Who: Jack and Rorschach What: Battle wound mending Where: Aubade 404 When: Friday (3/4) night, after this Warnings: Bromance, residual battle wound mentions
Every step sent new waves of pain through his body. Every breath reminded him of the open wound in his shoulder and the slow curtain of blood that fell from his neck. He was a mess, a wreck, an absolute pigsty on legs. Which was why he couldn’t simply waltz through the Aubade lobby - people would notice. Even if he kept his jacket on and walked quickly, they would seen the dark sheen on his clothing and the red smears on his gloves. So he had to take option C: scale the building.
He supported his near entire body weight with his right arm, holding onto the grappling gun for dear life as he slowly walked one foot over the other up the side of the Aubade. His left arm was all but useless, bleeding slowly as he cradled it against his chest like a newborn. Every ounce of concentration and willpower he possessed was thrown into holding on, into keeping on. Any other man might have broken under the extreme stress. Rorschach was determined to succeed.
Nine floors of agony and he was spilling onto the balcony, clumsily tumbling head over foot onto the gloriously level surface. Grappling gun held in the crook of his right arm, left arm sprawled over his chest, he took several minutes to just breathe. He was drenched in sweat, back absolutely soaked and face beginning to itch terribly. His hair was slicked down beneath the confines of his cloth face, and the itching at the nape of his neck was almost maddening. With a heavy breath, he forced himself to his feet, walking slowly and laboriously towards the doors that lead into the apartment proper.
He opened them easily, pushing inside and pulling them shut behind him with a bit more force than was necessary. Breaths heavy, he lumbered down the hallway like the undead, making a beeline towards his bedroom. Jack hadn’t heard Rorschach tumble over the edge of the balcony. He’d been in his new, still rather spare room, poring over what little information he’d managed to collect about Mockingbird, none of it particularly promising. The last week had been spent working during the day and spending his nights asking as many questions as he could out of costume without garnering too much attention. All the while, there was a slow, steady frustration bubbling under the surface that no amount of searching could quell. Exhausting himself physically, which simply didn’t happen, was not an option. All he could do was drain himself mentally by poring over the problem again and again, and even considering that, he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. He knew that some people might be unwilling to simply accept the threat, but what else could he do? It chafed incredibly, so much worse than the monitor he still wore around his leg. First killing was taken from him, then his revenge, and now his only outlet left to feel effective, as if he was at least doing some good. If something didn’t give soon, he was going to break.
When Rorschach came thumping down the hall, he ducked his head out of his room and then closed the distance between them in a few short seconds, taking hold of his shoulders, wide-eyed. “Rorschach - God, what happened?” Breathing wasn’t fun. Rorschach realized this as Jack approached him, expecting a verbal response. His chest rose and fell raggedly, accompanied by a pained grunt as the other man reached for his injured left shoulder. Stopping in his tracks, Rorschach turned just slightly, as if attempting to keep his wounded shoulder out of Jack’s sight. “Fight,” he wheezed, reaching up with his right hand to pull at his cloth face.
Normally, it was comfortable, but his head felt as if it were on fire. He fisted his hand in the material, dragging it over his head with another pained groan as fresh air hit his face. His hair was drenched, face smeared with sweat, and the bloody edge of the mask trailing over his face left a red smear over his skin. Blue eyes focused, he crumpled the cloth face in his palm, holding on to it as if it were his only life line. “Need clean.” Jack put an arm around Rorschach’s shoulders and guided him toward the bathroom. He couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt or even precisely where the blood was coming from, except that the way his left arm was hanging looked wrong, and there was far too much blood around his neck. Not for the first time, he wished his ability had some, any usefulness to other people.
He helped him toward the toilet, where he could sit, and began running the faucet. Really they should get him in the shower, but first his clothes needed to come off so the damage could at least be assessed. He pulled out bandages, thread, and needles from the cupboard, along with disinfectant and clean towels. You couldn’t run a two vigilante household without medical supplies, really. “We need to get these off,” he said, and began to work at the coat. He didn’t know how much Rorschach could do it on his own, especially considering how bad his arm looked. Being lead around like a wayward child was a fair bit demeaning, though Rorschach wasn’t thinking about that at the moment. His steps were slow and unsteady, clearly the gait of a wounded man. But he did his best to mask his discomfort, if only because it was none of Jack’s concern. They were roommates, yes, but not the same man.
He took a seat on the toilet as Jack began to rummage in the cabinets. Jack had been the one to implement the use of constant medical supplies - Rorschach would usually just put a bandage on something until it healed. The finer points of first aid had been lost on him for some time, and only now was he realizing just how important they were. He was finding that now, his wounds healed much more nicely. He’d have to mention this to Jack later.
As the other man began to undo his coat, Rorschach sighed, dropping his cloth face to the floor and shifting to help his roommate as much as possible. “Probably ruined,” he wheezed, sounding the slightest bit annoyed. As Jack peeled the edges of the coat apart, exposing the old T-shirt underneath and highlighting the open wounds he had sustained to his torso, Rorschach began to shrug out of the sleeves. “Don’t need help,” he said, though it was a hollow comment made out of habit rather than actual desire. Rorschach looked like even more of a mess without the coat. “Probably,” he said, distracted by the sheer size of the gash in his shoulder. He checked his neck, which looked nasty but obviously hadn’t hit anything important because he wasn’t dead. The bruising they could worry about after the major wounds. “Shirt too,” he said, and grabbed a pair of scissors to cut it from him, since he sure as hell wasn’t in any state to lift his arms and the thing was ripped to shred anyway. He wet the washcloth and began trying to clean away some of the blood from the wound on his shoulder, which was the one he was most concerned with. “Try being more descriptive about what happened than just mentioning a fight,” he said. It would be good to get him talking, particularly for when he had to start stitching. “I know you, remember, I have a hard time believing just anyone managed to cut you this badly...and what, jerk the knife around to make it worse? Jesus.” Letting out a long sigh, Rorschach watched with mild annoyance as the scissors cut through the front of his shredded shirt. “Liked this shirt,” he said glumly, as if the state of his wardrobe were truly the problem here. The pain he felt was secondary, of course, to anything else he could focus on. Making himself feel irritated at losing a material possession, while pathetic, was a good distraction from the sharp pain that jolted through his shoulder as Jack began to wipe it clean with a cloth.
“Mercenary,” he hissed through clenched teeth, leaning back against the column of the toilet. His back seemed to be the only thing that hadn’t been injured, and so he leaned against it heavily, flattening his spine and pushing as if he could fall back through the toilet if he tried enough. “Follow for weeks. Finally find. Was armed.” Maybe he should start carrying an actual weapon. He’d have to think about it. “Skilled.” Jack grabbed another cloth along with the disinfectant. “This will sting,” he warned, unnecessarily, really, and then began cleaning out the wound. “Did you wound him?” he asked, because if he had they might be able to go back to where the fight had been, get some idea of where he’d gone. The warning did little to prepare him for the actual sensation of the sting. Rorschach hissed, cringing and wriggling like an unhappy child at the doctor’s office. “Broke nose,” he gasped, digging his heels into the floor to brace against the tank of the toilet. “Damage shoulder. Crack ribs.” He looked down at the floor, taking a few steadying breaths before he continued. “Name Gideon.” Jack cleaned the wound out thoroughly, but did it as fast as he could, and reached for the needle and thread. Now the real fun began. “How did the fight break out? Did you catch him in the act?” He pushed the needle through and pulled it back, going in for the second stitch. His first aid skills were fairly good for someone who had no use of them, which was a little odd. When the wound was cleaned out, Rorschach heaved a sigh of relief. He should have known that this wasn’t over with, but he temporarily convinced himself that it was. When Jack pulled out the needle and thread, he cringed, letting out a hiss of pain as the needle pierced his skin. Gripping the edge of the toilet, he leaned as far back as he could, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Nnnngh,” he grunted, trying his best to hold his arm still. “Followed to warehouse. Torture place. Found victim, left behind, followed Gideon. Caught up, fight.” “Is the victim still there?” he asked. Jack couldn’t go out masked, but he could call in an anonymous tip to the police. “Any idea what he’d been hired to torture them for, who hired him?” There was always someone higher up with a mercenary.
Jack finished stitching the wound on his shoulder, and began working on cleaning the one on his neck. Bandaging could wait until everything was properly stitched. Only now did Rorschach realize that there was a victim involved in this. He hesitated, looking at Jack with a tight expression as he tried both to ignore the pain of the stitches and think of what had happened to the torture victim. “Probably,” he finally said, voice betraying how little care he actually had for this person. From what research he had done on Gideon, his victims were rarely innocents. “Still unsure. Seems any purpose. Gun for hire, no allegiance but self.”
When the shoulder wound was closed, he heaved a sigh of relief only to let out a groan of discomfort as Jack began cleaning his neck. “Neck fine,” he said with the slightest bit of a whine in his voice. “Don’t be a baby,” Jack said, smiling a little. Normal, human reactions from Rorschach always left him pleasantly surprised. “This will only take a moment. I’ll call the police when I’m done patching you up and send someone to get him. The victim didn’t have any obvious affiliations?” A tattoo could signify a gang or a crime family, after all, as could the colors they had been wearing.
Rorschach only needed a few stitches on his neck, and with that done, he turned to the bath and turned the faucet on. “You can get in there and get clean, just try to keep your stitches above water. I’ll bandage you up when you get out. And I don’t want to hear you argue, because I know you don’t want an infection of the neck.” Jack’s gentle chiding earned him a stubborn, borderline childish expression. “Not being baby,” Rorschach replied, voice the slightest bit sulking. He almost mentioned that Jack must have forgotten about the horrors of stitches, but thought better of it. Instead, he just sighed impatiently, doing his best to recall the victim. Honestly, the man had just been a prop for him. He was a means to the end, not the end by any stretch of the imagination. “Didn’t see. Focused on Gideon.”
Thankfully, the stitches on his neck were fewer than those on his shoulder. He heaved another sigh of relief when Jack finally finished, resisting the urge to scratch at the wound. Instead, he looked over to the bath, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips. He couldn’t look at a bath without thinking of Sam’s first use of her magic. As quickly as the smile came, it was gone, replaced by a contentious expression. “So much work, getting injured.” He stood slowly, working at the clasp of his pants. “What after bandages?” He glanced to the other man, expression wry. “Sleep,” he commanded. “If the man has any obvious ties to anyone it might end up in the paper when the police get to him, depending on how they find him.” Alive or dead, in other words. One of these days they were going to need to have a conversation about ensuring the safety and welfare of victims, not just chasing down criminals. “And make sure you wash behind your ears,” he called back to him, flashing a brief, relieved grin, glad to see him safe and taken care of enough to grumble, before shutting the door behind him.