FIC: Now, As Before - [1/12]
Title: Now, As Before
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Dan/Rorschach, lightly
Date Written: 2009
Summary: "After changes upon changes we are more or less the same."
Rating/Warnings: R. Language. Violence. ZOMBIES. Cracky premise, non-cracky treatment.
Notes: This is completely a guilty indulgence - I love reading zombie AU fics, don’t usually write stuff like this. So! This was a zombiefic challenge from elsewhere(the kinkmeme *coughs*). AU. Pre-Roche, so expect reasonably complete sentences from our favorite psychotic redhead. Warnings include: 'zombies created by SCIENCE' cliché, bad science on top of it, mild gore, MotherHen!Dan, non-explicit slashiness(Dan/Ror). Also: OMGWTF*LONG*.This sucker is sitting at about 50 pages in Word right now. End notes are at the end.
Spoilers: Some Roche stuff eventually. Not much else.
EXTRA NOTE: All illustrations are by liodain , NOT ME.
*
Day 1.
*
(What the hell now…)
It's a scratching, clicking noise, coming from his front door - the scrape and tug of a rake over tumblers, and Dan can't be certain, but he doesn't think they can pick locks. Burglars or looters though, maybe. All fight and nerves, he snatches up the nearest heavy object and heads straight for the front door, puts his hand on the knob. Flicks the lock with his thumb and yanks, hard.
It's been a very long day. Not a great one either, as quality goes. (Wrong day to mess with-)
There's a stretch of several seconds in which Rorschach tries to take in the fact that his tools are no longer in his hands along with the fact that Daniel is standing over him with a table lamp poised to strike, head twitching to the side with the sort of confusion that comes from being so focused on one task that anything outside of that is completely beyond processing. It only takes a second more for Dan to see that disorientation, recognize the strange way Rorschach is holding himself against the doorframe, catch the overpowering stench of blood and adrenaline - add them all up to 'very wrong', and bundle the smaller man into the entryway without a word.
*
"I thought you were a goddamned burglar, you know. You usually just kick the lock in."
Rorschach sways almost imperceptibly on his feet, trying to tuck the pick and tension wrench back into their case with badly shaking hands. Reaches up to lift the mask up over the bridge of his nose, and his breathing doesn't sound right. "The door wouldn’t have been very useful without a working lock. They can use doorkn-"
"Right. I know. I don't actually care." Dan interrupts in a rush of words, wired and aggressive from his own frenzied flight from the streets not an hour ago. He slams the deadbolt home before rounding on his partner, hands clamped firmly on either shoulder. Not in any mood to screw around. "Before you start, don't say you're fine; I can see the damn blood. What happened?"
"Nrrk. Was across the street from the… 'research' building when it…" he trails off, seemingly at a loss. That's remarkable in and of itself; Rorschach is never without a turn of phrase. He sways again, slightly more noticeable. Shifts his weight off of one leg.
"'Breached'?" The quotation marks are audible in Dan's tone. 'Breach' is what they’ve been calling it on the radio news for the last two hours, and it's a ridiculous euphemism when you consider the fact that what they've actually done is accidentally let loose thousands of top secret test subjects infected with only god knows what, 'people' only a touch shy of the living goddamned dead, and maybe they are people but they're still trying to eat you.
He refuses to say the word that is on the tip of everyone's tongues. Refuses to think it.
"Yes. Coincidence, was just passing by. I-" A beat of sudden, confused silence before Rorschach's legs finally buckle under him, threatening to send him to the tiled floor where blood is already starting to pool in dark, ominous splatters. The rate he's losing it at, it's amazing he's standing at all…
…and Dan moves quickly, catching him under the arms and guiding him into the kitchen, straight into a chair. Under the better light he can see the dark stains against the pinstriped fabric, soaking one pant leg clean through, coming from somewhere higher. Can see how much there is. Can see that there's far too much. The coat's covered in muck and grime, telling the story of a roundabout and unpleasant trip to the brownstone's door, and if he was dropping blood this fast the whole time... mf. Dan reaches for the knot in the coat's belt; pauses, looks up. "Here, let me just…"
No response. Almost worse than being rebuffed or, on a bad day, hit in the face. Something cold twists in Dan's stomach.
He works the coat open, one eye on Rorschach for any sort of reaction, then sucks in a breath, harsh and fast. It's a complete mess, worse than he expected - a jagged tear in the fabric, high on the outside of the leg, and a more jagged tear in the skin underneath and - god, is there a chunk missing? There is. He sees something that looks like bone and almost loses it, almost throws up right then and there all over the kitchen tile; swallows down hard on the rising bile because damn it, there are more important things to do right now, and of all the times to come stumbling in with a hospitalization-worthy injury, the streets overrun and medical care inaccessible…
Fuck.
(Slow down. Take a breath.)
"All right, I… I'm not sure if stitches are really going to cover this, but let me get the kit down and I'll do what I can, okay? You're probably stuck here for a while anyway…"
Again, no response. Again, something twists. Again Dan ignores it, crossing to the shelves to pull down the kit, hoping like hell he remembered to restock it after the last time it was used. He's popped it open and is eying the contents speculatively when Rorschach finally finds his voice, strained and rougher than usual: "Daniel. Do you have a firearm in the house?"
Dan freezes, hand in the kit, then resumes again, picking through the suture weights. "Somewhere. Closet, I think. Don't ever use it."
"Loaded?"
"No, Rorschach, I don't tend to keep loaded guns lying around." And it's almost lighthearted, almost a joke. He settles on the heaviest weight he can find, pulling the package and a fresh needle from the box.
"Load it. Keep it on you. As long as I'm 'stuck here'."
Dan's coming back over now, sutures and needle in one hand, a pair of bandage shears in the other. He makes a noise that is part laugh, part sigh, part nervous breakdown waiting in the wings. "Come on," he says, and he's trying to be persuasive, but who is he trying to persuade? "This isn't some stupid horror movie. We have no idea if… look, the pants are a loss, I'm gonna have to cut this away, all right?" A vague nod. Daniel sets to work stripping the fabric away, peeling it back as carefully as he can, and it really says something about how far out of things Rorschach is that he's not insisting on doing all of this himself, physically able or not. "…if it's even communicable, or how it's passed… we don't even know what the hell we're dealing with, all we know is what they look like. And they're not what they look like, I'll say that now."
A noncommittal noise, and as Dan starts to clean the blood away as best he can, Rorschach shifts slightly in the chair, his only concession to discomfort. "I'm not taking any chances." A pause, slightly longer than it needs to be, then: "Not with you."
Dan pauses, glances up at his friend, at what he can see of the face below the mask. Shakes his head slightly. (Blood loss, that's blood loss talking…)
Still…
"All right, well, if it makes you feel better, I'll get it down. After I stitch this up."
Another unintelligible noise, sounding like vague approval. Silence for a few moments, as Dan starts stitching, pulling the wound closed as well as he can without clean edges. Rorschach just sets his mouth in a tight line, getting tighter with every pass.
Sensing the need for a distraction, Daniel ties off a stitch and hesitates before beginning the next. "So, how exactly did he manage to do this much damage, anyway?"
"They," and it's halfway a word and halfway a grunt but it gets the idea across.
"They?"
"Daniel. You think I would have let this happen if there was only one of them?" And it's another almost-joke, one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly, and wearily.
Daniel huffs a nervous laugh, starting the next stitch. "No, sorry. What was I thinking?" A matching smile-that-isn't-quite-a- smile. "Let's see, now. Ten?"
"Hrm. Getting warmer."
*
--->Chapter 2
*
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters/Pairings: Dan/Rorschach, lightly
Date Written: 2009
Summary: "After changes upon changes we are more or less the same."
Rating/Warnings: R. Language. Violence. ZOMBIES. Cracky premise, non-cracky treatment.
Notes: This is completely a guilty indulgence - I love reading zombie AU fics, don’t usually write stuff like this. So! This was a zombiefic challenge from elsewhere(the kinkmeme *coughs*). AU. Pre-Roche, so expect reasonably complete sentences from our favorite psychotic redhead. Warnings include: 'zombies created by SCIENCE' cliché, bad science on top of it, mild gore, MotherHen!Dan, non-explicit slashiness(Dan/Ror). Also: OMGWTF*LONG*.This sucker is sitting at about 50 pages in Word right now. End notes are at the end.
Spoilers: Some Roche stuff eventually. Not much else.
EXTRA NOTE: All illustrations are by liodain , NOT ME.
*
Day 1.
*
(What the hell now…)
It's a scratching, clicking noise, coming from his front door - the scrape and tug of a rake over tumblers, and Dan can't be certain, but he doesn't think they can pick locks. Burglars or looters though, maybe. All fight and nerves, he snatches up the nearest heavy object and heads straight for the front door, puts his hand on the knob. Flicks the lock with his thumb and yanks, hard.
It's been a very long day. Not a great one either, as quality goes. (Wrong day to mess with-)
There's a stretch of several seconds in which Rorschach tries to take in the fact that his tools are no longer in his hands along with the fact that Daniel is standing over him with a table lamp poised to strike, head twitching to the side with the sort of confusion that comes from being so focused on one task that anything outside of that is completely beyond processing. It only takes a second more for Dan to see that disorientation, recognize the strange way Rorschach is holding himself against the doorframe, catch the overpowering stench of blood and adrenaline - add them all up to 'very wrong', and bundle the smaller man into the entryway without a word.
*
"I thought you were a goddamned burglar, you know. You usually just kick the lock in."
Rorschach sways almost imperceptibly on his feet, trying to tuck the pick and tension wrench back into their case with badly shaking hands. Reaches up to lift the mask up over the bridge of his nose, and his breathing doesn't sound right. "The door wouldn’t have been very useful without a working lock. They can use doorkn-"
"Right. I know. I don't actually care." Dan interrupts in a rush of words, wired and aggressive from his own frenzied flight from the streets not an hour ago. He slams the deadbolt home before rounding on his partner, hands clamped firmly on either shoulder. Not in any mood to screw around. "Before you start, don't say you're fine; I can see the damn blood. What happened?"
"Nrrk. Was across the street from the… 'research' building when it…" he trails off, seemingly at a loss. That's remarkable in and of itself; Rorschach is never without a turn of phrase. He sways again, slightly more noticeable. Shifts his weight off of one leg.
"'Breached'?" The quotation marks are audible in Dan's tone. 'Breach' is what they’ve been calling it on the radio news for the last two hours, and it's a ridiculous euphemism when you consider the fact that what they've actually done is accidentally let loose thousands of top secret test subjects infected with only god knows what, 'people' only a touch shy of the living goddamned dead, and maybe they are people but they're still trying to eat you.
He refuses to say the word that is on the tip of everyone's tongues. Refuses to think it.
"Yes. Coincidence, was just passing by. I-" A beat of sudden, confused silence before Rorschach's legs finally buckle under him, threatening to send him to the tiled floor where blood is already starting to pool in dark, ominous splatters. The rate he's losing it at, it's amazing he's standing at all…
…and Dan moves quickly, catching him under the arms and guiding him into the kitchen, straight into a chair. Under the better light he can see the dark stains against the pinstriped fabric, soaking one pant leg clean through, coming from somewhere higher. Can see how much there is. Can see that there's far too much. The coat's covered in muck and grime, telling the story of a roundabout and unpleasant trip to the brownstone's door, and if he was dropping blood this fast the whole time... mf. Dan reaches for the knot in the coat's belt; pauses, looks up. "Here, let me just…"
No response. Almost worse than being rebuffed or, on a bad day, hit in the face. Something cold twists in Dan's stomach.
He works the coat open, one eye on Rorschach for any sort of reaction, then sucks in a breath, harsh and fast. It's a complete mess, worse than he expected - a jagged tear in the fabric, high on the outside of the leg, and a more jagged tear in the skin underneath and - god, is there a chunk missing? There is. He sees something that looks like bone and almost loses it, almost throws up right then and there all over the kitchen tile; swallows down hard on the rising bile because damn it, there are more important things to do right now, and of all the times to come stumbling in with a hospitalization-worthy injury, the streets overrun and medical care inaccessible…
Fuck.
(Slow down. Take a breath.)
"All right, I… I'm not sure if stitches are really going to cover this, but let me get the kit down and I'll do what I can, okay? You're probably stuck here for a while anyway…"
Again, no response. Again, something twists. Again Dan ignores it, crossing to the shelves to pull down the kit, hoping like hell he remembered to restock it after the last time it was used. He's popped it open and is eying the contents speculatively when Rorschach finally finds his voice, strained and rougher than usual: "Daniel. Do you have a firearm in the house?"
Dan freezes, hand in the kit, then resumes again, picking through the suture weights. "Somewhere. Closet, I think. Don't ever use it."
"Loaded?"
"No, Rorschach, I don't tend to keep loaded guns lying around." And it's almost lighthearted, almost a joke. He settles on the heaviest weight he can find, pulling the package and a fresh needle from the box.
"Load it. Keep it on you. As long as I'm 'stuck here'."
Dan's coming back over now, sutures and needle in one hand, a pair of bandage shears in the other. He makes a noise that is part laugh, part sigh, part nervous breakdown waiting in the wings. "Come on," he says, and he's trying to be persuasive, but who is he trying to persuade? "This isn't some stupid horror movie. We have no idea if… look, the pants are a loss, I'm gonna have to cut this away, all right?" A vague nod. Daniel sets to work stripping the fabric away, peeling it back as carefully as he can, and it really says something about how far out of things Rorschach is that he's not insisting on doing all of this himself, physically able or not. "…if it's even communicable, or how it's passed… we don't even know what the hell we're dealing with, all we know is what they look like. And they're not what they look like, I'll say that now."
A noncommittal noise, and as Dan starts to clean the blood away as best he can, Rorschach shifts slightly in the chair, his only concession to discomfort. "I'm not taking any chances." A pause, slightly longer than it needs to be, then: "Not with you."
Dan pauses, glances up at his friend, at what he can see of the face below the mask. Shakes his head slightly. (Blood loss, that's blood loss talking…)
Still…
"All right, well, if it makes you feel better, I'll get it down. After I stitch this up."
Another unintelligible noise, sounding like vague approval. Silence for a few moments, as Dan starts stitching, pulling the wound closed as well as he can without clean edges. Rorschach just sets his mouth in a tight line, getting tighter with every pass.
Sensing the need for a distraction, Daniel ties off a stitch and hesitates before beginning the next. "So, how exactly did he manage to do this much damage, anyway?"
"They," and it's halfway a word and halfway a grunt but it gets the idea across.
"They?"
"Daniel. You think I would have let this happen if there was only one of them?" And it's another almost-joke, one corner of his mouth turning up ever so slightly, and wearily.
Daniel huffs a nervous laugh, starting the next stitch. "No, sorry. What was I thinking?" A matching smile-that-isn't-quite-a- smile. "Let's see, now. Ten?"
"Hrm. Getting warmer."
*
--->Chapter 2
*