singillatim | Scars are souvenirs you never lose ; Catch-All OTA

Entry tags:

Scars are souvenirs you never lose ; Catch-All OTA

Who: Rorschach and you!
What: Catch-all for various stuff in the past month or so.
When: When the characters are interacting.
Where: Where the characters are interacting.

Content Warnings: Rorschach's far right-wing views, others as they come up

I. Patrolling

Rorschach needed a sense of purpose. No matter whether that was in NYC or stuck in a snowy hellscape, he needed to be doing something or he would go even crazier than he already was. To that end, he continued the patrols that he'd had for twenty years now. At least now it was a lot easier. He was able to patrol the entire thing from one end to the other in a single night instead of having to pick a single neighborhood as he would have back home.

Since he did (contrary to his own personal wishes) had to sleep occasionally, he usually reserved his patrols for the night. He'd wake up a few hours before dusk, do whatever he needed to for the day, and then start with guarding the town. He could often be found rapidly climbing up to a rooftop, where he'd stay watching the town from his perch, or descending just as fast to the ground. Oftentimes, he'd jump down while still a good ways off, landing in the snow on his feet. In lieu of having a building to climb, he'd make do with a tree instead.

He had no care for if he freaked anyone out climbing around or watching over them with the intensity of a stalker. Someone had to do this, so it might as well have been him.

II. Library

One also might have seen a curious sight regarding the strange masked man. He would wander into any home that hadn't already been claimed and be searching with a clear purpose. That became clear as he started hauling books back to one of the homes he'd claimed as his own. After being here for several months, he'd begun to realize in-between the struggle for survival, things were awful boring in town, especially without being able to use the TVs or radios for entertainment. To that end, he was beginning to organize a library.

The amount of literature varied greatly from house to house, given the previous occupants' tastes, so he was attempting to organize them all out in such a fashion that it would be easy to sort through them all quickly. Alas for himself, the most books had been found in the home of what he assumed had previously belonged to an old man, given he had owned approximately ninety volumes of Louis L'Amour cowboy stories. Determined to bolster up this literary "junk food" with other works, he was currently scouring another house to find anything that was worth reading.

III. Guilty Party

Rorschach immediately started to struggle when he woke up in such an ominous place. He'd been in the superheroing business long enough to know nothing good was going to come from here. His gaze snapped over to where the other person was when he heard them start to move around. He remained silent rather than engage in any sort of conversation, instead trying to figure out how to get them out of this situation.

When the jackal appeared, he remained stubbornly defiant. This person just screamed villain in that getup and with the weapon they were wielding. Well, he wasn't about to do play their little game, not even if they were carrying a scythe that looked wickedly sharp. What he had done in his past was for him to reckon with and him alone. No one was going to get him to talk unless he wanted to.

It would be in everyone's best interests if they convinced Rorschach to talk before he ended getting carved up like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.

IV. Off The Beaten Path

When Rorschach met the black dog, he went completely stiff. His hands immediately balled into fists and he looked supremely uncomfortable. It was clear he didn't find the creature cute or endearing. If asked why, he'd only say one thing. "Don't like dogs." For that reason, he wouldn't be following the dog no matter how insistent it was in trying to get the vigilante to go after it.

However, he was good for helping anyone else who had fallen for the dog's tricks, helping them get out of any perilous situations that may have befallen them. While he might not say anything directly to the person, he'd be judging them internally. Still, he was determined to help even if he thought the people around him were being morons.

V. Wildcard

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Of course Edward's guilty. He's an Assassin. Before that he'd been a pirate. He's done many wicked things, sometimes in the name of gaining something, sometimes in the name of justice and freedom. It's hard to think of a crime that he hasn't been a party to, at this point, though he had his lines back then and has much firmer ones now.

He stares at the sickle and feels his heart sink into his stomach. If it was just him alone he'd tell the jackal just to get on with it. But he's not—there's the masked man across from him, defiantly silent, glaring at the killer.

Edward tries to trigger his hidden blade. It flicks out, but he can't use it on these chains. He's bound tight with nowhere to go, with the smell of blood in the air and their lives in the balance.

He lets out a breath, tries to think of what to confess to. Then he looks at Rorschach and says, "I'll go first. If we both talk, he'll let us both go." Then his eyes flick to the jackal, and he says, "I was a pirate, once. I've killed—more people than I can count, and not all of it was for the greater good. I've sent a great many men to their graves for the simple fact that they were in the way of my prize, and others because I'd be paid quite well for the act of killing them. Is that wicked enough for you?"

Honestly, the irony of this whole situation was the man across from him confessing to many things that Rorschach had killed people for himself. Those who murdered others only for their own selfish gains had been reason enough in the past for him to decide it was time for them to stop breathing.

The jackal figure stood there for a moment, impassive as they listened to Edward's confession. Then it turned away from him and looked towards Rorschach. It was his turn. For a long period of time, maybe about two minutes, he still didn't say anything. It was in his nature to be a frightfully stubborn person and this was no exception. Still, the confession had been enough for the creature not to stab the pirate. Was it really that simple?

He'd hate to die here just because he was too bull-headed to do what needed to be done. If he died, this town would be down one protector. So he finally spit out a few sentences, his fury still clear at being forced to do this. "Been judge, jury, and executioner for a number of people. All of them deserved it. They were wicked and evil. And the number grows larger all the time." He waited to see if that confession, which honestly was more than he'd spoken to anyone at one time since he'd gotten here, was enough for him to escape the chopping block.

It seems to be enough. The jackal moves then, from one heartbeat to the other, but instead of striking either of them it simply unlocks the bonds around their arms and moves away, back into the shadows from whence it came. Edward undoes the rest of the bonds on himself, then stands up and steps closer to Rorschach, holding his hands up.

"Let me get you free," he says. "I haven't been a pirate in a while, now." He doesn't mention that he's still an active Assassin, and his work is much like Rorschach's own—he acts as judge, jury, and executioner for people who deserve it. He's just sneakier about it. "I don't know where we are, but we can't be too far from town. Can you walk?"

"So you say." There was suspicion in his tone, staring upwards at Edward, though he didn't object to a helping hand to get him untied. Rorschach didn't believe anyone ever really changed, especially the people who committed the evil deeds of the world. If this man had been a pirate once, he was still a pirate at heart. This meant he might have to start keeping a closer eye on this man...

"Yes," Rorschach said gruffly in response to the question. He'd already shown far too much of his inner self during that little confession and wasn't keen on having to spend anymore time with Edward than he needed to. The man was a murderer and a thief. Under different circumstances, Rorschach would already be plotting a way to kill him.

Edward shook his head, and said, "I mean it. It's been decades since I took the pardon. What would I gain from falling back into it?" Which was true, he hadn't been a pirate in years. But he was still a killer, same as Rorschach, and that was something he hadn't confessed to the jackal because some secrets weren't his to tell, not really. Some secrets were bigger than the two of them.

Still, he'd have to keep a wary eye on the man now, he supposed. Just to make sure the fellow didn't decide to kill him for all the piracy.

"Don't try to stab me, I'm trying to help you," he warned him, before he flicked out the hidden blade from underneath his arm and went to work undoing Rorschach's bonds. "How'd you start out being judge, jury and executioner, anyway?" he asked while doing so, as curious as ever. Nobody who became an Assassin, or something like one, came to the life without some kind of damage.

"Evil is like an addiction. Easy to fall back into old patterns no matter how long it has been." Fortunately for Edward, Rorschach didn't keep any weapons on him. Not that it had ever kept him from improving with anything and everything that happened to be around him. He observed the hidden blade that had popped out. How curious. He'd have to remember that in any future encounters with this man.

Rorschach had lapsed back into silence as Edward sawed at his bonds. He remained quiet after being asked the question and his voice remained low when he finally answered. "Someone had to." The words sounded serious and heavy in the air, a whole lifetime of trauma behind them. The police were too soft and let people live. Rorschach had seen a need that had to be met and fulfilled it. After he'd started killing, there was no going back to the way things were before.

Edward paused for a moment, eyes downcast, then resumed sawing at the bonds. Nothing is true, the Creed went—good and evil were, ultimately, subjective to some degree, but everyone owed each other some level of responsibility and kindness, or else they'd be little more than animals scrapping over a bit of territory. "Evil's not anything but the harm you do to someone else," he said. "And anyone can do that, mate."

But he didn't judge. Wouldn't. After all, he still killed people, just not because they'd gotten in the way of his prize anymore.

"Why d'you think somebody had to?" he asked, although he figured he could probably guess at why, himself. And it would be—similar enough, to why he kept being an Assassin after he'd left a life of piracy behind him.

"Some more prone to it than others. Like a reoccurring disease," Rorschach argued as he got up from the chair. Criminals didn't reform. They just got smarter, better at hiding what they did.

There was a long pause as Rorschach tried to gather his thoughts together enough to put them in a form so that he'd make the pirate understand. It wasn't easy, not with how stunted his verbal skills had become. Still, he got enough of it out that he thought Edward would be able to understand his point-of-view. "The police protect people from those they don't understand. Can never hope to understand. I protect police and civilians both from things they will never understand. Some men don't need a trial. Just need to be killed, put down like the savage wild animals they have turned into." That honestly might have been the longest amount of sentences that Rorschach had spoken in a row to anyone in Milton

“I’ve seen disease,” said Edward, who’d been a sailor in the 18th century, and had seen more than his fair share of outbreaks of scurvy and syphilis and other illnesses that could ravage a ship. “It isn’t like that at all. A man may strive to follow the law, to be good and do what’s right, and he might still find himself pushed to the point where he’d do evil. It’s a choice, aye—but I’ve seen it most often made by those in desperate times.”

Not all the time, but so many of the pirates of Nassau had started out privateers, sailing under the King’s blessing. And then the peace had come and they’d all been cut loose so easily, and with no money coming in…well.

But he listened to what Rorschach had to say, and recognized all the similarities between his words and Edward’s own thoughts. The difference was Edward hadn’t thought of those he killed as wild animals—they were people. They deserved that much dignity, even in death. “Some people have to die first,” he said, softly, “before they can do more harm to those around them. That don’t mean they’re little more than animals. Just means you make it quick and painless.”

"Then they've lost their way. If you're weak enough to lose your morals, don't deserve to live. Evil is still a choice. Better to die a good person than live as one who has harmed others." Of course, Rorschach was a massive hypocrite. He'd harmed plenty of people with his actions and many might consider him to be an evil man given he murdered people without pity or hesitation. But he justified by telling himself he only went after those who were already irredeemably evil in nature.

Rorschach refused to be swayed from his position on killing. "Seen some forms of evil that no normal man could ever commit. No better than dogs in what they do. With a dog, nothing to do but put it down if it won't stop attacking people." It was a mindset he couldn't adjust. If he did, if he saw those he killed as actual people, it would literally drive him insane. At least more than he already was, to a place Rorschach would never be able to come back from.

He passed by Rorschach on patrols sometimes, but this was the first time he'd seen the man with an armful of books. It'd been awhile since Levi himself had been trough houses checking for literature...

"Hey, uh, where did you get those?"

Rorschach shifted the books so he could point with a free hand towards the house he'd just come out of. He'd hit the jackpot upon scouring this home, finding a pretty good one with large bookcases just ripe for the taking this time. "Been gathering some all together," he explained.

"What kinds are you looking for? I was checking for books soon when we first got here." He only sorta remembers the kind of thing he found, and there's a good chance this guy's taken any of it already. But maybe he'll let Levi look sometime.

"All kinds. Building a collection. A library." This was the first time Rorschach had been doing something that would require him to interact with the community as a whole in a willing manner. Protecting the town had meant he could keep a fair distance away from them all but this was going to bring him into much more contact with them.

He just hoped he'd be alright with that level of contact.

A library? "Oh, um...would it be a shared library?"

Hopefully Rorschach wouldn't just horde it all.

"Of course," he said. That had been the idea from the start. The idea of hording books like some sort of possessive book dragon hadn't even occurred to him. Rorschach figured everyone could use something to do in-between the basic art of survival every day. Nothing dampened spirits faster than having nothing in the way of entertainment to look forward to.

"Oh!" Good, he'd never had much luck finding anything worth reading, and he was getting sick of cheesy romance books. "Um, could I maybe borrow something? Sometime. I wouldn't keep it long."

Patrolling and weapon maintenance were the only things that really took away from reading time.

Rorschach nodded. He tolerated Levi as well as he did anyone in town, so he wouldn't have minded having him borrow anything. "Still setting it up. Once done, I'll put up something on the board in the Hall."

This would require interacting with people more but perhaps a very small part of Rorschach wanted that. The bits of him that were still very much human craved being around others, even if other parts of him wanted nothing to do with them.

"Do you, um, I haven't really found many books. But I brought a few to the community hall. Do you want me to bring them over? They're, um...not what I would usually read."

He has found little but trashy romance novels in this place.

"Any books given are welcome." Trashy romance novels wouldn't have been to Rorschach's tastes either but there was a number of people in town and they all had different ideas in what they liked in reading material. If he cultivated as large a quantity as he could regarding the books, there would be something for everyone.

"Somebody's bound to like them. People here bought them. Um, where do you want me to bring them?"

"Got a cabin I'm using." He described the building to Levi so he'd know where to bring them. It had looked like a warm, cozy little place from the outside, which was one of the reasons Rorschach had decided to use it for the library. It had to be welcoming if people were going to want to use it.

He nods. He's pretty sure he knows that cabin. "I'll bring them by later. Do you want help with those?"

Rorschach probably does not need help.

It was true Rorschach did not need help. He was strong enough to get the load of books he was carrying back to the library by himself. But there was a very small, repressed part of him that very much wanted to be in the company of people, even if he despised having to talk to them. So he nodded and shifted some of the stack he was carrying into Levi's hands.

Levi takes the books offered and waits. Once Rorschach starts moving he'll follow.

Rorschach led him to the cabin he was using. He got the door open and managed to maneuver in through the doorway. Inside, it was organized chaos. He was in the middle of sorting everything out and there were books piled in precarious stacks that reached up to four feet in some place.

"Set them down.....there." He pointed to a specific spot where there was still room on the floor.

Wow, he's already gathered so many. Levi takes a moment to be impressed before putting the books down where indicated. "I didn't think you'd have done this much already."

Well, if Rorschach had been gathering books since they got here it made sense. It just took him awhile to get into any sense of normalcy and not just 'survive until tomorrow, repeat.'

Rorschach shrugged modestly. "Have a lot of time on my hands." Not socializing with people did leave one with plenty of time to do whatever they wanted when trapped in a snowy hellscape!

He still needed to sort the soft from the hardcovers and figure out the different genres to put them under, but once that was all sorted out, he'd be pretty much done except for building the bookshelves. That was one part of the project he'd need help on. Rorschach was many things but a carpenter wasn't one of them.

"Yeah...we all do." He tends to spend most of his patrolling over and over. Looking into every building that didn't seem to have someone living in it.

"I could help you go through all of this, if you want."

Sadly Levi has no woodworking experience either.

He thought the offer over and nodded. He'd be able to go through quite a number of volumes if he had someone helping him. He gestured to the ones they'd brought in. "Go through. Been making general categories: romance, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, non-fiction, and Western."

The last would have been a bit odd all things considered if Rorschach hadn't first taken up residence of what had once been the home of an old man obsessed with Louis L'Amour novels. Rorschach was certain he'd organized at least a hundred volumes by now, though he wasn't sure if anyone would actually want to read them, given the books were pretty much the same four plots told over and over again.

"Alright." He kneels down and starts going through the books. Any he wasn't sure the genre of went in a separate pile. He'd go through those later and do more than just look at the covers.

He doesn't bother to chatter while working. He was never good at small talk and he's positive this guy'd hate it anyway."

Rorschach went about his own business as he organized. It was nice to have someone who didn't care much for trying to get him to talk. Chit-chat was for people who actually liked interacting with one another and Rorschach most assuredly did not. As he fixed the space up, he was well-aware of the irony of his own living spaces looking like a dump while he fixated on keeping this space organized. As usual, anything to do with his personal life was usually left in shambles while he focused on other things he felt were more important.

After a certain point, he stopped what he was doing as he became distracted by a certain volume of literature. He soon got absorbed into it, giving into the disease of all those who worked with books were prone to catching in the form reading something they were supposed to be organizing instead.

Levi ends up flipping through a few of the books as well, but doesn't give into reading them. They weren't really his, and he felt like until the library was ready he shouldn't read them.

He finishes his pile and one other, though, and stands up.

"I'll come back with the books I've found later. Thanks for doing this."

Rorschach waved him off with a hand without looking up at first, absorbed as he was into the books. Then he looked up with more interest when Levi thanked him. He felt surprised. Never in his life had he been thanked for just doing what needed to be done as much as since he'd come here. It was a.....curious feeling.

He found he liked it.

Levi nods at the waving off, not put off by it. He was interrupting and he should get back to patrol. He leaves without a goodbye; one really didn't seem necessary.

Rorschach isn't the only one who had a habit for patrolling the area. Ruby was a little more mercenary than masked vigilante but she had done her fair share of patrols in the past. Whether it was guarding a few city blocks, people, or military facilities, she had an idea of how to go about it.

She was still getting used to not having her Aura to protect her from injury and the cold, so she's bundled up a little more than usual, and she little black box hanging from the back of her belt. Her trusty collapsible scythe if she needed it in a pinch.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting to find out on her patrol, but it certainly wasn't Rorschach perched up at a building staring down at her intently. That was for sure.

So she does the first thing any trained warrior would do. The only sensible thing to do this in this situation. She sucks in a breath.

And she let's out a scream.

Jeez! Whatever reaction he'd been expecting when the girl turned to look at him, it certainly hadn't been that. Granted, his face did tend to cause alarm, and he should have realized it would have that reaction on a girl. Women, after all, were delicate creatures even at the best of times. He winced for a moment at the piercing shriek.

When she stopped, he held up his hands in a peaceable gesture. "Not going to hurt you." The words would have been more comforting had they not been coming in a flat, gravelly rasp that has almost no emotion to it.

Ruby was probably going to have to work to redeem her reputation after this. But that was something she could work at from there. Look- She didn't expect anyone to be climbing around on the walls, so sue her.

She does catch the placating gesture and she does manage to calm herself down a little. "Okay- Okay. I wont do the same to you." Luckily she does seem to be about as comforted as can be by the statement, even if it certainly didn't look like she could hurt.

"You uh- Come around here often?"

Rorschach was a bit amused by the idea of this little slip of a girl being able to harm him at all. Fat chance of that happening. He thought that even Silk Spectre II wouldn't have been able to beat him in a fair fight and she was the best female fighter he knew.

He nodded. "Patrol every day." He had his routine by now and it had helped him feel centered as the days had passed. No matter what else went on, he could keep the people of this town as safe as he could.

She considered that briefly and eventually the wariness shifted into a bit of a smile.

"That's pretty cool, you know? You sound like a super hero out of a comic book." Or like a Huntress like her, but you know she had learned that they don't really have those around here.

"Have you seen anything suspicious tonight?" There's no sense of mocking in her tone. It's a genuine sort of awe and interest.

Rorschach felt uncomfortable with the praise. Much as when Kate and La'an had thanked him for various reasons, he wasn't sure what to do with a genuine compliment. No one at home thought he was making a difference by doing what he did. They all just thought he was a nuisance, a remnant of an old era that no longer matter, someone who deserved to be in prison with all the criminals he'd put away.

He didn't respond but his body language showed what he was really feeling. He'd been standing very still but now he fidgeted a little, hands moving to be inside his pockets of his trenchcoat before taking them back out again. He didn't know how to respond to that and so he just didn't.

He shook his head no at Ruby's question. Fortunately, things had been quiet. He knew it wouldn't stay as such forever. Things here had a habit of turning bad at the worst possible times and so he planned to be prepared when they did.

"...Right." It comes after a long pause but there something about that body language, she had an inkling for her Rorschach must have felt. Her uncle tended to behave in the same way, treating himself as more of an awkward burden than the truly capable man that he was. She didn't quite have the same relationship with Rorschach so it felt a little awkward to try and delve into that right away, but it was something they could pick at.

"Well- I don't know if you're more the work alone type or if you'd like a partner. But I'd be down to get a lay of the land with you?"

Rorschach had done both types during his career. For the last eight years, he'd been solely on his own. It hadn't been too bad. Lonely. But he was used to that. Still, he knew he'd always felt most content when he and Nite Owl had been partners together.

But there was a big difference between teaming up with a grown man who had trained for fighting bad guys and a little slip of a girl. He eyed her, wondering what had possessed her to make the offer. "Sure you can handle it?" His voice sounded dubious. He didn't have much faith in her being able to keep up.

Ruby was pretty used to being underestimated. Her age had caused a lot of friction when she first got accepted into school. It was hard being younger than everyone by roughly two years, but she had managed to prove herself and live up to the role she had been given. She didn't mind doing it again.

"Pretty sure. Back at home I was fully licensed to this kind of work. But hey- If it doesn't work out. We can always go our separate ways, deal?"

"Fully...licensed?" Rorschach asked. There was a note of confusion in his voice. What did that mean? Was she from a place that actually gave licenses to vigilantes? It couldn't have been anywhere in America. Mexico or Europe maybe? He made a note to see if he could find out the laws of such places later on by reading some of the old newspapers in this place.

He gave a curt nod at her words. "Deal." He felt he'd probably have to keep an eye on her just in case. She was tiny, like a little waif, and such a little thing was bound to have a struggle with taking on opponents of any size. A girl like that needed someone older and wiser to keep an eye on her.

She catches the confusion in his tone and rubs at the back of her head sheepishly. "Oh right. So you need a liscence so take on jobs as a Huntsmen or Huntress where I'm from. When you do you gain access to a kind of job board. Where you can get paid to take on missions to take down monsters, protect caravans, or basically anything. Kind of like a mercenary but with a little more prestige?"

She gives a bright little smile when he agrees. "Great! I'll do my best not to let you down!"

"Huh." The way she talked about her home confused Rorschach a little bit. He'd never heard of anything like this before. "Must tell me more about it." Now he was getting intrigued about where she was from. It didn't sound like anywhere on Earth that he'd heard of before.

She was such an earnest little thing that he couldn't help but be a little charmed by the vibe she was putting off. He smiled a bit after Ruby assured him she would do her best. The black dots clustered around his mouth for a few moments because of that.

"I can do that. I'm probably not the best person to talk to about the finer details. But I happen to know a few secrets that no one else does." Sometimes you accidentally learn the hidden truths about your world, and other times you fall right into them.

Either way she notices the black dots forming into something that resembles a smile and she returns the favor. "But you'll have to do the same about yours. I'm still learning the basics about it."

"Can do that." Granted, Rorschach's own version of Earth was far different than the other residents of Milton came from, but at least the important parts all remained the same.

"Come on," he gestured for her to follow him. While they spoke, he would continue patrolling, looking around to make sure the town stayed quiet.

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Scars are souvenirs you never lose ; Catch-All OTA

guilty party

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Patrolling

cw: misogynistic thinking

JOHNNY IS THAT YOU?

HE CERTAINLY HAS THE SAME LINE OF THINKING. cw: misogynistic thinking continues

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cw: misogynistic thinking

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