[fic] And Back Again; Watchmen; Dan/Ror
Title: And Back Again
Fandom: Watchmen
Pairings: Dan/Rorschach
Rating: NC17/Adult
Warnings: None
Summary: Post-Roche, pre-Keene; Rorschach keeps coming back and back again.
Originally written 6/1/09 on the KM for this prompt: Dan fucks Rorschach while Rorschach is wearing one of Dan's big shirts, and only Dan's shirt.
Dan stretched his legs out under the table, keeping one hand on the white rim of his cereal bowl to steady it while his socked feet slid against the linoleum.
He was sore in the muscles of his jaw and the small of his back. It was a good sore.
Their tentative relationship had begun about six months ago, when he'd woken up to find Rorschach hovering uncertainly above his bed. Instead of being afraid or possibly even repulsed (as a person in his right mind would be), Dan had only held his breath, waiting for Rorschach to draw closer like a rare and easily startled bird. It was a year after that kidnapping case, the one which had made Rorschach cut off their friendship abruptly with a long absence. Dan didn't know why he came back that morning, but he took it as an opportunity to reclaim a little bit of his old friend.
Rorschach allowed him to join on only a few patrols, and to hear just a few words of his rusty-voiced theories which used to be entire paragraphs meant just for him. It was enough.
Dan didn't understand Rorschach at all, but Nite Owl did. Every night on the gritty streets, in the blood-red shades of violence and justice, they shared in the fierce joy meant for people not-quite-human. All it had taken was Rorschach lolling his head up to the sky after they'd taken down an underground crime ring and Nite Owl was on him, fingers gripping his shoulders vice-hard and mouth biting at the underside of his jaw through the mask.
There were awkward, scraping kisses and there was Rorschach slipping out at night, leaving Dan wondering when (if?) he'd come back.
He always did. Sometimes after a few days, sometimes after a few weeks, but he always came back trembling and angry and cursing both Dan and himself.
If Dan didn't know what he was doing in the relationship, whoever it was behind Rorschach's mask knew even less.
It was only within the past few weeks that he'd taken it off inside the house, washing it under the faucet and daring Dan with a glare to say anything. Sure, he was a little ugly, but a handsome Rorschach would have somehow been both too comical and too cruel.
The night before, he'd allowed Dan to rub his fingers through his tufts of self-cut hair, and had whimpered into their kiss as Dan's fingernails scraped against the scalp. Waking up to find Rorschach still there in the morning had been a victory in itself, and Dan was in good spirits, watching frost gather on the windowpane to his warm kitchen.
He saw Rorschach's reflection there first as he shuffled up silently, close enough to grab the cereal box.
Dan's spoon rested forgotten in his bowl and he was very, very glad he'd remembered to put on his glasses.
Rorschach was dressed in Dan's white dress shirt from the day before, the one he'd worn to the New York Birdwatchers' Society meeting, the one Rorschach had pulled off of him in a hurry. He looked almost bashful and did his best to look as dignified as he could while retrieving milk.
Dan didn't realize he was staring until Rorschach finished mechanically assembling the components of his cereal and looked up at Dan from under his eyelashes, the way a person does when they know they're being watched. Dan attempted a smile that was probably more wobbly than reassuring and took a too-large bite of soggy flakes.
"Sorry. Felt exposed." He fidgeted with the top button (Dan distinctly remembered it coming off; he must have mended it somehow) and looked halfway accusing. "Couldn't find my clothes."
"Oh! Oh, right. I'm washing them. I, uh, hope you don't mind."
Rorschach deliberated this and decided he apparently didn't. "No. Clean is good."
Clean was the last thing Dan was feeling. Despite himself, he was paying much too close attention to the workings of Rorschach's throat as he swallowed, the flicker of his tongue on the underside of his spoon. The white, crisp edge of his shirt sliding against his skin.
His shirt.
It was the first time since they'd started this thing that it seemed like the relationship reached Rorschach in any way. Always slipping away, every time just as standoffish as if Dan had never touched him before, coming and going like he thought he could just skim the surface and remain unsullied behind that mask of his. Now he was dressed in a shirt Dan had only been wearing hours ago, visual evidence of the things they did together, as if, as if-
Dan had to focus hard down on his forgotten breakfast, dragging a spoon through the remnants of milk.
"Daniel? Look strange."
"Hm? No, I'm fine." Just half-hard, is all.
Rising from his chair, he went to rinse out his own bowl and took Rorschach's when he handed it backward automatically, already finished eating. He braced his body against the sink but it wasn't enough. The palms of his hands felt hot, his breathing tight. He turned, hopelessly afraid of rejection but unable to stop himself.
"Rorschach?"
Even with his back turned, Rorschach knew exactly what the note of broken need in Dan's voice was. His shoulders froze and tensed, making Dan's heart beat like a wild rabbit; then, seeming to come a decision, he nodded slightly.
The rules were Rorschach's and they were simple: only in the dark, Rorschach always in control, only missionary, only on the bed (Dan had nearly gotten his jaw broken the time he palmed Rorschach's hipbone in an alley). Dan walked backwards down the hallway, watching the sharp intensity of arousal taking hold of Rorschach's movements and expressions, transforming him into someone completely different than a masked vigilante, but just as volatile.
It wasn't long until Dan was slowly settling his weight across Rorschach's body, trailing biting kisses from the corner of his mouth to up behind his ear, glasses off, half-undressed, and already unbelievably hot.
He felt the familiar signs of Rorschach's panic: muscles going rigid, fingers scraping against the sheets. The part of Rorschach which drove him here battling with the part which made him leave. It was always a little heartbreaking, and it was enough to bring Dan out of his indiscriminate lustful haze. Bracing on his knee, he lifted up enough to break contact, concerned and protective.
"Hey buddy, it's okay." Dan swept his thumb across Rorschach's forehead in a gesture he'd accidentally discovered Rorschach found soothing. "You know you can tell me to stop. Or throw me into the dresser." The smile at the end was added in hopes that Rorschach would understand it was a joke and not direct permission for severe bodily harm. There was a 50/50 chance he would take it that way anyway.
Dan's elbows were quaking in the time it took Rorschach to decide but he finally did, nervously darting out a tongue to wet his thin lips and nodding with determination.
They twisted together on the mattress, inexperienced and awkward and unsure-but neither could imagine daring to do this terrifying, incredible thing with anyone else.
Their fingers dragged together at clothing, yearning for the heated press of skin. Dan groaned to see that Rorschach was already mostly hard when he dragged down his loose boxers. When Rorschach began unbuttoning his own shirt with shaking fingers, Dan stilled his hands.
"No, please-leave it on?"
Rorschach blinked at him, then leaned up to bite delicately at the edge of his ear (a trick he'd only learned a month ago and was getting quite good at).
"Perverted, Daniel." There was enough of a hidden smile in his voice that he knew it was a gentle tease both at Dan and himself. It was so much like the way he used to joke that Dan had to curl in toward him briefly, savoring the fleeting flash of their old friendship.
The soreness in Dan's back was gone, chased away by pooling warmth and the little impatient sounds Rorschach was starting to make underneath him.
Preparation was never something Rorschach liked, but at least he seemed to recognize the necessity. Dan was horribly ashamed to admit how glad he was that Rorschach insisted on doing it for himself the few times they did it this way. He thought it would die watching it, Rorschach's legs splayed and shaking, his shirt nearly falling in the way.
Dan scrambled forward embarrassingly fast when Rorschach finally let him on top again. They tangled together, mouths clashing more urgently, much too thoroughly distracted to be self-conscious about their kissing skills or lack thereof. Dan was sliding himself home inch by inch and biting his lip to keep control; Rorschach was gripping onto Dan's shoulders and squeezing his eyes shut, panting softly at the calming semi-circles Dan drew across his stomach.
"Jesus," Dan breathed into the air between their mouths, wondering why he forgot each time how completely good it felt.
"Anh," replied Rorschach, the usual dragging grate in his voice replaced by something thoroughly human and wanting.
Dan set up the same gentle, precarious rhythm he used whenever Rorschach allowed him to do this, tracing his fingers up the bridge of his nose to his forehead, feeling the predictably steady bloom of heartrending affection. Rorschach arched his mouth into the palm of Dan's hand. Sure as anything, Dan knew Rorschach was gone and only this strange, quivering person with no name was left behind, this person who was the source behind every tentative reach for connection. Dan dragged his nose along a length of freckled neck, smelling, possessing. He could be gone tomorrow, but today he was here and his.
He smelled his own cologne in the shirt collar, soaking into Rorschach's skin, and bucked hard enough that they both gave sharp, surprised yells and insistently moved closer to one another, Rorschach's hands fisting against Dan's back and Dan grasping handfuls of white shirt in his overheated hands, turning their rhythm into something wilder, more honest.
This had never-all this time, they'd been-God, had they been trying to be polite to each other?
He didn't know he had this much strength, and he had never seen Rorschach fighting so hard to keep his eyes from rolling up toward the back of his head and it only made him want to move harder, faster, wring out those strange little sounds Rorschach liked to make in strangled gasps. He could feel Rorschach's soft inner thighs sliding against his sides and hear the headboard drumming against the wall and he didn't know he had this in him and God, God-
Rorschach's face was twisted in agonized desire and Dan felt a fierce triumph at being the one to see his expressions.
He was biting down onto Dan's shoulder, twisting his fingers white into the sheets and breathing hard through his nose. Dan could feel his jaw and tongue reflexively moving to form the words Daniel, Daniel. When his abdominals started to clench in waves Dan knew from experience how close he was and how he'd never dare touch himself so Dan did it himself, closing his fingers in a tight circle and steadying Rorschach's body with his free arm when he fell apart, vulnerable and so human-
It always took Dan longer but Rorschach, infuriating complicated wonderful Rorschach was the only one who had never minded, laying back sated and impossibly soft-eyed for the length of time it took for Dan to push himself toward the edge, frantic that he would lose it, half-sobbing and please, please, please-
All it took was Rorschach arching his neck and sliding his eyes closed and Dan was shuddering, swallowing back a scream and spilling himself deep inside, heady sensation and relief tearing him apart.
Rorschach bore the weight of his body without complaint when he collapsed, instead hesitantly carding his fingers through Dan's hair while he struggled to regain his breath.
They lay together in the aftermath, sweat drying the winter morning, neither willing to do anything but curl against each other and sleep until it came time for masks again.
Fandom: Watchmen
Pairings: Dan/Rorschach
Rating: NC17/Adult
Warnings: None
Summary: Post-Roche, pre-Keene; Rorschach keeps coming back and back again.
Originally written 6/1/09 on the KM for this prompt: Dan fucks Rorschach while Rorschach is wearing one of Dan's big shirts, and only Dan's shirt.
Dan stretched his legs out under the table, keeping one hand on the white rim of his cereal bowl to steady it while his socked feet slid against the linoleum.
He was sore in the muscles of his jaw and the small of his back. It was a good sore.
Their tentative relationship had begun about six months ago, when he'd woken up to find Rorschach hovering uncertainly above his bed. Instead of being afraid or possibly even repulsed (as a person in his right mind would be), Dan had only held his breath, waiting for Rorschach to draw closer like a rare and easily startled bird. It was a year after that kidnapping case, the one which had made Rorschach cut off their friendship abruptly with a long absence. Dan didn't know why he came back that morning, but he took it as an opportunity to reclaim a little bit of his old friend.
Rorschach allowed him to join on only a few patrols, and to hear just a few words of his rusty-voiced theories which used to be entire paragraphs meant just for him. It was enough.
Dan didn't understand Rorschach at all, but Nite Owl did. Every night on the gritty streets, in the blood-red shades of violence and justice, they shared in the fierce joy meant for people not-quite-human. All it had taken was Rorschach lolling his head up to the sky after they'd taken down an underground crime ring and Nite Owl was on him, fingers gripping his shoulders vice-hard and mouth biting at the underside of his jaw through the mask.
There were awkward, scraping kisses and there was Rorschach slipping out at night, leaving Dan wondering when (if?) he'd come back.
He always did. Sometimes after a few days, sometimes after a few weeks, but he always came back trembling and angry and cursing both Dan and himself.
If Dan didn't know what he was doing in the relationship, whoever it was behind Rorschach's mask knew even less.
It was only within the past few weeks that he'd taken it off inside the house, washing it under the faucet and daring Dan with a glare to say anything. Sure, he was a little ugly, but a handsome Rorschach would have somehow been both too comical and too cruel.
The night before, he'd allowed Dan to rub his fingers through his tufts of self-cut hair, and had whimpered into their kiss as Dan's fingernails scraped against the scalp. Waking up to find Rorschach still there in the morning had been a victory in itself, and Dan was in good spirits, watching frost gather on the windowpane to his warm kitchen.
He saw Rorschach's reflection there first as he shuffled up silently, close enough to grab the cereal box.
Dan's spoon rested forgotten in his bowl and he was very, very glad he'd remembered to put on his glasses.
Rorschach was dressed in Dan's white dress shirt from the day before, the one he'd worn to the New York Birdwatchers' Society meeting, the one Rorschach had pulled off of him in a hurry. He looked almost bashful and did his best to look as dignified as he could while retrieving milk.
Dan didn't realize he was staring until Rorschach finished mechanically assembling the components of his cereal and looked up at Dan from under his eyelashes, the way a person does when they know they're being watched. Dan attempted a smile that was probably more wobbly than reassuring and took a too-large bite of soggy flakes.
"Sorry. Felt exposed." He fidgeted with the top button (Dan distinctly remembered it coming off; he must have mended it somehow) and looked halfway accusing. "Couldn't find my clothes."
"Oh! Oh, right. I'm washing them. I, uh, hope you don't mind."
Rorschach deliberated this and decided he apparently didn't. "No. Clean is good."
Clean was the last thing Dan was feeling. Despite himself, he was paying much too close attention to the workings of Rorschach's throat as he swallowed, the flicker of his tongue on the underside of his spoon. The white, crisp edge of his shirt sliding against his skin.
His shirt.
It was the first time since they'd started this thing that it seemed like the relationship reached Rorschach in any way. Always slipping away, every time just as standoffish as if Dan had never touched him before, coming and going like he thought he could just skim the surface and remain unsullied behind that mask of his. Now he was dressed in a shirt Dan had only been wearing hours ago, visual evidence of the things they did together, as if, as if-
Dan had to focus hard down on his forgotten breakfast, dragging a spoon through the remnants of milk.
"Daniel? Look strange."
"Hm? No, I'm fine." Just half-hard, is all.
Rising from his chair, he went to rinse out his own bowl and took Rorschach's when he handed it backward automatically, already finished eating. He braced his body against the sink but it wasn't enough. The palms of his hands felt hot, his breathing tight. He turned, hopelessly afraid of rejection but unable to stop himself.
"Rorschach?"
Even with his back turned, Rorschach knew exactly what the note of broken need in Dan's voice was. His shoulders froze and tensed, making Dan's heart beat like a wild rabbit; then, seeming to come a decision, he nodded slightly.
The rules were Rorschach's and they were simple: only in the dark, Rorschach always in control, only missionary, only on the bed (Dan had nearly gotten his jaw broken the time he palmed Rorschach's hipbone in an alley). Dan walked backwards down the hallway, watching the sharp intensity of arousal taking hold of Rorschach's movements and expressions, transforming him into someone completely different than a masked vigilante, but just as volatile.
It wasn't long until Dan was slowly settling his weight across Rorschach's body, trailing biting kisses from the corner of his mouth to up behind his ear, glasses off, half-undressed, and already unbelievably hot.
He felt the familiar signs of Rorschach's panic: muscles going rigid, fingers scraping against the sheets. The part of Rorschach which drove him here battling with the part which made him leave. It was always a little heartbreaking, and it was enough to bring Dan out of his indiscriminate lustful haze. Bracing on his knee, he lifted up enough to break contact, concerned and protective.
"Hey buddy, it's okay." Dan swept his thumb across Rorschach's forehead in a gesture he'd accidentally discovered Rorschach found soothing. "You know you can tell me to stop. Or throw me into the dresser." The smile at the end was added in hopes that Rorschach would understand it was a joke and not direct permission for severe bodily harm. There was a 50/50 chance he would take it that way anyway.
Dan's elbows were quaking in the time it took Rorschach to decide but he finally did, nervously darting out a tongue to wet his thin lips and nodding with determination.
They twisted together on the mattress, inexperienced and awkward and unsure-but neither could imagine daring to do this terrifying, incredible thing with anyone else.
Their fingers dragged together at clothing, yearning for the heated press of skin. Dan groaned to see that Rorschach was already mostly hard when he dragged down his loose boxers. When Rorschach began unbuttoning his own shirt with shaking fingers, Dan stilled his hands.
"No, please-leave it on?"
Rorschach blinked at him, then leaned up to bite delicately at the edge of his ear (a trick he'd only learned a month ago and was getting quite good at).
"Perverted, Daniel." There was enough of a hidden smile in his voice that he knew it was a gentle tease both at Dan and himself. It was so much like the way he used to joke that Dan had to curl in toward him briefly, savoring the fleeting flash of their old friendship.
The soreness in Dan's back was gone, chased away by pooling warmth and the little impatient sounds Rorschach was starting to make underneath him.
Preparation was never something Rorschach liked, but at least he seemed to recognize the necessity. Dan was horribly ashamed to admit how glad he was that Rorschach insisted on doing it for himself the few times they did it this way. He thought it would die watching it, Rorschach's legs splayed and shaking, his shirt nearly falling in the way.
Dan scrambled forward embarrassingly fast when Rorschach finally let him on top again. They tangled together, mouths clashing more urgently, much too thoroughly distracted to be self-conscious about their kissing skills or lack thereof. Dan was sliding himself home inch by inch and biting his lip to keep control; Rorschach was gripping onto Dan's shoulders and squeezing his eyes shut, panting softly at the calming semi-circles Dan drew across his stomach.
"Jesus," Dan breathed into the air between their mouths, wondering why he forgot each time how completely good it felt.
"Anh," replied Rorschach, the usual dragging grate in his voice replaced by something thoroughly human and wanting.
Dan set up the same gentle, precarious rhythm he used whenever Rorschach allowed him to do this, tracing his fingers up the bridge of his nose to his forehead, feeling the predictably steady bloom of heartrending affection. Rorschach arched his mouth into the palm of Dan's hand. Sure as anything, Dan knew Rorschach was gone and only this strange, quivering person with no name was left behind, this person who was the source behind every tentative reach for connection. Dan dragged his nose along a length of freckled neck, smelling, possessing. He could be gone tomorrow, but today he was here and his.
He smelled his own cologne in the shirt collar, soaking into Rorschach's skin, and bucked hard enough that they both gave sharp, surprised yells and insistently moved closer to one another, Rorschach's hands fisting against Dan's back and Dan grasping handfuls of white shirt in his overheated hands, turning their rhythm into something wilder, more honest.
This had never-all this time, they'd been-God, had they been trying to be polite to each other?
He didn't know he had this much strength, and he had never seen Rorschach fighting so hard to keep his eyes from rolling up toward the back of his head and it only made him want to move harder, faster, wring out those strange little sounds Rorschach liked to make in strangled gasps. He could feel Rorschach's soft inner thighs sliding against his sides and hear the headboard drumming against the wall and he didn't know he had this in him and God, God-
Rorschach's face was twisted in agonized desire and Dan felt a fierce triumph at being the one to see his expressions.
He was biting down onto Dan's shoulder, twisting his fingers white into the sheets and breathing hard through his nose. Dan could feel his jaw and tongue reflexively moving to form the words Daniel, Daniel. When his abdominals started to clench in waves Dan knew from experience how close he was and how he'd never dare touch himself so Dan did it himself, closing his fingers in a tight circle and steadying Rorschach's body with his free arm when he fell apart, vulnerable and so human-
It always took Dan longer but Rorschach, infuriating complicated wonderful Rorschach was the only one who had never minded, laying back sated and impossibly soft-eyed for the length of time it took for Dan to push himself toward the edge, frantic that he would lose it, half-sobbing and please, please, please-
All it took was Rorschach arching his neck and sliding his eyes closed and Dan was shuddering, swallowing back a scream and spilling himself deep inside, heady sensation and relief tearing him apart.
Rorschach bore the weight of his body without complaint when he collapsed, instead hesitantly carding his fingers through Dan's hair while he struggled to regain his breath.
They lay together in the aftermath, sweat drying the winter morning, neither willing to do anything but curl against each other and sleep until it came time for masks again.