Summary: Something's only truly lost when all the lines are cut; even a single thread can lead the way home.
Notes: Dan goes into deep cover in a cult for investigative reasons and needs help getting back out. Out-of-sequence narrative.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13.
Characters/Pairings: Dan, Rorschach
Disclaimer: Don't own any of this, of course.

strangers

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Dan pushes the broom, careful, careful; he has to make sure to get the corners, and the thrill of a job well done is a novel and wonderful thing, pulsing through him like color and noise. The grain of the handle against his fingers is fascinating, rough against rough, and when the ventilation kicks in somewhere far away, it is a surprise and a shock and that is thrilling too.

After a few minutes of hearing nothing but the swish of the bristles over tile and the air circulation rattling its ductwork and the buzzing of a defective ballast and his own breath (somewhere else, voices scream and shout and sirens wail, plaintive and unrelenting, but not here, not in this safe and quiet place) , he reaches another corner, and the satisfaction is new again. It's crisp and clear against all the things he doesn't understand, and there are so many: Where does all this dirt come from, and why are the hallways so long, and should he recognize the face suddenly hovering in front of him, shifting like steam over black tar asphalt on the coldest days of the year?

Too many questions.

"Nite Owl," the man says, and the material over his face is remarkable; Dan hasn't ever seen anything like it. He lifts up a hand to touch, to feel, but he's ducked away from with a sigh of annoyance. "You haven't been calling in. Have to leave now, police are here."

Dan doesn't respond – just stares in contented delight at the delicate patterns blossoming in and out of existence, swimming across the planes of the stranger's face.

.

"Nite Owl, " he repeats, because it's been a long night and a longer month and he doesn't have any patience for Daniel's foolishness, not now – not after the radio had fallen silent three days ago, the conversations just before spindling and folding in dangerously alien ways. His hands twitch; he wants to be taking care of the scum upstairs personally but the matter is out of his hands now and the knowledge that justice will be served will have to be enough. The world is still strange with combat-rush, fever-bright, and he has more immediate concerns. "What are you doing?"

The entranced gaze breaks away, and Daniel seems to remember the broom in his hands. "Oh. Sweeping the floor. We need to keep our home clean; Disorder is entropy, and entropy drives toward sameness, and–"

And it sounds like a recitation, like a religious tract, and all at once the adrenaline Rorschach's been riding on seems to have transmuted to cold mercury, sluggish in his blood. Alchemy. A sharp exhale, buffeting the mask. "Knew it. Something's wrong with you."

"No, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine," Daniel says, smiling placidly, and it's the same thing so many of the people here have said to him tonight – and Rorschach can tell that he really does mean it. Everything's fine, everything's wonderful, except that the walls are falling down around their collective ankles and none of them seem to be noticing.

None of them. Rorschach wonders distantly when he started lumping his partner in with these lunatics' numbers, categorizing them together in his mind. It might have been when Daniel had gone strange on the radio, voice confused and borrowing someone else's words, or it might have only been thirty seconds ago – time feels dilated. None of them, one of them: It's an ugly turn of phrase, naked and bleeding on his tongue.

Us against them, it's supposed to be. Not–

"Are you new?" Daniel finally asks, brain seeming to latch onto an idea it understands, and his eyes are dull and his voice carries a plastic-sounding enthusiasm but there's no recognition there – and the reality of the situation finally hits Rorschach square between the ribs, beyond suspicion or doubt. Daniel, his partner, the only person he's ever called 'friend' even if only in the thinnest hours of the morning and only in his own head, is looking at him like they've only just met. Worse than that, because when they'd first bumbled across each others' paths in that crippling blackout six years ago, Nite Owl had at least known him by reputation.

Now, nothing - just a lax face and dolls' eyes, black in the dim light.

"Am I– Daniel," His voice isn't wavering, and if it is, it's because he's still coming down from the fight. It doesn't matter. "You know me. We have to go."

"I don't, I'm sorry. And I have to finish sweep–"

It's a moment of blind panic, welling up faster than he can bail it out at the thought of this, of losing this, of losing the only thing he's ever– and he'll regret it later, dragging a too-heavy body deadweight through the streets, but the sirens are getting louder and it feels like the only option. He wheels back and slugs Daniel hard, dropping him straight into unconsciousness, and the fact that he doesn't even move to block the strike is somehow even more sickening than the sound his body makes, slumping to the floor.

The broom clatters where it falls, and Rorschach ignores it; ignores the lights and color and noise on the way out, the shadows cast in red and blue and violet, lurching in stop-motion up and down the walls.

The weight across his shoulders, and the roaring between his ears, he cannot ignore.

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(c) ricebol 2010