Who: Darice and Rorschach/"Mike Caulfield" What: Lawyer/Client Talks Where: A Lawyery Room When: Last week, recently Warnings: Darice being a fierce lady lawyer. Rory being a cryptic and borderline pathetic crazy man. I think the end of this log deserves a "dun dun dun" sound effect.
Technically, Darice was not Caulfield’s lawyer, and she technically wasn’t allowed to see him on those grounds. However, the name on her business card was the same firm of the people who were now attempting to take over his defense, and she quite illegally forged her expertise to sit down and talk to the man. She could not have looked the part more, however, every black thread in the skirt-suit in place, make-up serene and even mysterious, heels feminine, hair swept back. Darice cultivated a sense of untouchable, confident stability, partly for her sister and partly for herself.
Now, trying to subdue a sudden nervousness as she waited on the other side of a sheet of glass, Darice folded her fingers above the surface of the table and folded one leg over another. Hopefully this did not cost her career; she owed this man more than Joy’s life, and she was willing to pay a cost, but her career was important enough to her that the thought of losing it made her sweat. She hid it well, however. The right face powder did wonders.
For all the professionalism and class that Darice exuded, “Mike Caulfield” countered it in utter chaos. The drab smock he wore courtesy of the Seattle Police Department seemed to drain all of the color from his body, rending him a monochromatic scale of disarray. His skin was sallow and pale, sunken cheeks leading into a scruff of unkempt black beard. It had been over a month since his last haircut, his hair brushing his neck with every step he took. It seemed the only color on his person was the fierce blue of his eyes, but even that had died down. What once was sharp had grown dull and tired, consumed by apathy.
The guards at his sides seemed more interested than he as they walked him to the room, opening the door and looking in surprise at the woman on the other side. Pigs, he thought idly as they shuffled him through, steering him to his chair. Their surprise was rooted in her attractiveness, clearly, which was something beyond something. His ability to think about such things was stoppered by the mounting lack of care, which showed in every look and every breath. A hand on his shoulder commanded him to sit opposite the woman, and he did: like an automaton. The handcuffs binding his wrists together stayed on, though he had the immense luxury of resting his arms on the table in front of him.
Once they were alone in the room, Rorschach grunted, pulling at the chain that held his wrists together. He had no real intention of trying to snap it, no interest in being freed. This was his life now, and he could accept it. But the idle tampering kept him from going mad as he raised his gaze from the table, locking it onto the woman opposite him. “Strange to see,” he said softly. “Strange reasons.”
Some of Darice’s reservations fell away at the sight of her former neighbor. He had historically made her extremely uncomfortable--something about the way he stared intently at everything at some times and at other times entirely ignored her--but no sight had ever been more welcome when he had brought Joy back. She nodded very slowly. “It is strange to see you, yes,” she answered, enunciating very carefully in a sharp, clear reflection of his quiet fragments. Her fingers twisted a little against each other on the table in unconscious movement of sympathy for his restraints. “But I’m here to help. How are you?” She tried to catch his gaze with her own, clear and bright in dark liner.
After a moment’s pause, she looked past him at the door, where movement marked a guard passing on the other side of the small window set into it. The movement entirely ceased as she firmed her own sense of control in this situation. She readjusted on her seat and unfolded her legs to put her knees together.
Watching Darice was almost funny, if he had any shred of a sense of humor left. She was a woman that, despite their status as neighbors, Mike Caulfield had no reason to know. The police would believe it, the other lawyers would believe it, and everyone that Darice spoke to would buy it wholeheartedly. But they both knew that she didn’t know Mike Caulfield: he was a myth. And yet ever day, he had to answer to an imaginary man’s name. He had to give it, sing it, breathe it as if it were his own. Watching Darice through Mike Caulfield’s eyes was impossible. But Rorschach made quick work of it.
“Generous neighbor,” he said, snapping the chain between his handcuffs with an audible twang. Momentarily fascinated by the chains’ vibrations, he stared for a moment before glancing over to her, the crag of his forehead casting shadows on his face. The hollows of his cheeks had sunken in, partially filled by the outgrowth of facial hair that frizzled and stood on end from his cheeks to his ears. “Good,” he said in response to her question, holding her gaze with a steel fist. Nothing in that gaze was good. Walls closed in with no precedent, no warning. The creeping suspicion that he wasn’t Rorschach, had never been Rorschach, dogged him daily. He had lost his identity, but more than that, he had lost a soul and still bore its tortured scars upon his hide. His steel blue eyes were filled with the torment of a man in Hell, watching his skin blister and then peeling it off for use as a snack later.
“How you?” He didn’t bother with little words like “are.” He no longer had to.
Darice didn’t twitch at the sudden clang of metal on metal, but it was an effort, and her eyes flashed as she brought them back to his eyes. “You’re not good, but that’s alright.” Darice swallowed; he looked like a trapped animal, but he didn’t sound like one. It was disorienting, but Darice had several months to get used to that. “I’m not your neighbor. I’m your lawyer. One of them. In case anyone asks, I am. Though we should try not to mention me by name.” Darice lifted one arm and leaned onto her elbow, touching an eyebrow and taking a breath in another attempt to steady herself. “I’m here to try to help. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, but I had trouble trying to locate you. What exactly happened?”
“Lawyer without name,” he said as if he were musing on the notion. Rorschach was silent for a few moments, rolling the idea about in his head. Far stranger things had happened, and he was in no position to refuse help. He was in no position to do anything, really. “Good.” The word “good” was getting abused, he noticed. People said it flippantly, without care or concern. A car was “good” because it didn’t crash and burn. A grade was “good” because it was passing. A relationship was “good” because you got your rocks off before the sun rose. “Good” was worthless, downtrodden. He could use it whenever he wanted, however he chose, and it wouldn’t make any difference.
At her apology, he grunted. “No apology,” he said, though his gaze never left hers. Her question stirred him, a sudden tightness spreading across his face. “Explaining hard,” he said tersely. “Mental picture. Memory. Woman in mirror, red hair, blood lips. Little boy, bones, full stomach.” Even trying to explain it was like swimming through Jell-O. He had the pieces right, the players in their spots, but starting the scene was nearly impossible. “Satisfied, smug.” The words grew bitter and nearly angry, the most emotion he had shown since entering the room. “Make beautiful,” he finally hissed, sliding two fingers across his cheekbone before dropping them to his lips. His fingers painted his mouth, as if they held pigment, before dropping to the table with a clatter of metal against metal.
Darice always had the feeling that she was missing a great many things that went on in this man’s mind. She’d always thought those were destructive, horrifying, and perhaps even darkly sexual things, but a person like that would not have saved her sister, nor would he care about the state of his neighbor when she found her sister gone. The elder Fitzgerald concentrated hard on the words that made it out of Rorschach’s mouth, stringing them together to the best of her ability. The dark over her eyes seemed only to get darker as the blue eyes narrowed in the processing.
“A mental picture of a woman.. and a little boy? What was wrong with this woman? Was it the same woman you attacked?” Darice had a briefcase on the floor beside her and a legal pad at her elbow, and when her gaze flickered to detect more movement beyond the door, she picked it up and pretended to write a note on the top. It only said his name--one of his names. The one the government knew.
“Yes,” he snarled, the answer dark and forced. “Through her eyes.” He began to knot the chain of his cuffs around his right index finger, the action giving him a welcome distraction. Imagining her face, hearing her screams as he bludgeoned her, was too much. And the fact that she was still alive - he was sure he’d have heard otherwise - was the worst of it. Jack knew, and he did nothing. A boy was dead, and no one lifted a finger.
The tip of his finger began to turn purple as he held the chain tight, barely noticing the pain. “Blood meal. Grows fat on human flesh and dresses up like doll.”
Darice sat for a few moments, listening, but the metallic scrape of the chain caught her attention. After a moment of horrified quiet, she stood up, the chair scraping back with a noise even more harsh than the sound from the cuffs. Her hands reached out to settle over his. “Don’t do that. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Her movement was a surprise. The scrape echoed through the tiny room, singing in his bones and wailing in his ears. Watching her, he almost expected to see her leave. It would have made sense. It would fit, like a puzzle piece on the coffee table. But instead she came closer, her hands falling on his. His jaw slackened in surprise as he looked down, as if noticing what he was doing for the first time. With a slight grunt, he relaxed, letting his hands fall motionless onto the table. The chain slackened, warmth flooding his finger, as he stayed perfectly still.
“You need to be careful,” she admonished, suddenly uncertain with the contact, and she straightened up and pulled back. She was tall on the heels, and immediately she sank back down on the uncomfortable chair, and she just caught herself before she tried to sit on thin air and fell backward. With rapidly returning poise, she reached back, caught the chair in the tips of her fingers, and pulled it back underneath her. A second later she tried to resume the conversation. “You’re saying you saw this woman commit murder?”
For a brief second, his mouth twitched in what could have been a smile. If that expression were nurtured, loved, taken out of gray walls and potted in a jar, it could have been a grin full of teeth and joy. As it stood, it was just a flicker. But as the slick lawyer faltered just moments after cautioning him, the expression leapt to his face and ran through it, lost just moments after. “Take own advice,” he said almost wryly, resuming his idle play with the chain between his wrists. He no longer wrapped it tightly, but simply twisted and released it.
Her question made him pause, brows furrowing. “No,” he said with some regret, clenching his jaw. “Watched bathe in glory atop throne of bones.”
Darice frowned a little at his return caution, and she wasn’t foolish enough to miss it. After considering, she almost wished she was. He’d looked sane a moment ago, and she’d felt sane being here, but now she wasn’t so sure. She fixed the orientation of the chair, and reminded herself it didn’t matter. “A throne of bones,” she repeated. It didn’t matter. Darice took in a breath through her nose, and then slowly let it out again.
“Mr. Caulfield. I’d like to help you leave here. If I do that, will you promise me something?” She returned her gaze to his, steady, willing to match whatever he brought there.
At her repetition, he grunted in agreement. That was it, exactly. Or almost exactly. Describing it, describing how she had felt - how he had felt in her place - was impossible. It was an abstract world of horror that he hadn’t thought possible, even after his years in the mask. He’d seen the worst that humanity had to offer, and still this woman cast all of his experience down into the gutters.
Lips pressed together thinly, he looked to her, gaze matching hers easily. Promises were easily broken, though Rorschach prided himself on being a man of his word. Black and white, evil and good, it was easy to see where truthfulness fell. “Yes,” he replied, packing a novel’s worth of agreement into three little letters.
“Once you are at liberty, you must promise me you will not take action against this woman without empirical proof of wrong-doing. Do you understand?” She wasn’t stern, she was concerned, urgent. It wasn’t her elbows on the table this time, but both palms, hands flat, fingers spread. She watched his eyes for signs of deception, and she’d seen enough liars and heard enough lies to be sure she could see it if it was there.
A slippery eel might have been able to pick up the words in Darice’s sentence and rearrange them. She was talking to “Mr. Caulfield,” not Rorschach. If Rorschach wore his face, his true face, he would be free of this agreement. “Take action” implied something legal, whereas murder merely required a club and the grit of will. But there was no way to flip-flop it enough to muddle the black and white waters with unpleasant gray. Agreeing to this meant that he would not, without “proof,” attack the Dragon. He could easily take out the problem without lawyers or contracts, with a simple bash to the head and a spray of blood. It would be wrong to look the other way.
“Understand,” he said slowly, conflict playing across his face. If he agreed, he was compromised. If he swayed, he was fracturing the world he lived in. Though weight had dropped from his bones, his massive shoulders remained. Once hunched and rounded, they straightened, carrying every ounce of tension in his body. Looking to her, he let out a small huff. “Can’t,” he finally said.
Darice let out the breath she was holding and sat back heavily in the chair. Her wrists went loose over her laps, and the line over her brows thickened. “You can’t agree? Why not?” She understood that this was some kind of moral impediment, judging from his reaction to this woman, the same reaction he’d had to Joy’s captor. Before he could answer, she leaned abruptly forward in, voice lowering in urgency, low voice even softer than usual. “Mr. Caulfield, if this woman is as you say, it’s simply not possible that there is no empirical evidence. You simply must discover it. It can be done.”
He couldn’t disagree with her. Evidence had to exist, somewhere. But that wasn’t the point. Evidence, proof, what did it matter when he knew? He had the truth, raw and real, in his hands. Why should he have to place it in a box? “Yes,” he agreed, the word coming out as a low grunt. “Already know. Saw face in mirror, saw face in lobby. Bright gold...” He trailed off, the muscles in his neck tense. “God shows. Evidence unnecessary. Must stop before another child.”
The mention of another attack on a child sent cold ice into Darice’s heart and the effect was visible. However, she would not be responsible for a death, and if Caulfield killed, he would never see the light of day again. “I know you saw, but I don’t want you to be in here forever. You don’t either, do you? You have to try to do this my way. Joy wants to see you again. You must try, Mr. Caulfield. Please?”
The mention of his future was met with an unnerving amount of apathy, as if she were asking him “you don’t want soy sauce on your pizza, do you?” With a grunt, he glanced down at his hands. “Did work,” he finally said. “Six years.” He looked up, gaze sweeping over the cube of a room they were in. “Ends here.” He looked to her, expression stony. “No regrets. Did all could. No less.”
“No, no, it doesn’t end here.” Darice took a breath again, but it was more stubborn this time. “It doesn’t end here. We can find evidence against this woman, but she may escape again if you attempt this your way and end back here. Empirical evidence, Mr. Caulfield. Promise.”
Hearing her address him as “Mr. Caulfield” was insulting. It brought a twinge of emotion back, a flinch at the corner of his eye. And to make things worse, she was asking him to waste time when he could so easily end the problem on his own had he twenty-four hours and freedom. But it was all a moot point. He was in jail, caught. The police would find nothing on him, and there he would stay. “Find evidence for self,” he said, pulling slightly at the chain connecting his wrists. “Can’t help now.”
The sight of his hands jerking up again brought her out of her seat and reaching forward, automatic, the sort of thing she might do for Joy, but she stopped a second from touching him. “I said I can help you. But you have to agree to this thing so I can do it. At least out there, you can try to get that evidence. In here you can do nothing.”
His hands tensed as she drew near, his body freezing as she did. What she said made sense, but could he agree to stay his hand? If he did, he couldn’t touch a hair on the Dragon’s head. He would be obligated from snapping her neck like a toothpick in his hands. It was easy, too easy, to pull a body apart. It would be nearly impossible to stop himself.
But was that weakness? When he had become so focused, so dedicated, had he lost sight of his journey? Had he gotten stuck in the bushes, tangled up in the weeds? Erasing her might not be the only way, if Darice was right. And he didn’t doubt her intelligence one bit. She did say he would only need to preserve the woman as long as there was no evidence. Nothing was said of what would happen once he had it. “Can find,” he finally said, twisting his fingers together loosely. “Can’t touch.” His voice dropped, as if he were in mourning, and he looked up at her. It may have been weakness that made this so difficult, an earthly desire to scorch the wicked without a second thought. Or maybe it was the boy’s leg, so vivid in his mind, that made his body so alive with rage.
“Promise look. If see again...” He trailed off, jaw tightening. “Promise off.”
Darice couldn’t be sure she’d won. Slowly, she let her fingers brush his again, questioning. “What does that mean? You promise you won’t act against her if there’s no empirical evidence? Say you promise that, Mr. Caulfield.”
The sensation of her fingers against his made him sigh, acting as a reminder that he was still in that room. “Promise not act, promise look for evidence,” he grumbled. “If see with child, blood paint again, no promise. Will act.” His voice was ironclad, determined. Gathering evidence could be good, but standing idly by while she was engorging herself was not.
Darice sat back down. She took her hands back and folded them again, wondering if she should take what she got, or try to push again. She wondered how active his hallucinations were. Cautiously she said, “You’ve only seen this once, correct?”
“Once in person,” he agreed. “Once through eyes.”
That greatly minimized the chance of him seeing it again if it was a fabrication of the mind. This many months in here, and not a recurrence. It also had occurred to Darice that this woman he spoke of was not a hallucination at all; if that was the case, she didn’t feel morally obligated to protect such a person. The law only went so far, and Darice believed in the death penalty. She was a vindictive, judgmental person, when it all came down to it. “Alright,” she said, satisfied. “You promised.” She straightened the pen on the legal pad. “Now... to move you from here.” She glanced at the door behind him, and then back to his face for his attention.
“I did,” he replied with conviction. It was painful, making a promise. Perhaps that was why he avoided them so often. No accountability to other human beings, no need to answer to them. But now he had one thread, one person. It weighed more heavily on him than the cuffs on his wrists, and he shifted uncomfortably as if he could shrug away this feeling. As she looked away and then back, he sat up a bit straighter, at attention. “To where?”
“Probably a mental facility. There are more doctors, but fewer walls. It will be better for you there. The problem is that there is a lot of arguing concerning your mental state right now, and if things remain as they are, we can’t push a judge to rule a transfer for your own safety.” Darice’s eyes were bright and steady on his. She had to be very, very careful how she made this request.
He visibly reacted to this. Flinching, he shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t a crazy man. And perhaps there was a small, traitorous thread of pride left in him that made him so loathe to recognize that other people thought him so. He spoke strangely, acted erratically, and was therefore seen as a basket case. But he wasn’t crazy. He was an arrow racing for a target, an arrow so specific that no one could ever understand its path. To be locked in a building, even with fewer walls, was an insult. He bristled as he held her gaze, listening despite his visceral reaction. Darice spoke without saying a word, or while saying something else. He simply had to decode what she was saying now. “Doctors disagree. Some crazy. Some sane. No diagnosis.”
Darice nodded agreement. Her carefully coiffed hair shone in the too-bright flourescents. “We need them to agree. We need them to agree that you need to be moved.” She hesitated, a last bid for a sane, safe, legal answer. It didn’t come. “...If you are a danger to yourself, it is easier to convince them.” She watched his face for some flicker of understanding.
Though Rorschach had not been educated in the ways of law, he wasn’t stupid. From experience with the Masks and even this short conversation with Darice, he knew what the world operated on: evidence. If there was no evidence, it didn’t exist. If Darice never asked him to do anything, she wasn’t responsible. If he never agreed to a request she never gave, then he was acting free of her influence. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he let out a low, affirmative “hrm.” If she looked closely, she would see a slight nod of his head, though anyone passing by wouldn’t notice at all.
“Would be,” he finally said. “If true.” He was dancing the way she had been, clumsily following her steps with the hesitation of an amateur. But the expression on his face and darkly determined hardness of his eyes revealed just how aware of this dance he was. “Other options?”
To Darice's mind, she was already involved in this far beyond ignorance and she understood that she was too deep to surface if this did not go exactly the way it should. "Wait for the lawyers to sort out how culpable you are within the law. Eventually they will, but it is a slow process. I said I am here to help you, and I am, so you will continue to have the assistance of my firm from here forward." On her dollar, but that was not important.
Darice licked her lips, already toned a deep pleasant pink pearl. She was glad she didn't wear the scarlet red today. The man across from her probably would not have taken that well. "I don't want you to be in danger here. You know the schedule very well, of course? You know when people would be there to help you if you needed it?" She did not want to think about what would happen if she advised Rorschach to prove himself incompetent and he simply ended up dead rather than on suicide watch.
There was no doubt in Rorschach’s mind that Darice was providing this legal assistance. He had no money, nothing to his name. “Thank you,” he said quietly, looking down at his hands. Accepting gifts was difficult, especially when he was accustomed to nothing. He could be living on the street, sleeping beside a dumpster with a cardboard box as a blanket, and that would be good. But accepting help, an outstretched hand offered in good faith, made him duck and look away.
At her cautions, he glanced to her, expression almost wry. To think that he didn’t know how to handle pain and injury, what he could and couldn’t suffer, was almost laughable. “Yes,” he said, a busy brow raising just slightly. What did she think he would do? “Schedule like clockwork. Set watch to. Count minutes easy.”
She looked worried, nonetheless. “We can still wait.” There were steps outside, heralds of men come to watch him wait and watch her leave. Her demeanor shifted and she put herself back into position, shoulders straight, chin up, competence in every line. “You can still wait, if this is too dangerous. I want you safe. Thanks are not necessary. Even after this, it is always I who will need to thank you.” She stood in anticipation of company.
Any worry she exhibited was countered by his stoic expression set in stone. Even though they had not officially come to an agreement, his mind was made up. Hearing the footsteps outside, he rested his wrists on the table, staying perfectly still as she stood. “No thanks,” he said, voice resolute. “Did what’s right. Did what’s necessary.” He was utterly convicted, no doubt or hesitation in his face or voice. “Always do.” He quieted as the doorknob twisted and the door opened, two men entering in succession. Their visit had come to a close. It was probably good, really. He had planning to do.