Title: This Weakness In Me
Disclaimer: I, in no way, shape, manner, or form, own the Watchmen or the characters said comic/eventual film adaption contains. All publicly recognizable characters are copyrighted to Alan Moore and I do believe DC. No infringement is intended.
Fandom: Watchmen
Characters: Rorschach, Nite Owl II
Continuity: Set in late 1976
Warnings: Minor violence. Implied slash. Language.
Summary: It's an ending of something precious between them, something that has steadily crumbled away since that terrible night in 1975.
Author's Note: First Watchmen fic, written as a drabble to get a handle on the characters before I go galloping off. Was a little nervous about even writing it. Been sitting on it for a while, because it kinda feels like some sort of heresy to write Watchmen fic. But, hey, I wrote it. Might as well share, right? Yeah.

--

"Jesus fuck man," The man is shrieking, blood and spittle and snot flecking all over Nite Owl's face with every syllable. "What the fuck, what the hell, shit, man, shit, I didn't do nothing! Nothing!"

He rears back, flailing hands sliding fruitlessly against the slick material over Nite Owl's chest, struggling for purchase, for something to tangle in. It's oddly intimate, in these moments, the perps flush up against him and struggling for supremacy, feral and angry and reeking of terror. Sneakers flying up to go for his groin; Dan putting his hip in the way, tripping up the kid – God, he is just a kid, a punk kid out here like this but – and slamming him onto his back on the concrete.

"Stay still!" Nite Owl commands, imperious and aloof, while Dan internally winces at the thunk of a skull making contact with filthy tarmac. "This will go easier for everyone if you, guh, just go down, kid."

"Fuck you! Fuck you! I didn't do nothing, faggot, nothing!" The kid's screeching, flailing like a dying animal, eyes wide and glassy, bruising where Nite Owl's fists have been, a blotchy signature on his handiwork. Still trying to zip tie the frenzied kid's hands, Dan grunts, trying to straddle his hips to hold him in place. "Stop it, man, fucking fuck, I didn't, I don't need this shit! Stop hitting me! Stop it! I didn't do nothing!"

"Wouldn't – have to – ungh – hit you if you'd just—"

A shadow falls over the two of them, black as back alley dirt, outlined in crisp definition against the orange street light.

"Quiet."

It's the only warning Dan has, before he jerks back, flinging himself off the dealer, giving Rorschach the necessary room to work. There is no hesitation; one moment he is an outline, just a shadow on a city street, and the next thing Dan knows, Rorschach is swooping down on that poor idiot kid and his fist is falling over and over and over again, methodical and unforgiving as he—

The kid's feet are stutter-kicking on the tarmac, his white-knuckled fingers losing their death-grip on the lapel of Rorschach's grimy coat. "Urk, tck, nggh…" He manages between broken teeth, eyes rolling back.

"Rorschach," Dan gasps, feeling slightly ill. He takes an awkward step forward, hand reaching uselessly for his shoulder even though he knows it's not allowed, except when they're alone, except when he's invited. But Rorschach's killing him, and they don't kill, they're the heroes, they, they…

Licking his lips, Nite Owl sets his hand down, and there is a deafening silence, a stillness that twists his belly up and tingles in his aching knuckles. The kid wheezes, no longer struggling against this implacable force that is Rorschach, swollen eyes sliding closed with a relieved rasp.

"Rorschach, stop," Nite Owl – sounding somewhat less than authoritative – whispers, shocked at this casual brutality like he hasn't seen it a thousand times before now. "You're killing him."

There is a pause, and suddenly Dan's hand is being shrugged off as Rorschach gets to his feet, the knees of his suit stained dark with grime. "Deserves to die. Scum." He turns his head slightly, obviously looking at Dan, ink blots shifting in slow, lazy patterns – red splotches ruining the symmetry. "Can't be soft, Daniel."

But he tugs his scarf absently, steps over the kid like he barely even notices him to stand by a dumpster. Doesn't bother to wipe his face clean, probably doesn't even know the blood is there.

Not as if it's skin.

Not like it's his face.

And Nite Owl squints at his partner – so strange, so much more withdrawn and cold and fuck, why did he even – and crouches down to examine the breathless youth. His chest makes a wet rattle when it rises, in jerking starts and stops. "Hell, Rorschach. You didn't have to hit him that hard. He's just a kid for chrissakes."

"Mph," Rorschach makes an uncommitted sound, glancing down the alley. It's both more and less than what Dan expects after… after the Roche case. That's when it all went to hell. That's the definitive moment, the split between what he had known and what was. He feels sick, a little, thinking about it, not just because it's horrifying, not just because it took this precious thing away from him, broke Rorschach's mind.

He hates her. He hates that fucking poor, innocent little girl for existing in the first place, for getting kidnapped, and he hates himself for feeling it, can barely admit to it even in his own mind. Makes him hiss between his teeth in the night, frustrated and lonely between the clinging sheets. It's been months – years? – since that terrible night, the last time Rorschach stumbled into his house, reeking of blood and wet dog and something a little more foul than the usual stink of the alleyways. And Dan didn't have the words then, either, and Rorschach was gone by morning – gone in the wrong way, not like he was supposed to be. Gone like… lost things.

He still checks his locks five times a night, just in case the old Rorschach comes back to him, to crawl into bed so Dan can sleep in peace. Sleep with something warm beside him to make him feel a little less inadequate.

There is a silence as Dan continues to stare at Rorschach, fingers still resting lightly against the dealer's collarbones, a little too gently for anyone's tastes. "Jesus. Maybe we should leave him by the hospital instead."

"Why bother?" Rorschach shrugs, indifferent to the product of his violence, somehow above and below it at once. He turns to face Nite Owl head on, ink blots coalescing into indecipherable shapes, unfamiliar and jagged, like monsters half-glimpsed in the night. "Why?" He asks in that terrible new voice, and Dan feels suddenly there's an answer he should have, that he should say something, do something, now, something so fucking important…

Dan opens his mouth to reply, feeling inexpressibly small, helpless, needed, but he doesn't know the words, can't know what to say to this stranger before him.

"Hnn," Rorschach says, after a moment, disappointed and yet not, like he expected this personal failure. Looks out at nothing in particular, like he can't bring himself to care that Dan's just sitting there, slack-jawed and stunned into impotence. "Drop him off, Daniel. Going to finish patrol."

Alone.

"It's almost morning," Nite Owl says plaintively, still looming over the kid like he's protecting this nobody criminal from his partner, and it's all fucked up, it's just supposed to be them against the world—

"I know," Rorschach grunts, slouching off into the alley. "Goodbye, Nite Owl."

"I," Dan says, once; it's slipping from him, over him, like they're speaking a different language now when before, before everything had been so natural between them, under-spoken. "I didn't."

There's a long rattle from below, thick and wet, a distinct sense of finality settling over the scene.

He looks down, numb, confused. He fumbles at the dealer's throat, looking for the fluttering pulse, for any sign of life, even though he knows.

The kid's dead.

And it's all fucked up.