FIC: All The Monster Kids [Watchmen]
Title: All The Monster Kids
Author: schizoauthoress
Recipient: snowacid
Fandom: Watchmen, movieverse
Rating: PG-13 for some mild swearing?
Spoilers: None really, except some scenes before the climax of the movie.
Warnings: Mentions of death, some violence.
Request: #3 - Alternative ending: Nite Owl and Rorschach were able to defeat Ozymandias, still Cold War ensues. Nuclear war-scenario. Bonus points for Trust-Issues!Nite Owl.
Summary: Ozymandius was defeated because someone said "no" - and all his worst fears came to pass. Nite Owl and Rorscharch after the end of the world. I don't really know if I earned those bonus points...
Acknowledgements and Notes: Thank you to ladydragonryder and bluezybunny, my beta-readers. They made my late-night, post-work ramblings make sense.
Song lyrics at the beginning from "All Hell Breaks Loose" by The Misfits (Walk Among Us, 1982)...and the fact that it fits with the timeframe of the movie is just a happy accident.
(Word Count: 2607)
ALL THE MONSTER KIDS
I send my murdergram
To all these monster kids
It comes right back to me, and it's
Signed in their parents blood;
And broken bodies in a death-rock dance-hall
Please be my partner;
And eyeballs pop, accelerated blood-beat,
Veins a-shaking
And all hell breaks loose
Yeah, my heart is a-breaking loose;
Yeah, my whole world's breaking loose
Yeah, evil is as evil does and who..?
Yeah, but who but me could write this book of cruel?
The first thing Dan hears when he wakes is a familiar growl, saying words that have become, over the last few weeks, horribly familiar.
"Rad count too high."
Even behind his closed eyelids, Dan can sense where in the room that voice is coming from. It's terribly crowded down here in the subway tunnels, and the dull roar of displaced humanity makes it hard to pinpoint the direction of individual sounds, but he knows this speaker. Knows which entrances to the sleeping quarters that he prefers, knows the paths he picks through the sleeping bodies as the dark night turns to gray morning - knows, in short, a lot of things. It's the kind of habit that he picked up on after years and years of having to guess at intention and read the silent language of his uncommunicative partner. The sound of his breathing gets closer. Dan opens his eyes.
Rorschach - Dan finds it hard, even now, to think of the man as 'Walter' - is crouched beside him, blue eyes both weary and intense. In the faint, flickering light of the dying overhead bulbs, his skin is bleached almost paper-white, his high cheekbones casting shadows like black hollows in his face. Dan blinks, a little shaken, remembering Rorschach's 'true face'. He'd had to cast it off, abandon it like so many others had done for so much, when it was contaminated by radioactive ash. Dan wants to say something about it, but it has joined the long list of Things We Do Not Talk About that he and Rorschach have been compiling between them for so many years (and it's funny, that, instead of easy comfort and understanding, his closest and most meaningful friendship is instead a field of emotional landmines to navigate). Instead, he swallows those words and holds out his hand for his glasses.
(It wasn't long after the first bombs dropped that Rorschach began stealing his glasses when he went to sleep, citing the fact that any other eye wear with Dan's prescription was irradiated beyond belief and he could not risk getting them crushed in the communal sleeping area. Dan is certain that most people would find such a gesture creepy, but he's...touched. Once the first panicked thoughts of 'oh my god, they're lost' and 'I'll be half-blind forever' subsided, that is.)
"They've been too high all week," Dan points out mildly, polishing away at his lenses. Rorschach always gets fingerprints on them nowadays.
Rorschach lifts his chin, and the shadows shift - for a moment, Dan thinks he recognizes a pattern in the darkness blotting his partner's face - his red-orange brows tilt in a gesture that Dan recognizes as accedence. "Checking anyway. Wind patterns can shift."
The weight of his glasses is soothing as he settles them on his nose. "Yes," Dan says quietly. "Thank you."
He gets to his feet, careful not to expose the warm side of his blanket to the open air too much, and stretches his arms straight up as he stands on his tiptoes, waiting for Rorschach to take his place. They've spent little time together since the Bombing - duty propels them to patrol the safe places, protect the few healthy people left, and (in Dan's case) help rebuild what they can. Without comment, the redheaded man hunkers down and wraps himself in the blanket. His piercing blue eyes seem to dim slightly, just before drifting shut. They have found that sleep comes much easier these days, if only because they are so exhausted from trying to hold their little piece of the world together. Even between their four hands (used to be eight, before Laurie succumbed to radiation sickness and Dr. Manhattan fled), it feels like trying to keep hold of dry sand. Time, supplies, hope, people...they slide, inexorably away, through their fingers.
****
"My red world, here, now, means more to me than your blue one," Dr. Manhattan said calmly. Silk Spectre felt a tremor through the glassy surfaces that surrounded her. "Let me show you."
She reached out, caught his wrist in one gloved hand, and felt the entire impossible structure around them shudder from his surprise. He recovered quickly, and the strange craft he'd constructed hovered in midair, its moving parts slowly shedding the red dirt it rose from.
And she said flatly, "No."
"Laurie..." Dr. Manhattan still spoke in that gentle voice. Silk Spectre felt a frission of rage deep in her heart - recalling, with no small measure of pain, that he'd sounded exactly the same when talking about what 'stimulated' her - and decided that the time for gentleness is over.
"I won't be swayed by your displays of power, Jon." Silk Spectre released her hold and gestured toward the blue-green sphere in the Martian sky. "You have so much power, so many opportunities to change that world - our world - for the better. And you do nothing."
Dr. Manhattan's eyes burned into hers as he considered her words - there was a moment, in his silence, Silk Spectre considered that perhaps insulting the only person standing between herself and oxygen deprivation may not have been a wise choice - then he broke the stare to look up into the black sky. He sighed.
Silk Spectre allowed a bit of hope to creep into her voice. "Is it too much to ask for a miracle?"
Dr. Manhattan looked down, then back at her. His voice seemed flatter, duller, but also he seemed to take comfort in being able to answer: "Miracles, by their definition, are meaningless..."
"God, Jon!" She cried out, flinging her hands in the air angrily.
He studiously did not look at her as he continued to explain, "Only what can happen, does happen..."
"Just..." Silk Spectre felt a powerful urge to pull at her own hair, caught herself in mid-action, and snapped out, "Stop...your bullshit!"
Her eyes flashed as she glared at him. Then she turned and stalked back the way that Jon had led her up to their vantage point, her spike-heeled shoes making the glass chime like tiny bells - loud to his ears, even in the stillness and thin atmosphere.
"You know what? You can send me back to Earth to fry with Dan and my mom and all the other 'worthless' humans." He materialized in front of her, close enough that it seemed he was trying to discomfit her; she continued unfazed, "But you were wrong, you know. You said this ended with me in tears, but look," she raised her chin defiantly, "nothing." Her voice went sharper with anger, "Maybe you were wrong about everything."
"You complain that I refuse to see life on life's terms, yet you continually refuse to see things from my perspective." Dr. Manhattan's voice went even flatter, and Silk Spectre was even more aware of the fragility of her continued existence here on Mars. "You shut out what you're afraid of."
'Just like all the other humans', a faint upward twitch at the corner of his mouth said silently to her - the closest Jon's ever come to a superior smirk. She did not like this. At all.
"I'm not afraid." She spat the words out like venom, leaning in close. Her face reflected back the blue glow of his skin...
(Jon has wondered, sometimes-always and after-now-before, what it would be like to not be alone in his existence and in his more selfish moments wanted Laurie to be like him. In his less selfish moments he knows that for Laurie-like-him to be, Laurie-that-he-loves would die. He is not fool enough to make it happen. Just fool enough to dream it.)
"You want me to see things your way? Go ahead - show me. Do that thing you do."
He lifted a hand to her face - electricity crackled between them - she closed her eyes...
****
"Heard on the shortwave that Manhattan's been sighted in Australia," says one of the mechanics, as he helps Dan decontaminate the Owlship after another foray out into the dead world.
(Everyone knows that they were Nite Owl and Rorscharch now - keeping the secret would have only made life harder than it already is. Hard as it had been to reveal the secret - and that little fact surprised the hell out of Dan, at least when it came to himself - he is grateful that they did it. It makes being the leader of this little band of survivors somewhat easier to justify. Even if it was stopping Ozymandius that doomed the world to nuclear winter, nobody voices those thoughts...they turn to Dan because it's easy.)
It's on the tip of his tongue to demand how idiotic the man can be - there's no way in hell shortwave radio transmissions from Australia could be picked up by their crew set up in the Myrtle Avenue Upper Level - but Dan merely grunts an acknowledgment of his words and keeps scrubbing. There's no doubt in Dan's mind that the report of Dr. Manhattan's whereabouts are an exaggeration at the most and a baseless rumor at the least. Laurie is dead; he'd be surprised if Dr. Manhattan were anywhere in the galaxy, let alone somewhere on Earth. But these people need hope. He's not about to...
"Idiotic, if you ask me," the mechanic says, stepping back to inspect their handiwork.
Dan closes his eyes and laughs. He can't help it.
****
"I'm in." Nite Owl said, interrupting Rorschach's recitation of the Dr. Manhattan psych profile. He clicked on the pyramid-icon from the diskette's files. The muted click of Rorschach's boots as his partner crossed the office back to the desk momentarily distracted Nite Owl as the computer processed the request. He looked back at the screen as it finishes loading...
The Pyramid TransNational logo. And a financial analysis spreadsheet.
Nite Owl furrowed his brow in confusion, wondering, 'How could Adrian have gotten this information?' He scrolled down, past figures and subheadings, trying to ignore the feeling that welled up inside him as he continued to skim the document - that feeling that something was not...right...
They remained on the screen, white and unchanging, all in capital letters - the words "VEIDT INTERNATIONAL". He read the sentences, the paragraphs, surrounding those words. And the dread in his heart grew all the heavier, as he comprehended, as he admitted to himself what it meant... and still, he whispered a protest,
"No."
Rorscharch, being Rorscharch, reacted to that in a fashion that Nite Owl had come to expect; he was not all that surprised (or, admittedly, bothered) when the shorter man practically shoved him out of the chair to get a look at the screen. Nite Owl saw his partner's shoulders go rigid - just when had his brain started dropping the 'ex' that he'd prefixed onto that classification for so long? - and crossed his arms, waiting for the inevitable explosion of rage.
However, aside from a rumbling, almost atavistic growl from beneath his latex mask, Rorscharch made no outward sign of his turmoil. "Back to ship." He spoke in his usual clipped rhythm, and if there was any catch in that harsh voice, the mask muffled it from Nite Owl's ears. "Find Veidt. Stop him."
****
Rorschach does not know who to punish. All the Commie scum who had a part in the decision to nuke are already dead. Silk Spectre is dead. Dr. Manhattan might as well be dead, as far away and untouchable as the bastard is. And he can't...won't...take it out on Daniel. If succeeding in stopping Veidt's mad plan lead to this hellish world, he shares equal blame (though he knows he could never and would never condone Veidt's mass murdering scheme), and he doesn't want to think about hurting Daniel anyway.
(He doesn't talk about it - others would want to analyze it. He doesn't think about it, either - it's simple: hurting Daniel is unacceptable.)
Mostly he spends his waking time as a guard, for the entrances and invisible demarcations where his group's claim on the tunnels ends and begins, and for the scavenging parties when the radiation levels are low enough. (The supply levels are always 'low enough'.) When he's sure no one will miss him - that is, when Dan finally drops off to sleep - he 'borrows' one of the yellow protective suits and wanders the ruins of New York, occasionally coming across people. It's stupid and primitive and absurd, but so many of those people attack him. Sick and dying, mad from a myriad of different causes, they see him as a trespasser nonetheless and fling themselves upon him in rage.
The suit is spattered with red when he returns. He sees their faces in the patterns, even as the water sluices down the surface and swirls pink down the drain.
****
Ozymandius's eyes went wide as a familiar blue corona of energy surged through the generator room. 'How could he know? I planned for everything!' he thought, even as he exploded into motion, even as Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre and Nite Owl and Rorschach coalesced into solid form. The scientists were confused and - when Rorschach reacted in quintessential Rorschach form and started punching his way through the crowd - frightened by this sudden change of events. Another surge of energy filled the room and suddenly, it was much more empty. Nite Owl charged...
Ozymandius saw, and dodged at the last moment, ensuring that Nite Owl would impact the wall - and before Nite Owl could recover, he grabbed the man by the back of the cowl and slammed his head against the wall. Silk Spectre attacked - Ozymandius used his free arm to block her blows and aimed a rear-kick at her midsection. As she stumbled away, gasping for breath, he pivoted and threw Nite Owl toward Rorschach.
Rorschach crouched, absorbing the force as he caught Nite Owl and redirected him to land much more gently on the ground. Ozymandius advanced upon him while he was distracted. A powerful kick to knock him away from Nite Owl, then the two of them were trading blows - for all of Rorschach's fierceness, for all the hatred that fueled his strength, Ozymandius's cold, calculating fighting was wearing him down.
A bright green beam flashed in the corner of his left eye, and Ozymandius gave a cry of pain as it cut through the shoulder of his supersuit and seared the flesh below. Rorschach did not waste the opportunity - his fists hammered at Ozymandius's face.
"No - no!" Ozymandius moaned, "This is the only way to save the world! This is the only way!"
****
The smell of vomit and blood is all-pervasive in this dying world. They quarantine the sick, run decontamination showers, and parcel out SSKI bottles to guard against radioactive iodine and people still become sick. Dr. Manhattan stopped what bombs he could - on both sides of the conflict, once Cheyenne Mountain was reduced to a smoldering rubble - but even he could not stop them all. Everyone with severe exposure is already dead, but it's in the air, in the ground, in the water...they take the radiation in, helplessly, with nearly everything they do.
So people still become sick. They vomit and writhe and endure blood-boiling fevers before dying in terrible agony - and their pleading, begging, pathetic eyes stare into Rorschach's - 'Save us' their eyes say to him, to anyone who will watch them as they die; 'save us' they say...
And with his harsh, unflinching stare, he says 'no'...
...'I can't.'
END
crossposted to apocalyptothon.
Author: schizoauthoress
Recipient: snowacid
Fandom: Watchmen, movieverse
Rating: PG-13 for some mild swearing?
Spoilers: None really, except some scenes before the climax of the movie.
Warnings: Mentions of death, some violence.
Request: #3 - Alternative ending: Nite Owl and Rorschach were able to defeat Ozymandias, still Cold War ensues. Nuclear war-scenario. Bonus points for Trust-Issues!Nite Owl.
Summary: Ozymandius was defeated because someone said "no" - and all his worst fears came to pass. Nite Owl and Rorscharch after the end of the world. I don't really know if I earned those bonus points...
Acknowledgements and Notes: Thank you to ladydragonryder and bluezybunny, my beta-readers. They made my late-night, post-work ramblings make sense.
Song lyrics at the beginning from "All Hell Breaks Loose" by The Misfits (Walk Among Us, 1982)...and the fact that it fits with the timeframe of the movie is just a happy accident.
(Word Count: 2607)
ALL THE MONSTER KIDS
I send my murdergram
To all these monster kids
It comes right back to me, and it's
Signed in their parents blood;
And broken bodies in a death-rock dance-hall
Please be my partner;
And eyeballs pop, accelerated blood-beat,
Veins a-shaking
And all hell breaks loose
Yeah, my heart is a-breaking loose;
Yeah, my whole world's breaking loose
Yeah, evil is as evil does and who..?
Yeah, but who but me could write this book of cruel?
The first thing Dan hears when he wakes is a familiar growl, saying words that have become, over the last few weeks, horribly familiar.
"Rad count too high."
Even behind his closed eyelids, Dan can sense where in the room that voice is coming from. It's terribly crowded down here in the subway tunnels, and the dull roar of displaced humanity makes it hard to pinpoint the direction of individual sounds, but he knows this speaker. Knows which entrances to the sleeping quarters that he prefers, knows the paths he picks through the sleeping bodies as the dark night turns to gray morning - knows, in short, a lot of things. It's the kind of habit that he picked up on after years and years of having to guess at intention and read the silent language of his uncommunicative partner. The sound of his breathing gets closer. Dan opens his eyes.
Rorschach - Dan finds it hard, even now, to think of the man as 'Walter' - is crouched beside him, blue eyes both weary and intense. In the faint, flickering light of the dying overhead bulbs, his skin is bleached almost paper-white, his high cheekbones casting shadows like black hollows in his face. Dan blinks, a little shaken, remembering Rorschach's 'true face'. He'd had to cast it off, abandon it like so many others had done for so much, when it was contaminated by radioactive ash. Dan wants to say something about it, but it has joined the long list of Things We Do Not Talk About that he and Rorschach have been compiling between them for so many years (and it's funny, that, instead of easy comfort and understanding, his closest and most meaningful friendship is instead a field of emotional landmines to navigate). Instead, he swallows those words and holds out his hand for his glasses.
(It wasn't long after the first bombs dropped that Rorschach began stealing his glasses when he went to sleep, citing the fact that any other eye wear with Dan's prescription was irradiated beyond belief and he could not risk getting them crushed in the communal sleeping area. Dan is certain that most people would find such a gesture creepy, but he's...touched. Once the first panicked thoughts of 'oh my god, they're lost' and 'I'll be half-blind forever' subsided, that is.)
"They've been too high all week," Dan points out mildly, polishing away at his lenses. Rorschach always gets fingerprints on them nowadays.
Rorschach lifts his chin, and the shadows shift - for a moment, Dan thinks he recognizes a pattern in the darkness blotting his partner's face - his red-orange brows tilt in a gesture that Dan recognizes as accedence. "Checking anyway. Wind patterns can shift."
The weight of his glasses is soothing as he settles them on his nose. "Yes," Dan says quietly. "Thank you."
He gets to his feet, careful not to expose the warm side of his blanket to the open air too much, and stretches his arms straight up as he stands on his tiptoes, waiting for Rorschach to take his place. They've spent little time together since the Bombing - duty propels them to patrol the safe places, protect the few healthy people left, and (in Dan's case) help rebuild what they can. Without comment, the redheaded man hunkers down and wraps himself in the blanket. His piercing blue eyes seem to dim slightly, just before drifting shut. They have found that sleep comes much easier these days, if only because they are so exhausted from trying to hold their little piece of the world together. Even between their four hands (used to be eight, before Laurie succumbed to radiation sickness and Dr. Manhattan fled), it feels like trying to keep hold of dry sand. Time, supplies, hope, people...they slide, inexorably away, through their fingers.
****
"My red world, here, now, means more to me than your blue one," Dr. Manhattan said calmly. Silk Spectre felt a tremor through the glassy surfaces that surrounded her. "Let me show you."
She reached out, caught his wrist in one gloved hand, and felt the entire impossible structure around them shudder from his surprise. He recovered quickly, and the strange craft he'd constructed hovered in midair, its moving parts slowly shedding the red dirt it rose from.
And she said flatly, "No."
"Laurie..." Dr. Manhattan still spoke in that gentle voice. Silk Spectre felt a frission of rage deep in her heart - recalling, with no small measure of pain, that he'd sounded exactly the same when talking about what 'stimulated' her - and decided that the time for gentleness is over.
"I won't be swayed by your displays of power, Jon." Silk Spectre released her hold and gestured toward the blue-green sphere in the Martian sky. "You have so much power, so many opportunities to change that world - our world - for the better. And you do nothing."
Dr. Manhattan's eyes burned into hers as he considered her words - there was a moment, in his silence, Silk Spectre considered that perhaps insulting the only person standing between herself and oxygen deprivation may not have been a wise choice - then he broke the stare to look up into the black sky. He sighed.
Silk Spectre allowed a bit of hope to creep into her voice. "Is it too much to ask for a miracle?"
Dr. Manhattan looked down, then back at her. His voice seemed flatter, duller, but also he seemed to take comfort in being able to answer: "Miracles, by their definition, are meaningless..."
"God, Jon!" She cried out, flinging her hands in the air angrily.
He studiously did not look at her as he continued to explain, "Only what can happen, does happen..."
"Just..." Silk Spectre felt a powerful urge to pull at her own hair, caught herself in mid-action, and snapped out, "Stop...your bullshit!"
Her eyes flashed as she glared at him. Then she turned and stalked back the way that Jon had led her up to their vantage point, her spike-heeled shoes making the glass chime like tiny bells - loud to his ears, even in the stillness and thin atmosphere.
"You know what? You can send me back to Earth to fry with Dan and my mom and all the other 'worthless' humans." He materialized in front of her, close enough that it seemed he was trying to discomfit her; she continued unfazed, "But you were wrong, you know. You said this ended with me in tears, but look," she raised her chin defiantly, "nothing." Her voice went sharper with anger, "Maybe you were wrong about everything."
"You complain that I refuse to see life on life's terms, yet you continually refuse to see things from my perspective." Dr. Manhattan's voice went even flatter, and Silk Spectre was even more aware of the fragility of her continued existence here on Mars. "You shut out what you're afraid of."
'Just like all the other humans', a faint upward twitch at the corner of his mouth said silently to her - the closest Jon's ever come to a superior smirk. She did not like this. At all.
"I'm not afraid." She spat the words out like venom, leaning in close. Her face reflected back the blue glow of his skin...
(Jon has wondered, sometimes-always and after-now-before, what it would be like to not be alone in his existence and in his more selfish moments wanted Laurie to be like him. In his less selfish moments he knows that for Laurie-like-him to be, Laurie-that-he-loves would die. He is not fool enough to make it happen. Just fool enough to dream it.)
"You want me to see things your way? Go ahead - show me. Do that thing you do."
He lifted a hand to her face - electricity crackled between them - she closed her eyes...
****
"Heard on the shortwave that Manhattan's been sighted in Australia," says one of the mechanics, as he helps Dan decontaminate the Owlship after another foray out into the dead world.
(Everyone knows that they were Nite Owl and Rorscharch now - keeping the secret would have only made life harder than it already is. Hard as it had been to reveal the secret - and that little fact surprised the hell out of Dan, at least when it came to himself - he is grateful that they did it. It makes being the leader of this little band of survivors somewhat easier to justify. Even if it was stopping Ozymandius that doomed the world to nuclear winter, nobody voices those thoughts...they turn to Dan because it's easy.)
It's on the tip of his tongue to demand how idiotic the man can be - there's no way in hell shortwave radio transmissions from Australia could be picked up by their crew set up in the Myrtle Avenue Upper Level - but Dan merely grunts an acknowledgment of his words and keeps scrubbing. There's no doubt in Dan's mind that the report of Dr. Manhattan's whereabouts are an exaggeration at the most and a baseless rumor at the least. Laurie is dead; he'd be surprised if Dr. Manhattan were anywhere in the galaxy, let alone somewhere on Earth. But these people need hope. He's not about to...
"Idiotic, if you ask me," the mechanic says, stepping back to inspect their handiwork.
Dan closes his eyes and laughs. He can't help it.
****
"I'm in." Nite Owl said, interrupting Rorschach's recitation of the Dr. Manhattan psych profile. He clicked on the pyramid-icon from the diskette's files. The muted click of Rorschach's boots as his partner crossed the office back to the desk momentarily distracted Nite Owl as the computer processed the request. He looked back at the screen as it finishes loading...
The Pyramid TransNational logo. And a financial analysis spreadsheet.
Nite Owl furrowed his brow in confusion, wondering, 'How could Adrian have gotten this information?' He scrolled down, past figures and subheadings, trying to ignore the feeling that welled up inside him as he continued to skim the document - that feeling that something was not...right...
They remained on the screen, white and unchanging, all in capital letters - the words "VEIDT INTERNATIONAL". He read the sentences, the paragraphs, surrounding those words. And the dread in his heart grew all the heavier, as he comprehended, as he admitted to himself what it meant... and still, he whispered a protest,
"No."
Rorscharch, being Rorscharch, reacted to that in a fashion that Nite Owl had come to expect; he was not all that surprised (or, admittedly, bothered) when the shorter man practically shoved him out of the chair to get a look at the screen. Nite Owl saw his partner's shoulders go rigid - just when had his brain started dropping the 'ex' that he'd prefixed onto that classification for so long? - and crossed his arms, waiting for the inevitable explosion of rage.
However, aside from a rumbling, almost atavistic growl from beneath his latex mask, Rorscharch made no outward sign of his turmoil. "Back to ship." He spoke in his usual clipped rhythm, and if there was any catch in that harsh voice, the mask muffled it from Nite Owl's ears. "Find Veidt. Stop him."
****
Rorschach does not know who to punish. All the Commie scum who had a part in the decision to nuke are already dead. Silk Spectre is dead. Dr. Manhattan might as well be dead, as far away and untouchable as the bastard is. And he can't...won't...take it out on Daniel. If succeeding in stopping Veidt's mad plan lead to this hellish world, he shares equal blame (though he knows he could never and would never condone Veidt's mass murdering scheme), and he doesn't want to think about hurting Daniel anyway.
(He doesn't talk about it - others would want to analyze it. He doesn't think about it, either - it's simple: hurting Daniel is unacceptable.)
Mostly he spends his waking time as a guard, for the entrances and invisible demarcations where his group's claim on the tunnels ends and begins, and for the scavenging parties when the radiation levels are low enough. (The supply levels are always 'low enough'.) When he's sure no one will miss him - that is, when Dan finally drops off to sleep - he 'borrows' one of the yellow protective suits and wanders the ruins of New York, occasionally coming across people. It's stupid and primitive and absurd, but so many of those people attack him. Sick and dying, mad from a myriad of different causes, they see him as a trespasser nonetheless and fling themselves upon him in rage.
The suit is spattered with red when he returns. He sees their faces in the patterns, even as the water sluices down the surface and swirls pink down the drain.
****
Ozymandius's eyes went wide as a familiar blue corona of energy surged through the generator room. 'How could he know? I planned for everything!' he thought, even as he exploded into motion, even as Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre and Nite Owl and Rorschach coalesced into solid form. The scientists were confused and - when Rorschach reacted in quintessential Rorschach form and started punching his way through the crowd - frightened by this sudden change of events. Another surge of energy filled the room and suddenly, it was much more empty. Nite Owl charged...
Ozymandius saw, and dodged at the last moment, ensuring that Nite Owl would impact the wall - and before Nite Owl could recover, he grabbed the man by the back of the cowl and slammed his head against the wall. Silk Spectre attacked - Ozymandius used his free arm to block her blows and aimed a rear-kick at her midsection. As she stumbled away, gasping for breath, he pivoted and threw Nite Owl toward Rorschach.
Rorschach crouched, absorbing the force as he caught Nite Owl and redirected him to land much more gently on the ground. Ozymandius advanced upon him while he was distracted. A powerful kick to knock him away from Nite Owl, then the two of them were trading blows - for all of Rorschach's fierceness, for all the hatred that fueled his strength, Ozymandius's cold, calculating fighting was wearing him down.
A bright green beam flashed in the corner of his left eye, and Ozymandius gave a cry of pain as it cut through the shoulder of his supersuit and seared the flesh below. Rorschach did not waste the opportunity - his fists hammered at Ozymandius's face.
"No - no!" Ozymandius moaned, "This is the only way to save the world! This is the only way!"
****
The smell of vomit and blood is all-pervasive in this dying world. They quarantine the sick, run decontamination showers, and parcel out SSKI bottles to guard against radioactive iodine and people still become sick. Dr. Manhattan stopped what bombs he could - on both sides of the conflict, once Cheyenne Mountain was reduced to a smoldering rubble - but even he could not stop them all. Everyone with severe exposure is already dead, but it's in the air, in the ground, in the water...they take the radiation in, helplessly, with nearly everything they do.
So people still become sick. They vomit and writhe and endure blood-boiling fevers before dying in terrible agony - and their pleading, begging, pathetic eyes stare into Rorschach's - 'Save us' their eyes say to him, to anyone who will watch them as they die; 'save us' they say...
And with his harsh, unflinching stare, he says 'no'...
...'I can't.'
END
crossposted to apocalyptothon.