Authors Note: Kinkmeme prompt... kind of. Sing-fic thread. Inspired by the song posted called 'Don't Leave' by Ane Brune. Youtube it. Its a beautiful song.

Dan didn't quit. Simple as. This is why...

The Keene Act had been passed. No one had been surprised. Few had cared. Only the odd comment of approval, hidden underneath layers of uncertainty and worry that the world was now truly ungoverned.

Only anger and disdain left over from years of justice and false mercies. This city did not deserve the peace of enforced ignorance.

For the first time in months, a man is heard trudging down a tunnel into a hidden basement. Surrounded by darkness and silence. Abandoned life. A betrayed friend. Pride was always the ruin of friendship. Self denial – the catalyst of destruction.

Shadows shift as rooms are searched. Searching for reasons to hate, to not care, to walk away justified. None are found. Never was any to find. 12 years to become involved in something filthy and decrepit, Nite Owl had stayed clean. Self hatred and defeat turns to distant wonder. Empty apartment. Middle of the night. No Dreiberg.

Brownstone is left empty and unprotected. Owl suit still cased up in the basement. No notes suggesting dinners or events. No words at all. Coat was even left behind. No telling how long it had been empty without notice. No telling what had happened to—

Safe as Dreiberg. Safe. Just needed to be found. No space for pride and fear. Just needed to be found. Rorschach could find him. Rorschach would.

***

Found on a bench. Under a flickering street lamp. Only protection against the cold being a shirt and tie. Head in hands, staring at the base of a bridge. Vandalism evident in the cracked mortar and long dried paint.

"Dreiberg?" Voice too hoarse, too strangled.

Never thought relief would be so welcome, even after all this time. All this time of staying away. Avoiding everything.

"Hey, buddy." Never questions his absences, never surprised by returns. Infuriating. A blessing.

Looking at the evidently fascinating 'artwork', stomach writhes in anger and something strange. Unable to be placed. Seemed like sadness. Like defiance. Like confusion. Like understanding—

'Who Watches Watchmen'

Rhetorical. Infinite in meaning. Answerable in a million different ways. None of his own would be able to withstand much scrutiny. Nite Owl's would be a mixture of unending optimism beaten down by justified pessimism.

Who watches watchmen? Everyone. No one. Who wants watchmen? Everyone. No one. Who needs Watchmen? Everyone.

"Only protection from themselves, Daniel."

A bitter laugh rings in the night air.

"I've heard that already." Is the reply when the laughter becomes hysterical then cuts off abruptly, "The Comedian gave me that speech."

Silence as eyes remain fixated on the soul-searching paint. Silence as inkblots swirl and others study tired, cold skin. Never surprised. Hurt, always. No pride in the absent words defining it. Only another line around the eyes, and more distance between them.

Of the two wavering masks, one seems wrong entirely. Seems like a wall that's unneeded after 12 years. Just there to maintain a balance that stubbornness and bitterness enforces. There to show understanding of damage. Of patience undeserved. Of a friendship valued, even if taken for granted.

Fool. A fool to run from such acceptance.

***

"We matter... don't we?" The voice cracks in its uncertainty.

The eyes close in an attempt at composure. Then find the place on a featureless face, where eyes should be. More patience given than ever earned.

If there were any words weighty enough, backed by meaning and justification, yes should have tumbled forth without hesitance. This moment, however, needed more than patented hypocrisy and false truths.

No matter how much they stopped, more would crawl out to dance before them. It was unending and messy. To walk away and never look back was an option laid before them both. A chance to let the world destroy itself in its own time. No delaying the inevitable. Just a chance to sit back and watch it coming. To accept the fate they had fought off together. A chance to be 'normal'.

They did not matter, in the grand scheme of things, but then they never had. It was still a battle that needed to be fought, by someone, for everyone else. Together they had been the only ones willing. The only people compelled to fight the darkness on its own terms, and come out victorious more often than not. The only ones who had seen this city and said 'no' to the oncoming slaughter.

The rejection, though, from the people they had protected for so long bit at the soul of a Nite Owl. Made it unsure. Broke it. The one thing that was never supposed to be broken. The one reliable entity. The one thing that had kept a loose mind grounded. The only thing that mattered—

"You. Do. Matter." The reply comes, broken and heavy; much later, so much later that it had been assumed the question would go unanswered, "To me."

And a seat is taken beside the nodding Jewish nerd who would look more at place in a library than on a filth littered bench. Beside a hidden hero who needed reminding of who he was.

'Who Watches Watchmen'

The Watchmen watched each other.

***

"Don't leave, please."

A hand clutches at the sleeve of a bloodied trench coat. The desperation lay thick in the words as the early morning light crept over buildings in the distance.

"Won't." Simple, showed more meaning than ever truly possible, "If you don't."

Rorschach is released into what feels like a gaping hole. Eyes on him flicker away. Uncertainty and sadness playing out as decisions are silently made. Apologies on tongues that never ever need to be uttered. Never need to be believed. His fingertips were barely holding onto the cracks in their partnerships— friendships foundations. If Nite Owl chose to give in. To give up. To leave him alone. He would never—he could never...

"Coming back. Wait for me."

***

A coat is thrown across his shoulders an hour or two later. A cup of coffee forced into his numb fingers. Then a seat is taken next to him. That creeping edge of loneliness dissipating slightly, though still weighed down heavily by silence.

"You didn't break my lock again did you?"

The grunted reply could have been a laugh, denial or admittance. Daniel didn't care which. The sun licking at his night-chilled cheeks. He burns his tongue, hisses a curse or two and then leans back to drink again. Ignoring the scorch tearing through his neck.

Leaning in to his long-absent partner's shoulder, he hovers above it absently. Imagining closing that gap and falling asleep for the first time in 2 days. Even with the caffeine buzzing into his system.

Rorschach's unwavering presence brought some warmth to an otherwise numb heart. His mind absorbing every moment of rare patience he was being given. Of the knowledge Rorschach had spent a night beside him in the dark, rather than mucking his hands with the filth of the city. Of being chosen as a more important responsibility.

It makes his decision so much harder now. It makes it impossible to decide whether stopping is worth losing this. Is worth giving up a partnership that means more to the both of them than they ever truly expected it to. Of no longer being this creature's equal.

***

Daniel knew it was strange to have his way of life boil down to a few pros and cons. To have three words reflect how much of their existence was just a wasted effort at saving people who didn't want to be saved.

'Who Watches Watchmen'

Who indeed.

A long time ago his purpose had twisted. Instead of protecting innocent civilians from the decay, he had attacked them. He had had to put them back in place. Hoping they would understand that he was here for them. Though they never did.

He still could not pin point the moment when he had become the cause of riots. He could not place the moment his partner had left him to work alone. All he could place was this sinking feeling that he had become useless. Obsolete. Abandoned by everyone to the darkness he'd tried so hard to shine a light into. Unneeded. Ignored.

Then he could hardly think about the way Rorschach's unyielding justice had become brutality. It had made the thread of their relationship stretch and snap. It had left him hanging onto chords wishing he could tie them back together. But Rorschach had picked up his metaphorical end and run. Run away from him. He never knew why.

Then as the months, years went by he saw his own methods become brutal. Saw his wards turn to darker pastures. He had always known it would happen. He just had not planned on living to see it. It made everything he had done to stave it off, seem pointless and weak. It took all the fight out of him. Trapped him in obligation, and a hatred he'd never felt before. Never expected to feel about the people in New York.

So, was becoming Daniel Dreiberg forever and finally going to take away this feeling? No. He was Dreiberg now and he still wanted to scream and shout and crush skulls beneath his fist.

Was remaining Nite Owl worth the effort anymore, though? Was the masquerade ever going to feel right again? Knowing that none of it ever made a difference.

Giving up Nite Owl would mean never again feeling the power of an enemy defeated. Of evil slain. Being Daniel Dreiberg meant being something placid and weak. Something he was not. Something he had denied.

No matter which way he looked at it. He was still an avenging angel. Could he ever truly leave this city undefended? Could he ever abandon it like it had him?

***

Midday came and went in silence. Early afternoon trudged up and only one person had passed by this part of the city.

Daniel turned his face absently to the mask and found it staring back at him. A jump threatened to burn through his spine, but he suppressed it with a weak smile. How long had he been watching?

"Daniel..." The voice was just as weak as when he had first found him the night before.

Strangled and uncertain. Almost desperately so.

"I know." Daniel nodded as Rorschach shifted, his hands falling onto the wood of the bench as he seemed to uncoil into a slouch.

"Needed."

"I know, man. I know." Solemn in his honesty, "We'll always be needed. It's just never been—"

The non-worded interruption does nothing to ease his doubts, but the fingers curling into his coat bring his eyes down in wonder.

"Daniel... Not what I—"

His jaw audibly slammed shut beneath the mask, as that gloved hand was pulled into a lap and scrutinised. Daniel knew what he had meant. Hearing it though. It was the rope being handed back. It was acceptance of something a little too deep for Rorschach. So Daniel would put the threads back together for them both.

***

The glove was removed one finger at a time. The palm caressed as open air met pale freckled skin. A small sound in the back of Daniel's throat escaped. It was a mix of surprise and misplaced enjoyment. Freckles. He'd never imagined freckles.

Turning the hand over, fingers were traced, mentally measured. The nails were rubbed between forefinger and thumb gently. The sensation of it strange on bitten back keratin. Knuckles found themselves danced over, bruised and bloodied. Then the palm was returned to its place in the sun.

Thumbs worked over the surface, almost massaging the tight rocky muscles. Feeling the bones and caressing each in turn. Labelling every section carefully, Daniel almost felt like crying. This much trust, this must access to the man he had shared his life with. It was almost too much. Too much to know the calluses and pit-marks of unexplainable scars. Too much to know that his fingerprint had a deep running loop and not an arch like his own. Too much to know that every little touch made a muscle twitch somewhere else.

Pulling the hand up to his face he let the fingers graze his cheek. The sound from Rorschach's throat causing him to lean into it, press the palm to his skin as the mask looked away. As though giving him privacy for this moment of self indulgence. It made him smile, a fondness creeping back for this strange creature's ways. Could he ever leave Rorschach to fight this place alone?

***

As evening chill crept through to Daniel's bones he rose to his feet. Placing his coat over Rorschach's shoulders he headed home. The masked man had fallen asleep a few hours ago, discreetly and quietly. Sleep was still something that evaded Dreiberg though. He would be back for sunset. He needed to think.

Emerging in the basement, in his Owls Nest, he drew a deep calming breath. Advancing on his workbench he looked at the accumulation of his life's work. Countless gadgets. Archie. A few praising paper clippings. Pathetic really considering there was nothing in the house above to show any achievement. Pathetic. Yet, he still looked down on it all with fondness. With a love for what they stood for.

Before him stood the final part. The one thing that kept him here. Feather-like scales and an unsubtly shaped cowl. His Owl Suit stared at him blankly through the glass. His reflection placing him within it, whilst he still remained on the outside. Putting him inside the one piece of himself he had ever fully embraced, but was now being asked to deny.

Pulling it out and placing it on the workbench he stared for some time in silence. At the bumps and scrapes. At the changes he had made over the years. At himself laid bare, and he waited. Waited for that epiphany to smack him in the skull and tell him what to do. To tell him it was okay to put the Kevlar back in its case and turn away, forever. Or to put it on and stop being such a pussy.

Neither happened. Nothing evidently wanted to make itself known in his subconscious as he sighed and stripped off his civvies. Pulling the Kevlar on, focusing entirely on the feeling it gave him. He was surprised to find anger. Mind numbing, brutally violent anger.

It slapped him in the face like a wet towel. A sense of vengeance he'd never noticed before. Of being in something that gave him power over lesser beings. Of having the power to stop someone, dead. It was horrifying. When did this stop being about justice? When did it become a search for revenge? Revenge for what? For himself? For Rorschach? For this city... For its dying heart?

Daniel looked back into the glass, his eyes shining back, frightened and drowning inside this feeling. A feeling he was worried was uncontrollable. Had been uncontrollable for some time. Had been born from hate directed towards him. Denying him his way of making things better. Denying him his own identity.

An anger at being told 'no', when he had never been told 'yes'. It felt like an injustice, after everything he had done. And now he was bound by all of it. In one way or another. His curse. His prison.

A moment later, however, Daniel's attention was pulled by something in the back of the case...

***

Pulling out a framed article that he had always kept behind his suit. It was the only picture he had of Rorschach; it needed to be kept hidden. (An opinion he had, strangely, made on his own, his partner had had no influence over the decision). It was the press release of the first ever Crimebusters meeting. This was not the strange thing in itself. It was the identical article stuck to the back of it.

Identical in the manner that it was the same article. The caring of the piece had been vastly different. Unframed, rumpled, and scribbled on. This was Rorschach's copy. A cursory glance would not do with this, so pulling up a lamp he set it down on the bench and began to read the minute scribbles over the picture. Judgements upon character, all as obscenely negative and unforgiving as the last.

Over the Comedian's head was scrawled 'government lapdog, rapist, murderer, asshole'.
Laurie's read simply 'whore'.
Receiving a disdainful groan from Daniel as his eyes slid over to Manhattan.
'Foolish, ignorant, disconnected. Whore's bitch.'
If he had been in any way prepared for the latter comment he might have stifled the laugh and carried on. As it was he choked and had to turn away. For some time.
Ozymandias suffered 'corporate sleaze, in it for the ink' and 'homosexual' as his sins.
This time Daniel did not laugh, this time the hypocrisy bit him hard. He chose to ignore it.

Then came himself.

...

There was nothing. A few dots where the pen had touched paper above his likeness. But not a single word had ever been put onto paper. It was odd. Daniel knew he had flaws, knew that Rorschach had witnessed many of them. So why had they not been used as judgement along with the others?

Then his eyes drifted to where Rorschach should have been standing. A shadow over the page. He had not wanted to see what he had already seen. Rorschach was hidden beneath a million judgements and rubbed out words. Half crazed scribbles and unfinished sentences. The mess spread over and onto the article below. It hurt just to see, so he tried not to read any of it as his eyes trailed down.

He had expected to find a collection of circled sentences. To find small notes and possible conspiracy theories littering the edges of the page. Like all the other articles he had ever seen Rorschach read. What he found, though, was staggering.

Underlined carefully across the page were six un-connected words. Following the flow of the writing as though it had been a code to pick out. It was his epiphany, in six simple words. Marked out for him to find.

'A Nite Owl is always free'

***

An arm pressed to his shoulder, and in the cold air it was like being touched by the sun. Leaning into it with a grunt he half opened his eyes to see Kevlar and a rumpled piece of newspaper. Pulling back instantly he squared his frame and got to his feet.

No words were uttered as the paper was handed back to him. Fingers grasped his the moment they were free of his pockets, and he almost wanted to challenge this brazen act from the Nite Owl stood before him. In this part of themselves, they were better than the feelings they had denied.

Then breathlessly through the lips of a hero, framed by the question hanging over them;

"I'll watch you. You watch me."

***

A week later a pair of bodies appears before the NYPD precinct. A known rapist. A child murderer. Tied together in a grotesquely symmetrical manner. Pinned beneath them lay a note.

Signed with an infamous symbol, and clipped next to it firmly was a feather. An owl feather.

'NeveR'

There. Done. Yay.

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