how the ghost of you clings.

Watchmen.
Rorschach is free from weakness and lust. Kovacs isn't.

Written for this kink meme. The prompt: "Rorschach/Laurie. Pre-Keene Act. I would like to see it involve some creepy stalking/obsession on Rorschach's part, either before or after the awkward sexy encounter."

Dunno how I feel about this piece (not to mention that it's long-ish and un-beta'd, heh), but at least I didn't name it after a song by Hall and Oates, right? Right?

Um.





---

When he strips away his face and assumes the mask of Kovacs, it's not difficult.

As the rest of the city does, she passes him often; in front of the newsstand, the pharmacy, the dressmaker's, never noticing him.

She spends weekends at the Gunga Diner with other girls her age. Drinks Coke in glass bottles; orders burgers and fries and extra pickles. Laughs often, the sound throaty and pretty. High-necked sweaters and cleanly-tailored pants mark a contrast to not only her friends' revealing outfits but her own adventuring costume, and he sees her as no one else does - a lost young girl, masquerading around in the gaudy uniform of a whore. Secretly unhappy. Wistful. Forced into it (by an irresponsible mother trying to recapture misspent youth). No good adult influences in her life--

--innocence trapped too early in the body of a woman.

It would be easy to say something to her when she trails after her mother inside the garment shop. Some small word of encouragement, as god-ugly, morbidly quiet, unassuming Kovacs - and risk looking like yet another depraved man in the city trying to catch the attention of the costumed heroine. But he doesn't like to gauge just how exactly she'd respond to that - if her eyes would narrow in disgust, somehow able to discern just exactly what he thinks about her (with his face peeled off, when he's lying on his dirty, stained mattress, calloused fingers clenched around equally dirty sheets).

Instead, he smiles complacently. When she leaves with her alterations, door chimes jangling behind her, his mind shudders at how their fingers brushed when he handed her the change.

(Long after she's gone and the shop is empty but for him, he sketches furiously on looseleaf paper, altering her costume; raises the plunging neckline to her throat and shades in thick black tights to replace nylon-clad legs, budding breasts and tempting calves no longer on display for the scum of the city to think impurely about. Before he completes his shift, the drawing burns in the garbage can at the rear of the store, flames licking aluminum.)

The leering whores on 42nd catcall after him each night as he walks home, coat collar shoved up high and protecting him from not just the wind but their raucous jeering. They disinterest him, yet the crude way they grope their bodies and press against him unintentionally sets the gears in his mind churning in a new direction he doesn't like.

Does she ever try--

No.

Albeit misguided, she's a good girl. And good girls certainly don't do that.

(Still, he can't help but wonder.)

And he does wonder, late at night, if those small, thin fingers explore the delicate parts of her body that filthy adolescent boys only wish they could see in the flesh (because she'd never let them, ever); if she makes herself cry out, sounding almost in pain (those same high keening noises he thinks she probably does); if she dreams not about musicians and movie stars but her fellow costumed heroes, admiration for being physically fit and morally strong (knowing from the way she shies away on their shared patrols that it would never be him).

---

Rounded hips (their undisguised sway) and other blossoming curves are still recognizable under the sweaters and long skirts. They do him in just as badly as the thin yellow-and-black material that he knows Nite Owl tries almost as hard to stray his own gaze from.

Previous dreams about this - the sex act - have been unwanted nightmares, filled with faceless women and glaringly white bodies, more like mannequins than people, anatomy sectioned off neatly like pieces of meat in a butcher's shop window. It had started at thirteen, grotesque and messy and featuring his mother, and escalated ever since into a series of night terrors from which he awakens unpleasantly, sweaty and sticky and shaken.

He owes her better than to let his unconscious mind conjure up something indecent - shameful - while traitorous hands coax it along.

(It can't be too awful to think of what he would do differently, if given the chance.)

He would kiss her, first, as any gentleman would - on her hand. Eyelids. The tiny mole on her right cheek. Respectful. Gentle.

A pre-apology for what was about to happen.

And he'd tuck long dark hair, softly, behind her ear, before catching his teeth on the sweet skin of her neck.

---

Patrolling alone with her never fails to make him uncomfortable.

He knows the feeling is mutual.

They casually keep their distance, and although his face gives away nothing in the same manner that Kovacs's would, it still fails to ease his nerves.

---

Sally Jupiter's throwing a party in a few weeks - no real occasion; likely another excuse to overindulge in alcohol and try once more to reclaim the spotlight - and she shuffles into the shop with a loud voice barking orders and her sullen daughter in tow.

The girl's to be fitted for a new dress - "Not so boxy, this time," Jupiter says idly, already examining fabrics for her own party frock - and her daughter quietly makes her way over to Walter, who sits waiting by the fitting area, expression neutral.

His fingers are never clumsy around needles and measuring tape, yet he takes extra care when looping and twining the tape around her curves, pinning down smooth white fabric around her. She smells soft, and musky, and faintly of cigarettes, which makes him frown. He's seen her light up more than once, but it's still an unhealthy vice he'd thought her above.

She draws herself up higher whenever she sees her mother glancing in their direction, posture perfectly erect, and while she's careful to look like she's taking the act of being measured quite seriously, he's memorizing the look of her waist and breasts and hips bound in measuring tape all the while hating himself for it.

"My mom doesn't think I'm ladylike enough," she says, so quietly that at first he's unsure if she's only talking to herself. She snorts. "Just because I prefer wearing pants to damned frilly ballerina skirts all of the time."

His tone is passive. "Parents and children often disagree on these things." And they often do, right in the shop; arguments which culminate into shouting matches that make his teeth grind while he tries to work in peace.

"Yeah, I guess." She bites her lip. "This party's gonna kill me, though. This dorky kid who lives down the block from me is gonna be there - his mom and mine are old pals, and I think they figure that since we're the same age, we should be trading engagement rings already. He's nice enough, I guess, but I don't like the way he treats me just because I've been homeschooled and he goes to some prep school - like I'm this less intelligent being compared to him, or something - you know?"

His mouth is full of needles; he works quickly at pinning the seams of the skirt.

"Actually..." She's fixing him with a quiet stare. "My mom thinks this is gonna be a-- a chance to pair her loud, awkward daughter up with some guy against her will, but-- but if I already brought someone..." He's careful to avoid her gaze, drawing another pin from his mouth to slide into the fabric. Undeterred, she continues in a harsh whisper, "I mean, if you came-- oh, man, that'd really drive her up the wall." She pauses. "Would you? Please?"

---

"Please," she whispers, guiding his hand in the muted light of her bedroom, and he awkwardly finds the spot she wants him to, fingers no longer skilled but clumsy and unsure. All he can think of is how ugly his blemished skin looks in comparison to the white silk skirt his arm disappears under, but she doesn't seem to mind, only presses her fingers over his calloused knuckles and pushes, hard, using all of her weight to grind against his hand.

He still doesn't understand how this does not hurt her.

"Why--" he starts to ask, voice hoarse, but she silences him by pressing chapped lips to his, softly, the almost meek gesture in bold contrast to the fact that's she's so brazenly riding his fingers.

"Let me do something for you," she says, and no, no no no no no, shame and guilt and self-hatred threaten to devour him right there, but she says, "You deserve it," and he finds difficulty arguing when she gently pulls his hand out of her so she can dig her fingernails into his hipbones and lower herself to his waist, opening his fly with such ease that it makes his chest clench with the suspicion that she's done this before, but then her mouth is around him, warmwet and soft, teeth lightly scraping against him, and he almost wishes she would bite down and punish him for wanting this but she doesn't, only moves her tongue and lips in ways that make him shut his eyes and grit his teeth and raise the hand that was buried inside her to his nose and inhale, greedily, memorizing her scent.

It happens too fast. It's happening too fast, and before he can say something - apologize for spoiling her, for debasing them both - he finally opens his eyes, vision blurred, to see that she's already rising to her feet.

She smiles. Tells him he's sweet. Pauses, uncertainly, before settling her arms on his shoulders and rocking indecently against him in a grotesque parody of a waltz. His arms hang awkwardly at his sides.

The space between her neck and shoulder looks soft and inviting; he hesitantly rests his head against it. Small fingers twine around the back of his neck, sifting through his hair, and he swallows hard - repulsed by the way his body traitorously responds to her touch once more.