Title: Living My Life in His Words
Author: merlintriss
Rating: T
Pairing/Characters: Seymour, Rorschach
Prompt: Prompt #7, x_goblinchild_x; Seymour reads Rorschach's journal and becomes a vigilante. Go nuts! Anything goes. No holds barred. I just want to see someone's take on this.
Disclaimer: Mild language, mild violence. I do not own Watchmen (the franchise, I do own the graphic novel) though I did use quite a few lines from Rorschach's journal to contribute to Seymour's beliefs.

"Holy shit." Seymour reached down and scratched his stomach though the ill-fitting t-shirt, flipping to the empty page at the end of the book. He turned the leather bound journal over in his hand and looked around at the long vacant office, streetlights streaming through the glass window front. He looked back at the cramp scrawl that the author had used in the journal, and then back up again. "Holy shit."

The author supposedly was Rorschach. THE Rorschach, wanted killer and masked avenger. The kind of man who took the world by its balls and made it his bitch. This was the real deal. He'd heard stories about this guy, with the break out from prison and everything, where he'd set some cops on fire and broke some guys head in. Rorschach was a legend.

With the whole "end of the world" thing, Seymour had lost track of Rorschach, though the authorities still considered him "at-large," even if there were bigger fish to fry, what with the whole psychic alien invasion. Rorschach demoted to public enemy #2, behind the nameless attackers from Mars. If they were alien attackers from Mars. Rorschach didn't see it that way. He and this Nite Owl character (Seymour vaguely remembered him from some childhood PSA's) they were going to confront Veidt in Antarctica. Thought he had something to do with it. That's where it got a little far fetched. Veidt? Leader of the largest multi-national corporation in the world single handedly killing a couple of million people? Even the conspiracy nut in him had to roll his eyes at that.

Seymour sighed, putting down the journal to look at the next packet of papers. But the leather bound book was practically winking at him. He remembered the words as if they written in his own blood--October 12th, 1985. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. There was power in words like that, real power.

The next packet of papers talked about UFO's landing in Connecticut, the Martians doing anal probes on dogs. The dusk reeks of fornication and bad consciences. He tossed it aside, too topical. He took another furtive glance at the journal. It wasn't like he could use it as source material for the New Frontiersman. His boss might be a Commie-hating son-of-a-gun, but he wasn't going to just throw unsubstantiated trash like the journal up on the front page. Even if the old bag thought Rorschach was a decent enough guy.

"You see that man, Seymour?" he remembered Mr. Godfrey saying, "Y'know I don't like this masked vigilante shit, but I thought the Keane Act was a load of crap. This Rorschach guy, he'd doing all right by me." Seymour tore open another envelope from the crank files. Woman claimed her neighbors were Russian spies that were in cahoots with the aliens. He trashed it. You couldn't trash the friendly Russians anymore. It was all handholding and peace-treaties in the modern age.

Appreciate your recent support and hope world survives long enough for this to reach you, but tanks are in East Berlin and writing is on wall. For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise. Seymour's hand had, of its own volition, grabbed the journal and he read the last page again. The last line. And step into the shadow now without complaint. This guy was the genuine article. Had to be. And there was nothing he could do about it. No way Mr. G would print it.

He slumped back in his seat and stretched. It was getting late and he would have to go out into the streets again. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists. He had shut the book again, but its whispers seemed to fill the air. For a second, he imagined himself out on the streets, a new masked vigilante. No cape, because even he knew what had happened to Dollar Bill. Just a mask and a plan. No fame, because fame was the enemy. Veidt was famous, and it had led him to kill millions of people. He didn't feel like doubting the words in the journal anymore. You doubt one word, you doubt them all.

He could do it. Surely, he could do it. Be the kind of one man who holds his own against whole gangs of people. He remembered when he was a short fat kid in Brooklyn, getting his ass kicked by the older boys. He could stop things like that. Make sure those kids grew up to regret it. Make sure the bad guys went to jail and the really bad guys never saw the light of day again. Rorschach hadn't hit in awhile, hadn't left his autograph at any crimes. Maybe he was gone, dead like his journal said he might be. Someone needed to take up the mantle, though he wasn't going to be Rorschach II or anything.

He could be a new kind of super hero, the kind that wandered the streets in anonymity and saved the helpless from the prowlers of the night. He couldn't tell the world the truth, not Rorschach's truth.

"Fuck it." He said into the night, pulling on a light pullover and walking into the dark, the door ringing shut behind him before he locked it. The city was asleep now, preparing for another day of fear brought on by the Veidt people. He could take them down too. He had to. They were corrupt and he would be incorruptible. He would never compromise.

Waiting for a flash of enlightenment in all this blood and thunder. He held the journal under his arm as he made his way to the apartment he shared with a couple of his college friends. The night was thick with opportunity, opportunity he would take. He would clear the streets of the wicked; clean the city of its filth, its whores and its moneychangers. Seymour would make New York safe once again. Once they knew the truth.

A hand grabbed him around his neck, the arm following, until he was placed in an incredibly effective chokehold. A man, his breath hot on Seymour's collar easily pinned down his flailing arms as he attempted to dislodge him, the journal falling into the gutter.

"C'mon kid, take it easy. I just want your wallet," the voice was heavy but un-accented. Seymour gagged on the arm, and motioned vaguely for his front wallet. The man pulled out the two twenties he kept there for folding money and pushed him into the concrete.

He lay for a few minutes on the concrete, gasping as he tried to compose himself. He reached out blindly and his hand slipped over the edge of the sidewalk and into the gutter, his face smashing into the curb. His teeth broke through his lip and he tasted the copper of his blood even as he felt the wet leather of the journal. Rorschach's journal.

The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood.

The journal was wet and the ink was running from the pages, making the already illegible handwriting elongated and thin. When he touched the pages, his hand came away black.

"Shit." He grabbed the notebook and tried to dry it out on his t-shirt, but the words wiped away onto the green fabric and for a second he wanted to cry. His mouth was full of blood and he spit into the gutter, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before bending down to pick up his wallet.

Massaging his bruised neck he made his way to his apartment and slipped the key into the lock. Maybe he'd try and become a superhero tomorrow. Tonight he just wanted to take a shower and nurse his broken lip.

Setting the journal down on his desk, he remembered faintly….never compromise.