Who: Jack and Rorschach Mike What: Jack learns Rorschach's motive Where: Mike’s Holding Cell When: Today Warnings: Mentions of Mel, Rory being strange.
Though this cell had been Rorschach’s home for over a week now, he couldn’t relax inside of it. Whenever that door closed, his muscles tensed, every nerve in his body on fire. The guards pointed out that he often would circle the cell and stare at nothing, head whipping about as if he were chasing ghosts. When he finally stilled, his eyes were always moving, blue pinpricks standing out starkly against the ghastly pale mask that skimmed his skin. He hadn’t worn his face in over a week. His face was gone, and he was trapped in Hell amongst the demons.
Whenever footsteps approached from the left, food was coming. His brief time there had been enough to establish routine, a predictable pattern. His cell was removed from the others, keeping as much distance between him and the “drunk tank” as possible. They wanted to shove him away, stuff him into a corner, make him invisible. But despite that, they brought him food with footsteps from the left three times a day, all predictable. He had no watch, no clock, but this seemed early. The last footsteps couldn’t have come long ago - his stomach was still full. So why were they approaching?
Despite his fear and loathing for his prison, Rorschach slowly crept towards the bars, pressing his face between them as the footsteps materialized into men. Two men, a guard and someone else. His gaze rose to the tall man’s face, blue eyes saying a thousand things. His knuckles whitened as his fingers tightened around one of the bars, jaw clenching until the veins that webbed across his neck stood out against his skin. It’d been some time since he had shaved, and longer before that that he’d had a haircut. His dark hair hung past the nape of his neck, ragged locks brushing his cheeks. A thick forest of hair had overgrown his jaw, creeping down his neck. He looked feral, wild, and it was all there in those eyes.
“Jack,” he finally said, the word spoken with unnerving softness for such a hardened face. The guard fell into place in the back of the hallway, almost out of earshot but not quite. He didn’t say a word to either man, stony gaze falling on a point in the distance. Though he was present, he was barely there, mentally a thousand miles away. Jack had been juggling everyone else on the comms, but he didn’t have answers to their questions. The bail had been set almost absurdly high because of the flight risk Rorschach posed, and perhaps the only good news he’d heard so far was that they didn’t seem to have any idea that one of the most sought after vigilantes in the city was currently sitting in their prison.
He waited until the man had positioned himself at the end of the hall to speak, and he took those moments to look his friend over. He looked tired and worn and on edge - perhaps over the edge. But that would remain to be seen.
“Mike,” he said, finally, all too conscious of the man at the door. “Are you - how are you?” He thought he already knew the answer to that question, but he asked it all the same. “Everyone is worried about you,” he said. “They all want to know...why you’re here.” Rorschach still didn’t understand conventional questions that people asked simply because they were supposed to. Jack knew how he was - he had eyes. Even without a mirror, Rorschach knew that he looked terrible. His mask always did. It was tired and worn, in desperate need of retirement. Without his face, he was bare, left in this Hell to rot. His fingers tightened around the bar, a dozen responses flitting in his gaze. “Restless,” he finally replied, the most accurate answer he could give.
The idea that “everyone” was worried about him seemed almost funny - if he had a sense of humor, he might have laughed. They thought he was crazy. Paranoid. He knew they did. They didn’t understand why he did what he did, his methods. None of them could. They just didn’t see the way he did, which wasn’t exactly their fault. But it was still trying. “Didn’t read papers?” he asked, expression almost wry. “Good.” A moment later, he sighed, resting his cheek against the bar. “Doesn’t matter. Here now. Can’t finish.” He looked to Jack almost accusingly, keeping his voice down. “You finish?” He didn’t seem aware that he hadn’t informed Jack that he had attacked the Dragon, and that someone needed to finish his work. After all, wouldn’t Jack have known this? “They read the papers,” he said, studying Rorschach’s face. Had he missed something? His worry plunged deeper, and he took hold of one of the bars without thinking. “The papers say that you attacked a woman in Aubade. But no one knows why.”
He had no idea what Rorschach was talking about, and he didn’t pretend to. “Finish what?” he asked. He looked briefly over at the guard, but the man’s eyes were glazed over. “Tell me what happened. Tell me who she was, what she did. I need to know why before I finish anything.” Still leaning against the bars, Rorschach looked up at Jack, the height difference between them staggeringly obvious. Though he didn’t care much about his own identity - Mike Caulfield was just a mask, after all - he had come to learn that Jack had a reason for his. Even if Rorschach thought it was ridiculous and petty to cling to it, even if he was still filled with disgust and bile with the knowledge that Jack had given Corbinian up, he was aware of it.
“Saw her face once before,” he said softly, voice low. The fingers wrapped around the bar of the door extended slightly, beckoning Jack closer. “Remember well. Blood lipstick. Femur fork. Grass placemat.” He listened to Rorschach’s imagery and shook his head. It didn’t connect with anything, didn’t click with anything he knew even though they sounded like code words that ought to be significant for him. “I don’t understand,” he said. He felt as if Rorschach had tried to teach him something, and then left him behind completely on the test. “Where did you see her?” Mild irritation flickered across Rorschach’s face. How hadn’t Jack figured it out by now? Why would he think this woman was anyone else? It fit. It all fit inside his mind, and it should have fit with everyone else. After a moment’s silence, he gestured to his own head. “The Dragon, Jack,” he whispered, reaching through the bars to rest a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Have to finish. Can’t now. You must.” The Dragon. It still took a moment to connect, but when it did, he stilled. "The woman from the vision you had?" It had been part of the second round of everyone picking up everyone else's experiences, he knew. It didn't sweep away any chance that Rorschach could have placed the blame on the wrong woman, but he had a hard time believing his reaction would have been so violent if he hadn't seen precisely the face he remembered.
There was no question of it, of course - knowing what he knew, that this woman had killed and eaten a child, there was only one thing to be done. "I still have the photo of the crest you drew," he said. His mismatched eyes grew sharp, flinty and cold in the face of what needed to be done. "I'll get it out to everyone. We'll find a way." In that moment, the sharpness in Jack’s eyes, Rorschach knew that something would be done. The Dragon would be slain, and justice would be dealt. In the tentative balance of this world, the black would be pushed just slightly to the side to make way for white. Though the long, black stubble on his jaw obscured his mouth, the small half-smile was almost visible in the twitch of his whiskers. “Good,” he said.
His hand on Jack’s shoulder remained there for a few extra seconds, longer than it should have. His fingers tensed, a squeeze. “All that matters now.” "We're going to get you out of here," he assured him, voice dropping low. "We'll find her, and when they discover what she's done, you can tell them why you did it." It was incredibly optimistic. Even if Rorschach did tell them why he'd attacked that woman, how could he explain a face from a vision? Still, he had to believe that there was a way to make this right. "And we're doing our best to get your bail together," he said, lifting his voice a little so that it didn't seem to the guard like they'd been conspiring together the entire time if he finally decided to pay attention. Ridiculous goal. Rorschach let out a low huff, letting his hand slide from Jack’s shoulder. “No proof. No evidence.” It was an advantage, in a way, being a monolith. People assumed he was stupid, talked to him as if he were. They revealed more than they planned to by virtue of assuming he wouldn’t understand either way. “No identity. Faceless man enters. Never leaves.” He had stepped through the gates of Hell, and they had closed behind him. Even though it crawled under his skin and chewed on his spinal cord, he knew. He wasn’t as naive as Jack seemed to hope to be. "We'll get you out," Jack repeated, a little quieter. "One way or another, you're not spending the rest of your life in here."
The guard at the end of the hall was trying to catch Jack's attention now, and he sighed. Apparently their hushed conversation had gone on long enough. "Can I bring you anything?" he asked, even though he knew that the thing Rorschach undoubtedly wanted most was the only thing he absolutely couldn't bring. Disbelief ran rampant in Rorschach’s gaze. Even if they managed to pay his bail, he was sure the police would find a way to contest it. They had had him for over a week now, and still no evidence that Mike Caulfield had ever existed. They wouldn’t let a ghost slip through their fingers.
The question earned a visible flinch. His face. He wanted his face. Wearing this mask, living it, was filthy. Wrong. He had to answer to Mike, talk as Mike, live as Mike in Mike’s Hell. The least they could do for him would be to let him have his own face, and of course, they never would. Shaking his head, he released the bars, stepping back into the center of his Hell. “No. Goodbye, Jack.” The guard left his spot at the end of the hall, moving to Jack’s side. The visit was over. They had no say in it. Jack nodded, briefly. He didn't like it - that was the understatement of the year. But for all his pessimism he refused to believe that the situation was hopeless. Right now, hope lay in finding enough evidence to take Rorschach's Dragon down for good. Even if Rorschach never said a word about why he'd attacked her, if her crimes came to light any judge would be more lenient. He released his grip on the bars around the cell, nodding to his friend one last time, wishing he had something, anything good to leave him with. "I'll be back," he said, and let the guard lead him out.