Not the Solution but the Release
To Rorschach the noise the thug makes as he breaks his wrist is like that of a wounded animal that’s crawled off to die, and the thought doesn’t seem to hamper him as he turns to elbow another in the face. Blood soaks through his trench coat, wet and hot, and he doesn’t care, and somewhere off to the right Daniel grunts and a man’s arm snaps in a way it probably should not.
Daniel is laid out on the table before him, and he’s broken and bleeding and Rorschach can’t breathe. He needs to do something, needs to help him, but he can’t and when did his hands get so heavy?
Their shadows tangle on the alley’s wall, a writhing blackness that seems all consuming. Rorschach can’t pull his eyes from it, even as he dislocates a man’s jaw and feels the skin on his knuckles split with the force of impact. He throws another against a rusty old dumpster and feels like he’s going to tumble into the shadows, and that’s more like home than any other place has ever been.
He manages to peel his gloves off despite how badly he’s shaking and leans over the body of his partner, who is still enough for it to be frightening and breathing enough for it to be reassuring.
Daniel’s face is black and blue, his costume torn in places and bled through in others, and for some reason he looks like a macabre rag doll more than a masked hero. Rorschach’s stomach is twisting in ways it hasn’t in so long, forcing him to brace his body against the table before he can start, and he’s ashamed and afraid because Daniel needs him right now and he’s letting him down.
“Rorschach!” someone screams, and it’s enough to pull him from the murky darkness because it’s Daniel that’s crying out for help, and the first thing he feels in reaction to the underlying note of pain in the call is anger. Anger at whoever has caused that pain, anger so sudden and intense that it’s burning him from the inside out like embers embedded beneath his skin.
He turns quickly enough for his back to crack, and at first Daniel isn’t there and he can’t find him and a dull panic is bubbling in his stomach.
All at once he makes it out, the figure crumpled on the ground and the shadows around it that kick and jeer at the pathetic thing at their feet. He knows that it’s Daniel, knows by the shattered pair of goggles that shine in the moonlight like a jagged skeleton, and the rage within him is so strong it’s turning him inside out.
He runs at the thugs and he must be making a noise in his fury because they turn, and the cruelty in their eyes morphs into horror when they see him. They’re trying to flee but there’s only three of them and when he tackles one they crash into the other two and tumble like dominoes.
It takes him several minutes to free Daniel from his suit so that he can get to his wounds but he does, and with each new injury he makes out his stomach gives a lurch. Bruises and welts from the men’s boots span his partner’s exposed abdomen, coloring his skin bizarre shades of green and purple. There are cuts in a few places, shallow slashes from where switchblades managed to pierce Daniel’s costume and slice into soft flesh, and Rorschach is checking to see how many broken ribs there are even as his teeth clench hard enough to ache.
He’s lashing out but his vision is blurred by his anger, and the first thing he does when they hit the ground is stand, pulling the man he tackled with him, and then he hoists him by the collar of his shirt and slams him into the cracked pavement. There’s a sickening crack and blood isn’t flowing so much as it is gushing, and vaguely he realizes that the man’s teeth have landed several feet away.
The other two are scrabbling to stand and he kicks one in the stomach hard enough to break their ribs and grabs the other before he can run, because that’s what the terror in his eyes betrays to be his next action, and the rest is a blur because it’s all blood and violence and fury and maybe they scream or maybe they don’t, and he doesn’t know. Because all he can tell is that he needs to hurt them, and the way his fists are connecting with the meat and bone and skin feels better than it should.
He needs to wake Daniel up, and really that’s what he should have done first.
As severely as he’s been beaten he probably has a concussion, and letting him stay unconscious is a mistake, has the potential to hurt him, to kill him. But Rorschach is afraid, afraid that when Daniel wakes up he’ll finally see what a horrible partner he is, what a detriment he’s been to Daniel. Afraid that the beating was enough to knock into Daniel what Rorschach has known all along.
Even worse though is the possibility that Daniel could die, and the mere thought snaps him into reality, and he digs through the medical supplies until he finds the smelling salts.
The first thing Daniel mumbles when his eyes manage to open is “Rorschach,” and it’s weak but audible as it tumbles from his lips, and if Rorschach wasn’t already broken it would shatter him all over again.
One of the men is wailing for somebody named ‘Jenny’ as Rorschach lays into him, and it only spurs him on, makes him angrier until he is smashing the thug’s head into the ground, once, twice, three times, and he stops counting by the fifth.
“Daniel.” He hisses as the neck snaps. “Hurt… Daniel.” And his voice is louder this time, strained and unstable and wavering as if he’s going to cry, but no tears are dropping, only blood from the man’s smashed in skull, and the unrecognizable mass of flesh isn’t crying for Jenny anymore.
He cleans and dresses Daniel’s wounds quickly because he’s had to practice this on himself so frequently that it’s second nature by now. Daniel keeps starting to drift off again, eyelids fluttering, but Rorschach won’t let him and tells him to focus on the pain.
“Need to stay awake, Daniel.” He says firmly in his sandpaper voice, and at least two of the cuts are going to need stitches, and each time Daniel cries out softly in pain it’s a needle to Rorschach’s stomach because he’s the one who did this, it’s his fault, and Daniel just keeps mumbling his thanks as if Rorschach is still deserving of his trust.
When he slips the needle into Daniel’s skin, pressing lightly with a free hand on the bruised chest to restrain him, all he can think is that Daniel won’t have trouble staying awake while he does this.
He’s soaked in blood by the time he can stop, and they don’t look like people so much as battered meat. He feels oddly disaffected until he turns to see Daniel and then it hits him again, rushing back fast and hard enough that it jars him and he nearly falls over because he’s gone all cold, and he can’t feel his limbs anymore.
He doesn’t know how, but he manages to haul Daniel back to Archie, shaking the whole time, even as he lays him out on the table. He’s gotten blood on him, and it makes him sick because he’s dirtied him, soiled him, and he shouldn’t even be touching him.
He reaches out slowly with uncertain fingers and brushes them against Daniel’s face, and part of him is scared the man will crumble from it, from contact with someone like him.
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