Watchmen fic: Nighthawks
Title: Nighthawks
Characters: Laurie, Dan.
Rating: Mature but not explicit, gen.
Word count: 682
Summary: Post-Karnak angst.
===
They never return to New York.
After a while, one cheap motel room feels pretty much the same as another. They all have the same impersonal quality, the same impersonal smell, the same stuffy air and faded carpets and sixties decor and the same brittle television sets with buttons that are darkened by the old sweat of strangers' fingertips. Laurie hates all motel rooms equally, and always grumbles about them, mainly for the sake of hearing her own voice. Dan doesn't always talk much.
She crouches on the floor to look under the bed for a dropped earring, and grimaces. "There's a blood stain on the carpet. Ugh." Still, this motel is an improvement over the last. The last room they stayed in had flies coming out of the light fitting.
Dan makes a noncommittal little sound. He's rooting through one of their bags, looking for a map. They don't bother unpacking anymore.
The rooms have to be cheap, because they're both aware, in an abstract sort of way, that they need to make their money last.
("We have to get jobs," Laurie has said, many times.
"I guess," Dan has replied, many times.)
Most of their money goes on gasoline. They've probably done more driving in the past few months than they've done in their entire lives. Laurie makes a point of doing most of it, and Dan humors her. Occasionally, he has to tell her to stop speeding.
The traveling leaves them both exhausted, but never quite exhausted enough.
===
At night, they escape their crappy little motel room and go out for fast food. They always walk through the roughest areas that they can find. Then, when they run out of things to do, they slink back indoors into artificial darkness, and try to sleep.
===
During daylight hours, they sit around and stare at the television. Whenever there's news about Veidt or New York, Laurie always changes the channel.
"Don't," Daniel says, one morning. "I'm watching it."
She doesn't see why he has to. She leaves the room and spends the next few hours stalking up and down the streets of a place that isn't Manhattan.
===
She spends time apart from Daniel, and discovers that drinking doesn't help. It just makes her see the world through a tacky Dutch Angle, and she ends up laughing at things that aren't funny.
She initiates conversations with random strangers. At one point, she even considers phoning her mother, but decides that writing a postcard is marginally safer. She concentrates to keep her handwriting legible, and signs the postcard as 'Sugar Tush'. The postcard is accidentally stained by the spilled beer on the bar counter, but Laurie can't imagine her mother being bothered by a thing like that.
===
When she returns to their motel room, she sheds her clothing, and gets into bed with Dan. He isn't asleep.
She climbs on top of him and straddles his hips, so that he has to pay attention to her. She takes one of his hands and holds it to her right breast. When she lets go, the hand simply trails down her torso, and rests on her left thigh. She tries to meet his eyes, but they both have trouble looking at each other.
Laurie gives up, without having really tried. She climbs off him, pulls a dressing gown around herself, and exits the room, leaving him pinned there by the barred shadows cast by the window blinds.
She tells herself she doesn't care, and goes to smoke on the fire escape. She smokes cheap cigarettes, because she can't get the pipe tobacco that she likes. She hasn't smoked cigarettes since she was a teenager.
It's a beautiful night, although the light pollution prevents her from seeing the stars.
Eventually, she returns to bed. Daniel's eyes are shut, but she knows that he's still awake, so she curls up around him and kisses his shoulder.
She closes her eyes, and wonders what will happen. She wonders if she made the right choice. She wonders if she was ever really given a choice.
Characters: Laurie, Dan.
Rating: Mature but not explicit, gen.
Word count: 682
Summary: Post-Karnak angst.
===
They never return to New York.
After a while, one cheap motel room feels pretty much the same as another. They all have the same impersonal quality, the same impersonal smell, the same stuffy air and faded carpets and sixties decor and the same brittle television sets with buttons that are darkened by the old sweat of strangers' fingertips. Laurie hates all motel rooms equally, and always grumbles about them, mainly for the sake of hearing her own voice. Dan doesn't always talk much.
She crouches on the floor to look under the bed for a dropped earring, and grimaces. "There's a blood stain on the carpet. Ugh." Still, this motel is an improvement over the last. The last room they stayed in had flies coming out of the light fitting.
Dan makes a noncommittal little sound. He's rooting through one of their bags, looking for a map. They don't bother unpacking anymore.
The rooms have to be cheap, because they're both aware, in an abstract sort of way, that they need to make their money last.
("We have to get jobs," Laurie has said, many times.
"I guess," Dan has replied, many times.)
Most of their money goes on gasoline. They've probably done more driving in the past few months than they've done in their entire lives. Laurie makes a point of doing most of it, and Dan humors her. Occasionally, he has to tell her to stop speeding.
The traveling leaves them both exhausted, but never quite exhausted enough.
===
At night, they escape their crappy little motel room and go out for fast food. They always walk through the roughest areas that they can find. Then, when they run out of things to do, they slink back indoors into artificial darkness, and try to sleep.
===
During daylight hours, they sit around and stare at the television. Whenever there's news about Veidt or New York, Laurie always changes the channel.
"Don't," Daniel says, one morning. "I'm watching it."
She doesn't see why he has to. She leaves the room and spends the next few hours stalking up and down the streets of a place that isn't Manhattan.
===
She spends time apart from Daniel, and discovers that drinking doesn't help. It just makes her see the world through a tacky Dutch Angle, and she ends up laughing at things that aren't funny.
She initiates conversations with random strangers. At one point, she even considers phoning her mother, but decides that writing a postcard is marginally safer. She concentrates to keep her handwriting legible, and signs the postcard as 'Sugar Tush'. The postcard is accidentally stained by the spilled beer on the bar counter, but Laurie can't imagine her mother being bothered by a thing like that.
===
When she returns to their motel room, she sheds her clothing, and gets into bed with Dan. He isn't asleep.
She climbs on top of him and straddles his hips, so that he has to pay attention to her. She takes one of his hands and holds it to her right breast. When she lets go, the hand simply trails down her torso, and rests on her left thigh. She tries to meet his eyes, but they both have trouble looking at each other.
Laurie gives up, without having really tried. She climbs off him, pulls a dressing gown around herself, and exits the room, leaving him pinned there by the barred shadows cast by the window blinds.
She tells herself she doesn't care, and goes to smoke on the fire escape. She smokes cheap cigarettes, because she can't get the pipe tobacco that she likes. She hasn't smoked cigarettes since she was a teenager.
It's a beautiful night, although the light pollution prevents her from seeing the stars.
Eventually, she returns to bed. Daniel's eyes are shut, but she knows that he's still awake, so she curls up around him and kisses his shoulder.
She closes her eyes, and wonders what will happen. She wonders if she made the right choice. She wonders if she was ever really given a choice.