn't. "...to dissipate on its own."

Daniel shakes his head, and does that again, and just when exactly did he start getting so interpretable? "That option ends with a trip to the hospital," he says, "Do you really want to tell a doctor 'yeah, I've got this hardon that won't go away, I overdosed on my business partner's ED meds by mistake and you know, he sucked me off but it just didn't fix the problem.'"

Rorschach hisses breath between his teeth, scandalized even through the rush of arousal. "No need to be vulgar."

The hand on his shoulder slides up to his neck, gripping the nape supportively. Daniel waits.

"...no more stairs," Rorschach finally gets out, voice quiet.

"Living room, then." Daniel pulls lightly at the back of his neck, trying to peel him off the refrigerator door. He feels bereft when its steady vibration disappears, all of his nerves switched on and begging for stimulus, and that might not be the drugs. That might just be him. "The couch is probably big enough."

*

The couch is big enough, as it turns out. Rorschach doesn't know whether to curse or exult Daniel for his choice in furniture as he grips the armrest behind him, Daniel stretched on his stomach between Rorschach's legs.

"So, just," Daniel says, peeling the khakis further down until his hands can get a grip on his ass, and he's wound around him awkwardly, arms intertwined with shaking legs. "Try to last more than twenty seconds this time?"

Rorschach curls his lip in an attempted snarl, doesn't quite get there when Daniel squeezes his hands sharply around their prize.

"Enjoying this too much," he says, instead.

Daniel arches one eyebrow. "Tell me you're not. It's not too late to call for an ambulance."

Between them, the hard arc of his indomitable erection, jutting straight up and still aching like nothing he's ever felt, leaking from the tip in time with Daniel's breath. Each exhale curls over it, invisible.

He rolls his head back against the wall, unsure exactly when a personal problem turned into this. He supposes, in a moment of terrifying clarity, that there's a metaphor in there somewhere. Analogy, allegory. Something. "Nng. Get on with it."

This time Daniel doesn't mess around – just leans down and swallows him whole.

Well, maybe not entirely whole, but close enough, and there's an oath on the tip of Rorschach's tongue as he feels himself enveloped. It dies under the pressure of not being able to breathe.

Daniel's thumbs hook over his hips, holding him pinned down to the cushions as he tries to buck up into the contact. He just strains harder, a sharp upward thrust that forces Daniel to back off, choking.

"Agh," he coughs, resettling his grip more firmly on Rorschach's bony hipbones, anchoring to them like handles. "Don't – I can't do this if I can't breathe."

Fair's fair, Rorschach figures, struggling to pull air.

"I mean," Daniel continues, licking teasingly around the head. "We can do that if you want, but I need a better angle and some warning, okay?"

Rorschach chokes, and Daniel laughs, takes him back in, tentative. Through the throttling constriction of pleasure, he can feel things, specific, filthy things like the way a soft palate feels against the head of his cock and the sharp pinprick of teeth where Daniel isn't fully covering them. Like just how dexterous a tongue can be, and of course it can form every sound of language but he never knew it could do that. And the question he isn't sure he wants an answer to: just where did Daniel, did Nite Owl, bastion of decency, learn to do this?

A sudden mental image, uninvited: Nite Owl in the Twilight Lady's lair, still masked but chained and bound and being forced to do this for another of her playthings, only 'forced' isn't quite the word, is it?

"Gh," he says, trying to clamp down on the sudden rush of nausea. Daniel misinterprets it entirely, redoubles his efforts, and just as he sees his imaginary Daniel whine and buck in his restraints for the relief his own hands can't give, he sees the real Daniel snake one hand down under himself to unbutton his jeans. He ruts into the cushion even as he bears down with his mouth, providing the kind of suction vacuum cleaner companies can only dream of.

Rorschach's getting used to the moment of losing control, of letting his body ride out its impulses. He wants to resist it but it's the entire point of the exercise, and it's been longer than Daniel's required twenty seconds. Forty-five, at least, and that should be long enough for anyone. This time he has no room to pull back, though, so he grunts out something that he hopes translates to a warning. Whaps Daniel on the head when he doesn't respond.

Daniel laughs around him, a buzzing vibration that only makes it worse, and gives a wordless thumbs-up. He doesn't look up or miss a beat, drawing up along him so slow and tight that before he even knows it he's spasming hard in Daniel's mouth, feeling the muscles work around him. Daniel takes that part of him too, the filthiest part, takes it and swallows it down and rocks him back and forth on his tongue when it's done, like an attempt at soothing.

He feels empty, wrung out, and ashamed in more ways than the human mind can count reliably. His limbs fall askew, drained.

He also still feels hard, where he's held in that warm, protective space.

"Damn it," he says, the oath finally materializing, an unforgivable lapse of decorum on a normal day but Daniel's lying between his legs, grinning at him from around the grotesque thickness of his penis, and it's not a normal day.

"Yeah," Daniel says, releasing him. "I noticed. Time to bring out the big guns, I think."

"What–"

"Stay here." Daniel untangles himself, disappearing into the kitchen.

>>57260 Part 4/End
*
Rorschach's dizzy enough from all his blood still congregating southerly and leaving not much at all for his brain that he doesn't notice the time pass, certainly doesn't notice the way he brings his own hand up to lazily jack himself.

Daniel returns before he makes much progress, with a bottle of olive oil and a limp. Apparently, the couch cushion hadn't been enough for him. He lets his already unfastened pants drop around his ankles, kicks them away, and yes, he definitely has a revival of his own going on. Rorschach is suddenly infuriated, because Daniel obviously doesn't need the medication so why was it there to cause trouble and it must have been a conspiracy and-

Bare knees nudge his legs back together, hands catch him by the hips and drag him down until he's flat on the couch. This time Daniel straddles him, low across his thighs.

Their erections brush, and Rorschach can't stop the high, thin vocalization he makes in response.

Daniel upends the bottle into his hand, then runs that hand slow and languorous over him, covering him from root to tip with a lot to spare. The smell is distracting, reminds him of too-decadent meals he's eaten here, and by the time he realizes what Daniel's intending, it's too late.

"No," he says, trying to get a grip on the armrest behind his head, but the repositioning works in Daniel's favor and he can't get any leverage. "We can't do– you don't deserve that."

Daniel's leaning forward now, one hand working behind himself, and he's chewing his lip, eyes half-lidded. Rorschach knows exactly what he's doing, can hear the soft, slick noises. Is trying hard not to picture it.

"What?" Daniel finally says, rocking a little with his own efforts. "I don't deserve something I've wanted for years? After everything I've done for you this morning?"

Rorschach gapes, speechless.

"Come on," Daniel continues, lifting upright and knee-walking forward until they line up. "Don't be a dick."

And Rorschach's about to comment on the choice of words, but then Daniel grins like he already knows, said it that way on purpose, takes Rorschach in hand and he's sinking down, down and whatever, just, whatever. It doesn't matter.

"How's that feel?" Daniel asks, once all his weight is down.

A growl in response, and it wants to be angry but it only manages to come out pleased – pleased, and deeply hungry. He thrusts upward, involuntary.

Daniel winces, puts his hands on Rorschach's hips to steady him. "Whoa, hold on," he says. "It's, uh. Still a little uncomfortable, think I went too fast there. Just give me a minute?"

"A minute," Rorschach growls out, and this time it is a little angry. "Any idea how this-"

He cuts off. Yes, of course Daniel knows how it feels. His brain supplies those mental images too, himself open and run through and rocking on top of Daniel, and he shudders, licks his lips, reorganizes. A different tactic. "You do this to me, put me in this… situation, then want me to just lie here?"

"I'm sorry, buddy, I just didn't realize how–"

"Watch too much pornography," Rorschach mutters, rolling his head back onto the armrest. "Think you can just–"

"And how the hell would you know, huh?"

Silence. Dead, utter silence, excepting of course two panting breaths and the slick, oily noises of Daniel working to settle and adjust around him.

"I don't–"

"Sure you don't," Daniel says, lifting himself up and then grinding back down, effectively silencing all further argument on the subject.

*

"If this doesn't solve the problem," Dan lies, squeezing himself tight and groaning low and inarticulate before he continues. "...ng, shit. I don't have any idea what to try next. Fair warning."

Rorschach just mutters something that sounds like 'have a few ideas' and that's surprising enough on its own, but then his eyes are rolling back in his head, hands fisting the fabric of the couch. Dan understands; he's pretty well beyond language at this point too.

Time drops away, for a while. Dan loses himself in this, in the steady, wavelike rise and fall, even if Rorschach moves too erratically under him to ever find a real rhythm. In the full, heavy pressure of it, dragging pleasure across his nerves like scraping fingernails, too much and not enough all at once. Rorschach keeps muttering things, self-loathing accusations and despairing epitaphs, but it doesn't stop him from gripping Dan's hips like they're the only thing keeping him above water, driving up and up. The occasional elbow in the ribs or squirming, out of time thrust is nothing, next to that.

"What's it..." Rorschach starts, in the calm after he comes the first time, during the break Dan's giving them both. He doesn't seem capable of completing the thought.

Dan finishes it for him. "What's it like?" he asks, and Rorschach nods, already too flushed with sex to blush any deeper. "Oh god. I can't even explain it." Dan rocks a little and that's enough, and they're hurtling on to round two, exhaustion forgotten all at once, but he maintains enough composure to lean in, foreheads almost touching.

"Good," he manages, finally, between two strokes. "It's good."

"Feels like I'm hurting you."

Dan shakes his head, and he wants to laugh but there's too much pressure in his throat, heart beating there relentlessly. "No."

"Violation."

"No," Dan repeats, and this time he manages a little laugh, but it comes out mangled. The words, too. "I can feel you, like... like I usually only feel myself," he says, aware of how little sense he's making and not caring. "Like we're the same person. It's amazing."

No response to that, and there won't be one; Rorschach seems too overwhelmed by the idea to process it, and then Dan bears down and Rorschach jerks up into him and they're gone again.

In the end, he rides Rorschach through three blistering orgasms before he finally hits his own, and masked eyes watch him break, expression intent and tinged with awe, like the moment all the clues at a crime scene come together and he knows.

Dan's still coming down from it, vision blown and ears ringing, when he feels hands scrabbling at his hips. "Off," a voice says, strained and distant. "Enough."

A breath, and Dan forces himself back to reality. When he lifts himself away this time, it feels different, and sure enough, Rorschach is finally softening under him, the flesh red and sore-looking, utterly worn out.

"Thank god," Dan says, laughing, then collapses off to the side, face buried in Rorschach's stomach, legs hanging off the end of the couch. He's stretched and sore and can already feel all the places he'll ache horribly in a few hours, but he doesn't care. He may be a little hysterical. "I thought we'd have to..."

"Shh," Rorschach says, uncharacteristically soothing. It's a good enough plan, and Dan feels fingers in his hair; sated and exhausted past the point of dignity, they both drift.

*

In not-quite-dreams: sunlight shifting across his face, and a snapping plastic noise of something opening and closing, and blissful quiet punctuated only by tiny, wet noises, tiny enough to ignore.

*

"Daniel," a voice says, pulling him out of the half-sleep, and a hand tugs on his shoulder.

"Mff," he says, opening his eyes to a blur of... blurry things. Must have lost his glasses. "M'on it," he says, kneejerk, winding his arms around Rorschach's hips and pulling himself up into range, and he's still not totally awake but a lazy blowjob's better than none at all.

But Rorschach isn't hard – it takes him a moment to remember that they finished that, the crisis is over – so he just nuzzles into the damp, curly red hair there instead, burying his face in the scent.

He still smells like olive oil, strongly, and for some reason that makes Dan's hips jerk, makes him moan into the tangled mess. Rorschach may not be hard but Dan is, and he presses himself against a bare leg, wallowing. It doesn't even occur to him to do anything else, until his partner catches him up by the shoulders, makes a frustrated noise.

"What?" Dan asks, sleepily, as Rorschach hauls him up over the length of his body, settles him helpfully between his legs, and just when did they both lose their pants? Rorschach's are across the room from what he can judge, a khaki smudge over the brown smudge he knows to be an endtable.

The only response Rorschach gives, other than the flush creeping down from under the half-mask, is to clumsily hook first one leg and then the other over Dan's back.

"Oh," Dan breathes, and he's acutely aware of how tired of sex his entire body is, every nerve ending from his fingers to his toes. It doesn't stop him from leaning in, nudging carefully and god – he's already slick down there, already open, and there's not even a reason for this anymore. They don't have any excuses. "You..."

Rorschach curls his legs, slowly but forcefully pulling Dan down against him, sinking them seamlessly together with little more than a wince. It's an impressive move, athletic and precise and goddamned brave, and Dan's all too quickly not in any mindset to appreciate it; oil or not, Rorschach's still tighter than anyone he's ever been inside of like this.

"Careful," Dan says, sounding muzzy even to himself. He's not actually sure this is really happening – they're in a fog together as he starts shifting his weight forward and back, cautious until he feels himself moving more freely, until he can take him slow and easy and smooth.

And it's nice, to be able to do this, with no task to accomplish and no urgency. Calming even, just rocking in and out and watching the upper half of Rorschach's mask shift with him, hypnotic. Burying himself and holding them there until they can feel each other's heartbeats, and it's like being half asleep, like making love in a dream. Eventually, the sleep shakes out of him and the thrusts take on a hungry, forceful edge, but he's still silent, and Rorschach's still silent, and Rorschach is mouthing his skin, tongue working his throat as they move together, even and steady and sharp.

This would be, of course, when the couch decides to lodge its official protest at their morning-long treatment of it, as both legs on one side snap and an entire sequence of threatening sproings ring out, loud and ominous against their quiet. They freeze, and the couch tips to the side, and they start sliding.

Dan laughs, plants one foot on the floor and one arm in the cushion to keep Rorschach from slipping off. "Hang on," he says, grinning when he feels the grip over his back tighten. He gathers up the missed beats and surges forward again, luxuriating in it when Rorschach comes with a bite-stifled growl, still soft between their bodies.

Dan follows a small eternity later, emptying himself with little noise and less fanfare. Still tangled together, pantsless and sticky and on a surface threatening to pitch them off at any moment, they don't move again for a long time.

"Why, mister stoic vigilante, sir," Dan finally says, after the couch starts creaking unhappily at them. It's breathy and struck through with laughter. "I believe alcohol is in fact the harbinger of depravity you thought it was."

Rorschach backhands him listlessly, and Dan sniggers into Rorschach's chest where he's collapsed, for a little longer than is probably healthy.

After a while, they sleep.

*

It's well into the afternoon when Dan finally surfaces again, and yeah – he's feeling it now, will feel it more later, tight in all the wrong places when he tries to move on patrol. Just sitting up on the edge of the busted couch is a little painful, but it's a good ache, one that conjures sense-memory of searing fingertips and a wet mouth forming words soundlessly against his skin and his friend held buried inside him, straining and deep. It conjures possession. It's not as terrifying as it should be.

Rorschach, for his part, is so far under he may as well be on his way to China.

Dan rubs his eyes for a moment, considers rejoining him for the duration – but there's still the damn laundry to attend to and someone has to clean up the mess they've made. He stands carefully, taking a moment to steady himself, then heads to the kitchen for a damp towel.

Returning, he stops in the doorframe for a while, just looking: his intractable, untouchable partner, spread lax and satisfied and half-naked across his couch, afternoon sunlight blasting the pale skin of his thighs white. It isn't flattering, but it is real.

Then he just goes on in and does his best to clean them both up without waking the proverbial sleeping tiger. Pulls a blanket around his waist and leaves his pants near to hand. On a whim, he goes back to the kitchen and throws together two sandwiches – just the basics, turkey and cheese and a smear of sweet mustard – and sets one on the coffee table.

Went to laundromat, he scrawls on a piece of paper, working on the other sandwich with his free hand. Back soon. It's wedged under the rim of the plate, and once he's gathered the clothes from the basement, Dan takes his leave of the strangest morning he's ever had.

*

He comes home about two hours later – the coin-op had been questionable and he thought it more prudent to keep watch than to have someone get impatient with his absence and start hauling the clothes out, recognizing the costume and freaking out – with a bag of clothes in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. Orange juice, he'd thought when he was out, and one thing had led to another, oatmeal and eggs, more sandwich fixings. He's about on empty, energy-wise; figures Rorschach can't be much better, and the food will help.

But the couch is empty. Dan stands in the entryway for a moment, frowning, vaguely upset though he couldn't pin down why. This is normal, expected, and what had he thought was going to happen? That he'd find Rorschach flipping through daytime TV, waiting for Dan to come back with his stupid orange juice?

The pants are gone, the sandwich too, and there's not even a crumb left behind. Holding the plate up to the light, he can see the smears where Rorschach must have licked it clean, and he laughs, a little empty.

The note is also gone, and in its place a different scrap of paper. Will be back for clothes before patrol, is all it says, without even the conventional mirrored signature.

He turns it over; it's half of a receipt, from the corner store up the street. It doesn't say what it's for, an old-fashioned register that only lists the prices. It's dated from an hour ago.

Dan shrugs, dropping the laundry bag with a thump. The disappointment that nothing's changed is already dissipating into relief that nothing's changed. If they can have a day like this, do all of these forbidden things, and Rorschach can still leave terse notes and disappear and act like the same stubborn bastard as always, well, it's better than the alternative.

In the kitchen, no sign of disturbance. Dan opens the refrigerator, planning on just shoving the whole bag in indiscriminately and then climbing upstairs for a shower, finally. Hot, scalding hot, until his legs are jelly and it's all he can do to peel himself off the floor of the tub and crawl into bed, and–

The fantasy stops short, because jammed in the front of the fridge is a fresh six-pack of the same beer they went through with such reckless abandon last night.

Dan narrows his eyes, then decides god, fuck it and he's not going to worry about it right now. He shifts the bag of groceries to his hip, reaches to turn the carton to the side to make room, and another scrap of paper falls from where it'd been lodged between two bottle necks.

Has its uses, says the writing, and Dan is too exhausted to laugh but he does anyway, until he sees stars and sways dizzily against the door, until laughter is the only thing he remembers.

*

>>57258
Oh god, I can't stop laughing. There is something ridiculously charming about Rorschach cussing and repeating himself, and this whole thing is a smorgasbord of hilarious and sexy, which is the best kind of smorgasbord there is.

>>57259
OKAY I am seriously laughing so hard it hurts right now.

...just finished reading the whole thing and you are a bright shining star, and there are too many perfect things about this to list them all. Polite sage because I posted before realizing you were dumping the whole fic.