Dan glanced up at a gray sky that threatened rain and quickened his step. He was due to give a lecture for the Wilson Ornithological Society and hoped to catch the subway before the inevitable downpour. He kept his head down as he walked and rapidly scribbled in his leather-bound notebook. The wind blew a lock of hair in his face and he sighed, feeling flustered and unorganized. He was a terrible public speaker.

This was a familiar street; Dan didn't need to look up to avoid the portly old newspaper vendor or any of the other New Yorkers crowding the busy sidewalk. Two years had passed since the Keene Act and Dan still believed that his senses were sharp; he thought he heard someone following him, their steps synching with his, but he turned and saw only the anonymous, unconcerned faces of people who were just trying to get where they wanted to go. None of them looked at him with recognition. No one knew who he was.

Dan returned to his book, only for a shadow to fall across it. He peered up and almost gasped.

It was the Sandwich-Board Man. He was walking to—well, not /to/ Dan, but by him, holding a sign that bluntly informed him that the end was nigh. Dan had seen him on the street multiple times, marching like a banner-carrying soldier on patrol. Though he seemed harmless enough (at least compared to other street preachers, like the one who had proclaimed Dan to be a "tool of the Zionist conspiracy" as he walked by his soapbox) Dan had never acknowledged him. You couldn't make eye contact with those sorts of people. And if you looked at this guy, Dan was certain, he'd look right back at you.

Dan lowered his eyes as the man with the sandwich-board passed him, reducing him to a fuzzy blur of red hair and gray cloth in the corner of his vision. Dan turned left down an alley that made a decent shortcut. He flipped a page in his notebook and then there was pain—pain that made his vision starry and his legs weak. His glasses flew off his face. He had been struck on the back of his head by someone behind him.

So I was followed, he thought as his knees hit the ground. He struggled to keep his mind clear. Over his shoulder he saw two Topknots in leather vests blocking the entrance of the alley. He looked ahead and there was a third gang member standing straight ahead, rattling chains in his hands.

"Shit." He didn't think this area was Topknot territory. But what did he know? He hadn't gone on patrol in two years. Dan cursed himself for not paying attention. If they wanted his wallet, fine, it was a lesson he probably deserved. But having seen their smirks, Dan guessed that they were looking for more fun that that.

"How ya doin', old man?" Chains asked, revealing a mouth full of crooked teeth.

Dan tried to stand, but then Chains swung his arm down, striking Dan's shoulder with the metal links. He howled with pain and slumped forward, face almost hitting the ground. There was laughter behind him and Dan squeezed his eyes shut. His head and shoulder throbbed intensely and he tried to think—tried to focus. He was a civilian now but he wasn't helpless.

But Jesus Christ it hurt. Dan thought he was going to black out. He might have.

I'm on this prompt like white on rice!

(or alternately, like ink on Rorschach's face?)

Note: I used Topknots as generic 70s gang even though they probably didn't exist in the 70s and I am too lazy to make up my own. Apologies.

==

“Whaasa matter, ugly?” the man slurs, and flecks of blood hit his face, red on black on white. He grins to reveal a chipped tooth - that's what's caused the sting in his knuckle. “Barely even felt tha one.”

Walter grimaces and throws him against the wall. He hits it and the air explodes out of his mouth and he slides to the floor, eyes closed. He's wheezing, Rorschach notes with satisfaction, and then turns to check on his partner. He's just in time to watch Nite Owl deliver a savage kick to his assailant's midsection, and the other Topknot crumples and falls near the other five of they took care of, all the scum sprawled out in a big, groaning heap. Good. This is good. They've made a lot of progress tonight, might even be able to kick them all out of the east side in a few more -

“Whoreson.”

He whips his head around. The man twists his lips into a bloody smile with too much teeth. The eye that isn't swollen shut cracks open and rolls up to stare. He's standing over him now and doesn't remember walking over.

“Did tha get to ya, ya ugly sunuvabitch?” the Topknot mumbles, hoarse. “Wuz mommy sellin' her sweet lil pussy?”

Every muscle is tense, quivering, his cool disgust rapidly starting to boil. He should ignore it, just like he ignores any of the stupid blather the human trash throws at him, but now all he can think of is being small and weak and behind his eyes loom melting, jeering faces. He kicks the Topknot in the chest – hard – and watches his mouth curl into the shape of an “O” and fill with blood as he slumps to the ground. That's that.

But it isn't; the Topknot is still conscious, still wheezing, still smiling. “Bet ya liked to watch, didn't ya?” The sounds are barely words, and yet he can still hear every single one with cold, sharp clarity. They strike like fists, like bullets, like a slap from his mother's open palm. He feels nauseous.

“So ugly you knew ya'd never get any, so you watched wit yer hand in yer pants when mommy and her newest man started bouncin' on th' -”

He falls to his knees and slams the Topknot in the face harder than he's ever hit anything in his life. Something breaks behind the force of his punch – he can feel it – and the Topknot screams but that doesn't stop him and he strikes him in the face again. And again. And again.

The man has stopped screaming, stopped flailing, laying unnaturally still but he's still talking - Walter can still hear him though the blood shrieking in his ears.

“Whoreson. Bet yer mother liked it rough. Whoreson.”

He can't stop himself, his fist pounding into bruised flesh and bones so cracked they offer no resistance against his knuckles. The world is burning, shattered: a jumbled mess of watching Mother's face screw up – ugly, ugly, ugly – just like it always did just before she hit him and watching himself, hands like stone, heavy and unmoving, pounding into another man's broken face like a machine. Someone is yelling (“Rorschach? Hey, man, hey – shit, Rorschach, cut it out!”), and though it's familiar and convincing, it's too hard to hear over the guttural, primitive noises that tear out of his throat like shards of broken glass.

“Whoreson. Did she try and fuck yoo, too? Whoreson.”

It takes him a long moment to realize his fist hasn't smashed back into the pulpy remains of what was once a face. He looks up blearily, wild, and sees Nite Owl holding his wrist.

“Whoreson.”

“Rorschach, Jesus – stop it!”

His other fist cracks across Daniel's jaw before he can think. His partner reels back, wobbling backwards, and then recovers. Daniel stares at him in naked shock evident even though the dark goggles. For a long time, everything stops, except for his breathing, which is fast and ragged and is making him terribly lightheaded.

He whimpers in the silence.

You get tired at four in the morning. No one can tell, so it should be all right, but you also want to think that the mask lends you some sort of superhuman power, that when it’s on, you shouldn’t feel anything at all.

You do. Two years from now, when you stand with the butcher’s knife in your hand, dog’s blood hot against your side, when you are a new man, maybe then you won’t be tired. Maybe the mask never quits. But now, now you want nothing more than to drag yourself back to the slum apartment that passes as home and sleep off the ache in your bones. You have work tomorrow. Your partner doesn’t know, can’t know. You’re better at keeping secrets than he is—he let slip his name and address early on; you’ve stolen food out of his fridge—and with every passing year, he gets more careless.

Soon, you’ll be alone. You know this at some level; you’ve always known. That’s why, when he proposes going back to his place for a few cold ones, you say yes, even though you don’t drink. Even now, crashing off the adrenaline high of pounding a rapist’s face into a curb, you can sense that it’s all falling apart.

So you go with him, sit on his couch while he strips off pieces of his costume like you’re not even there, like it’s a high school change room and you’re the scrawny kid who won’t take his shirt off in front of the others. He’s talking the whole time, and you think you should pay attention, except that if you’re watching the clock tick to 4:37 and fighting to keep your eyes open, it’s not like he’s going to notice anyway.

Besides, he’s talking about some woman, and you can’t help but wish that he’d let some things be mysteries. He brings you a beer and you’re too polite to refuse it, even though the smell disgusts you. He sits down beside you, wearing a threadbare souvenir t-shirt and sweatpants, close enough that you can feel the heat radiating from him, the cushion slouching under his weight. He lifts the bottle to his lips and he can’t see that your eyes follow the drop of condensation that rolls over his chin and down his throat.

He swallows, sets the beer aside, and says, “You didn’t catch a word I just said, did you?”

You shrug. “Long night.”

He frowns, deepening the lines that will, in a few years, crease his mouth. “Hey man,” he says. “You okay?”

You nod again. “Sorry about—” You can’t think of her name, though he must have said it a dozen times. He gives you that snorting little laugh that means he knows, he considers you a friend, and it’s okay with him that sometimes you have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

“Girls,” he says. “You know?”

Like now. That pause that says that you really don’t know. And if you weren’t tired, and you were thinking straight, you would know that this is the point at which to make your mysterious exit.

“You’ve, uh.” That pause is the sound of your partner reminding himself that no, actually, he doesn’t know the slightest thing about you and probably never will. “You must go out with people. I mean, sometimes.”

“No.” The only way to get through situations like this one is to be stoic, to make the other person more excruciatingly uncomfortable than you are. He hates to do it to Daniel, though.

“But…” Still, one can’t deny its effectiveness. “Never, though? Not before you took up the whole masked adventurer thing?”

“No.”

“Not ever?”

“Not,” you say, “ever.”

When you have inkblots for a face, people tend to project whatever it is they see on you. Sometimes it’s the same as what they are. It’s not very kind to confront them with the errors in their thinking, but then, you’ve always preferred truth to kindness.

. . . How about Ozymandias spanking Rorschach?

I could put this one on my "to do" list.

On this because it deserves to be written.
And because i've been itching to write me some Twilight Lady.

WANT. I SO MUCH WANT THIS.

He came to a sluggish half-consciousness due to a girlish, high-pitched squeal and a dull, throbbing pain in the back of his skull. They did not mesh well.

“He's cuuuute!”

Despite the piercing pitch, he still struggled to stay awake, tried to figure out where he was. He dimly remembered running down an alley with Nite Owl, cornering the Twilight Lady at a dead end, and they thought it was over but she had turned and smiled and then –

Someone snorted. “Christ, he's wearin' a mask, Eve. How the hell can you tell?”

A fresh stab of pain burst through his forehead and he groaned, stirring slightly.

“The two of you are going to wake him up.” A new voice, further away.

“Mmm. Good.” This was the second voice again, coy...and close. Hot breath burned in his ear, and he couldn't even muster enough strength to tilt his head away.

“Dusk! Don't! She said - “

“Shut up, Eve.” The voice pulled away. “Why the hell we even listenin' to her anyway? She's busy with Bird-Boy.”

Birds...Nite Owl. Had to wake up. Open his eyes.

“Shame she wouldn't let us help.” Shifting. Movement. “Here, Dusk. Let me take a look at him.”

And at that precise moment, he finally managed to lift his head and pry his eyelids open – and abruptly was met with the face of a woman – too close – with cold blue eyes and a mask and a smile he did not like.

“Why hello there, handsome.”

He jerked back, tried to push her away and found out he was stuck. Tied to a chair. He struggled experimentally. Good knots.

The room, which was sparse and small and filled with red light, erupted into extremely annoying giggles. He quickly discovered there were three of them: a brunette, a redhead, and the blond he had awoken to. They were wearing eye-masks and tight, black leather outfits with very low necklines and bared midriffs and short skirts that hardly covered anything.

Disgusting. He eventually tore his eyes away.

The blond regarded him curiously. “Rorschach, right?” A smile tugged at the side of her mouth. “I like the mask.”

“Untie me.” It was his most intimidating growl. It didn't work. He stiffened as one of them came up from behind him and lazily looped her arms around his neck.

“Why would we wanna do that?” Her chin dug painfully into his shoulder and he caught a lock of red hair out of the corner of his eye. The brunette sat smartly in his lap and he started violently, much to her amusement.

“You ain't going anywhere, sweetheart.” She grinned, running her tongue over her lips.

He gritted his teeth and pulled again at the ropes. It didn't work any better than it had the first time. “Get off me, whore.”

She laughed. Not the reaction he had hoped for. “Honey, please. A whore makes you pay.”

He turned his head towards the unoccupied shoulder, staring determinedly at the little pink hearts that decorated the wall, trying and failing to ignore the warm weight of the woman on his lap. “Where am I?”

“With us,” the blond replied, amused. “I'm Nightfall.”

“Eve!” the redhead chirped directly into his ear.

The brunette had undone his scarf and was now toying with it, brushing its ends against his chin. He decided he hated her the most. “And I'm Dusk.”

“I don't care,” he grumbled. He wished she wasn't so close. When she leaned forward like that she made it difficult to stop his gaze from drifting towards her cleavage. “Where's Nite Owl?”

They giggled again. It was somehow even more irritating the second time. “He's busy,” Nightfall informed him, leaning against his other shoulder, fingers gently combing at his neck and slipping just underneath the collar of his shirt, lightly stroking the top of his collarbone. He wanted to punch her. “And he'll be busy for quite a while.”

“What did you – “

“We haven't done anything,” she answered. Dusk finally removed the scarf with a triumphant grin, letting it fall delicately to the floor and he made a furious noise of utter disgust. "Yet."

I am so on that. It may take me a little while though. :/

Okay - I am totally, totally on this one.

The air is cold and wet and the alley keeps it close. Dan can feel it through the sweat and the suit, sticking to his skin like the rainbow on an oil slick.

To the Owl's eyes, it's bright as day, stained red with night vision. They and their knives are shapes of darker red, coming closer. They have time.

Armor, he thinks, should add armor. It doesn't catch.

He takes a step back, guided by instinct, until he hits something firm.

The fedora scrapes the top of his hood. He holds his ground.

Right now, he is invincible.

The first of them lunges, and the rest is clear as day.

Then they're down, four thugs who won't be prowling any more tonight, and adrenaline makes the red world bright but something's wrong. There's a groan in another voice.

Oh god I wasn't even

Rorshach is bent over. His hands are up, clutching.

Dan moves fast to him. Rorshach's arm jerks to command him back. He ignores it.

"My face," he says, guttural, with fear Dan's never heard before, "Got my face."

And for an instant Dan thinks he's talking about the mask, he scared him half to death over the stupid goddamn mask-

A drop falls into a puddle on the pavement.

Dan sees blood everywhere.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Not that bad,” says Rorshach. He straightens up unevenly, like he has to remember his own height. “Take goggles off.”

It's a non sequitor until Nite Owl gets it. He shoves the goggles up out of the way. The alley turns to shadows and blue cast by the neon sign from the hotel on the corner. It smells like garbage and rain.

The mask is bleeding black and white.

A gash runs across where the forehead would be if it had features. The blobs of its pattern swirl in lazy confusion. The substance oozes from the ragged edges.

“Geez,” says Dan. “You scared me.”

“Get that a lot.”

And Dan does something he wouldn't, if he'd thought about it. He moves closer to Rorshach and prods where the tear is. Rorshach stiffens, doesn't flinch.

“Really, I thought you lost an eye or something.”

“Didn't.”

He has an odd scent. Sort of cloying. Like aftershave, mixed with the garbage.

He was staring at him, Dan thought without any good reason. You couldn't see anything through the mask. Except, now, a patch of something lighter. Skin. Everybody has it. There was a slash of darkness through it.

“Got to get moving,” says Rorshach, and Dan can feel the movement of his face through the synthesized, leaking fabric. Weird to think that a jaw made those sounds, the crimped-edged gravel-dented monotone. “Wasting night.”

“Hold on a minute.” Dan reaches into his belt where he keeps the useful things that aren't too bulky, you can only fit so many, got to keep them from rustling and the universal antidote pills from jangling against the miniature smoke bombs, keep them from going off – looks for an idiosyncratically normal tube. You can find it in any drugstore, and he had. “Here we go. Hold still.”

“Can do it myself.” He's still in that way he gets him seem like another outline of graffiti on the wall, another one of the city's cracked bricks. It's like he is right before a fight. He never dreaded it. When that many people are afraid of you it's had to be afraid. Sometimes Dan wonders what that's like.

Usually once the fight's over Dan isn't nervous anymore.

“You can't see your own face,” he says, and he is logical. “It'll just take a second.”

The mask shifts and slides, keeps making new shape just as your eyes start to put a pattern on the old ones. Nite Owl is used to it. The slash is off center. White surrounds it except for a flat shape of black at the short edge, bleeding out.

Dan starts to roll up the mask.

It feels slippery, like plastic's second cousin. The liquid caught between its layers slides away from where he touches. Rorshach grabs his wrist.

You can see him move but it still seems like he goes straight from one position to another without crossing any space.

The downed thugs don't move.

“It's too dark to see anyway,” says Dan.

The clouds of dark in light on Rorshach's face melt back and forth.

He's seen Dan without anything over his face a thousand times, but it's different for him. A lot of things are.

“You'll get blood in your eyes.”

Hey, you.
STOP HAVING SUCH AWESOME IDEAS. >:|

Whoops, un-anoned. Oh well.

Well, Laurie did say Dan was 'receptive'. . .


"You can't!" His voice is breathy and panicked, and she smiles, rubbing his back soothingly.
"Yes I can, and yes I am." She purrs. "At least I warned you." She crooks her finger, and he jerks like a fish on a line. "A lot of people will just shove a finger (or worse, darling) up your ass without so much as a by-your-leave." She adds more lubricant and a second finger, twisting in slowly. And feels him relax. This part of him, anyway. The rest is shaking.
"There. Is that so bad?"
"Guh." He buries his face in the pillow. His hands are still balled into fists, but it has less to do with trying to break the restraints and more to do with holding on. She smiles, slowly working in and out, content to take all night, and content in the knowledge that she won't have to.
"This is easier than I thought it would be. Keeping secrets, Nite Owl?"
"W-what?" And it's just so endearing, because he really is trying to keep up.
"I'm just wondering if you've done this before." She leans in, kissing the back of his neck.
"Uh, m-maybe. . ." He whimpers as she picks up the pace, really fucking him now, with four slender, leather-clad fingers. The headboard groans as he hauls at the restraints again, and he sobs into the pillow.
"Maybe? What do you use?" She presses deeper, and chuckles at the slutty rise of his hips in response. "Just your fingers? Or does a bright boy like you have a whole drawerful of whirring, oscillating things to play with?"
He groans, whimpering as he rocks on her hand.
She pulls out slowly, chuckling again and biting his neck at his bereft groan. "Bet they glow in the dark and have infrared screens, too." She sits back to strap on her cock, as always pleased by its smooth blackness and the way the harness cradles her hips. She smirks, watching her victim squirm as she lubes up. "Who do you think about?" She settles in comfortably between his thighs, rubbing the tip against him but not pressing in. Not yet. She just watches him shudder.
He babbles, muffled. Not that he'd be coherent if she could hear him, anyway. Not that he'd be saying anything but 'please', like the polite boy he is. "That little pal of yours who's given me so much trouble?"
He flinches, sure as if he'd been struck with a lash. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
"So that's it." She murmurs, and he mewls as she holds him apart, her thumbs sliding easily inside him, stretching. He doesn't actually need it anymore, but his sweet, broken sounds are motivation enough.
"It's him you want." She lines up and leans into him, using her weight to provide constant pressure for him to squirm under and retreat from and ultimately back up against, panting. "Rorschach." Just the name makes him shiver, and she smiles. "You want him to take you just like this, don't you?" She finally starts to really move, shallowly at first. "Bound face-down." She runs a hand into his hair, gives it a sharp yank. He jerks under her, groaning, the sound coming from deep in his chest. She leans down to nip at his ear, tracing the outer cartilage with the tip of her tongue before insinuating it inside, making him whine desperately. "You want is this way so it's not your fault and you don't have to look at him." She whispers.
"Want-- Want to see him." He moans, rocking on her. She grinds against him, fully seated.
"Ah, but would he let you?" She pulls most of the way out of him, and lingers there just long enough to make him worry before slamming back in, almost knocking the breath out of him.
"God!" He yelps, and she does it again, only faster. And again. "Ohgodohgodohgod..." He trails off into deep groans, and when she finally reaches around for his cock, it's as wet as she is.
"It would be just like this." She hisses into his ear as she strokes him, her grip tight and her pace brutal. "I'll tell you one thing, Nite Owl" She bites his neck again, hard. "A guy like that doesn't know fighting from fucking."
He moans, thinking of how true that probably is. And of what Rorschach would do to him. He sobs again, and when she snarls, "Come for me", he can only obey, jerking and making helpless, garbled sounds, crying out for Rorschach.

Done quick and dirty. I hate you, because this is one of my hard squicks, but the prompt is sooo good. xD *secretly loves you*

She can't stop staring at him.

The flicker and glow at the end of his cigar is a burning memory, a symbol of hot shame.

She notices his feet first, sticking out of the shadows, bound in leather and crossed as he leans against an old tree. His thumbs were casually tucked into his belt before he calls her over. Years later, she still remembers how smoothly he straightened up and walked towards her. Weapons, brass knuckles, clink against his belt. He's powerful, a predator moving in for the kill, and she'd be lying if it doesn't excite something in her. The man is all muscle and confidence with a thick trail of smoke swirling behind him.

“You're a looker.”

She thanks him awkwardly and smiles. He's not exactly the pretty type she usually goes for, but she can't deny the devastating appeal of an older rugged bad boy. And she never has been one to deny a hot body on a cold night.

He takes an extra long time to light her cigarette and she wonders why. When a large callused finger moves from the end of the light to trace her lips she finally gets it.

“A real looker,” he says with a grin.

Laurie tries her best to give him a sly look and grabs a hold of one of the leather straps holding his armor together. She flicks the cigarette away and pulls him towards the fence. Laughing as he holds his cigar out with one hand, he goes with it.

“The Comedian, right?” Laurie asks.

“That's right. You're a fast one.”

She knows he's probably insulting her, calling her a slut instead of smart, but she's beyond caring. That is, if she ever cared at all. She's too pissed and frustrated. Self-respect? How could anyone ask for respect when their own mother reduces them to tasty T&A in a latex and silk bathing suit whoring out for press and “crime busting”?

“Life is so goddamn ridiculous sometimes,” she mutters under her breathe.

Somehow, hearing that turns him on. She suddenly has his lips sucking on hers. He's rough, tongue not waiting for permission and stubble scratching her cheeks. She gets the feeling that everything about him is rough.

He pushes her up against the brick pillar, hands slinking up her thighs. For once, she enjoys her stupid costume when his fingers make the silk tickle her skin. The sensation of leather and muscle pressing against her is tantalizing. The Comedian is big and forceful, determined to get what he wants. She feels his arousal through the leather and bucks her hips against him. It's terrifying and Laurie realizes she has no idea what she's doing. She's a sensible girl. She's the only sane one here. Why does she do this every time?

The Comedian pauses and Laurie gasps for air.

“It really is. Fucking ridiculous.”

Laurie blinks and takes a minute to realize he's agreeing with her. An odd feeling trickles down her body, like her stomach dropping. Relief? Fear. He gets it. He understands what a fucking joke this whole masks and capes idea is. She's not alone.

Those hands work up her body again, one rubbing between her legs and the other cupping her breasts. She tries to reciprocate by palming the outline of his chest, worried that any second he'd figure out that she was only sixteen and just as stupid and foolish as everyone said she was. She's wet, but has no idea where this is really going.

The glare of headlights illuminates the lawn.

FFFF- Seconded.
If my laptop wasn't completely trashed, I'd give this a shot. :

If you are still watching this, OP, I am writing it right now. Although the sex bit is being elusive.

Oh shit...I /kind/ of want to do this one. What is wrong with me, this is hot...

What does it say about me that I think this is the best prompt ever?!?! I'll have this written in a few weeks, I swear! Un-anon 'cause I have no shame. ;)

On it. Short on plot, long on Rorschach being a crazy person.